Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Americans Care About Work So Much

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 68 posts

Re: Why Americans Care About Work So Much

#21

Post by s1mplicissimus »

jongjong wrote: post #19

Regardless of how people feel about work, no government agency should ever aim for job creation as a goal. The irony of modern life is that it's often people who don't need to work who enjoy work the most... The game is fun to them mostly because it's rigged in their favor. On the other side, when the game is rigged against you, it's hard to think of anything worse. If I could get the same salary as I do now to liter…

sounds like you need a timeout. i know that feeling from burnout. not a doctor etc.

Re: Why Americans Care About Work So Much

#22

Post by scruple »

shams93 wrote: post #3

Well with the savagely frayed state of the social safety net if you're not born rich, basically if you can't find work in California you're unlikely to get food stamps especially if you are able bodied and healthy otherwise than having the illness of having been born in the US past the date of 1965.

> if you can't find work in California

For folks like myself, who migrated to California in previous decades, the truism here is so absurd that it hurts.

Re: Why Americans Care About Work So Much

#24

Post by neilv »

scruple wrote: post #20
protonbob wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of us still go to church every week!

What do I do if I want to "go back" to church but I don't believe? Speaking personally, and without spilling a few paragraphs of text here, it seems like that's where I am today.

I don't know, but one idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_humanism

Re: Why Americans Care About Work So Much

#25

Post by scruple »

hezralig wrote: post #15
mataug wrote: post #2

Work has somehow become part of our identity

Quick question, if in America you are only 3 bad months away from being homeless, are you 3 good months away from being a billionaire?

Of course not. The average American isn't even 3 months away from being a millionaire.

But I've been homeless and today I don't think I could ever experience homelessness again.

Re: Why Americans Care About Work So Much

#26

Post by boffinism »

hanniabu wrote: post #6

"Why Americans Care About Food and Shelter"

Do you think other cultures, who care less about work, care less about food and shelter? Or would you care to elaborate on why work is more necessary for food and shelter in America than in other cultures (bearing in mind that America is one of the more developed nations on earth)?

Re: Why Americans Care About Work So Much

#27

Post by roenxi »

jjulius wrote: post #16
cheo828 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really want to quit but then who's going to pay for my wife's pregnancy? Solution: don’t have kids. You already knew this beforehand.

You went to the effort of creating a new account just so you could be that snarky and flippant? Hope you have a better weekend than this and that you maybe spend some time working on yourself.

It was probably serious. A lot of people don't have any kids. And if everyone tries to have 3 kids then the future will involve a lot of death.

Of course it isn't as simple as just not having kids.

Re: Why Americans Care About Work So Much

#28

Post by rhaway84773 »

If workism is indeed a replacement for organized religion, this looks like a massive win-win to me.

I don’t know how many people died in the epic IBM vs Microsoft wars of the 90s, but I suspect the total was a fraction of the number of people who died in a single day fighting the crusades.

And last I checked, no one from Google’s Android department has ever flown a plane into 1 infinite loop.

Re: Why Americans Care About Work So Much

#30

Post by rychco »

hezralig wrote: post #15
mataug wrote: post #2

Work has somehow become part of our identity

Quick question, if in America you are only 3 bad months away from being homeless, are you 3 good months away from being a billionaire?

3 good months won’t even get most Americans out of debt.
Post reply on HN