Experts once predicted that Americans would face excess leisure time (2015)

"As we all know" aside - what's wrong with slacking off? Does painting, writing poetry, playing sports with kids, learning an instrument count as slacking off? Why does spending 8 hours a day at a job where you perform some rote, pointless, abstract task - like sending emails and having meetings about advertising - count as _not_ slacking off?

Obesity, suicide and depression have not been rising under conditions of an excess of leisure, they have been rising under a regimen of constant, precarious toil for less return, more alienated from the benefit of the work itself.

Human beings thrive when the boot of your smug ideology is taken off of their throats.

Most people don't enjoy their job, or jobs.

Most people don't like commuting rediculious distances just to make rent, and eat.

Most people realalized during Covid they might have been happier.

The virtual/physical infrastructure wouldn't have been built with work from home. This is our first experiment with working from home, and it went pretty well. Many jobs, with the help of technology, could be done at home.

We still don't know why so many lousy jobs are going unfilled. My take is adult kids moved home--a home they will never afford, and lived with their parents, and it was better than paying 80% of your paycheck for a lousy apartment.

I've always felt the world has two types of people. Those that built their lives around work. They come home, and even like to talk about it. You take their job away, and yes, they loose their identity.

Then there's the slacker, like myself. Work is unpleasant, unfulfilling, mind numbing, thing I just have to do. I don't enjoy really any of it be it the early show up times, or my superiors, and especially the long commute. I could care less about the company. I would be robbing the joint blind if the penalties weren't so severe.

I do know this, but most people don't have a say in the matter:

I have known way to many males wait to long to retire, and because all their personality was geared towards working don't last long. And we men just die so dam early to begin with.

I once got a peak at some union delagates debating retirement ages. It was Local 6 electrical. Guys could retire at 55, or 65. At 65 they got more money. You stll had to put 25 years in both plans. The union liked the 65 year old plan. Why? Because the retirees would only collect a handful of retirement checks before dying. They told retirees they would cover 100% of health care costs at 65 knowing these guys wern't going to see 65. Local 6 union is one of the better unions in the USA too.

This is definitely a factor. It isn't just work: Maybe you 'only' work 40 hours a week. So does your spouse, though, and the children still need things as well. Housework still needs done, and someone has to produce food daily. It doesn't leave much time at all.

The other factor is money: If you have little to no money leftover to do anything, you aren't going to do it. Netflix and youtube are fairly low cost entertainment and can get you through a month, not to mention that they provide some sort of entertainment while you are doing other things much like radios used to. Housework is better when you are entertained.