Basic Income

It turns out there is supporting evidence for a lot of the claims I have made in the past.  I write based on a number of things.  One big part of my writing is extensive research.  Another part is observations.  A third part is math and logic.  I have made claims about where our economy is headed, if we keep automating everything.  This claim is based part on observation and part in math and logic.  It is completely illogical to assume that our economy will never change.  It is also illogical to assume that increasing automation will not decrease necessary work.  Thus, we can assume that our economy will change, and we can further assume that as a vast majority of trivial work is automated, that work will no longer be necessary for humans to do.  We can also assume that unless we create as much new work as is automated, that cannot be automated, human labor will become less and less useful and valuable.  Observation has shown this to be true.  Currently, many businesses are dramatically underpaying their employees, and still we have a shortage of work (jobs).  Businesses can automate many processes cheaper than they can hire humans to do the work, so less human labor is necessary.  This results in a surplus of human labor, which drives labor prices (wages) down.  I have argued that the logical progression of this will end where most Americans are forced to live off welfare, and very few will actually work for a living (mostly engineers and other creative workers).  All of this is based strongly in logic, math, and observation.  Now, this is not the case I plan on discussing today, but it is related.

Recently I have argued that we need to improve welfare enough that it will keep people out of poverty.  I showed how the U.S. government's definition of poverty is almost half the actual poverty level, and I showed how the current welfare system seems to take advantage of this to trap people in poverty.  I argued that we need to fix the legal definition of poverty, and I argued that we need to then fix the welfare programs to take the new definition into account.  I also argued that we need to raise minimum wage to reflect the actual poverty level.  I may have also argued that Congress needs to regularly reassess the defined poverty level and change the definition if necessary.  My take on the current situation changed today, and I find that some of my arguments may be obsolete.  I would like to discuss why this is.

Today, I read two things (brought to my attention by a friend).  The first is a letter by a guy who quit his job and started writing for a living (found here).  This man, Chuck Bukowski, compared the current state of the U.S. economy to slavery, and he once said, “Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all the colors.”  If you have read my previous articles, you know that I have the same opinion.  The second is an article by Rutger Bregman, a guy from the Netherlands, who discusses a bunch of research that opened my eyes to another system of welfare (found here).  The first was interesting.  The second was an epiphany.

This idea of a "basic income" has been around for a while.  The idea is that the government pays everyone a small wage that is enough to survive on.  Note that I said, "everyone."  This means rich and poor alike.  Now, I can hear a lot of people asking, "why the rich?"  This is a valid question, with a very good explanation.  The answer is "privacy."  Another answer is cost.  It turns out that running a welfare system that has a lot of restrictions and requirements costs a lot of money.  In May 2009, London did an experiment where the city gave thirteen homeless men 3,000 pounds (around $4,500 in U.S. dollars at the time), with no strings attached.  Now the biggest argument against a government provided basic income in that it will cause a lot of people to quit their jobs and freeload off the state.  Out of these thirteen guys, eleven of them dramatically improved their lives.  They got housing, some took classes to learn useful skills, some got treatment for drug abuse (one quit heroin), and they made plans for the future.  Eleven of thirteen is pretty good odds.  The best part is that the 50,000 pound expense of giving these guys the money (a bit was spent on administrative and research costs) actually saved the city around 350,000 pounds that would have been spent by law enforcement dealing with these guys.  It turns out that this argument that a basic wage will reduce incentive to work is wrong.

This London experiment is neither the only, nor the most recent experiment of this type.  Manitoba, Canada funded an experiment dubbed "Mincome" where an entire town was placed under something like a basic income for four years.  The requirement of the experiment was that it would ensure no one would live below the poverty level.  This resulted in around 1,000 families getting some kind of government pay check.  Evidently the results of the experiment were hidden by the provincial government until 2009.  The research showed that very few people decided to quit working.  Further, it showed that a number of the residents started their own businesses, because the basic income reduced the risk substantially.  Ultimately, it turns out that the experiment was an awesome success.

There are plenty of other instances showing the same results.  In Kenya, a guy was randomly given a year's pay, and used it to buy a taxi motorcycle, so he could increase his income from $2 a day to $6 to $9 a day.  There is also evidence that he used some of the money to help neighbors start their own businesses and fix their houses.  Uganda once gave $400 each to 12,000 youths, which dramatically improved their chances of getting education and a good job.  Uganda also gave $150 each to 1,800 poor women, which ultimately resulted in permanent income increases.  In the last case, it was discovered that while the women who accepted support from aid workers turned out better, the difference would have been even more had the salaries from the aid workers been given to the women, instead of the support.

Another argument against a basic income is that without restrictions, many people would spend the money on things that are not necessities and would still live in poverty conditions.  The London case disproved that pretty effectively.  It turns out that homeless people buy alcohol because they cannot afford anything else.  Give them a large amount of money, and they have a very high probability of spending it wisely (most of the London guys spent only 800 pounds of the money in the first year, saving the rest).  Evidently poor people are poor because they do not have enough money, not because they are too stupid to use it wisely.  If you give them enough money, they will use it to get out of poverty long term.

The last serious argument against a basic income is the massive cost.  One estimation of the U.S. is that a basic income system would cost around $175 billion a year.  Contrast this with our $700 billion a year military, and it does not seem like so much.  It gets better though.  The Mincome experiment showed crime reductions.  This means reduced law enforcement costs and reduced crime recovery costs.  The London experiment showed a dramatic reduction in costs from getting homeless people off the street, to the point where the savings was seven times the cost of the program.  There are also clear economic advantages to providing enough money to everyone.  Economic condition tends to be based on how much money flow there is.  An economy where a large portion of the money goes to CEOs, which then save or invest the money, is weaker than an economy where most of the money continues to circulate back into the economy (and do not try to tell me that investing is the same thing; investing is taking the money at the top, and transferring it one level down, so it can sift back up one level).  Basic income systems have been shown to dramatically improve economies.  The last financial benefit of a basic income system is the cost savings.  A welfare system that has many restrictions and regulations requires a great deal of administration.  This administration is expensive.  Instead of paying a large number of employees well over the poverty level (government employees), get rid of the administration, and just send out checks to everyone.  No more paper work, no more employees doing hours of work to decide who is allowed to have welfare and who is not, no more rent or maintenance costs for government office buildings for the welfare workers, no more expensive forensics to identify welfare fraud, and no more lawyer fees to handle cases that have been identified.  That is a lot of savings.  Getting rid of the huge amount of infrastructure for administering welfare would save a huge amount of money.  Admittedly, the cost will still be a lot, but nothing like opponents claim.

So, here is how this works:  You give a basic income to everyone.  The money comes from businesses and those who have extremely high income (for those with huge incomes, it is more like an extra tax deduction).  The businesses do not suffer from it though, because minimum wage is abolished.  Ok, so here I identify a major conservative upside.  Most conservatives oppose minimum wage, or at least oppose a fair minimum wage.  A basic income makes minimum wage obsolete.  With a basic income, everyone gets enough to survive, without working, so even at $1 a day, they can survive.  This also reduces the need for other workplace regulation.  If I can walk out whenever I want with low risk, my employer had darn well better make sure the workplace is safe.  Also, if my employer makes unwanted advances (ok, I am a guy, so this is far less likely, but the point still stands), I can just quit.  Instead of expensive legal fees, for a case that I may or may not win (and I am almost guaranteed to loose my job despite anti-retribution laws), I can just leave (if I like the job that much, I can still press charges, but if I do still manage to get fired, at least I do not starve).  One of the biggest benefits observed in experiments is the creation of small businesses.  The risk with starting a business is that if it fails, I starve.  A basic income eliminates that risk.  Now, maybe I will have to move to a smaller house, but there is still very low risk.  As I mentioned, this has been observed.  Now, small businesses create jobs (in fact, a majority of U.S. jobs are provided by small businesses).  A basic income even creates more jobs!  Yes, it is true.  A basic income increases the number of small businesses and improves the economy, which ultimately creates more jobs.  Also, a very small percentage of people will quit their jobs if given enough to stay out of poverty.  This will open up a few more jobs.  So yes, there will be more up front costs, but a better economy means more tax revenue.  A basic income could also simplify the tax system, because by not taxing the basic income, people are ensured enough to get by.  Anything over that could be taxed with few deductions, because the government no longer has to worry about anyone getting enough.  Things like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit could be eliminated (along with the expensive infrastructure necessary to support them) without hurting anyone.  The basic income does not need to be reported, because the government already knows, and the IRS can ignore it, because it does not make any difference.  The benefits appear to severely outweigh the costs.

Now let us look at privacy.  I may have mentioned this already, but one concern is that a basic income would violate privacy.  First, you already report all of your income to the IRS, where is the privacy right now?  Now, a well implemented basic income system would actually improve privacy.  The requirement is that the basic income is unconditional.  A murderer, child molester, a thief, a gang leader, or anything else, all get the basic income.  The reason is that it would be a very bad idea to give the government the power to control people by restricting their basic income benefits.  Now, here is the privacy: If you are currently on welfare, you will sometimes be asked if there are guns in the home.  This is a way that the government can violate privacy, and it could allow the government to compile a list of poor people that are armed.  A basic income that is unconditional will not do this.  In fact, because it replaces welfare, a basic income removes requirements for government welfare agencies to know your financial state (the IRS still knows).  No one is going to ask how much assets you have that are not in the bank (Food Stamps and Medicaid interviewers are required to record this information).  No government office is going to record how much money you made in the last six months as a qualification for welfare.  An unconditional basic income will dramatically improve personal privacy.

Evidently the U.S. actually almost implemented this idea several decades ago.  Around 80% of U.S. citizens supported it.  The House of Representatives actually passed the bill.  The Senate did not though.  It went back and forth, and as Reagan commented, "In the sixties we waged a war on poverty, and poverty won."  What killed it?  The divorce rate in Seattle allegedly went up by 50%.  The great thing is, years later it was discovered that the numbers were reported wrong, and the divorce rate had not changed at all.  So, what killed it?  Poor reporting.  The U.S. was almost the first large scale experiment with the basic income, an experiment which has never failed on small scales.  Where would we be now, with all of the benefits of this system?

What should we do about this?  Dump the horrible mess that is Obamacare (which still has not born good fruit).  Abolish our current broken welfare system that effectively traps people in poverty.  Lay off the huge number of people employed in rewarding poor people for trying to get jobs that do not exist.  Tear down the unstable infrastructure that is helping businesses keep the American people in bondage.  Finally, once and for all, establish what poverty really is, and define a poverty level that will be regularly reassessed and that is accurate.  Then, take all of the money currently going to welfare, and apply it to the basic income.  According to this, that would covers almost half of it (it covers about $80 billion, of around $170 billion; this does not include administrative costs of Obamacare).  The other half could come from the military (it would be about one eighth of the military budget), until the government reduces the tax exemptions for large businesses.  In fact, even a slight reduction in tax exemptions for large businesses would cover the entire basic income.

We can afford this.  In fact, it is possible that we cannot afford not to do this.  It would eliminate a lot of the problems with our current system.  It would raise our so called civilization to an actual civilization where we do not let anyone starve.  It would give people the opportunity to do the work they want to do, instead of work at a job they hate, but that they are stuck at.  The moral increase would improve productivity.  It would eliminate the huge overhead of our current welfare system, and it would increase our privacy from the government.  (Worried about "big government?"  This will make so much of our current government welfare infrastructure obsolete that it will significantly reduce the size of our government.)  It would improve our economy by a huge amount.  It could even end slavery in the U.S., once and for all.  And, it would not increase the divorce rate by 50% (I hope I am not wrong; I would hate to feel stupid).  A basic income is really the answer to most of our financial and economical problems in the U.S.  And this time, my claim is not just  based on logic and observation, it is also based on a good body of strong evidence.

The problem with [your political ideology]

Let's talk about the problem with your political ideology.  I can cover far over half of the people in the U.S. (and probably most of the world) with these two: The problem with liberals is they believe that the government can solve all of their problems.  The problem with conservatives is that they believe the government is the source of all of their problems.  The third, and maybe the best, is moderates.  The problem with moderates is that they believe that there is a perfect balance where the government can solve just enough of their problems without causing them too many problems.  All three of these are wrong, and pretty much every political ideology believes that the government does or can do something that it cannot.  No government can solve all of our problems, and no government can be the cause of all of our problems.  Especially no government can strike a perfect balance, because there is no perfect balance.

So, starting with the liberal ideology: Government cannot solve problems.  I expect the initial reaction of nearly anyone (the exception being some anarchists) is to reject this statement.  Governments appear to solve all sorts of problems.  In reality though, governments only cover up problems or create them.  A government might make laws that ultimately prevent murder.  So, have they solved the problem of murder?  No, because murder is not the problem.  Anger or hatred is the problem, murder is merely one of the many symptoms of the problem.  Government might be able to prevent the symptoms, but the problem persists, and it will continue to persist, because anger and hatred are human problems that no government has or can have control over.  Welfare does not solve the problem of poverty.  It covers up the problem of greed.  Tariffs do not solve the problem of poor economic decisions, like welfare, they cover up the problem of greed.  The best governments can only protect people from the poor choices that are the symptoms of problems that cannot be solved.  If governments could solve problems, then they would solve all of the world's problems and then go extinct because there would be no problems left for them to solve.  Government cannot solve all of our problems.  They can only cover them up, and really they can only cover up a limited subset of our problems, not all of them.

Unlike solving problems, governments can cause problems.  In fact, their track record suggests that this is the only thing governments can do consistently.  Thankfully, governments can only cause a limited subset of our problems, not all of them.  Even a tyrannical dictator cannot cause all of the problems his subjects have.  If a dictator has enough subjects to actually be considered a legitimate dictator, he has too many subjects to completely control their lives.  Subjects that are not ruled with a perfect iron fist will cause each other problems that are not the fault of the government.  In fact, a typical dictator has minions who do most of the harm.  Without the minions, the government would have little power to cause problems.  While governments can cause problems, all problems governments cause are indirect.  The problems are caused directly by other people, not by the governments.  Thus, governments cannot be the cause of all of our problems.  They can only cause a limited subset of our problems, and only if people act as their tools.

The balance problem is hairy.  First, because few people agree on what a perfect balance is, it is impossible for a government with enough subjects to be considered a legitimate government to strike a perfect balance.  There is no balance that a consensus will establish as official.  This is why democratic forms of government only require a majority vote, not a unanimous vote.  In fact, it is extremely unlikely that any government will even completely satisfy a majority of its subjects.  There is no perfect balance for government.  The only really noble goal of governments with respect to balance is to minimize the number of people that are completely dissatisfied.

The above three cover pretty much every political ideology, except maybe one.  The problem with anarchy is that humans are idiots and refuse to cooperate in the effort to solve all problems.  Without government, there is no protection from the symptoms of the problems that people create.  If everyone would be civil without law or social pressure breathing down their necks, anarchy would be great.  The problem is that civilizations require enforcement of civility to remain civilized, because humans are inherently uncivilized barbarians (yep, it turns out it is the truth; if you doubt it, look at any country where the government has failed and there was no protection from greed and stupidity for any length of time).

The problem of government comes down to two axioms.  The first is, all solvable problems are caused by people.  The second is, solvable problems can only be solved by people.  These two axioms contain the secret knowledge to eliminating the need for government.  This is the secret: If all solvable problems are caused by people, and all solvable problems can be solved by people, then if all people will stop causing problems and start solving them, there will be no problems that can be avoided and all problems that are unavoidable will be solved.

The reason we need governments is that many people refuse to stop causing problems, and many people refuse to solve problems.  It only takes one person to break the solution to all problems.  Governments suck.  They cause problems.  They do not solve problems.  Instead they hide problems.  Unfortunately, so long as even one person will not cooperate in eliminating all problems, governments are necessary to protect everyone else from those who will not cooperate.  The existence of governments, however, does not give anyone the right to refuse to cooperate.  Cooperating in the elimination of problems is the responsibility of every person capable of such cooperation.

There is no perfect, or even entirely correct, political ideology.  I am fine with it if you choose to keep your political ideology after reading this.  Please help with the task of eliminating all problems though.  Quit causing problems, and start solving them instead.  It is your responsibility to do this, no matter how rich, poor, weak, or powerful you are.

Mexican Slavery

I don't think I have ever brought up this topic before.  It is one of the most controversial topics today.  It also turns out that a vast majority of people, on both sides, have no clue what it really entails.  Today, I am going to discuss illegal immigration.

The other day, I was reading about illegal immigration, for a class I was taking.  I forget what the article was about, but I started reading through some of the comments left by readers.  One lady said that she was against illegal immigration, because it takes jobs away from legal American citizens.  She then showed her complete ignorance by stating that she has a friend who would gladly take one of the construction jobs currently held by an illegal Mexican immigrant.  The construction industry in the U.S. is fairly well regulated.  Certifications are required for many types of construction work, and most locales have at least three levels of construction code requirements (Federal, state, city, and/or county).  Even for construction jobs that do not have Federal requirements, many states require that anyone with less than journeyman status work under a journeyman as an apprentice (I did this on a few occasions doing insulating work with a friend).  On average, more than half of construction workers are skilled workers.  If they are Mexican, they are very much legal.  Maybe some shady backwoods construction jobs hire illegal immigrants, but reputable construction companies don't.

So, the question then is, if there are so many illegal immigrants here, what are the jobs that they are taking?  Many are working for small businesses that are not willing to pay minimum wage.  It is pretty hard for an illegal immigrant to complain that they are getting ripped off, when they will certainly be thrown out of the country if they do.  I wonder if this lady's friend is willing to work as a bagger or cashier at a small grocery store, for $2.50 an hour.  That is not where most of the jobs are though.  My research found that a vast majority of illegal immigrants in the U.S. are working in one of two industries.  In Washington state, many work in the logging industry.  In general though, a vast majority work in agriculture.  Now, keep in mind that in the U.S., minimum wage does not apply to most agricultural work.  The vast majority of illegal workers (including those who return to Mexico after harvest season is over) in the U.S. are doing agricultural work, which pays $2 to $4 an hour and does not violate minimum wage.

Now we can say that Mexican immigrants are taking thousands of agricultural jobs from legal U.S. citizens right?  This is actually false.  It also turns out that most Americans will not do agricultural work, even if they cannot find any other work.  One farm workers organization listed jobs for agricultural work with some very large unemployment organizations, and out of tens to hundreds of thousands of unemployed Americans notified of the openings, a grand total of three responded.  These are not jobs that Americans would have if the Mexicans did not do them for cheaper than minimum wage.  These are jobs that Americans refuse to do.  The evidence shows that most unemployed Americans would rather go on welfare than work in agriculture.  The immigrants are not stealing jobs.  They are filling a need for labor that no one else is willing to do.

It gets worse though.  It also turns out that the reason the above mentioned organization of farm workers started posting job openings is that many Mexicans won't do farm work anymore either.  Many of the jobs were filled by Mexicans who live in Mexico and come to the U.S. seasonally to do farm work.  The economy in Mexico has improved somewhat, and now many Mexican farm workers have found that they can get higher quality and better paying work staying in Mexico, than working on farms in the U.S.  One farmer complained that the lack of workers was going to cause part of his berry harvest to go bad before they could be picked.  Similar worries have been heard from other farmers as well.  As the economy in Mexico has improved, jobs on U.S. farms have opened up.  Unfortunately, few Americans (three, specifically) are willing to do that kind of work.  As the Mexican economy continues to improve, we can expect to loose more and more farm workers.  Here is the catch: Farm workers are essential to our ability to produce food.  Now, last time I checked, 60% of the food produced in the U.S. is exported.  So, decreasing production by 60% would not cause us to starve, but it would cause other countries to have food difficulties, and it would force a lot of farms to close, which would eliminate all of the administrative jobs that are held by legal American workers.  Obviously, if food production dropped more than that, people in the U.S. would start to starve.  In short, without Mexican farm workers, we would loose a large number of jobs that Americans are willing to do, we would loose a major export, we would probably have to start rationing food, and some people would starve because they would not be able to afford the new prices for food.

All of this brings up a lot of questions.  The obvious one is, how can we cut down on illegal immigration without destroying our ability to produce enough food for everyone?  The solution is even more obvious: Illegal immigration is only illegal because it is illegal.  Since it is defined by the fact that it is illegal, making it legal would eliminate the problem entirely.  Now, I am not necessarily for opening the borders and walking away.  We could, however, make it much easier for honest Mexicans to immigrate.  We could even just make it easier to get short term work visas for farm workers.

A second, less obvious question this brings up is, why is minimum wage different for agricultural work?  Also, farm workers don't get overtime pay either.  Why?  The idea with minimum wage is that it is designed to make sure that workers get enough wages for their work to pay for living expenses.  The idea with overtime is that more than 8 hours of work a day (or 40 hours a week) is excessive labor, and the employee deserves extra pay for the difficulties caused.  Do farm workers somehow have a lower cost of living, such that lower pay is justified?  Is farm work so easy that overtime should not apply?  The answer is very obviously "no."  If we limit farm workers to legal workers (whom the law is designed for), they have the same cost of living as anyone else.  Working in agriculture does not magically decrease cost of living.  The overtime thing is worse.  The reason Americans won't do farm work is that it is grueling labor.  Farm work is some of the hardest physical labor available in the U.S.  If anyone deserves extra pay for excessive work, it is farm workers.  So, the question "why" still stands.  The answer is, farming is not as profitable as many other businesses (or, it was not, back when this particular part of labor law was designed; modern industrial farming techniques have dramatically increased profitability of farming).  The justification is, this type of business needs the lower minimum wage, and farm workers work 12 to 16 hours a day, almost every day they work.  As such, the cost to pay workers fair wages is supposedly too much for farms to handle.  Does this really justify blatantly ripping them off though?

This reveals an ethical dilemma.  We need food.  In fact, food is one place where normal market profit maximization techniques are obviously wrong.  Profit maximization math balances demand with price.  The problem with doing this for food is that when demand decreases, it means that people are not buying the product, often because they cannot afford it.  For food this means that people starve.  So, if profit is maximized, around 25% of people will not be able to afford food (this be based on common trends with other products; in the U.S., given that a vast majority of people are in the lower class, it might be closer to 50% or more).  Maximizing profit for food forces people to starve.  So, the dilemma is this: Allow the food industry to be entirely capitalistic, require farms to pay fair wages, and have a significant percentage of the population starve, or allow farms to pay wages worth far less than the average compensation given to slaves in the Old South (they at least got room and board), to keep food costs low enough that everyone can afford it?

What this really comes down to is, when is the U.S. really going to outlaw slavery?  Americans recognize that farm work, at current legal wages, is not much different from slavery.  This is part of the reason Americans will not take farm jobs.  Many Mexicans are used to conditions worse than slavery, so seasonal slavery on a farm, that actually pays, is better than what they are used to.  That still does not make it right though.  (Note, if you are sitting there thinking, "It's only slavery if they are forced to work," look up "chattel slavery."  That is what you are comparing it to.  Chattel slavery is not the only kind of slavery.  Voluntary slavery is still slavery.)  We managed to outlaw blatant chattel slavery long ago.  Now we are battling a different kind of slavery that is much more insidious.  Until we recognize it as slavery, the American Dream will be a false hope available only to those who already have it.  Let's free the Mexican slaves!

Poverty and Minimum Wage

I read a study recently about poverty.  It claimed that the legal definition of "poverty level" does not match the legal definition of "poverty" in the U.S.  Specifically, for the government to consider a U.S. citizen or family to be under the poverty level, the household must be making less than somewhere around $20,000 a year (I think the actual figure is within a thousand of $23,000).  The study looked at cost of living all around the U.S.  Because cost of living is different in different places, the poverty level should also be different.  Using the legal definition of "poverty," the study found that the actual poverty rate averages over $30,000 a year.  There were a few places where it was as low as $25,000 a year, but there were many places where it was very close to $40,000 a year.  Given the legal definition of "poverty rate," which is used by many government welfare agencies, there as almost a $20,000 gap where people who  need government welfare cannot get it.  Imagine the dilemma of the guy who is making $19,000 a year, gets all of the food for his family through food stamps, and is paying only half the normal rent in subsidized housing.  What happens when his boss offers him a promotion that adds $5,000 a year to his salary?  If he accepts, he will make $24,000 a year.  Unfortunately, this will not cover his $30,000 a year expenses.  Further, loosing the food stamps takes out $3,000 a year from his income, and loosing qualification for subsidized housing takes out another $5,000 a year.  If he does not take the promotion, he stays at $19,000 a year, but food stamps give him $3,000 for food, and the housing subsidy gives him $5,000 for his family's apartment.  Before the raise, his gross income is actually $27,000, only $3,000 short.  After the raise, his gross income is $24,000.  He would be $6,000 short this way.  The only way he can take a promotion is if his salary is increased by more than $8,000 a year (plus the additional taxes, which he will now have to pay with his increased income).  What are the chances that he will eventually be offered a raise big enough to justify accepting it?  Approximately nothing.  Most employers do not even offer a $3,000 raise for a single promotion.  This guy will probably be stuck barely in poverty ($3,000 short) for the rest of his life, because any raise that would help him progress out of poverty will disqualify him for welfare and cause him and his family to starve and be thrown out on the street.  I guess the American Dream only exists for those who are already rich or the lucky few geniuses who can pull off a massively successful invention and manage to keep the rights long enough to get paid.

This gap between the legal definitions of "poverty" and "poverty level" is not the only gap that causes a major problem.  There is a similar gap between Federal Minimum Wage and the legal definition of "poverty level."  Current Federal Minimum Wage is $7.25 an hour.  Now, the legal work week is only 40 hours, according to Federal Labor Law.  There are only four professions which can legally be required to work more than this (other businesses can ask their employees to work more hours, but if the employees refuse, they cannot do anything that could be construed as punishment or retaliation).  There are also only 52 weeks in a year.  Doing the math, we find that Federal Minimum Wage enforces a yearly wage of only $15,080, for a full, legal work week.  This is only 75% of the Federal definition of "poverty level."  The Federal government itself is practically encouraging entry level businesses to keep their employees in poverty.  Worse, the actual poverty level is closer to $30,000 a year, which means that in reality, the government is allowing businesses to pay only half what a person needs to survive.  This is encouraging an 80 hour work week, with the additional overhead of working for more than one employer.  Further, most minimum wage jobs only schedule employees half time, to avoid paying benefits.  This means that the government is actually encouraging an 80 work week, split between four jobs.  Note that each job has extra overhead for taxes, administration of the businesses, and often extra travel time.  This is absurd.  How stupid do law makers have to be to miss this problem?

So, there are a few possible solutions.  The worst is to increase the legal work week to 80 hours and remove laws requiring benefits.  This would solve all of the problems for the businesses (besides extra hiring costs to replace dead employees).  This also happens to be 16 hours a day, 5 days a week.  The 40 hour Federal limit was placed to solve this problem, and it would be inhuman to change it back.  Also, if benefits are removed, the poverty level should be raised another $5,000.  The second solution is to fix the government definition of "poverty level."  This will allow more people to get on welfare, which will help to mitigate the problem.  Unfortunately, this will cost a lot of money, and if the government cannot get up the nerve to tax large businesses more, it will result in economic disaster.  Note that this solution should be used, but it will not fix the problem by itself.  The third solution is to raise minimum wage such that working full-time in any job will pay enough to stay out of poverty.  This will still not help people that cannot find jobs or that cannot find 40 hours of work each week, but it will take a huge number of people out of poverty.  The ideal solution would be both of the last two.  Fixing the definitions problem will make welfare work for everyone who needs it.  Fixing minimum wage will get a huge number of people off of welfare, which will balance the effect of fixing the definitions.  In this system, the guy above will already be out of poverty, if he is working full-time.  If he is not, he will be able to remain on welfare until he is entirely out of poverty.  This will allow him to accept the promotion without endangering himself and his family.

Now, there will certainly be some negative repercussions to this.  Businesses that base their profit margin on underpaying employees will probably fail (we will loose a lot of fast food places; is that really a bad thing?).  Initially unemployment will increase, which will increase the burden on welfare.  Ultimately though, this problem must be addressed.  If we do not start taking welfare money from the businesses that are causing it to be required, our government will eventually default on its debts, which will destroy its ability to borrow money.  This will force a massive lightening of government, which will probably result in a depression like the world has never seen before.  We might as well start now, where it will actually fix some major problems, instead of waiting until we are on the verge of government collapse.

Because I am black

Just to be clear, I am not black.  The phrase I reference in the title, "It's because I am black" is a phrase that should never be uttered by any black person trying to gain fair treatment.  This particular post was prompted by at least one incident mentioned by Oprah Winfrey.  Evidently on two occasions, when she was in Europe, she was refused service.  She claims that both of these incidents were examples of racism.  The first was in France, where she entered a store several minutes after it had closed, and the store clerk told her he could not serve her because the store was closed.  The second, in Switzerland, was in a store that sold handbags.  When she displayed interest in a 35,000 Franc (about $38,000US) handbag, the clerk suggested some less expensive options.  Oprah claims that both of these were cases of blatant racism.

The first case was clearly not racist.  No matter how racist the store clerk might have been, I find it extremely unlikely that he (or she...) would have acted any differently for a white person, or even a French white person (the French are notorious for being less than polite to foreigners).   The clerk might have been racist (there is no evidence of this), but his actions certainly were not.

The second case is not quite so clearly not racist, but if you consider the facts, there is a plethora of more reasonable explanations.  The first is that the clerk might do this for all customers.  It is possible that shoppers have left the store without looking back when they discovered the prices of the more expensive items.  Offering lower priced alternatives could be a good marketing strategy for retaining less wealthy customers.  While this is probably more likely than racism, it is still not that likely.  A more reasonable explanation is that Oprah was probably wearing a rather out of date style, and the clerk assumed that this meant she could not afford something more recent.  I can suddenly hear a lot of people becoming indignant, maybe saying, "Oprah would never wear something out of style."  Maybe that is true, but it is essential to consider how fashion evolves.  On average, Europe is about 20 years ahead of the U.S. in fashion (much like Japan is about 20 years behind the U.S.).  Oprah could have been wearing the latest U.S. fashion, and she still would have been 20 years behind in Europe.  If the clerk were not used to serving rich Americans, the she would probably have mistaken Oprah's clothing for thrift store clothing donated by some rich person making closet space.  Now, while I think shopping at thrift stores is wise, even for the rich, I could easily see the clerk take this as a sign of being less than very wealthy.  If she was getting a commission, I could easily see why she would suggest something cheaper to someone wearing apparently cheap clothing.  There are several other possible, non-racist, reasons that the clerk might have offered cheaper alternatives, but racism is about the least likely reason.  (Note that the shop owner claims that the event never happened.  It is possible that Oprah was just making up a story for the occasion.  Rich people seem to do that a lot.)

So, now for the point of this article: Crying racism makes black people (or people of any race) look bad.  Oprah is enforcing a stereotype that black people will cry racism whenever they think it will help them get their way.  Sadly, this bad habit of prominent black people has made it cliché to "play the race card" even when legitimate racism is taking place.  What they don't seem to understand is, this encourages racism.  Many employers are afraid to hire black people, because they fear law suits over racism where none exists.  It sometimes seems to be a lower liability to choose not to hire black people than it is to hire qualified black people at the risk of unfounded racism law suits.  Further, it is rather hypocritical to constantly cry racism when you are trying to get equal rights with everyone else.  Maybe these people think that if they constantly point out their race, everyone will magically forget about race.  A strategy that has seemed to work far more consistently is to forget about race entirely and act like you belong.  I have worked with people of different races before, and the most respected are the ones who act insulted at the insult when people are rude, instead of pretending like every little comment is racist.  These people respect others and first assume that rudeness is unintentional, and when that is not possible, they assume the rudeness is directed at them and not their race.  One benefit of this is that even when someone is being racist, it takes race out of the equation.  This makes rudeness more personal, which is not what racist people typically want.  When people are racist, they are directing their rudeness at a group instead of an individual.  This feels less wrong than directing rudeness at an individual.  When the target of the rudeness ignores any racial element, it makes the rudeness personal, which makes racist people uncomfortable.  In other words, acknowledging racist behavior, whether intentional or not, actually encourages racism, while refusing to acknowledge the racial element discourages it.  (Note that this is true of modern society, but it was not in early America.  This is because targeting rudeness at specific racial groups was more socially acceptable then.  When a large number of people support racist behavior, racist people are less likely to feel guilt when the insult is made more personal.  Now, racist behavior is not as socially acceptable, so turning an insult personal is a far more effective way of discouraging racism.)

This is just one way that many American blacks separate themselves from everyone else (not just whites).  Another one (which I hope Oprah is intelligent enough not to be involved with) is gangs.  Black ghetto kids are taught young that blacks are oppressed.  They are taught that they will never be treated as well as whites.  They learn that they can have "families" that will help them, by joining a gang.  They are essentially making their own culture, and they are rejecting American culture.  The problem is first, they are wrong.  Plenty of black people have gotten out of poverty and even slavery.  Some of the most famous black Americans in history started out as slaves (look up George Washington Carver, who invented peanut-butter and was involved in setting up one of the first learning institutions for black people in the U.S.).  Gangs generate crime, and this crime makes black people look bad.  Yes, it is a stereotype, and stereotypes are not always accurate.  If you think you can convince the majority of people to discard stereotypes though, you are delusional.  The single most effective way to destroy racism is to become a functioning part of society, and to prove the stereotypes wrong (actually, this is more of changing the stereotypes).  For ghetto black kids, this means staying out of crime, graduating from high school, and finding a way to go to college (even if it means scholarships and loans; just make sure to pick a profession that will pay off the loans quickly; consider engineering, we need more engineers anyhow).  For Oprah and other prominent black people this means stop pointing out race every time you feel insulted.  If someone insults you, take it personally, do not blame your race (or better yet, blow the insult off; if blacks were stereotyped as extremely difficult to offend, employers would feel more comfortable hiring black people than white people).  If you want to be treated like everyone else, quit pointing out all of the differences.  There are times when discussions about race are appropriate.  When you have just been insulted in a totally non-racial way is not one of those times.

One other thing: The employees at the stores Oprah mentioned have more right to be insulted than she does.  Racism is a serious thing.  Accusing people of racism without substantial evidence is extremely rude.  Imagine if you refused to do something for someone and they accused you of being a pedophile, a porn addict, or a drug addict.  Racism is somewhere among those in seriousness.  Oprah very seriously insulted these two people, and she is lucky she did not cause an international incident.  Famous people have a responsibility to represent their home country in a good light.  Oprah's rather heinous behavior has reinforced another stereotype, that Americans are rude, unfeeling, egotistical jerks.  Thanks Oprah for making both black people and Americans look bad, all in one shot.

Proud to Work 80 Hours a Week

If you just bragged on Facebook or Twitter that you or your spouse works 80 hours a week just to get by, this is for you.  If you are not that person, read on anyway, and enjoy the show.

Jane McGonigial, a rather well known woman who works in the video game industry and who has started doing research on the effects of games on humans, has given a number of TED talk which I highly recommend watching.  In one of these videos, she describes some research she was involved with.  In this research, a number of nursing home residents were asked what their biggest regrets were.  The two most common answers were, spending too much time working and spending too little time with family.  Someone (who I have been unable to identify) once said something to the effect of, "Any fool can learn from his own mistakes; it takes a wise man to learn from the mistakes of others."  If you are working 80 hours a week, you should be asking yourself, are you going to be the fool who learns from his own mistakes only after it is too late, or are you going to be the wise man (or woman) who learns from the mistakes of a majority of old people who wish they had spent their lives better?

I also want to point something else out: Even black slaves in the South, before the Civil War, did not typically work 80 hours a week.  Slaves were expensive, and owners were fully aware that frequent 16 hour work days would cause injury, making the slaves unable to do their work.  Now days, this is not a problem.  Most employers do not pay any up front costs, so working people to death is quite profitable, so long as there is a line of replacements waiting outside.  If you are working 80 hours a week just to get by, your employer considers you expendable.  Does a wise person continue to work a job where the goal is extract as much work as possible before throwing an employee aside and bringing in a fresh one?  Further, slaves in the South did not have to worry about where their food was going to come from, or how they were going to make rent next month.  It sounds like your employer is great.  You are working more than a slave, you get less compensation than a slave, and you do not even get to have the peace of job security.   Your life sounds awesome.

So what about the people that are working 80 hours a week, but could get by on less?  Can I ask, what is the point?  I suppose if you like your job a whole lot, maybe you could justify neglecting family and other relationships to spend all of your time working.  And maybe you do not really care about having time to put all of your hard earned money to good use.  Oh, and maybe you just do not care about your health either.  Actually, you are beginning to sound like someone with severe depression.  You should probably get some help for that.  In fact, people who spend all of their time working, even if they like their jobs, are at much higher risk for depression than others.  Not only does this cause major relationship problems, depression causes reduced productivity.  In other words, if you are working 80 hours a week, good luck continuing to be productive enough to keep your job.

There was a time, long ago, when working for someone else was humiliating.  The single exception was apprenticeships, where someone was paying for you to work for someone else, in exchange for that person to teach you their craft, so you would never have to work for someone else again.  Some jobs were not that bad, for instance, being a banker.  Obviously not every banker could afford to open his own bank.  The President of the United States (or any other elected government position) is another example.  On the whole however, most hired jobs were menial labor or mindless brain work that only the desperate were willing to do.  Many people bought land and started their own farms, to avoid the humiliation of working for someone else.  These people often worked 60 to 80 hours a week, and those with large families sometimes worked more.  They worked for themselves though, and they took pride in the fact that no one was their master.  During hard times, these people sometimes had to humble themselves and accept welfare from others, but while they preferred not to, they considered it better than working for someone else.  During better times, these people often paid it back by giving to others who were in need.  They only ever worked for someone else when there was no other option.  Working for someone else was rock bottom.

Now, however, I hear reports of people bragging on Facebook that they spend 80 hours a week working for someone else and barely even get compensated sufficiently to survive!  How low has our society sunk that the slave looks down on the freeman?  How bad has it gotten that social pressure encourages people to voluntarily become slaves, and people do it?  Gone are the days when slaves must be guarded day and night to prevent their escape.  Now, slaves will stay in bondage even when there is no legal ownership demanding that they stay.  Is this really the American Dream?

It gets worse.  The U.S. government has setup programs that make the situation even worse.  I would like to believe that this is not intentional, but that might be naive.  Our current welfare systems help encourage slavery very effectively.  Contrary to popular belief, a majority of people on welfare work.  In fact, things like the Earned Income Credit require work to get paid, and most welfare in the U.S. penalizes people who are either not working or who are not looking for work (which is far more work than actually working).  So, the government tells us that we can only have sufficient welfare if we are already slaves or if we are trying to become slaves.  Worse, if we try to escape slavery by finding a job where fewer hours are required for greater pay, our welfare gets cut off, reducing our net income to below what is sufficient for survival.  Slavery may not be explicitly legally enforced, but even the government has designed welfare programs to prevent the escape from slavery.  It gets even better than this though.  All of that money for the welfare system comes mostly from the middle class.  The primary benefit of welfare goes to businesses that do not pay enough for their employees to get by.  You might try to claim that welfare is benefiting the employees and not the businesses.  You would be wrong.  If those employees did not get welfare, what would happen?  Many of these people already work multiple jobs, or spend their free time looking for a better job.  They do not have time to do even more work.  Without welfare, they have three options: keep working for too little to get by and starve to death, quit their jobs and start looking for better work full time (and probably starve to death anyway), or quit their jobs, enjoy life and wait for the end to come (and definitely starve to death).  I suppose they could try to get help from family, but the extra strain on their family members is likely to make the poverty spread.  Ultimately what happens to the businesses is, they loose all of their employees to starvation, suicide, or just quitting, and the businesses fail.  Alternatively, the businesses could raise wages to make up the difference.  Now, notice that the business ultimately takes the brunt of the blow if welfare quits.  The business fails, even if the ex-employees find a better job, unless the business starts paying higher wages.  That welfare money is not helping the slaves so much as it is reducing the costs of the businesses.  If businesses fail and demand for their services still exists, they will be replaced by new businesses that will pay sufficient wages, if welfare is removed.  Otherwise those new businesses will fail almost immediately.  Our current welfare system robs the middle class to make life easier for the slave masters, under the guise of robbing the rich to pay the poor.

Now, do not get me wrong here.  I am certainly not suggesting that it would be wise to eliminate government welfare to fix this problem.  Notice above that the ultimate consequence for most welfare recipients is starvation and death.  This is bad, both morally and economically.  I have also discussed the inevitability of welfare as the primary form of income for a majority of the population, as the consequence of rapidly developing technology.  Welfare is necessary for the survival of our society, and it is necessary for the support of our ever growing lower class.  It needs to be fixed to be more friendly to escaping slavery, not eliminated.

Most Americans seem to have everything working against them.  Slave masters have convinced us that slavery is more noble than freedom.  This has been so effective that now the slaves brag on Facebook about their horrible work conditions and try to tell free men that they are stupid for recognizing it for what it is.  Over the last century, mankind has managed to produce a huge amount of labor saving technology.  We also managed to get the legal work week down to 40 hours.  This was a long drawn out process that was finally codified into Federal law in 1937.  Is has been like this for 76 years, during which time numerous devices have been invented and adopted which dramatically reduce labor.  In fact, the computer has replaced inordinate numbers of people, just in the field of mathematical calculations.  The need for labor is far lower than it has been ever in the known history of the world.  It has been argued, and I agree, that a 20 hour work week should pay enough to support a small family.  Given production costs for various goods and their retail prices, large business can easily afford to pay sufficient wages for this, if they quit paying their CEOs and upper managers hundreds or thousands of times what they currently pay their other employees.  Instead we have laws and social expectations that keep what is approaching a majority of Americans in poverty.

If you want to complain that you are working 80 hours a week, or even that you and your spouse are working 80 hours a week put together, just to get by, you are telling me that you are stealing needed work from three other families.  And one of those families is the person that you just accused of freeloading.  Those three families that cannot find decent jobs and are forced to live on crummy government welfare because you are stealing their opportunity to work have far more reason to be angry with you than you have to be with them.  At this point, government welfare is designed to make up the difference between what your employer pays and what wages would be fair.  By taking four times the work you should just to avoid taking what you consider an unfair handout, you are robbing others of the opportunity to earn money by working and the opportunity to get enough welfare money to make up the difference.  That is certainly nothing to brag about.  Shame on you!

Video Games Rant

Last week in church, our lesson was on prioritizing time.  Actually, the official subject was avoiding being worldly, without excluding yourself from the world.  The two subjects that got the most attention were money and time, and time got the most, because money is always discussed, so it is nothing new.  Anyhow, at one point the teacher proudly told how he had prioritized his time better, by playing less video games and doing more physical activities like running.  I kept my mouth shut, because the subject of the lesson was not whether video games or physical activity is more valuable, but now it is time for me to rant on this subject.

I regularly hear people say things that devalue video games and exalt physical activity.  The common "wisdom" of modern society tells us the video games are time wasters that have no value beyond entertainment.  Combined with this, the fact that the occasional person gets addicted to video games, common wisdom says that video games are entirely bad.  In addition, common wisdom tells us that violent video games make kids violent.  Given these things, it must be obvious that violent video games are especially bad.  There is one problem with the common wisdom though: So far, all scientific evidence contradicts these claims.  It actually turns out that some of the minor benefits of video games were fairly well know over 20 years ago.  In fact, in a public speech on Aug. 8, 1983, Ronald Regan said, "I recently learned something quite interesting about video games. Many young people have developed incredible hand, eye, and brain coordination in playing these games. The air force believes these kids will be our outstanding pilots should they fly our jets."  It turns out that the long mocked benefit of increased coordination from playing video games is actually a very valuable asset in the military, among other professions (for instance, surgeons also need very good coordination).  Now, I call this only a minor benefit, because real science has found a large number of other benefits that go far beyond the limited applications of highly developed coordination.

First, I recommend watching all of the TED videos by Jane McGonigal (here is one).  In one of her videos, she talks about a study where people in rest homes were asked about their regrets and what they wished they had done.  The first notable thing is that none of the regrets included playing games too much (video or otherwise).  The things they wished they had done included things like spending time with family, working less, and other activities that games can help facilitate.  Another one of her videos discusses how adding game-like elements to real life can help improve motivation and even health.  She strongly recommends playing games (video games or other games) cooperatively with other people at least 20 hours a week.  In the video linked to above, she says that typically 10,000 hours of doing some activity is considered sufficient to become an expert in that activity.  She then points out that there are millions of people in the U.S. that have spent enough time playing various video games to be experts.  She asks, what are they experts in?  The answer is critical thinking and problem solving.  McGonigal says that if we can harness the problem solving power of all of these experts, we might be able to fix most or all of the world's problems.

Second, brain scientist Daphne Bavelier discusses actual scientific research in this TED video.  Science manages to debunk a large number of myths about playing video games.  One notable one is that playing a lot of video games damages eyesight.  The research Bavelier is involved with has shown that action games actually improve eyesight, as well as perception.  Gamers are more likely to notice small details than others.  She also discusses the claim that playing games leads to ADD or ADHD.  Again, this is false.  Gamers tend to be better at fast decision making where high focus is required.  They also tend to be better at keeping track of many things at the same time.  These are both things that people with ADD or ADHD have difficulty with.  Quantitative measures from Bavelier's research actually show that gamers are about twice as good at focusing compared to other people.  She also discusses several other lab tests they did, all of which found that gamers have greater brain development than people who do not play games.  After playing the games for several hours or several days, the above mentioned benefits were seen even in people who do not normally play games (and lasted up to 5 months).

Third, many studies have found that violent video games do not make children violent.  In fact, some studies have found that violent video games can work as an outlet for aggression, making aggressive children less aggressive towards other people.  The only case where video games and violence had a positive link were in people already predisposed to violence.  Otherwise stated, people who might be affected by video games to become more violent are people who already have psychological problems tending towards violent behavior.  These cases can be diagnosed before playing violent video games, and there are almost always warning signs long before any disastrous behavior occurs.  In other words, violent video games do not make anyone violent.  There is a very small amount of evidence that they may trigger violent behavior in people with diagnosable mental problems, earlier than would otherwise occur, but they will not cause violent behavior that would not have eventually happened anyway without video games.

There is far more evidence than this that games are good and healthy, and the only evidence that exists that they are bad only shows that they are bad when played obsessively.  Real research shows that common wisdom claiming video games are bad is not just wrong, but it claims the opposite of the truth.  Video games are actually very healthy for the brain.

I am not done ranting yet.  There are some interesting implications of the above that I want to discuss.  The first thing about the Sunday discussion that bothered me was the assumption that physical activity is superior to playing video games.  Now, I am not saying that physical fitness is not important.  It certainly is, but if a person is already reasonably fit, and that person has to choose between games and exercise, which is the better choice?  The answer to this depends.  In a society where people have to do a lot of physical labor to survive, further increasing physical prowess is extremely valuable, and physical activity would be the clear winner.  We do not live in that society though.  We live in a society where physical labor is done primarily by the lower class and is compensated fairly poorly.  In our society, the high paying jobs are engineering jobs, which require highly developed problem solving skills.  The ability to perceive small details is a huge asset in higher paying jobs.  Even many higher business jobs require good problem solving skills.  Further, getting those physical labor jobs is pretty difficult when the economy has trouble, because almost anyone can learn to do that work.  During the recent recession, when construction jobs and nearly every other physical labor employment dropped considerably, jobs in problem solving (most especially engineering jobs including electrical engineering and computer science) were constantly available.  For these problem solving industries it was business as usual: There was high demand for employees with a low supply.  In short, so long as a person has enough physical activity to avoid health problems, the video games are more valuable in the long run.  Going to the gym or hiking with friends is great, but it seems like a poor decision to sacrifice good brain exercise for physical activity that is little more than entertainment.

So, would I be proud of myself for spending less time playing video games and spending more doing physical activity?  Certainly not.  I currently spend around an hour a day walking to and from classes, every weekday.  About 3 of those days, I run part of the way, to get my heart rate up and to maintain good lung function.  I consider this physical activity an important part of my routine, because it is necessary to maintain good health.  I am not an athlete, but this is sufficient exercise to maintain quite good health.  My weekly total of time spent playing video games is probably several more hours than my weekly total of real exercise.  As a Computer Science major, my problem solving skills are more important than physical activity, so long as I remain healthy.  Since my exercise routine is sufficient for health, it would be rather irresponsible of me to spend less time playing video games so that I can spend more on physical activity.  Spending less time on video games could easily result in a reduction of problem solving skills, which could make my work less valuable to an employer.  I have a responsibility to provide for my family, and an important part of that is maintaining a high value to my employer, so my employment will be continued.  The consequences of playing video games less, no matter how noble the alternative seems, could easily result in letting my family down.

I have said this before (somewhere; I forget exactly where): Playing video games is like working out for the brain.  In physical workout, great strength can be gained, but it has no value if it is never used.  Similarly, through video games, great mental strength can be gained, but likewise it has no value if it is never used.  From this we should get two things: First, sitting in a basement playing video games constantly is truly a waste of time if the benefits are not used.  Second, playing video games is like working out!  Yes, that is exactly what I said.  If you are a parent and you are worried about how much time your children spend playing video games, ask yourself how you would react if your children were spending that time working out at the gym instead.  If your reaction to the gym is less negative, something is wrong.  Are you hoping your child will become a garbage collector or a cheap construction worker (there are some highly skilled construction jobs that require less physical work and more mental work), or do you want your child to be well suited to be an engineer, a surgeon, or a lawyer (or a CEO or...)?  Similarly, if you have a spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend who plays a lot of video games, consider the gym thing again.  It is possible to spend too much time at the gym, and if someone in your life is spending that much time playing video games, then it is perfectly reasonable to be concerned.  Otherwise is it completely hypocritical.

Now I am sure someone out there is wondering, "If video games are so beneficial, how did ancient humans get by without them?"  That is not an entirely unreasonable question, and it conveniently has a very simple answer: They lived them!  Ok, so that sounds both melodramatic and slightly absurd, but it is also true.  The most beneficial video games are those that require remembering where things are (mapping), noticing small details (perception), and making important decisions very quickly (decision making and problem solving).  Before we had all of this technology and knowledge, people had to hunt for food, they had to avoid or fight neighboring tribes, and they had to avoid predators.  Getting lost (mapping) was very often deadly.  If a person did not notice the stalking predator or warrior from a nearby tribe (perception) it would also result in a quick death.  If a person reacted poorly to a situation with a scout from a nearby tribe (attacked a friendly or tried to talk to a hostile; this is decision making), it could result in quick death or unnecessary war.  All of these things were literally developed as a consequence of the difficult conditions of real life.  People that live in a society without these difficult conditions do not get these opportunities to develop problem solving skills that are far more important than we give credit for.  Really, the only other reasonable (and cheap) place to get this training is video games that simulate similar conditions to those that ancient humans lived their entire lives in.  Many modern video games manage this very effectively.  The benefit with video games is that they do not require the grueling physical exertion (which can lead to poor choices as the body uses resources needed by the brain) and do not have the constant threat of death.  In other words, in games we can make mistakes and learn from consequences, without having to experience them first hand.

The moral of this is that video games are good for us, if we take advantage of the benefits they give us.  Even those who are traditionally against entertainment and for "going back to the land" should see the value in video games, as they train the human brain for problem solving in the way it was designed to learn.  Video games are more or less the most natural form of learning, aside from living under the constant threat of death.  I suspect part of the reason so many people are drawn to video games is that they use the brain in the most effective way possible.  Learning to play a new video game is easy, but learning a new school subject of equal complexity is often quite hard.  Games provide constant motivation to play.  In school, the only real motivation is a light at the end of a very long tunnel.  Games reward us for learning as much as we can.  School rewards us for doing as little as possible that will get us through it.  We can see this clearly by the fact that "piston" sometimes returns a Minecraft reference as the first result in a Google search (most of the time it is second to Wikipedia).  Many other searches return World of Warcraft results before real world knowledge.  Well designed video games can take advantage of this to teach useful real world applications of knowledge, but even games designed purely for entertainment can teach problem solving skills that cannot effectively be learned anywhere else.

Like Jane McGonigal, I recommend playing 20 hours of games a week (see her videos for the exact context).  Further, I recommend that at least 5 hours of this be video games where keeping track of location, noticing small details, and making quick decisions are integral parts of the game play (these do not all have to come from the same game, but I think it would be more efficient use of time if they did).  The most obvious genre for this is first person shooters (FPS, which I do not happen to enjoy much), but most real-time strategy games (RTS), role-playing games (RPG), and many games from other genres can satisfy these requirements (even Tetris is good for decision making).  Currently I have been playing a lot of Minecraft, which has small amounts of quick decision making, a huge amount of mapping, some small details, and an extremely strong focus on general problem solving (and if you do not like killing the occasional zombie or spider, you can set it for "Peaceful" mode, at the expense of quick decision making).

It is not hard to see major benefits from playing video games, unless you think that somehow a few more hours of physical activity is more valuable than useful work skills that are essential to comfortable survival in the modern world.  If you really want something to be proud of, quit wasting so much time on physical activity and spend a few more hours a week playing video games (or better, turn of the TV and spend the extra free time on video games; they are at least as entertaining and far more beneficial).

Lord Rybec