Centauri's Thoughts

Ah, the old rant about two income families vs. single wage earner. The fight of equality vs. stay at home. The role of gender and the roles and choices in life.

Its really up to each couple to decide what works for them, but culture and habit is associated with up-bringing.

Some people prefer two income families. I think that they dont REALLY weigh all the consequences of this choice.

I have been in all manner of relationship, from an equal 50-50 in money earning to a stay at home wife.

What I found in the 2 wage earning types, are there is a HUGE increase in blatant consumerism, and nothing left over. The SMART thing to do, would be to live on one income.. and use the other for investing or savings. This almost NEVER happens, you just party and live it up more. Then you get used to it, and are in quite a bind if EITHER loses a job.. twice as dangerous!.

Then too, in a two income situation, each is expected to equally share all house and yardwork, which also rarely works.

Maybe I am a bit bitter because each time I was in these 50-50 things.. they never really WERE 50-50. I had FAR LESS choice of where the money went, even my OWN, because of this communistic "better for bofus" reasoning. Maybe I wasnt a good enough politician or lobbyist to push what I thought would be "good fer bofus".

I MUCH prefer the "one makes money, one runs the house". I can hear cries now of "tyrant" and "asshole" and all that. I would be those things ONLY if I left zero choice in the matter, and we know Women better than that, ESPECIALLY in America. Women speak their mind, and express their wishes, and really, I have YET to SEE a woman chained to the stove, barefoot and pregnant, that just not how it is.

Most of the time, any ladies I have been with, make about 25% of what I do, not because they are female, but because they are not high-end programmers or other such professionals. Its got nothing to do with "glass ceilings" in fact, most roomates I have ever had, had the same problems, they were not in good jobs, because of the skills. Fact of life.

So, given this, I have in the past years of many relationships looked for a few certain qualities. #1 of which, is "be happy with what ya got, and quit envying the 'rich&famous' because we aint gonna be". In California, this was impossible to realize, the land of Barbie in LA, the Land of DOT COM richness in Silicon Valley. Everyone wanted their cut and everyone elses. Greed, Gluttony, Envy, Jealosy. It reads like an anti-10-commandments, like all the things one should NOT do.

Society can be a complicated thing. Culture is like the memory of a society. But are people REALLY happier?, even though we know they are more comfortable. We are taught that we should all get along, yet the urbanization of the World, the movement to big cities, where many of us are too close together, only increases the laws and intolerance as what we REALLY want is space and a bit of freedom. None of these things happened when we were spread out, and the chance meeting of people was a welcome surprise, not a forced issue to the point of hardened hearts where we dont make eye contact, dont help each other, look away when we see something bad, and make decisions to "just say no" to someone begging for money, because the shucksters outnumber the truly needy.

American Cities dont EVEN compare to the unimaginable hugeness of cities of other countries. Sao Paulo, Brazil-20 million. Karachi, Pakistan-16 million - compare this to New York or San Francisco.. under 10 million.. a half to a third of these other places.

To solve many of these things, requires that we are freed from trivial labor, so that writers can BE writers, and Artists and BE artists. this means robots and computers and AI doing these lesser tasks. It ALSO means that we have a system different from the standard capitalism, because if we were to do this right now, many would be out of work. All of this depends on a system that does equally share to all, not "the rich get richer".

Consider this.. most every company in the US has given Bill Gates not ONLY $89 for a copy of windows for each PC in the company, AND $499 for MS Office, BUT.. many had to PAY AGAIN for NT or 2000 or XP, some paid EACH TIME and you wonder how that grubby Gates became the richest man in the world??? because he's super - greedy! thats why, and like he doesnt have enough money. He's ticked off that the Chinese might be using some of his stuff, and wants MORE money!! No wonder they are going to Linux. I just hope they give back to the Linux community and we shut down the Gates of Hell empire (I am a unix person, and believe in sharing code, and not hiding stuff)

LOL enough for now