Maybe you should do less 'work'

> old job wouldn't let me cut back hours, even at reduced pay, even framing it as "leave without pay",

I was curious what your role was, at what the incentives might have been for your old job to refuse this.

In your about page I see:

> Previously a programmer in the DoD world

speculation: were you working for a contractor that needed to bill your time out by the hour to the government? So if you weren't working maximum billable hours, they weren't making maximum profit margin on your hours, compared to someone else who would?

>You said that as a means of supporting your larger point which is that capitalism is flawed. I am arguing that unfairness (as I defined it) is the whole essence of capitalism, which is very different from saying it's an unwanted byproduct of it. We want unfairness.

Thank you for the clarification. No we don't want unfairness. Wealth inequality is universally a very bad thing. Nobody wants this, you'd have to be insane to want it. That is unless you're the one doing the fucking.

Let me make one thing absolutely clear. I never said I prefer another system. I just said the current system is flawed. Please don't tell me to move to another country.

Also you obviously don't understand capitalism. Adam Smith originally conceived of the invisible hand that would influence market forces to distribute wealth fairly. This was the intent, the outcome is clearly not the case. Wealth is distributed unfairly with people who contribute the most to GDP not getting the most wealth.

The people who get the most wealth are owners of capital, not the people who generate or increase capital. The idea of capitalism started with the idea that wealth was fairly distributed. Modern economics now is fully aware that this is not the case and that there are huge flaws within capitalism even though there is currently no known superior system.

>It's equally possible for employees to fuck over employers, we just tend not to do it (for good reasons).

So? The problem here is every employee under a capitalist system is getting fucked over. So if I'm getting fucked over then of course I owe the employer nothing beyond stated business obligations.

Leverage, as a principle, is so important. I always try to keep the 80/20 rule in mind. But perhaps most simply put, if you're working harder and harder and not seeing results, then you're probably focusing on the wrong things. There's a natural up-and-down to projects where you'll feel like things are going great, then terrible, then ok... But then there's times where it doesn't matter how much effort you put in, that boulder just isn't gonna budge. It's vital to step back and figure out whether your efforts should be refocused. Otherwise, it's a recipe for burnout.

i've always believed: avoid doing work on computers, use computers to do work instead.

my father's generation called this: work smarter, not harder.

wise computer people call this: be lazy.

industrialization of software work runs counter to this, it's your real job to defeat it.

> Wealth inequality is universally a very bad thing.

This is a moral absolutist take. We clearly don't agree on "bad" vs. "good" because some of the best (from my perspective) things were/are done in capitalist countries, such as the creation of NASA, rollercoasters, the Internet, innovative surgeries, and life-saving medical treatments for chronic conditions.

> Wealth is distributed unfairly with people who contribute the most to GDP not getting the most wealth.

Measuring contributions is not a trivial task, even philosophically. How much does my CEO contribute versus the work of us workers? That isn't something that can be measured, so any conception of the answer to that is going to be a matter of opinion. So I'm going to say "[citation needed]" on that one, and arguably there's a "[philosophical justification needed]" as well.

> every employee under a capitalist system is getting fucked over

First, that definitely is not true, especially if you believe that a portion of people in the system are overpaid. But secondly, if you are getting "fucked over," you should leave and join a different company that does not fuck you over. If enough people do this, either the economy will grind to a halt (forcing companies to raise wages) or the wages will be raised without grinding the economy to a halt. There is absolutely nothing in capitalism that prohibits this. In fact, the prospect of higher wages means it is encouraged.

> The people who get the most wealth are owners of capital, not the people who generate or increase capital.

You are again stating this as though it's supposed to be taken as a given that it's bad. Acquiring capital and growing capital are two totally different roles and it's impossible to compare their true value to society. We need both, and it's not clear that acquiring capital (providing it) is less valuable.