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Work/life balance should be difficult

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Re: Work/life balance should be difficult

#161

Post by nradov »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #142
nradov wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism can only be "bad" in relation to some other specific alternative. What are you proposing exactly?

It can just be bad. Requiring a superior alternative us another kind of trick. Identifying problems and providing solutions are two different things. Combining the two is a clever way to set an artificial bar on what can be discussed.

There's no such thing as just bad. Bad is a relative term. I can run better than the average person, but I'm a bad runner compared to Eliud Kipchoge.

Re: Work/life balance should be difficult

#162

Post by Bancakes »

kube-system wrote: post #119
Bancakes wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology has allowed the rise of "made-up", survivally unnecessary jobs like Metaverse programmer, pop singer, and marketing specialists. If anything, the pandemic proved we don't need restaurants and tourism to survive.

Art, entertainment, and communication are not new human creations. These jobs are the result of psychological needs that humans have. Maslow's Hierarchy is more than a cave, nuts, and berries. Furthermore, not everyone can survive without specialization of labor. Prior to specialization of labor, it was much more common for people to die young, and the world's population reflected this.

Specialisation of what labor? We've always had hunters and gatherers, and still do. We've always been specialised.

What I'm saying is Maslow's scale is tipped upside down with an overabundance of leisure and scarcity of high quality basic fulfillment. There's so much entertainment, that we can afford for a few markets to crash and disappear, hence why I called them "made-up".

Re: Work/life balance should be difficult

#163

Post by ngc248 »

taylodl wrote: post #28
lordnacho wrote: post #11

The problem is basically sow/harvest. If you're in the situation most people are in, you need to eat today, and you need to eat tomorrow. Quite a lot is done to force kids to invest early on in their lives: go to school, don't get pregnant, don't waste your future. However at some point you have to get something out of life that isn't just potential. You can't eternally be building up to something that you'll enjoy l…

Life is what happens when you're making other plans. People are always spending today planning for tomorrow. Tomorrow then becomes today and the process repeats. People often forget you live your life today.

“And the future never comes. What comes is always here now.” -Osho

Re: Work/life balance should be difficult

#164

Post by ngc248 »

shard wrote: post #92
willcipriano wrote: post #34

> My father rushed over from his job at Philco (you can still see the building on 101 in Palo Alto). He took a couple of days to make the necessary arrangements, passed me off to my grandmother’s care, then went back to work. He had a deadline. This story is a good reminder to me to continue to live within my means. In this situation, fuck deadlines! I'm taking my son to a ball game and helping him grieve the loss of…

I think there is a bit of a lack of empathy in your response. First, not everyone has learned how to express affection, especially some of the previous generations. The author even wrote that the father wanted to be involved in his child's life, but did not have practice or models for being the kind of father the author wanted. It does not indicate cowardice. It could be very difficult to switch one's frame of view t…

>>> First, not everyone has learned how to express affection, especially some of the previous generations.

Lotsa things like personalities/emotional makeup can't be learned. Different people have different personalities. Sometimes you just need to live with what you have.

Re: Work/life balance should be difficult

#165

Post by yeahh8hjd »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #24

> We need work. Not sure I follow. It's amazing how these little bits of social knowledge ferment the flavor of the story. It's a lot like learning to taste beer or wine. Once you take the time to sit down and learn to pay attention to your senses, you can identify things like acetaldehyde, diacetyl, and mercaptans. It's fun teaching people how to sense things they weren't aware of before. The author seems to have do…

I think some specificity is needed.

To me when you write “we need work” is a social fact, I read “we need jobs/full employment.”

Work to me is a term that applies to any system doing a task; input->(processing)->output.

So like you’re saying, it’s “work” in a “biological sense” to learn wine.

Inherently we need to “work” but our social idea of work is arbitrary, a lot is busy work.

Police violence, don’t let government have weapons of mass destruction to police global violence, wind down superfluous industrialism, deflate chads whose dads own dealerships and be humans.

Re: Work/life balance should be difficult

#167

Post by arvinsim »

musicale wrote: post #144
alistairSH wrote: post #30

I'm not sure how "Dad sold his soul to work, regretted it forever, but couldn't change his ways" leads to the conclusion that "work/life balance should be difficult." It's not really that hard, especially in STEM, where we tend to make more than enough money to meet basic needs. So, maximize your enjoyment, or your family's enjoyment. The equation is a bit different for everybody, but there's absolutely zero reason t…

> It's not really that hard, especially in STEM Most tech companies I'm familiar with (and probably companies in other fields as well) seem to think they own you, body and soul, and take issue with any indications otherwise.

It's because they are not penalized by that mindset. Employeees don't push back. Heck, some people will gladly sell their time for "passion" or "ambition".

It's always about incentives.

Re: Work/life balance should be difficult

#168

Post by romwell »

edanm wrote: post #154
romwell wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He's saying that it should be a constant struggle to balance off things that you care about, because that shows you care Yay, survival should be a struggle, because it shows you care (about increasing the ROI for the shareholders you'll never see)! "We need work" is justified by "we need shelter and food". The only thing a constant struggle shows is that you don't have the freedom to choose how you spend your life.…

> The only way to avoid struggle is to be rich - and that's because the rich had set it up that way. Ummm, no? Not really? You think "the rich" could just magically end the need for work if they chose? We live in an age of abundance relative to the past, but not to the point where we don't have to struggle for our existence, at least somewhat. (Though to be clear, I am personally incredibly well placed in this societ…

>Ummm, no? Not really? You think "the rich" could just magically end the need for work if they chose?

Yes[1]. And it's not that I think so, it's that the likes of Bertrand Russel have observed it to be the case[2] back in the 50s.

If you think it's impossible to ensure that every citizen has access to food, shelter, education, transportation, and healthcare regardless of their employment status, you seriously underestimate how everything we do is struggling to fight over crumbles.

Of course it's possible. Most people will choose to work, still. Right now, it's not a choice.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income

[2]https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/

Re: Work/life balance should be difficult

#169

Post by romwell »

DarylZero wrote: post #156
edanm wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only way to avoid struggle is to be rich - and that's because the rich had set it up that way. Ummm, no? Not really? You think "the rich" could just magically end the need for work if they chose? We live in an age of abundance relative to the past, but not to the point where we don't have to struggle for our existence, at least somewhat. (Though to be clear, I am personally incredibly well placed in this societ…

We don't struggle "for existence" because high tech manufacturing has made production highly reliable and regular and abundant. We struggle for _inclusion_ in the institutions that allow is to consume from this fountain of wealth. Production is reliable, but inclusion is always precarious.

And who would that royal "we" be?

The "we" that doesn't have to pay rent?

The "we" for whom food is free?

The "we" whose student loans were paid off by someone?

The "we" that doesn't know that being homeless is, essentially, illegal?

The "we" that doesn't realize that there is no alternative to inclusion in the system of institutions?

Seriously, what do you think "exclusion" here is. The only way out is 6 feet under, otherwise you are still a part of the system, and the "struggle" is an inherent part of it.

This is where the socialists and libertarians agree, by the way. Except the Libertarians imagine there's a way to be sort of outside the system (while, somehow, still getting the benefits), and the Socialists aim to improve the system instead. Regardless, either would agree that the struggle of existing within the system is an artificial, and purposeful effect of the way the system was structured.

Re: Work/life balance should be difficult

#170

Post by amw-zero »

DarylZero wrote: post #157
amw-zero wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work is generally a proxy for survival. Do you agree that you need to eat in order to survive?

Work is not a proxy for survival. Sometimes have to take time off work to keep your baby alive. Taking care of the survival of your family isn't work. Changing diapers isn't work. Work is a social relation.

Work is much more than that - it enables you to feed your family. If there wasn’t a service economy and you had to grow or gather your own food, sometimes you would have to choose between changing a diaper and going to find more food.

That’s just what it takes to live, we forget that because of how far removed we are from actual survival. But take away modern society, and the world is much harsher and much less fulfilling.

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