March 11
Meghan was still snuggling me like I used to snuggle Albie. It was the best way to wake up, all wrapped up and safe in her arms.
I really wished that I didn't have to get up for class. But I did, so eventually I started flicking her leg with my tail until she woke up.
I gave her a kiss on the cheek before I left, and then darted over to my dorm room long enough to grab my flight outfit.
The nice lady was controlling airplanes today, and I asked her if I could stop by and meet her sometime. It would be nice to put a face to the voice.
She said that she might be able to work something out, and then gave me flight clearance, but warned me that there was a medical helicopter inbound for Bronson hospital and so I shouldn't fly north at all.
I told her I would look out for it and made extra sure that my strobe light was blinking brightly. I was curious about it; I hadn't seen any helicopters flying around before.
It was a good thing she warned me. I heard it coming, but I hadn't expected it to be so low. All the airplanes have to fly higher than I do, but the helicopter apparently doesn't.
I stopped my own flight and watched as it passed me by, heading towards the hospital. It dropped its nose down and descended like a normal airplane would, but then it stopped and went straight down until it was on the helipad.
Helipads are marked with a big letter H in a circle, and if I ever fly into an airport, that's where I'm supposed to land, too. I'm not supposed to land on a normal runway at all, except for when I’m training or if the airplane director specifically tells me to.
Climate science class was all review today. Everyone handed in their extra credit assignments, and the professor told me that I could grade them now if I wanted to, or take them back to my room and grade them there—as long as they were graded before the final exam, that was all he cared about.
Since I still had to do some more studying for the exam, I said I'd do it later, and sat down with Crystal Dawn and Luke.
It wasn't as fun as studying while cuddling and fondling, but I think we got through the material a bit faster.
When class was finally over, I took all the assignments back to my dorm room and set them on my desk where they'd be safe. I was really looking forward to what people had come up with; it was possible that they might have some solutions we'd never thought of. Airplanes making contrail-clouds was something we couldn't do, and maybe there were other things too.
Philosophy class started off with a bit of an argument, and the professor had to calm students down right away and remind them that we were only talking about philosophy, not how that philosophy had been applied historically.
She spent most of the class discussing Marx's economic philosophy. In its simplest form, it meant that a worker ought to be paid enough to feed, clothe, and house him for his day's labor. Then he went on to explain that to make any additional profit after that for the capitalist (who is the person who hires the worker, I think) is greedy, and is robbing the worker of the benefits of his work.
The problem I saw was that the needs of one are different than the needs of another. Some pegasi are perfectly happy floating around on a cloud wherever the wind blows them, eating wild plants and maybe earning a few bits here and there for treats. Other pegasi buy houses on the ground, or spend bits on dresses or at the bakery.
Plus some ponies have foals to care for, and others don't.
It seemed like Marx was saying that either everypony ought to be paid the same for the same amount of work, in which case a mare living simply and eating what nature provided was a greedy capitalist for having bits left over, or a mare with several foals would have to starve.
Or would they be paid according to need? So the single pony would make less than the pony with a family?
I thought that was a system which would cause nothing but resentment, and I started to get an idea that maybe Marx wasn't as clever as he thought he was. I guess that's why people were not enthusiastic about what he said.
But, I could also see the positive side of his argument. Yesterday, I'd learned from Trevor's friends about how their ancestors were enslaved, and that was to take their labor and make it into a profit for the white people while the black people got basically nothing, and that wasn't right, either.
It was really complicated to think about, and the professor's lecture was constantly interrupted by people raising their hands and asking questions about stuff.
I got the impression that economic theory is really, really complicated, and I'm glad that I don't have to think about it. I clear the weather and break up storms, and that's all I have to know. Someday I'll be in charge of weather over a whole sector, and then I'll have a lot more responsibility, and I'll be paid more because I have to do a lot more work even if it doesn't seem like it.
When she finished the lecture, there was almost a sigh of relief from the class, and from her too.
Lunch was leftovers, which meant that there was going to be a special dinner.
In Equestrian class, the professor put on a movie which was called Life in an Equestrian Town. It was weird for me to watch; the narrator (who was a pony) was trying to explain stuff to a human audience, but it was obvious that she hadn't spent any time with humans. So there were some places where she explained things as if a human would have no idea what it was, and other times when she glossed over things I'd learned from experience completely baffled humans.
I had already noticed that I tended to slow down my speech when I was speaking Equestrian to the class, but the narrator of the movie hadn't thought to do that, so my classmates were struggling to keep up with her.
Then when the movie was over, the professor reminded the class that there would be two parts to the final—a written part and a spoken part. I was going to help her with the spoken part.
It felt really weird leaving class, because that was my last class of the quarter, and I would never have those classes again. I had one final in each to prove what I'd learned, but that wouldn't be the same as a regular class.
It was hard to believe ten weeks had gone by that quickly.
Dinner was special. All the lights were dimmed (which Christine said made it look fancier) and there were table cloths and candles in little jars on every table. There were even cloth napkins for us, instead of the normal little fake-woven baskets full of paper ones.
And that was just the appearance of the place. They also had a lot of special meats, and a man in an all-white outfit with a poofy hat that looked kind of like a cauliflower to cut them for you. It felt rude to ignore him, so I had him cut me a very small piece of ham and also a very small piece of roast beef.
When I put my tray on the table, everyone looked at the meat on it and then looked at me and there was this huge feeling of anticipation.
I ate the ham first. I thought I'd probably like it more. It was salty and a bit chewy and at the time I didn't really think about where it came from so it was pretty good.
Then I ate the roast beef and it was a bit drier and had a somewhat caramel taste to it.
After that a lot of the tension was released, and Sean said that I was a real human now because I'd eaten meat (apparently fish isn't meat) and I told him that he'd only be a real pony when he took his clothes off and so he reached down and grabbed at the base of his shirt and Christine swatted his hand and told him that nobody wanted to see him naked.
Then he told her that wasn't what she'd said last night, and her face got red and she said that she meant at dinner.
Joe said 'that's what she said,' and everyone laughed but I didn't get why that was funny.
After dinner, I looked over the climate science assignment and discovered that the professor had also done one and turned it in.
I hadn't decided how to grade them yet. I didn't know anything about being a teacher or a professor, and I didn't want to give anyone bad marks because they weren't clear on how things worked. It was probably my fault anyway for not explaining it well enough. Sometimes I took for granted the stuff I'd learned as a filly that was maybe not so obvious to a human.
So I just wrote in my notebook what each student (and the professor) had got right and what they'd got wrong, and I decided I'd sleep on how to grade them.
Maybe I'd come up with something tomorrow on the field trip.
Having to grade an entire class's assignments on top of her own studying? Wow. I don't envy Silver in the slightest.
Also, I do hope ponies with actual human experience advise on the next wave of those educational films.
7192038
Could make for a neat epilogue, once this story eventually reaches the end.
It was hard to believe ten weeks had gone by that quickly.
Wow, yeah. Almost eighty chapters in.
Interesting that the professor would also submit the assignment. Sounds like that old adage that a wise man knows what he doesn't know.
Should grade them by 'how much would they get yelled at by their regional supervisor' and then put it on a curve.
Does it mean mares are expected to raise the foal alone?
Or did she just forget to take into account the wage of the others adults in the herd?
I would've thougth the ponies at least acquainted with the concept of communautarism.
7192096 If only lessons in today's schools/Colleges/Universities were taught like that.
7192169
I think it's just a generic comment, given that a mare is tipically the leader of an equestrian family, whatever the makeup of that family is.
When you hear a guy saying he has to feed his children you don't assume he's a single father or that the mother is completely out of the picture, economically speaking.
At its core, economics is about the distribution of resources. All resources, not just money, so it actually would be a good thing for a weather manager to learn.
7192320
At its core, money is not a resource, it's an abstract representation of resources.
7192396 My point exactly, sorry if I wasn't clear on that.
The best part of Sliver not understanding what Marx was saying is that a lot of the people ready to argue in the comments don't either.
Silver's mistake is in thinking Marx is advocating everyone is paid the same, but he's not at all.
What Marx was doing here was illustrating the financial relation between a factory worker and his employer. The factory workers produce all of the goods which are sold for a profit, but only get to keep a tiny bit of that profit for themselves. They are trapped in this situation because they do not own the tools and resources they're using, their employer does. They have no control of the profit from their work.
Now if we continue this basic statement into the revolutionary thought which is the most important part of Marx's legacy, we would say that the factory workers should revolt, do away with their boss, and take over the factory for themselves. With the boss deposed, the workers would keep all the profits from the sale of the things they make, instead of just a small fraction.
The net result of this, of course, would that it'd be a huge pay increase. As well as their usual share of profit which we call a wage, they'd also get to split their boss' share amongst themselves. And bosses always seem to pay themselves very handsomely in comparison to those they hire.
"everyone paid the same" never comes into it, because naturally the amount of profit this new co-op could generate depends on what exactly they're producing. At this very basic level of socialist relations were it's merely one business becoming a worker's co-op, the rule is "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his work". Which is nowhere near "to each according to his needs", but a damn sight better than "to each according to how little his boss can get away with."
H is for Horse and Helicopter landings.
7192796 Then shouldn't there be a P for Pony landings? Silver stated pretty early on she was a pony and there fore not a horse.
I can definitely hear this happening to every lecturer in college. You wonder how they survive. Lots of vodka.
7192396 And you can hear people arguing about getting the dollar back onto the Gold standard instead of it being based on the faith of a piece of paper alone. Either way, it's still a step up from bartering with physical goods.
7192640
Thank you for explaining some of that. (And I'm not being sarcastic. ) What Marx said does make sense on the surface since there's a big disparity between the wages of the boss and the workers. It does seem like a pure scam sometimes that the heads of companies try to use loopholes or become very greedy to make very high salaries while workers get the equivalent of jack shit. (Seriously, how the hell is there a loophole to pay employees 20 cents per hour today? Beggers make more money than that.)
I think that's a little short sighted though. Redistributing wealth of the CEO's doesn't help since it wouldn't affect the workers all that much. I was thinking of that CEO list in the link and thought of having $5-$10 million per year (generous estimate) divided by 100,000 employees would be just an additional $50 to $100 per year per employee or an extra dollar or two per week. It'd be more fair to make the workers get a decent wage to live off of amongst each other and compared to similar businesses. (One person who makes more money than anyone else below him makes in 10 years is a little crazy, but it seems to be offset by how difficult the job of running a big company can be and 12 hour work days are not unheard of.) And if the boss is deposed, who would decide to run the factory or business? With no boss over the workers to take major decisions on what to make and to process orders, do the people make their own bureaucratic committees, something like Unions? The employees could also take the money they've made and make their own factory as well. It's not as hard these days to order equipment to make your own local business anymore. (The only problem being big corporations pushing for laws that make it hard to have competition and the cheap cost at which same big corporations sell makes it incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to compete with.)
Looking over his ideas, he does have good criticisms of capitalism and tried to propose how to correct flaws in that system. The deposing of incredibly higher waged boss's and having workers take over the production does sound good at first, but it's not a workable solution.
Celestia meets with each returning exchange student? Wise move, given that those students might come back with a great many new ideas--of which some don't work as well as others in actual use.
The basic flaw in the old "to each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities" concept is simple: It requires that someone else determines what each worker's needs and abilities are and what they should be.
7192833 Can you explain that quote? "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his work" and "to each according to his needs"? I never got those concepts with such few words.
7192844 It's a quote that Karl Marx borrowed to explain part of his economic plan.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_need
7192853 Thank you!
Last day of winter quarter? I hope Aric knows what he's getting into come spring, and is prepared...
(My phone is constantly correcting what I type here - it loathes fimfic's forum system - and "Aric" always ends up as "Aria." The implications of that swap are just... hilarious.)
7192829
Actually, it would make a massive difference. Sticking with our model of commodity production containing factory workers and their boss. Notice that a nike factory worker in Taiwan makes 50 cents an hour. In 2012, Nike's CEO was paid $15,425,608 total. Be aware that as well as this one CEO there is an entire boardroom full of people earning similar amounts, and then ultimately many hundreds of other people in intermediate non-production roles who are also earning amounts much greater than 50 cents an hour - The taiwan plant manager won't be on 50c/hour, but closer to $100 an hour. The cumulative amount of money spent on the salaries of the non-labourers in such an organization as Nike is immense,it is much more than a mere $10-20 million, and it is all paid for by selling the valuable items that the labourer creates.
You can see here that the removal of the bourgeois from the enterprise, and a re-negotiation of profit distribution between the labourers who create the value commodity and the labourers who handle other aspects of the enterprise (distribution, testing etc) would actually result in quite a significant improvement in the cash income of the workers as a whole.
It is important to look at a mathmatical model of the original argument.
There is a factory. A worker is paid ten dollars an hour, and he works eight hours. Every hour, he takes ten dollars of materials, and produces a product his employer will sell for one hundred dollars exactly.
Here is the maths for his first hour of work.
$100 product - $10 materials cost = $90 gross profit.
From this gross profit, remove the wages he will be paid today.
$90 gross profit - $80 wages = $10 net company profit.
So we see, within the first hour, he has produced enough product to sell to cover his entire days wage, plus a bit more. The bit more is company profit, which the employer keeps.
Now, he's done $90 of gross profit generation, which is more than he will be paid today, or $10 Net profit for the company. But he must carry on working, because even though he's created the profit to pay his wage already, he is paid a fixed hourly rate.
The second hour looks like this:
In this hour, like the last, he takes ten dollars of materials, and produces a hundred dollars in product.
Here is the maths:
$100 product - $10 cost = $90. Wage already earned, so this $90 is net profit.
Six more hours, the same.
For a full day, the distribution of money looks like this:
Total amount of money intake from selling that days' produced goods $800
Resources cost $80
Profit, before split into employer and wage $720
Employer profit $640
Labourer wage $80
Now, this is a simplistic model. The figures are chosen to make the maths easier to follow along, in real life the disparity between a wage and what the wage worker produces is many times higher, and the wage given here is unrealistically generous. In a real life example "Resources" would be split into subcategories, like tax, electricity, raw materials etc. There is no inclusion for profits lost to quality control. But my only intention is to demonstrate the principle of how the division of loot works in wage labour.
What I'd like you to consider about the wage system, is something you'll have noticed if you've a sharp eye. If the worker suddenly increases production, naturally the profit he generates for his employer will increase too. But his wage will not, because it is a fixed hourly figure. Seems like it sucks for the worker, no?
You've asked a lot of questions about how a worker's co-operative would work, and those are important questions. I leave that as your homework. I have to tell you off a bit here because you've dismissed it as unworkable while still admitting you don't know the first thing about it.
7187245
Eeyup.
Canon doesn't say one way or another, but she clearly still knew those spells afterwards, at least for a while (she tried that "agony beam" spell on Rainbow after the amulet was removed); and Twilight's reaction suggests that age spells are well understood but merely beyond all but the very most powerful unicorns.
So I'm going to guess that the Amulet just gave her power, and she still had to learn the spells - she probably still knows to this day how to do an age spell, she just doesn't have the magical might. (But if she were, for example, trapped with an amnesiac Celestia, and really needed an age spell cast, she could probably describe it quite competently).
7192461
What I mean to say is that economic talk primarily concerns itself in term of currency because everything can be abstracted to that. It's liquid funds versus solid funds, it's all funds.
7193184 Yes, it talks a lot about currency, but it would still be a valid field of study in a barter economy. One of the reason it doesn't talk much about the resources directly is because one of the definitions or criteria for something to be called money is that it acts as a measure of worth, and measurements are important in any scientific field. Can you imagine conducting scientific experiments if we still had to use measurements based on the human body, such as cubits or hands?
7193266 Brings up a thought. Is there a thing in this world that is of universal value that all people everywhere see as something with that can be quantifiably measured with precision? If paper currency, gold, platinum, uranium, etc has a distinct measure of value, but it's not valued by everyone, what has absolute value that all people cherish or want all the time? The only thing I can think of is the sun and Earth, since light, heat, time, and habitation are all things that are valued. So... How much would it cost to purchase the sun or 1 Sun?
I know it's a bit dumb but it's one of those silly thoughts you get from the shower. Also, how many Sun's do I need to purchase the Beetlejuice star?
7193438 Even that wouldn't work, because if I owned solar panels or a farm then the sun would be more valuable to me than if I owned a telescope. That's why money is, in many ways, a cultural thing, in the same sense that a meter or a second are. Different cultures can have different units of measurement.
7193482 I kinda wish there was a universal standard of pay and measure... What about Time? Can I purchase Time equally?
Edit: Oh God, I just got the worst idea ever. Time Capitalists.
derpicdn.net/img/2015/12/12/1042580/medium.png
Buying and selling Time like there's no tomorrow.
Or could be a dystopian nightmare, where everybody lives on purchased Time.
Then there will be an uprising of the proletariat to make sure that everybody has equal Time.
Now this is really getting silly.
Awesome.
7192941
That model is wrong in so many directions I hardly know where to begin.
Firstly, as much as you might dislike your boss, they actually add value themselves--there are plenty of decisions that need to be made to make a factory run on a day-to-day basis, and those typically can't be done well in addition to working on an assembly line. So assuming that every level of management could be done away with to pay a "fairer" wage to the person doing the lowest-skill work* in the whole organization is daft. Further, as much as it pains me to admit as an engineer, marketers and sales are important. You can find plenty of examples of technology invented years ahead of its time that never took off because it wasn't marketed well, or wasn't designed to appeal to consumers. (There were smartphones before the iPhone, but Apple made it appealing to the mass market instead of businessmen, and crushed RIM and the BlackBerry.)
Further, profit is defined as this: The residue left over after all costs have been paid; this residue can be positive, zero or negative. Most people forget that last part, as well as the fact that most "profits" are less than zero--most companies fail, and many going concerns lose money in many areas. The proper way to look at it from a "capitalist's" perspective is the total return on capital invested, which is typically not all that impressive over time--good years get balanced out by bad years, and heavy moneymaking factories are offset by factories that aren't doing well.
For example, I'm from Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and went to college in the Copper Country. I took the opportunity to tour as many of the old mines as I could, and one thing that jumps out at you is that most of the mines lost money--for the fatcat owners, the mine was pretty much just a hole in the ground into which they poured vast sums of money**. The workers still got paid. Now, this doesn't mean that you should feel sorry for these owners; they typically invested in a number of mines, and made up in the good mines more than they lost in the bad mines. This is aside from the very real corruption that occurred in company stores and the like. But if you want to wibble about how workers could have captured all that excess, you'd better recognize that for a lot of factories, mines, etc., that means that at the end of the year, many workers will get next to nothing because their factories didn't make enough revenue to cover costs and now there's no owner left holding the bag to make good on their wages.
* Assembly lines exist to turn what needed highly-skilled craft work into something that could be done by a low-skilled individual repeating the same action with little training. This is why our ancestors made do with a lot less stuff. Manufactured goods are expensive if they can only be made by highly-skilled craftsmen.
** The mine my grandfather retired from (in the 30's, I think), the Cliffs Shaft in Ishpeming, closed in December of 1968. In 1968, the amount of ore shipped was zero. That is, absolutely no revenue was made for that year. The dudes punching a clock still got paid. Cleveland-Cliffs did not.
7193515 Yeah, I was thinking about that movie too. The thing is, some people are more patient than others, so even time doesn't have a constant value. Especially once we expand our galactic empire enough that relativity starts messing with how time passes.
eating meat is a lot easier when you never met the animal its from in person ...
Great chapter! I have to say, that last part was very funny. I didn't go through college, so I missed out on a lot of what students go through during their off time. However, if what you write here is anything to go by, it does remind me of dorm life for younger military members first starting their military career.
7193798 I think you are forgetting one major thing: scale.
Sure, marketting specialist, CEO and such have a role, but not much bigger, not enough to justify the huge difference in salary with their workers.
And it can be very functional. I work for a cooperative, we have CEO, executives, director and such, they do make higher salary then me, humble guy working part time with the customer, and it's fine. But none of them can do my annual salary in a few hour of work like some big company's owners do.
Some that don't even work all that much and some time not even all that well.
7196554 A lot of the times the CEO is not the majority owner of the company. Do you think that the board of trustees' could hire someone for vastly less money? Of course they could. The reason they don't is that there is value in hiring a person that would do better. That makes people that can run huge companies very very valuable and since the selection of them is not vast, the renumeration they command is high.
These people buy high priced stuff. The economy is all about the flow of money, not how much certain people have. A good and high profile example would be Donald Trump. He owns a lot of stuff and companies. But if you look at his liquid assets it is not even a fraction of his worth. It is invested in multiple areas leading to a lot of jobs. Those jobs take away from the unemployed workpool making your work more valuable and thus your wages are higher.
7192038
Me, either. It's not the only class she has to grade, either.
There are undoubtedly films that do take the human perspective into account, but for the Equestrian class, they'll learn more from one that doesn't.
7192048
Silver Glow makes an educational film . . . not sure the world's ready for that. . . .
7192052
Time flies when you're having fun!
Absolutely.
7192096
That would be the perfect grading system. "Luke, you get an F. Your supervisor would berate you in front of the whole team, strip you of your rank, and have you push a cloudmop for a year for coming up with that plan."
7192169
Of the three tribes, the pegasi are the least likely to have the father stay with the mother.
There may or may not be other adults; depends on who the mother's hanging out with.
In my headcanon, ponies aren't as concerned with keeping track of sires as humans are, nor do they have a taboo against premarital sex (for those ponies who choose to marry).
7192200
Some of them ought to be, and that's a fact. Especially when you're studying for a job that has real, immediate consequences.
7192203
And a stallion isn't necessarily in the picture at all. Why, he could just be some pony that the mother met at a weather conference.
7192320
That's true, but in the sense that we often think of it, it's the monetized distribution. Which is where things get complicated in society.
7192396
There's a story where a cabalist figures that out, and decides that you can express the value of a horse in lemon drops, and that the baker is buying your money with his bread. Sadly, that's a concept that seems to go over a lot of people's head.
7192640
It's worth saying that the value of the tools and the value of the employer's skills/knowledge is often ignored in discussions about Marx. I'm in a strange position myself; I own some (but not all) of the tools I use to ply my trade.
Maybe. In the simplistic version, sure. But simply aside from payroll, I know how much the boss was paying to pay off the alignment rack (and how much it costs to fix), how much he pays in rent, and so on.
I think the one problem of Marx's economics is sometimes the factory loses money. Sure, the owner is overall making a profit, but last May, our shop grossed $19k, payroll was probably about $8k, rent was $1200, insurance and the other utilities I don't know, parts are about 50% of our profit, and we make 50% on them (roughly) . . . I didn't do the math, but I know damn well he lost money last May. I didn't. I got paid the same. And there's also the long-term investments. Our alignment rack cost $40,000, and probably $2,000 in annual upkeep. The owner bore those costs on his own.
7192796
That's an easy enough mnemonic to remember.
7192816
Eh, details, details.
Her landing in spots marked "P" might be problematic. Or avoiding places marked 'No P.'
myparkingsign.com/img/lg/K/No-Parking-Symbol-Sign-K-5341.gif
7192829
I'm surprised my mother didn't drink like a fish. There's a reason I never seriously considered becoming a teacher.
It varies from company to company, though. I've worked places where the managers basically sit on their thumbs and get paid for it, and other places where it's all hands on deck (so to speak). I think applying Marx's model as a one-size-fits-all is where the problem lies.
And in some cases he's got a lot more at stake. I leave my job, and the business might go under. Won't affect me; I'm getting paid at my new job, and maybe I'm even making more, with less responsibility.
In other words, it's easy to see at a big company (let's say WalMart) that the CEO might earn unfairly much. But at a small place, it's a different dynamic. I've got way less risk than the owner, so it's fair that I get a little less compensation . . . but mine is steady, and he might have some months where he doesn't make a dime, and others where he makes out like a bandit.
Well, that might work, or it might not. I find it interesting that these days, the traditional jobs are changing, and maybe it'll turn out that in this new information age, Marxism is actually the way to go. We're right on the edge of it now; time will tell, I guess.
Or maybe it just depends on the line of work. It's hard to imagine General Motors not having someone at the helm (so to speak), but on the other hand, there are lots of internet startups that don't have a CEO in a traditional sense.
7192833
It feels like something she would do. Not necessarily as a debriefing, but just as a welcome home to the prodigal pony.
7192872
He's got no idea.
(Silver's libido won't be as extreme as some writers like to make ponies who are in season.)
pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/698225571617206272/U3XEzpkt.jpg
7192941
One thing that Marx didn't figure (at least I don't think he did) was globalization and shipping certain jobs off to countries where you could get away with paying the workers an inordinately low wage. [And that argument gets messy, too, because what's a low wage in one country might be a very high wage in another.]
And marketing, distribution, etc.
I think that one of the problems with Marx's system is that is isn't directly scalable to multinational corporations, or the giant manufacturing companies we have now. And I think that in small businesses, the numbers are often so close that the employees wouldn't significantly benefit from losing the capitalist. At least, that's the case at the shop where I work.
Well, that depends on the job. I used to be paid flat-rate, which means I got x dollars for each hour of work--according to a labor guide--I did. So if I improved my efficiency through practice or investment in specialty tools, I got paid more. At Firestone, I generally worked with 125% efficiency.
The downside of that type of wage is that if there's no work, I don't get paid.
7193105
Which got me to thinking what Trixie and Starlight might be able to do together. If they both decided to become unreformed.
7193266
That would be awesome! It'd put the mad-scientist feel right back in experimentation.
7193438
I can't think of anything. Aluminum used to be worth more per ounce than gold, and copper wasn't very valuable until after electricity was discovered.
7193515
Even the value of time changes, depending on what you're doing. An hour on the beach on the French Riviera is probably 'worth' more than an hour spent in the dentist's chair. Hudson's used to have something like that as an ad for their thirteen hour sale.
You might find The Cambist and Lord Iron an interesting read.
7193798
This is a very important point. Workers face less risk than CEOs (in many cases). In my line of work, if this company goes under, I just pack my tools and head off to another one. Sure, I'm making less than the boss, but it's not my neck on the line if the enterprise fails to make a profit one year. He's got to tighten his belt; I get paid the same.
[There are of course different pay types and that also can factor in]
I don't think that Marx was completely wrong, but he wasn't completely right, either. Real economics is messy.
7194835
Very true.
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It's probably pretty similar. We had fewer rules than in the military (nobody cared if our room was clean, so long as it didn't attract vermin).
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But even there, there's a risk. How much did GM's decision to ignore the faulty ignition switches wind up costing them? By some estimates, it would have cost them $0.57 to fix at the time of manufacture (or about $15,000,000 over all the affected cars); I've seen figures suggesting that the recall cost them three billion. In other words, one of those overpaid CEOs was at the helm when the company made a three billion dollar mistake.
Companies have folded for less.
Maybe that doesn't affect CEO pay going forward, I don't know. But I would expect to have a hard time finding a job in the future if my last role was driving a multibillion dollar company into the ground.
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The question a lot of people have is would the person hired for less money do better? And who is the person at the top looking out for?
But yeah, I think at the end of the day it's very, very complicated. Boards of trustees don't like pissing away money, so they presumably hire who they believe will do the best job for the company no matter what the cost, in the same way that sports teams pay top dollar for top atheletes.
I want to see that film -- or at least read the transcipt. I bet it's hilarious.
Marxist economics. There was never a way to make them work. Blame-based economics :( I mean, just look at what it's doing to Venezuela right now. People must be free (and motivated) to find the most efficent uses of rescources. Wealth is not simply transferred around; it mus be created. That's why, despite its unpopularity, captalism has, by any imperical measurement lifted moe people out of poverty than anything else in human history.
And my final thought: eating meat is better when you personally knew the animal. I like knowing the animal's health and how it was treated, and sausages taste better when you've personally cleanedand filled the casing. I know that probably sounds gross to city dwellers.
Gawd, I mis my grandfather's farm.
Awww... But that makes me wonder - what ever happened to Albie? Is he still at Silver's home in Equestria?
Well, there's that. I wonder if she'll study using that technique again in the future.
Ha ha! That's another one of the reasons why I love this story - the dialogue and characterization of each and every character. Also, Silver's somewhat inexperience of human norms and mannerisms.
And we draw ever closer to the final exams...
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Heh, now just imagine what other fun stuff would happen if humans were reproductively compatible with FiM ponies...
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Oh well. The extremeness can be humorous, but this story is rooted more in reality. There will be a notable difference in her behavior though...
Silver Glow is best plushie.
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Origin of Scorpan and Tirek confirmed.
A "That's what she said" joke? You'd think, dirty minded as she is, Silvy would have heard one or two of these in Equestria.
7280337 YES!!!
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They've been gone for about a thousand years, so they were probably around back when the ponies were still living in Dream Valley . . . maybe one of them hooked up with Danny.
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Although in mare-centric Equestria, it's pretty much always 'what she said.' It does make one wonder what schoolfilly jokes are, though. Or pony dirty jokes.
Wait, last day? What about finals and what not? Or, does this mean last day before that stuff kicks in, and so last regular day?
Just tell the snuggly pony what kind of snuggling you really want Meghan.
Also, Ponies make best cuddle pillows!
D'awwwwwwwwww.
Granted she likely doesn't expect said stop to be you tapping on the outside of the tower window......
Because of course you are.
Not only nope, don't think many can get that high. At least it should be easy to stay out of the way of.
Makes sense, she is closets to one of those after all. Also, foreshadowing a pegasi trip to the hospital?
That's another thing. Do any local hospital's know how to treat her if something goes wrong? I'm sure they have all the data for ponies in their systems, or can get it easy enough. But actually knowing what they are doing? Or would it actually be better to bring in a horse vet?
Few things are.
Maybe you should try that though. Might start a whole new trend. Just call it an Equestrian tradition. That way anyone who doesn't like it can just be labeled as anti-pony-culture.
At least one person solved' it via mad scientist weather machine, and another via climate control satellites, didn't they?
The fact this is such a contentious idea even now...... yeah let's just skip the rants and enjoy cute pone being oblivious to how stupid humans can be.
Ehhhh, that part is going a tad far. Do need some profit after all. So not a fully good idea.
Again the wisdom of the Pone is both deep and true.
Not getting how she got the 'everyone paid equally' A. being a bad thing. and B. Meaning a pony that saved up was greedy. he's talking about worker payment which yeah, should be the same for everyone. It's the people in charge keeping any money that is 'greedy'. And if you have more expense, well you need to do more or more valuable work.
Yeah Marx is far from a perfect system, but not quite sure where this aspect of it she is getting came from.
There is a reason Equestria has a yearly cake shortage right around the time Celestia makes the annual budget.
I can bet.
Kind of like watching "March of the Penguins" would be for a real penguin I bet.
Also, hey you get to snark at all the stuff they get wrong at least.
Oh, so just very poorly explaining things then? because you know these vids HAVE to be cringey.
Yup, guessing this was made in the early days after contact?
42 to go, and yeah, goes way to fast when you are enjoying yourself.
You know what I want to see now? Table set with a fancy floral arrangement that Silver mistakes for pre-meal snacks.
I'm sure we've seen pony chefs wearing those.
Silver is going to the carnivore side out of politeness.
I can fully buy that.
Everyone wants to watch the pony gain a craving for flesh!
Also, wait, was there nothing else besides the meat?
Cue a bit later when she does think about it.... and everyone learns that despite what they may think and how nearly everything about them is cuddly and cute and adorable. Pony's do not in fact puke rainbows.
not according to Catholics.
DO IT DO IT!
Well, Silver does, if only out of curiosity.
Also you are more then welcome to join in on this Christine.
Watch his be either the best, or the worst. Also, so he gave himself an extension on his own project. Heh.
Poor Birdy-pone. No want be harsh. Still just try to be objective.
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Yeah, she means last regular day (and technically, the way K does their school calendar, finals week doesn't count as part of the quarter).
They do! They're warm and fluffy.
Nobody expects that. How long do you figure the human exchange students took to get used to pegasi just coming in through open windows?
Ponies and cats, man. Very similar mentalities.
I'm actually not sure how high helicopters actually can get, but the Flight of Life choppers tend to fly kinda low.
Yeah, she's essentially (in terms of her flight characteristics) a helicopter.
They have plans in place, in case that should happen, up to and including actual pony doctors who can consult via Skype or similar, or else can be flown where needed, and there are doctors reasonably close who are able to do emergency work (enough to get a pony stabilized, hopefully.) Her helpers have some training, as well, although not a huge amount.
Although cuddling and fondling is more fun without studying.
If the ponies knew that they could get away with that kind of thing. . . .
That would be a solution that not only would she not expect, but one where she can't say for sure that it's wrong. After all, she doesn't know that there isn't any weather control tech on Earth, just that if there is, it isn't widely implemented.
Economic theory is tricky, and we can probably leave it at that.
Yes, that's very true. Having said that, most reasonable people probably think that the bank executives that started the financial crisis probably didn't deserve their million dollar bonuses . . . but again, there's a lot of room for discussion on the topic, and it's probably beyond what a basic philosophy class ought to be covering.
Well, her thought was that the basic living expenses for a single mare (like herself) is probably less than, say, Apple Leaves, who has eight foals (that's canon!). Again, there are classes that discuss that kind of thing, but it's not really how far an introductory philosophy class would tend to go. [Plus there's questions of skills, frugality, the job market, etc.]
Yeah, probably. Maybe she handles it by having nobleponies like Blueblood come up with a budget, and then she does the opposite.
Oh, man, that would be amazing. I'm just trying to imagine how a penguin would react!
And everyone in class gets to learn, too, so it's a win/win.
Yeah, badly explained. Although to be fair, before there was much contact, there was probably a lot of stuff that they assumed, or plain didn't know about the other culture. I'm just imagining a pony being incredibly proud of their steam locomotive, or the fact that Ponyville has houses with indoor plumbing. . . .
Yeah, pretty early on--quite a rush job, really, but of course at the time people would just eat it up, because what else are they going to get?
Yeah, it does. Time's weird like that.
Like the snack bouquet she had when she first arrived in her dorm room?
Probably, although in Silver Glow's village, there wouldn't be any. I doubt the cook at the local tavern wears anything other than a stained apron.
Well, it would be rude to refuse (okay, no it wouldn't, but she doesn't realize that).
You know that at least one pony in the exchange program turned into an omnivore and is going to start having bacon withdrawal when she's back in Equestria.
No, she had other normal food, too; she just didn't write about it.
But a pony puking is probably still cute.
I legit do not understand that canon.
I mean, to her it's really no difference one way or the other. If Sean wants to get naked at dinner, why should she care? She's naked, after all.
Perhaps if Silver tries hard enough, she'll be able to get more of her friends to go naked.
I think he'd have paid pretty close attention to what she was saying, and would have done pretty well. Although I don't think she ever says.
It's gotta be hard to be objective, as a teacher. I'm not sure that I could, to be honest.
Wow, so weird going back through ld commentary, and seeing how many things I picked up then too and forgot about. So not a lot of new insights.
One thing is again being really curious about her budget, as here she's careful about her money, making sure she has enough for the snowbaording ideas, but everywhere else just spends away. Guessing she's got a rather generous stipend, still odd the don't give her a budget and tell her how much she can spend.
Sara, looking back through, while there is the whole religious thing made clear as to her issue with the pony loving, looking at it from the start, I'm kind of getting a vibe like maybe she was trying to move in on Aric as well and just jealous Silver got there first.
The Handbell was still awesome, but odd it never comes up again for these two. Guess they had other extra circular activities taking up there free time after this semester, like a private study program in... interdeminsaional relations.
Another odd quirk, the first time she joins Trevor's group for lunch, she mentions there being five people, but after that it's always down to three.
Also the bit about Celestia meeting every pony that comes back. I was so very disappointed we didn't get to see that, or her hugging Celestia. Would have loved to see what Silver had to say about her year on Earth. Still, it did say she only heard she did that. Might have been something she did for the first few groups which were smaller and she had less of an idea about Earth. After that they just started rotating Princesses through who gets welcome back duty.