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The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

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Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#351

Post by nradov »

majesticglue wrote: post #294
SoftTalker wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the past, a working man could support a family of five, buy a house, a car and afford vacation once or twice a year, plus save enough to retire comfortably. I think this is a bit of a rose-colored rear-view mirror, and to the extent it's true it's a pretty brief period of time historically. Most people in most times had to work pretty hard. If you were a farmer, you worked pretty much all the daylight hours ever…

this is the problem of believing things are "better". it's better in terms of people not having to do brutal physical labor. but it's worse it's ever been in terms of mental labor and mental health. For older folks they may not understand, and we as a society as a whole not understand, how much mental impact growing up with social media and endless amounts of stimulation has an affect on the entire generation. Social…

How much time have you personally spent doing physically arduous tasks in the fields? Most soft and pampered Americans have no concept of how difficult that life is. Many agricultural workers end up with crippling injuries that cause chronic pain; look how many of them seek relief from alcohol and opioids.

Social media may cause some problems but it won't leave me with a slipped vertebrae from bending over pulling weeds all day.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#352

Post by bluGill »

Tycho wrote: post #298
bluGill wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post you are responding to didn't have Starbucks coffee every day, did have internet, cable tv, subscriptions to streaming services, a computer with a monthly subscription in every pocket. They didn't even have that option. The above is just a short list. Live like 1955 and you can support a family of 5 with, a car, vacations every year and a nice retirement. You won't have many of the other luxuries people enjoy…

Is that actually true? Subscriptions £30 pm Starbucks £40 pm Phone contract £20 pm ISP £30 pm That’s £120 pm, or £1440 annually. Doesn’t seem like it would make that much of a dent. Probably the number one thing you’d need to do is cut down on food costs, which is doable, to be fair, as it’s quite easy to spend 10x or 100x more than what you need to stay fed.

It all adds up. If you only have a Starbucks on special occasions it isn't much, but some people have daily habits. Likewise a lot of people have the most expensive cable plan which is a lot more money. Phone plans can also get a lot more expensive if you but top of the line phones every couple years.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#353

Post by usrbinbash »

Aurornis wrote: post #346
usrbinbash wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, it is VERY surprising these conditions didn't last, given that productivity only ever increased since then. If favorable, but short lived conditions were behind this sudden change, then it would affect the entire economic system, not just the workforce. How well people are off is a function of how many resources there are to go around. Since the end of WWII, these resources only ever increased. So di…

> How well people are off is a function of how many resources there are to go around. Since the end of WWII, these resources only ever increased. This is a very US-centric view. Demand for resources across the world has increased dramatically as everyone’s living standard increased. The situation isn’t going to make sense if you continue to ignore the rest of the world and try to understand the United States as if we…

> Demand for resources across the world has increased dramatically as everyone’s living standard increased.

As has productivity.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#354

Post by optimalsolver »

coldtea wrote: post #267
kaashif wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is funny, people somehow think that a momentary episode of utter economic dominance after all other economic powers had been bombed into dust should be the norm. And the 50s and 60s weren't that great for e.g. black people or women in the US either.

> And the 50s and 60s weren't that great for e.g. black people or women in the US either. This argument is repeated a lot anytime someone mentions the working conditions in the 50s/60s, but how is it any relevant? Is there some natural law that says that mistreatment of blacks for example have to always go hand in hand with livable wages? And that anybody that likes the latter from the 50s/60s must also want the form…

People that pine for the 50s are def suspicious.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#355

Post by nradov »

welshwelsh wrote: post #185
usrbinbash wrote: post #53

It's pretty simple really. If the reward from working is barely enough to cover the necessities, then there is technically no difference between working as a free citizen, and being forced to work as an indentured servant, other than a vague notion of freedom, which in that case is the freedom to decide between working and living on the streets. And people don't like being indentured servants. History should have mad…

A working man can still support a family of five, buy a house, a car and a vacation once or twice a year. He just needs to be realistic. House: you can still find houses with plenty of room for ~$100k. It just needs to be in an affordable area: think McKeesport, not San Francisco. Car: for $5k you can get a 2005 Ford Focus or Honda Civic. They're reliable cars that will get you from A to B perfectly fine, easy to rep…

Progress on robotics has been extremely slow. I doubt that we will see a robot that can repair a broken air conditioner in our lifetimes.

But I agree that a lot of the whining is due to expectations that are decoupled from reality. A recent survey of college students showed that they expected to earn an average starting salary of $103K. Most are in for a rude awakening.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2022/05...

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#356

Post by kelnos »

I do enjoy things like this, but from a statistical standpoint, I don't think this really tells us all that much? I'm sure if you search hard enough through news archives, you can find at least one person saying something every year that validates your position.

But it does matter if only one person is saying that thing in a particular year, or thousands of people.

As an aside, I also find the idea that work is somehow virtuous to be pretty gross. That's something humanity has invented, not some natural truth. Sure, basic survival does require some amount of work, but beyond that, it's all unnecessary. Some people may want to continue to work more and more, in order to make it possible (in today's capitalist system) to do more than just survive, but we shouldn't look down on people because they've found a particular lifestyle or quality of living that works for them (as long as doing so isn't negatively impacting others).

Beyond that, I think choices like working toward financial independence early are fantastic, and I wish more people could have the opportunity to achieve that. The idea of working for even the old-school expectation of around 45 years (starting work after high school or college, and then retiring in the mid-60s) sounds awful to me... and these days people Not only are there plenty of ambitious people who want to work and build new things (to compensate for those who don't want to), but there are so many bullshit jobs that just don't need to be done, but exist mainly just to feed the self-imposed fiction that work is a virtue.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#357

Post by draw_down »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #7

Similarly … The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. 400BC

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Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#358

Post by KptMarchewa »

bbarn wrote: post #109
usrbinbash wrote: post #53

It's pretty simple really. If the reward from working is barely enough to cover the necessities, then there is technically no difference between working as a free citizen, and being forced to work as an indentured servant, other than a vague notion of freedom, which in that case is the freedom to decide between working and living on the streets. And people don't like being indentured servants. History should have mad…

I have heard the argument that a negative effect of the post WW2 "feminist" movement (by that I mean women in the work force) has had the long term effect of causing prices to simply adjust to the dual income household, to the point that now it is a necessity. It is a privileged family today that can afford to live comfortably on only one salary.

That would only make sense if productivity divided by half.

On the other hand, people's requirements have simply inflated to much higher standards, while technology semi-automated some of the housekeeping stuff - washing clothes, dishes, making food, heating, cleaning.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#359

Post by wetpaws »

glimshe wrote: post #244

Working in most jobs sucks. Some people are lucky to have jobs they love, but that's the minority. I know that to be the prevalent sentiment even in top notch, AAA, "I can't believe they pay me to do this" companies such as Google, Apple etc. If people had, for the sake of a thought experiment, a guaranteed 20K/month income and free healthcare no matter what they do with their life, it's very unlikely they will choos…

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Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#360

Post by [deleted] »

thunky wrote: post #295
hollerith wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The investors entering the market today will make prices go up today, but have the effect of reducing prices in the future (either or renters or buyers, depending on how to investor chooses to recover his investment). Investment in housing in past decades has reduced the price families need to pay now. There a zero investors in housing who are not out to either provide housing for rent or to eventually sell housing.…

> The investors entering the market today will make prices go up today, but have the effect of reducing prices in the future The flaw in this argument is that it assumes markets are perfectly efficient, when in reality they are affected by several factors. > there are strong barriers to the creation of new housing Right, this is one of those factors. Others include land limitations, interest rates, government incenti…

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