Are you paid to look busy? • Hacker News Board

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#121

Post by fiblye » Sat, May 10, 2014, 7:13 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #69

ryandrake wrote: post #22

“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery becau…

We've had systems where not everybody had to work to eat & make a living. It was called monarchy, and you will notice it didn't go over well. The problem is one in ten thousand still leaves a very disgruntled & disenfranchised 30,000 people in America slaving away so everyone else can do as they wish. And until we can automate all the dirty work, the hard laborious work, these aren't 30,000 people working white colla…

A major flaw within old monarchies was that the workers' jobs were essential and the bulk of their output went to the higher ups who merely watched over their work. The growing issue today is that people who are "lowly workers" are doing pointless jobs so that the higher ups whose primary purpose is to watch over workers doing nothing can justify paying those workers.

It is possible to distribute wealth and supplies without forcing someone to sit at a desk and fold paper airplanes for eight hours a day, five days a week.

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#122

Post by zanny » Sat, May 10, 2014, 7:13 PM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #43

zanny wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue (as would most of the free software community) the creation of proprietary software is entirely bullshit. Because you have to eventually reinvent it with either permissive or copyleft licenses to just avoid the huge black hole that is legal bullshit and bureaucracy around licensing rights to a number that is not even scarce once its made. And until it is foss, you are just denying the users their freedoms t…

I'd argue (as would most of the free software community) the creation of proprietary software is entirely bullshit. Because you have to eventually reinvent it with either permissive or copyleft licenses to just avoid the huge black hole that is legal bullshit and bureaucracy around licensing rights to a number that is not even scarce once its made. Game engines are a counterexample. There are probably dozens of other…

The only game engines that have lasted decades are the id ones. Coincidentally, they are about the only engines open sourced. But even today, games (of foss and not variety) are still being developed for them. Directly.

All the proprietary engines get iterated on, they keep (usually) the same core, but all that old code has gone to rot and waste because of its proprietary nature.

Every game developer is reinventing huge amounts of the wheel. Or more particularly engine developers. Because they all in house whole stack do the thing themselves, rather than work together, and waste everyones time.

> creation of most proprietary software is entirely bullshit. Ok, so?

So the OP was talking about how software is rarely a job without being paid to look busy when actually coding. But really, by reinventing the same wheel thousands of times over, because everyone wants to be a literal 3 year old hiding their toys in their own sandbox and not letting the other kids share with them, it is all a huge waste of time.

In the same way that we have perpetual employment of a lot of people for no reason than to keep them in an office to justify giving them money even if they aren't productive, IP as a whole exists for the same purpose in the modern information age - it is wasting everyones time to add false valuation to something that should not have any. I'm not saying information isn't valuable, but individual copies and licenses and crap like that are not - they are artificial, to prop up a false economy, so it is all bullshit.

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#123

Post by zanny » Sat, May 10, 2014, 7:15 PM UTC

hippich wrote: post #57

zanny wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue (as would most of the free software community) the creation of proprietary software is entirely bullshit. Because you have to eventually reinvent it with either permissive or copyleft licenses to just avoid the huge black hole that is legal bullshit and bureaucracy around licensing rights to a number that is not even scarce once its made. And until it is foss, you are just denying the users their freedoms t…

Initially I wanted to write about proprietary/opensource software, but knew people here will downvote it, so brought up different example. But I am glad you got message :))

I don't care if people downvote me, the only reason to read the comments anyway to is to get other peoples insight into the matters of whatever the threads subject is. Doesn't it defeat the purpose of being here if you are afraid to speak your mind? I have plenty of unpopular opinions, but until someone can persuade me with facts and reasoning and not an arbitrary Internet number that I'm wrong I'll keep espousing them and taking those downvotes with pride!

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#124

Post by ScottBurson » Sat, May 10, 2014, 7:16 PM UTC

paulhauggis wrote: post #93

chasing wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You appear to be getting downvoted, but you've struck at the heart of the issue: If we want to do away with meaningless jobs, people will still need resources to survive. And that "one-in-ten-thousand" (or whatever) will need to be taxed very heavily so the wealth can be spread. We can't have all of our financial resources siloed into an increasingly small number of people's wallets. A great benefit to this system wi…

I made a good point..and I wasn't even snarky or mean about it. I was down voted because I differed with someone's opinion. Silencing trolls is one thing..but silencing the opposition reminds me why need freedom of speech.

One thing I've learned around HN is that sometimes you have to wear your downvotes with pride.

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#125

Post by keithpeter » Sat, May 10, 2014, 7:18 PM UTC

KMag wrote: post #60

reboog711 wrote: post #37

The bulk of my clients pay me hourly, on an as needed basis. I've had a few clients; where it sometimes it feels like they are making stuff up for me to do just so I'll be available when real work comes down the pike. I have mixed feelings about this.. on one hand--billable hours. On the other hand--it is not satisfying to do things with absolutely no business value.

If your client is a medium to large sized company, it may also be a case of needing to use budget or have budget reduced the next year. A place I once worked one year had a big budget surplus. They bought a Winnebago, affectionately named the Waltabago after Walt, the guy who ran the team. The next year, Walt bought a Sunfire V1280 with his leftover budget. Walt was a good manager and generally a good guy. It's just…

Did you get to borrow the Winnebago?

We call this need to spend the budget thing 'slippage' in the UK. Once we had a little bit of slippage, about £1k, so we bought some Sony Mavica floppy disk cameras when they were new and exotic. We just lent them out to staff to learn how to take digital pictures. That lead to digital editing, storyboards &c and quite a lot of upskill. Much better powerpoints.

Just a thought...

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#126

Post by bjelkeman-again » Sat, May 10, 2014, 7:18 PM UTC

quasque wrote: post #101

turnip1979 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not someone who downvoted you but would like to discuss your points. Lets start bottom up. 1) You cannot legally collect berries in the woods. That may have been possible a few hundred years ago. For all my life, I've lived in concrete jungles where pretty much every shrub was manicured and every tree was allowed to survive for aesthetic reasons. More so that that, we don't have commons any more. In the stone age…

> You cannot legally collect berries in the woods. A minor point, but this is generally legal in the UK if you're doing it for personal consumption [1]. I expect other countries have similarly permissive exceptions. [1] http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/4

In the Nordic countries and especially in Sweden everyone can collect berries, flowers and mushrooms in the woods. It is the law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Sweden

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#127

Post by WalterBright » Sat, May 10, 2014, 7:18 PM UTC

turnip1979 wrote: post #80

paulhauggis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds great, but you still need money to survive. This would mean that the few that did work would essentially be supporting the rest of society. Why would I ever want to start a million dollar business if I knew the majority of my earnings would be taken from me by the government to support people that didn't need to do anything?? You don't have to get a crappy job and work for someone you hate for the rest of…

I'm not someone who downvoted you but would like to discuss your points. Lets start bottom up. 1) You cannot legally collect berries in the woods. That may have been possible a few hundred years ago. For all my life, I've lived in concrete jungles where pretty much every shrub was manicured and every tree was allowed to survive for aesthetic reasons. More so that that, we don't have commons any more. In the stone age…

> Starting any business requires capital.

Not really. A large number of businesses can be started with essentially nothing. Rowling wrote "Harry Potter" on a yellow pad, for one example.

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#128

Post by vidarh » Sat, May 10, 2014, 7:19 PM UTC

decasteve wrote: post #117

ryandrake wrote: post #22

“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery becau…

Bucky talked a lot about a world where there was enough food to go around, people were educated, and many jobs were being automated. I assumed he was party inspired by the Green Revolution/Norman Borlaug. On top of this, Bucky lived through an education transformation, going from a society in the late 1800s which had a global illiteracy of 85% to a complete flip to 85% global literacy--in his lifetime. He talked abou…

> Bucky talked a lot about a world where there was enough food to go around, people were educated, and many jobs were being automated. I assumed he was party inspired by the Green Revolution/Norman Borlaug.

That notion dates back to the 1840's at least - the industrial revolution triggered ideological developments out of a growing optimism over the ability of finally doing away with poverty.

The birth of socialism was basically rooted in this optimism. Marx made the point in The German Ideology (1845) that a sufficiently well developed capitalism to ensure a level of production that would allow redistribution to eliminate basic wants would be essential for a successful socialist revolution, or the old class struggles would be reignited (Soviet Union being a good demonstration of exactly this)

He saw the "endgame" of capitalism as being when production was so extensive and so automated that the automation would cause massive unemployment, while production capacity outpace what is needed to sustain everyone. Without redistribution, this would then cause increased poverty, and unrest, was his thinking.

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#129

Post by glesica » Sat, May 10, 2014, 7:22 PM UTC

desas wrote: post #98

glesica wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I worked nearly full-time for several years (37.5 hours per week, government job which also had a ton of paid time off) and then I've been back in school for the last couple years, which pays me a stipend. I also work part-time as a software developer. But, basically, I just don't have a ton of expenses (I don't own a car, I have lived in cheaper areas, I have no children). I will likely end up with a ful…

What is full time in the US? I've worked 35 and 37.5 hour jobs and considered both full time. Neither are unusual in the UK. Of course being in IT the actual hours worked are usually more than that.

Full-time is generally 40 hours per week in the US, although there are always exceptions. The vast majority of "office" jobs, however, insist on 40 hours per week.

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#130

Post by vidarh » Sat, May 10, 2014, 7:23 PM UTC

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #126

quasque wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot legally collect berries in the woods. A minor point, but this is generally legal in the UK if you're doing it for personal consumption [1]. I expect other countries have similarly permissive exceptions. [1] http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/4

In the Nordic countries and especially in Sweden everyone can collect berries, flowers and mushrooms in the woods. It is the law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Sweden

And to strengthen that: We're talking not just on public land, but in privately owned forests too.

When I grew up in Norway, the notion of whether or not a forest area was owned was moot - many of the places we went for walks or went to collect berries and mushrooms probably were, but I can't tell you which were and which were public, as it was totally irrelevant to us as we have the same legal rights of access either way.