merryplz:

andrewfishman:

Blake Fall-Conroy, “Minimum Wage Machine,” 2008-2010
This machine allows anyone to work for minimum wage for as long as they like.  Turning the crank on the side releases one penny every 4.97 seconds, for a total of $7.25 per hour.  This corresponds to minimum wage for a person in New York.  
This piece is brilliant on multiple levels, particularly as social commentary.  Without a doubt, most people who started operating the machine for fun would quickly grow disheartened and stop when realizing just how little they’re earning by turning this mindless crank.  A person would then conceivably realize that this is what nearly two million people in the United States do every day…at much harder jobs than turning a crank.  This turns the piece into a simple, yet effective argument for raising the minimum wage.  

ah yes totally mentioning this in my paper

Turns out $7.25 USD = $8.63 New Zealand dollars. Our minimum wage (and the wage I am currently on) is $13.50 (USD$11.34). I never realized how low the US’s was in comparison. 
I am all kinds of depressed now. :( Even though I’m glad the minimum wage exists, the whole concept of “this is the lowest amount we can pay you without getting into trouble with the law, the bare fucking minimum” is seriously messed up.

merryplz:

andrewfishman:

Blake Fall-Conroy, “Minimum Wage Machine,” 2008-2010

This machine allows anyone to work for minimum wage for as long as they like.  Turning the crank on the side releases one penny every 4.97 seconds, for a total of $7.25 per hour.  This corresponds to minimum wage for a person in New York.  

This piece is brilliant on multiple levels, particularly as social commentary.  Without a doubt, most people who started operating the machine for fun would quickly grow disheartened and stop when realizing just how little they’re earning by turning this mindless crank.  A person would then conceivably realize that this is what nearly two million people in the United States do every day…at much harder jobs than turning a crank.  This turns the piece into a simple, yet effective argument for raising the minimum wage.  

ah yes totally mentioning this in my paper

Turns out $7.25 USD = $8.63 New Zealand dollars. Our minimum wage (and the wage I am currently on) is $13.50 (USD$11.34). I never realized how low the US’s was in comparison. 

I am all kinds of depressed now. :( Even though I’m glad the minimum wage exists, the whole concept of “this is the lowest amount we can pay you without getting into trouble with the law, the bare fucking minimum” is seriously messed up.

xokristinrenee:

1. Atheists earn higher incomes. (10-15% higher, according to 1989 study)

2. Atheists stay married longer. (21% of Atheists have been divorced vs 29% for Christians) -Barna Research Group 1999

3. Atheists are less likely to end up in jail. (Atheists comprise 15% of US population, however, only 1% of US Prison population are non-believers.)

4. Atheists are more likely to climb to the top of academia. (97% of the National Academy of Science Members are atheists. The 3,200 members includes more than 200 Noble Laureate recipients)

5. Atheists are less likely to succumb to the lure of authoritarian regimes, that promise miraculous and divine sent decrees. You think Hitler could have convinced a nation of Secularists/Atheists that slaughtering Jews was a good way to spend a Sunday? But far easier to do so when working with devotees of the anti-Semite Martin Luther.

6. Atheists live longer and happier, according to a 2009 poll conducted by Erasmus University Rotterdam

7. Atheists are not required to hate anyone. There is no doctrine that promotes in/out thinking.

8. Atheists have higher morality developmental growth. Famous American psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg writes that at moral development’s highest levels – moral judgments must be justified on rational moral grounds rather than by appeal to the order of nature or to religious authority or revelation. While Freud suggested that religion served to undermine moral responsibility while promoting fanaticism, he contended that people who behave morally only out of fear of a supernatural penalty, would be unlikely to respect and care for others from an altruistic perspective.

9. Atheists achieve deeper levels of critical thinking and free thought.

10. Atheists are way better in the bedroom. (My own anecdotal experience)

*Correlation doesn’t equal causation, but it’s nice to have some fun with it.