Let’s Be Less Productive • Hacker News Board

Re: Let’s Be Less Productive

#81

Post by rfugger » Mon, May 28, 2012, 11:22 PM UTC

ef4 wrote: post #13

This kind of alarmism is both very old and economically ignorant. We have already experienced this scenario multiple times, and it always leaves us better off. Consider that 200 years ago almost everyone was in farming, and now it employs less than 2%, thanks to drastically higher productivity. We didn't all end up unemployed. We invented whole new things to work on. Most of us are doing things our ancestors would ha…

I think the real question is whether we want to spend our time producing more goods and services for exchange, or whether we'd be happier with more leisure time.

Re: Let’s Be Less Productive

#82

Post by jeffool » Tue, May 29, 2012, 7:56 AM UTC

orangecat wrote: post #53

jeffool wrote: post #2

The thought of eschewing productivity makes me cringe instantly. But that said, I worry he's not wrong about some things. Our economies don't seem to be growing fast enough to negate the downsides of things like automation. Rather than slow down productivity, which surely few other nations would do, wouldn't it serve us better in the long run to do a better job of splitting up the work between capable hands? In that…

The ideals of a crazy person like me would be "hike up the minimum wage insanely high, pry money from the pockets of the wealthy" I'm the only libertarian I know who is provisionally in favor of a universal income. But once you have that, you don't need a minimum wage and in fact you don't want one, because you want to maximize the number of people who can find work. The minimum wage exists to prevent exploitation, b…

That's okay, I'm the only person I know who's talked in support of the idea too. To me a guaranteed minimum income just... Makes sense to me. That's the closest we'll get to each person getting the opportunity to pursue happiness.

I'm way crazy liberal, but if everyone had the ability to take care of themselves, and live as they want, well, we wouldn't need a minimum wage. You're right. (But then, I'd want health treatment to be like police/fire. Something everyone needs, and we're better all paying for.)

So, yeah. The military, police, fire, health, roads, public school to about 10th grade, I guess the post office as we need a way to ensure public notices, and provide a baseline life through these means? I'd good with that. That's the only government I need.

Just about any other social institutions can be done by people living on their GMI and aided by donations.

Re: Let’s Be Less Productive

#83

Post by AhtiK » Tue, May 29, 2012, 9:41 AM UTC

freshnote wrote: post #11

JonnieCache wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it you're producing so much of so efficiently that somehow nobody is willing to pay you for?

I get paid, but I'm feeling the squeeze by everyone for lower rates (I do freelance web design, writing, social media management). When not doing client work, I experiment with new ideas, products and so on, and so there are time and development costs and more misses than hits. Admittedly, I'm not a materialist guy, but my point is knowing a lot of tech stuff and working long hours doesn't guarantee wealth. I might e…

The way to guarantee wealth is to squeeze a potential cumulative effect into as many hours as possible.

Doing X for $Y without using X for a potential income in the future becomes a zero-sum game.

This potential income can come from anything that gets squeezed out from the project -- writing a tutorial based on the last web design project, kicking off an opensource project to combine the reusable parts.

For me it's a hard discipline to follow and takes some creativity but it does sound like a good deliberate practice.

Re: Let’s Be Less Productive

#84

Post by JonnieCache » Tue, May 29, 2012, 5:49 PM UTC

batista wrote: post #58

SudarshanP wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope more people realize this. What the rich have more of beyond a threshold is power not objects. If you take the "stuff they own" and give it to the poor, each person on this planet will get very little. They will become a little more freer from the tyranny of the rich and their whims and fancies... but it is unlikely that their standard of living will improve at all. We need to have more energy and resources to…

> They will become a little more freer from the tyranny of the rich and their whims and fancies... but it is unlikely that their standard of living will improve at all. That's enough of an improvement for our standard of living for me. We need more freedom from the "tyranny of the rich and their whims and fancies" and less toys and consumer products...

>We need more freedom from the "tyranny of the rich and their whims and fancies" and less toys and consumer products...

Many would say the two go hand in hand, or are ultimately synonymous.