Wage stagnation
in the USA has many causes: both the destruction of trade unions and
the erosion of labor protections in the law (these two things are
connected) are obvious culprits, and do much to explain how real wages
could be falling even as unemployment has gone down.
But another, subtler evil is the rise and rise of noncompete clauses
that allow your old boss to decide whether you can continue to work in
your chosen industry after you quit because he’s such a raging asshole.
Unsurprisingly, this does not produce good outcomes for workers.
What is surprising is how pervasive noncompetes are: it’s not
just AI researchers or elite biotech scientists: noncompetes are a
common fact of life for semi-skilled jobs like working in a fast-food restaurant.
In the case of literal McJobs, the noncompetes are hidden from workers;
instead, it’s the franchise owners who have to sign them, ensuring that
you can’t transfer your skills working as an underappreciated Wendy’s
assistant manager to a rival franchisee’s store in a bid for higher
wages or to escape a sociopathic employer.
This practice is so pervasive that state attorneys general in 10 states
investigated the largest fast food chains in the country and threatened
them with enforcement action if they didn’t abandon the practice.
McDonald’s had already caved on noncompetes (under threat), and now it
has been joined by Arby’s, Jimmy John’s, Auntie Anne’s, Buffalo Wild
Wings, Carl’s Jr. and Cinnabon; a separate action is underway against
Five Guys, Dunkin’ Donuts, Burger King, Arby’s, Little Caesars, Panera,
Popeyes and Wendy’s.
Secondly, we grow it very inefficiently. We could very easily increase the food yield of a given area of land by building a greenhouse on it (which also reduces water loss) and using poly-cultures instead of mono-cultures; the reason our preferred method is open-air mono-culture farms, which are susceptible to erosion and blight and requires a god-awful amount of water to stay hydrated, is that labor is expensive and land is cheap.
In fact, if we took it even further–growing our food in carbon dioxide-rich environments lit with artificial lighting 24 hours a day (or at least at night)–you only need 1-2000 square feet of farmland per person. Admittedly, you pretty much have to have fusion power for this to be an environmentally and economically viable option, but still; the point is, we could easily condense our environmental footprint by a shit-ton (and even more options will be available in the future) without decreasing our population one iota.
“There is still a maximum carrying capacity the planet has.”
Indeed there is. And do you know what that carrying capacity is? It’s ten trillion. And the cut off isn’t space or resources–it’s waste heat. The things we’d have to do to get there aren’t exactly the sort of things we could do overnight–hell, we don’t actually know how to fusion yet–but they’re all well within the realm of the physically possible.
We’re all going to die because the rich are selfish and their cronies are too.
And too many people don’t want to stop them because they’ve been convinced that they might one day be rich too.
Okay, guys. I hate to impose on all of you, but it’s serious message time.
I’m in quite lot of trouble. So some of you may know, I had to leave my home last year due to some unforeseen circumstances. I figured this would be the opportune time to pursue a cartoonist career in Los Angeles. I gained a hefty number of leads, packed up my things, saved up what I could, and went out. Unfortunately, any leads I had never followed up. I hunted for work and applied everywhere I could. Once I got to the last of my savings and none of my interviews followed up, I went to Florida to spend time with family for the holidays with the hope I can save some money then head back out after the New Year. Buuut family finance issues struck, and there went the rest of my savings. I’m job hunting EVERYWHERE I can but due to lack of space and lack of a car, am about to be couch surfing indefinitely.
Tl; dr: I’m taking emergency commissions to help get back on my feet! I’ll be taking $20 bust commissions!
Any help is appreciated. Please spread the word if you can as well by reblogging/sharing this post.
Okay but I don’t think ya’ll appreciate this as much as you should! Figuring out the places of ancient buildings — Roman, Celtic etc — tends to be a bit of a challenge. You have to consider the fact that the land has changed quite a lot over the centuries, with buildings popping up here and there, the topography changing dramatically, rising and falling like no one’s business, forests and cliffs being cut down or collapsing into the sea.
Basically, the descriptions we have of sites in old ass texts can be a nightmare to match up to modern day locations. Some, like Chester and London, are easy. We kept building on them. It’s why there’s an amphitheatre in the middle of Chester and the Roman Wall.
But in other parts of the country its a heck of a lot harder to locate and identify places.
There’s this show called Time Team (or sth like that, it’s been a long long time) and they basically went around the UK digging up ancient sites that they tried to find through radar and aerial imagery etc etc. That requires a fair amount of planning and technology (aka the bane of field budgets everywhere). And even with those and all the nice little people digging away and the photographs and radar imagery, they still had issues figuring out the direction a building went in, which way the wall ran, if this was part of a house or not and so on.
The heatwave and drought about to happen if it doesn’t frickin rain, is useful in that it allows us to see these sites without loads of planning and resources as they are today. We can identify places we’ve not been able to identify, locate sites we’ve wanted to locate for ages, because of the nifty little thing the dirt does when it gets hot and dry and like Satan’s breathing on everything.
And that means that those sites can be logged down, and the modern topography won’t be such a bitch to try and figure out for locations because that heatwave has saved a lot of time and effort!
Basically, don’t be surprised if in the next year or so, there are more reports and research papers about archaeological digsites in the UK from the Bronze Age or the Iron Age because this right here, this damned benighted hellish summer heat, will have been the cause of it all.
Which makes me a little more tolerant of Satan and his dick ass breathing.
Plot Designing 