Experts once predicted that Americans would face excess leisure time (2015) • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by r3trohack3r » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 5:24 PM UTC

The comments here are simultaneously glorifying the past and catastrophizing the present. Modern society is filled with leisure and time compared to history.

Many of the problems of the past have been widely solved, and those solutions have brought new problems. Discounting todays solutions based on todays problems misses the historical context this article is addressing.

“The children have obtained what their parents and grandparents longed for — greater freedom, greater material welfare, a juster society: but the old ills are forgotten, and the children face new problems”

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

#242

Post by StayTrue » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 5:30 PM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #226

bombcar wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do a single-income family and successfully, but you have to make some choices to do so. I know many who do it, and not all with no kids (some with many). Things like older cars, smaller houses, location differences, etc. But there are major cost savings that offset, especially with the kids. Single car may work out, less gas, less tax, even less food expenses (many people faced with two incomes eat out more,…

If you were the lower earner would you want to stay home? This is an incredibly disadvantageous position to be in.

Seems like some assumptions baked in there. Each working half-time would be more equitable and probably a more resilient arrangement.

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

#243

Post by 62951413 » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 5:33 PM UTC

jmyeet wrote: post #79

Common right-wing propaganda is that socialism is a poverty cult. This is particularly prevelant in American culture. It's a complete fabrication. The reality is everyone should enjoy the fruits of their labours to a greater degree than they do today. This is the very idea behind workers owning the means of production. Another way to put this is that every billionaire is a policy failure. A quote that is often mentio…

There are a lot of people on this forum (and most Bay Area companies) born in communist hell holes such as USSR or China. Go talk to them before saying stupid things about socialism and the level of poverty it forces upon people.

And if you thing poverty is the worst thing about the Commies just remember that people are not allowed to leave Communist countries. Think about, people who don't like America or feel "oppressed" have _always_ been free to move to a country they liked better. In USSR and the European countries occupied by it, Cuba, North Korea people were shot and survivors imprisoned for trying.

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

#244

Post by bluedino » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 5:35 PM UTC

quartesixte wrote: post #195

Compared to my parents and grandparents generation, my life is filled with leisure. Basic everyday necessities took up so much of my grandparent’s time when they were younger. A meal would take hours to prep. All the veggies to prep said meal grown. And then the many hours spent cleaning, maintaining, and improving the living space. Social obligations. They basically just worked all day long to just live. Leisure wer…

Hours to prep a meal? Maybe for Christmas dinner.

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

#245

Post by j7ake » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 5:37 PM UTC

quartesixte wrote: post #195

Compared to my parents and grandparents generation, my life is filled with leisure. Basic everyday necessities took up so much of my grandparent’s time when they were younger. A meal would take hours to prep. All the veggies to prep said meal grown. And then the many hours spent cleaning, maintaining, and improving the living space. Social obligations. They basically just worked all day long to just live. Leisure wer…

Agreed. Before inventions of dishwashers, laundry machines, and roombas, there was literally enough work to have one person in household home at all times (home maker).

Now it is common to live life where both parents work and no homemaker.

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

#246

Post by watwut » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 5:38 PM UTC

slothtrop wrote: post #93

watwut wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you like TV, great for you, but it being the 'default' might be a problem When I was younger, I multiple times tried to cut of all mindless crap like tv or browsing. It led to lite depression and low productivity every single time. Conversely, when I had a lot of free time or worked on easy boring project, the stuff I do in free time became more intellectually difficult without me intentionally going for it. My…

Yeah but that's not even contended. In a hypothetical scenario where you didn't have to work to earn a certain quality of life (since, lets be honest, none of us have to "work to live"), would it be ideal to spend all of that time on passive, consumptive activities? Notwithstanding issues with life balance that are not endemic, I think work is good for people in most of its capacity. Coordinating with others and prod…

In that hypothetical scenario, it is likely that I would not ended up spending all of that time on passive, consumptive activities. Assuming that there would be options for me to be more active and it would be socially acceptable for me to do things.

(If I lived in suburbs where HOA makes it impossible to have garden, I might end up purely passive and depressed simply due to no activity being possible.)

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

#247

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

StayTrue wrote: post #242

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were the lower earner would you want to stay home? This is an incredibly disadvantageous position to be in.

Seems like some assumptions baked in there. Each working half-time would be more equitable and probably a more resilient arrangement.

Yes but that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about households where one parent works and the other stays home.

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

#248

Post by RC_ITR » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 5:46 PM UTC

azemetre wrote: post #237

koheripbal wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has more with a lack of discipline, than a lack of available time or resources.

How can you argue it’s a lack of discipline when companies like Meta and Google literally hire psychologists to make their products more addicting? Why should society pay the price for their malfeasance?

The flip side of this is that society has built conspicuous reward mechanisms for doing things that don’t actually suit our brains very well (reading vs. watching/listening, “thoughtful” classical music vs. Drum-heavy pop music, etc.) because otherwise no one would do those things and that would have negative societal consequences.

Now, the Internet is only focused on making content that fits our brains and people who grew up benefiting from those conspicuous rewards miss those rewards (but not enough to put in the work to get them now that there’s a much more fun alternative).

It really comes down to the idea that there is no “good” or “natural” thing for humans to do from an objective standpoint. Evolution is in many ways a manifest of preference.

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

#249

Post by chongli » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 5:47 PM UTC

onesafari wrote: post #190

snowwrestler wrote: post #130

It seems obvious that we have no more leisure time now than before. But consider the huge leisure industries that have grown over the past 100 years. Movies, TV, now streaming services. Radio and now Spotify and podcasts. Video games. Sports and all the media around sports. Even social media is arguably mostly entertainment these days. Or look at active leisure. How many more cyclists and rock climbers are there toda…

It's funny seeing so many people who spend hours every day on social media or Netflix or Steam claim that they have no time. We can see the data on how many hours are being consumed. What explains that?

There is a big philosophical debate about the definitions of labour, idleness, and leisure [1]. While that debate is far from settled, I think we can agree that there is a difference between sitting around watching TV or playing video games and learning to sculpt or play the violin. I think we might also agree that this difference is deeper than its relationship to social class, though that may be a part of it.

So what is it? I think these sorts of “idle activities” like TV and games carry with them a burden of guilt that our time could be better spent pursuing a hobby or otherwise learning something which might enrich our lives beyond the mere time we spend doing the activity.

So why do we spend all this time on idleness instead of hobby, sport, music, or other “higher leisure” activities (folk dancing?)? I think, and it’s been argued quite effectively, that work has become all-consuming in our lives even if it hasn’t taken all of our time. For many of us now, work is a mentally rather than physically taxing task. We get home from work (or log off the computer and walk out of the home office) but our minds are still at work. We think about the problems we’re trying to solve outside of work hours. Many of us are also on-call to deal with any crisis affecting the business, even after work hours or on the weekends.

We never get off work! And that’s why we have no time for leisure. Any time we have outside of active work we spend on idle activities like TV or video games so that we can drown out our chattering minds. Pursuing a quiet activity like reading or woodworking is just too difficult if we’re still thinking about work (or worse, worrying about being on-call).

[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/work-labor/

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

#250

Post by r3trohack3r » Sat, Jun 18, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

rakejake wrote: post #219

quartesixte wrote: post #195

Compared to my parents and grandparents generation, my life is filled with leisure. Basic everyday necessities took up so much of my grandparent’s time when they were younger. A meal would take hours to prep. All the veggies to prep said meal grown. And then the many hours spent cleaning, maintaining, and improving the living space. Social obligations. They basically just worked all day long to just live. Leisure wer…

The problem is the absence of leisure during leisure time rather than loss of leisure time. True, there is more time today for hobbies and other such activities than there was previously, and less responsibilities. But the increase in the pace of life sort of compensates for this. I technically waste a lot of time on the internet that could be better served listening to classical music or reading a novel. Yet, I find…

The increase in the pace of modern life does not compensate for this. Many of the problems of the past have been widely solved, and those solutions have brought new problems. Discounting todays solutions based on todays problems misses the historical context this article is addressing.

“Modern society doesn’t have leisure time because people can’t help but check Twitter instead of listen to Beethoven, when they have ready access to both” becomes less of a valid critique every 50 years you rewind human history. Today’s problems are a substantial quality of life improvement over history’s problems for a sweeping majority of humans alive today.