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

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

#41

Post by fnordpiglet »

eric4smith wrote: post #19

Quoted post unavailable.

Large companies were moving to hotel seating and 150% occupancy buildings encouraging folks to work from home a few days a week before the pandemic. The pandemic proved efficiency doesn’t decline with work from home. In a few years once the emotions have cleared accounting will point out to the board how expensive the way the world was built. Why pay for a chair in a rented building and provide air conditioning and janitorial services? Employees already have a home and they clean their own home and pay for their own air conditioner. The boards will agree. “The way things used to be” and “building culture” and whatever other bs people use to justify will matter not at all when profit margins can be juiced a percent.

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

#43

Post by mjburgess »

another_story wrote: post #36
chmod600 wrote: post #17

Freedom is an important part of the American identity (arguably the defining part, at least aspirationally), and I believe in freedom. But we should recognize that humans are sometimes happier having some clear directions to follow and tasks to perform. Depends on the person and the situation, of course. But it's also human nature that everyone wants to be the one giving the directions, even if it makes them unhappy.

I don't think it's possible to say anything definitive like this about human nature. Are people happier taking orders, or is it easier due to conditioning? Is that happiness?

> I don't think it's possible to say anything definitive like this about human nature

Is itself a theory of human nature, and I think, probably amongst the implausible.

We're a species of greater ape, a vast amount can be said straightforwardly.

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

#44

Post by DeathArrow »

>Indeed, in 2006, the top twenty per cent of earners were twice as likely to work more than fifty hours a week than the bottom twenty per cent, a reversal of historic conditions.

>Just why this has happened is both a mystery and a paradox.

No paradox. One way to make more money is to work more.

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

#45

Post by zeroc8 »

Mizza wrote: post #31
eric4smith wrote: post #19

Quoted post unavailable.

This comment is absolutely drenched in ideology, the kind of Protestantism that will grind the whole planet into dust if we let it. Sheer, absolute drivel. "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 se…

As a European, that was something that I just couldn't get my head around when living in the States. People always needed to be "busy", and if it was just mowing the damn lawn again for no real reason. Almost like they feel guilty doing nothing.

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

#46

Post by neonsunset »

mrtksn wrote: post #38
hansword wrote: post #25

I am amazed at the disdain for leisure and "free" time and "slacking" in the comments here. If a person has enough to survive, why would they toil and labour? Just do whatever you like! I suspect a big problem is that many people actually don't know what they like to do. Most people with full-time jobs I know don't have much energy left after their workday, and thus the only "leisure" they are still capable of and th…

> If a person has enough to survive, why would they toil and labour? Just do whatever you like! It really boils down on how many people need how much resources and how many people produce these resources. You can argue over who should be your bourgeoisie, should it be the political elite or the entrepreneurs or should it be inherited or or should it be the the people from special blood or religion or should no one be…

Unsure why the post is downvoted, this point of view is really interesting. Could you link some reference materials to explore this more?

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

#47

Post by hansword »

mrtksn wrote: post #38
hansword wrote: post #25

I am amazed at the disdain for leisure and "free" time and "slacking" in the comments here. If a person has enough to survive, why would they toil and labour? Just do whatever you like! I suspect a big problem is that many people actually don't know what they like to do. Most people with full-time jobs I know don't have much energy left after their workday, and thus the only "leisure" they are still capable of and th…

> If a person has enough to survive, why would they toil and labour? Just do whatever you like! It really boils down on how many people need how much resources and how many people produce these resources. You can argue over who should be your bourgeoisie, should it be the political elite or the entrepreneurs or should it be inherited or or should it be the the people from special blood or religion or should no one be…

> because despite the increase in productivity we also have increased lifespan which results in large number of retirees who consume the resources for much longer than before.

The retirees in your example, with great probability, either have to rely on outside support (be it children or social security), or they will die with lots of wealth left over (aka inheritance). I hate to sound like a crummy communist, but this is a distribution problem, first and foremost.

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

#48

Post by kubb »

I have several fantastic things that I love doing and work makes it very hard for me to pursue them.

One of them is philosophy. There is a great deal of benefit and pleasure that a person can derive from learning about about and understanding the arguments that have been made across the centuries.

Another is physical activity. It feels great to move your body, it makes you so much happier than sitting at a desk.

Another are video games that stimulate your brain in an amazing way. Another is spending time close to nature. Another is talking and listening to people.

When I come across a person that tells me "But what would you do if you had more free time?", I realize it's like this because people can't imagine a different world. They don't know how to live freely. So they willfully fight to maintain this broken world, insisting that it's the only way.

So I do my work, try to get it done as fast as possible. I earn a lot, but my work makes no difference to anyone's life. If I could get 1/10 of what I earn but without having to perform all this theatre, it would be better for everyone.

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

#49

Post by kashunstva »

Grimburger wrote: post #26
mschuster91 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social instability and riots - I assume you are referring to Black Lives Matter - did not happen due to "too much free time", JFC. They happened because police were routinely murdering Black people and there was/is a massive disparity in wealth.

I have no horse in this race being outside the states. Yet from here, BLM seems to clearly be a US election phenomena rather than a general desire to fix things. It basically disappeared after the last election and the election before that. I'd happily bet on it arising again in 2024. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2015-10-01%202...

> BLM seems to clearly be a US election phenomena rather than a general desire to fix things.

Being one of the few levers that citizens have to pull, it is unsurprising that elections create stir over issues that are perpetually important.

Nevertheless with respect to the trend chart, correlation ≠ causation. The spring/summer peak in BLM activity was temporally related to the brutal murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police. Were other factors involved? Likely; but it would take more social science to tease out, rather than Google trends.

> I have no horse in this race

Maybe not in a direct political sense. I don’t live in the U.S. either; but the BLM protests in my country pointed to a moral solidarity that transcends political boundaries. “Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”

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

#50

Post by arvinsim »

hansword wrote: post #25

I am amazed at the disdain for leisure and "free" time and "slacking" in the comments here. If a person has enough to survive, why would they toil and labour? Just do whatever you like! I suspect a big problem is that many people actually don't know what they like to do. Most people with full-time jobs I know don't have much energy left after their workday, and thus the only "leisure" they are still capable of and th…

I would even say that you need leisure and slacking off to discover what you actually want to do.
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