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A nation of slaves

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Re: A nation of slaves

#51

Post by [deleted] »

vijayr wrote: post #28
mjmahone17 wrote: post #14

One of the biggest views I see in my parents and grandparents: work provides purpose and dignity, and without work, you have no purpose, and therefore, you are a failure. This is really hard to respond to, especially with people who have spent 50 years working with this mindset, because they feel "invalidated" or "worthless" if their life's worth isn't measured by their work output. I don't think that's necessarily a…

work provides purpose and dignity, and without work, you have no purpose, and therefore, you are a failure Regardless of age, I guess most people feel this way (not just the previous generations - even the people in their 20's and 30's today). What is the alternative to this? If not work - what is important? what makes one person a success and another a failure, and what gives purpose and dignity to life, in your opi…

[deleted]

Re: A nation of slaves

#52

Post by icebraining »

TausAmmer wrote: post #40
mjmahone17 wrote: post #14

One of the biggest views I see in my parents and grandparents: work provides purpose and dignity, and without work, you have no purpose, and therefore, you are a failure. This is really hard to respond to, especially with people who have spent 50 years working with this mindset, because they feel "invalidated" or "worthless" if their life's worth isn't measured by their work output. I don't think that's necessarily a…

You need others to validate your beliefs, then impose your beliefs on others. So you can believe these made-up beliefs yourself. In rare cases you can believe yourself if no one agrees to you. How fragile we are as humans.

How fragile we are as humans.

Compared to what?

Re: A nation of slaves

#53

Post by npsimons »

logfromblammo wrote: post #9

Here's a thought experiment. Mr. Myne has invented an extraordinary machine. This one machine can, using polluted air and brackish water as material inputs, produce a nutritious food substitute and potable water for one person for one entire day with less than $1.30 of grid power. The 2000 kcal daily diet uses about 8000 kcal of electricity and 10 L of dirty water. With this machine, a person can avoid starvation and…

What happens if people decide to stop paying Mr. Myne to use his machines?

Someone else invents it? The fallacy is the same one that most people in favor of "intellectual property" operate under: that Mr Myne is somehow so special that he's the only person who could have ever invented the machine. As history has repeatedly shown, even the very special are hardly ever truly unique. Most inventions and discoveries occurred at roughly the same time by different people around the world.

Re: A nation of slaves

#54

Post by mattgreenrocks »

molsongolden wrote: post #43
gregpilling wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While having a beer last week with some friends, the topic turned to the old question "What would you do if you suddenly had $20 million dollars handed to you?". This is an old question of course, on HN it would be called F U money, but it had been asked that day by a customer of my friend Kevin. Kevin makes jewelry tools. His immediate response was "I could buy more tools and machines!", which was my basic response…

> "I think humans like to do things. Make games, write software, build sandcastles, etc. Removing the need for work would not remove the work. The work would just be what we found to be entertaining to ourselves, instead of a job to eat." This is part of the issue that arises. I've spoken with many people about the concept of a low-scarcity, low-growth, etc... leisure economy and the responses are surprising. "But th…

> many of our societal "vices" could be responses to this lack of purpose

I forget who said it, but one author noted that purpose is as spiritually important as air. Without it, we break down.

How much of the Western world is built on grasping for the Next Big Thing? The entire consumer culture is predicated on this! And this consumer mindset gets reflected in the workforce. But if you think about it, it quickly boils down to the same dull need: the need to dominate, consume, and self-aggrandize.

These motives are exceedingly poor, and we consistently select leaders who exhibit them, often with terrible consequences.

Re: A nation of slaves

#55

Post by atmosx »

mjmahone17 wrote: post #14

One of the biggest views I see in my parents and grandparents: work provides purpose and dignity, and without work, you have no purpose, and therefore, you are a failure. This is really hard to respond to, especially with people who have spent 50 years working with this mindset, because they feel "invalidated" or "worthless" if their life's worth isn't measured by their work output. I don't think that's necessarily a…

To impose any view on others is bad a priori, no matter what the view is.

Re: A nation of slaves

#56

Post by levosmetalo »

Ygg2 wrote: post #32
vijayr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

work provides purpose and dignity, and without work, you have no purpose, and therefore, you are a failure Regardless of age, I guess most people feel this way (not just the previous generations - even the people in their 20's and 30's today). What is the alternative to this? If not work - what is important? what makes one person a success and another a failure, and what gives purpose and dignity to life, in your opi…

Which is completely opposite from Antic times, during which work was considered demeaning, because, hey we got slaves to do that stuff. Going out to the field and harvesting was looked upon same as now is rolling in shit. You could do it but highly degrading. Arts and philosophy were all the rage.

Replace slaves with robots and machines, and that's pretty much the world I'd like to live on. Maybe Platonic state is not that far away after all.

Re: A nation of slaves

#57

Post by vijayr »

nbouscal wrote: post #33
vijayr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

work provides purpose and dignity, and without work, you have no purpose, and therefore, you are a failure Regardless of age, I guess most people feel this way (not just the previous generations - even the people in their 20's and 30's today). What is the alternative to this? If not work - what is important? what makes one person a success and another a failure, and what gives purpose and dignity to life, in your opi…

This depends heavily on what you mean by work. If by work you mean a minimum wage job at a McDonalds or Walmart, that isn't exactly what I would call purpose and dignity. For a meaning of work that included intellectual/artistic exploration without a guarantee of economic return on investment, but excluded economically viable but degrading labor, I could agree.

That's one way to look at it. I'm not disagreeing with it, but another way to look at it would be - any work that puts food on the table is work with purpose and dignity. Yet another (self centric?) way to look at it would be - if the job that I am doing helps me grow intellectually, emotionally etc then it is good work (regardless of whether it is useful to others/society or not).

May be these questions would be more important in the future, where most of the boring/mundane jobs would be left to the robots. Then people can spend more time to work on things they like, and less time to work for money.

Re: A nation of slaves

#58

Post by tomp »

beat wrote: post #34
tomp wrote: post #16

> Why should we not divert some of our growth into growing our leisure time, rather than growing our physical wealth? Because not everyone was created equal. Some professions are completely worthless (e.g. ad creators) and add nothing net to the society. Others, e.g. doctors, are so valuable, and so few people can do them, that they simply can't afford to work less (educating more doctors so that they can work fewer…

As Bob Black pointed out in The Abolition of Work , if a job is worth doing, someone would do it, whether or not they got paid to do it. Charlie Stross made that point in his essay - he'd continue to be a writer even if he didn't need to write for a living. The same is true of doctors. And farmers. And firemen.

There's quite a bit of a difference between being a writer, and being a surgeon/emergency doctor/fireman. Writer's don't work 12 hour shifts, don't do physically hard work, and aren't killed by their jobs.

Re: A nation of slaves

#59

Post by odonnellryan »

brazzy wrote: post #4

> Workers in Germany average a little over 35 hours a week, compared to the 42 hours worked in the UK. Flat out wrong as per the source cited. The difference is only 0.7 hours, both for full time employees and for all employees (the numbers above mix the two). > German law guarantees 30 working days of vacation per year (and I am told medical leave for attending a spa resort on top of that). Nope, it's 29 days on ave…

20 is awesome. The US requires none, most employers give 5-10 days (salary positions or professionals).

Re: A nation of slaves

#60

Post by chc »

atmosx wrote: post #55
mjmahone17 wrote: post #14

One of the biggest views I see in my parents and grandparents: work provides purpose and dignity, and without work, you have no purpose, and therefore, you are a failure. This is really hard to respond to, especially with people who have spent 50 years working with this mindset, because they feel "invalidated" or "worthless" if their life's worth isn't measured by their work output. I don't think that's necessarily a…

To impose any view on others is bad a priori , no matter what the view is.

Is this statement meant to be as ironic as it is? You're telling us that we must unquestioningly accept that telling people to unquestioningly accept our opinions is bad.
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