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How did we get so busy?

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Re: How did we get so busy?

#111

Post by tim333 »

wycx wrote: post #78

Usury. The only way money is generated is by debt. Debt, by definition is encumbered by interest. Thus, the only way to generate money to cover the interest is to generate more debt, this is a feedback cycle, requiring accelerating borrowing just to stay where you are. I think this is a large part of why we are so busy today. We are always behind the eight ball, at every level.

> The only way money is generated is by debt

Huh? There are loads of other ways to make money. Write some software for example. Or if you are the government then print some.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#112

Post by jvanloov »

ryan_123 wrote: post #108
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you work 80 hours a week, meaning that you have almost no time to enjoy life with your kid... so that he can grow up to be like you and do the same thing, and presumably educate their children to do the same as well. So your ideal of how things should be is to have a saga of people working their asses off, in theory for the good of the next generation, but in practice for nothing because the next generation will w…

Its just that, he wants his son to have a better life than him. Thats why the toil. He wants to provide him better means, hence the 80 hr weeks. Yes it'd depend on what you want from your life. Priorities are different for all.

The intention is noble.

However, chances are that the son looks up to his father, thinks his father's life is normal and how it should be, and will (unconsciously) copy it.

If that happens, will he really have the better life that his father worked for and wanted him to have?

Re: How did we get so busy?

#114

Post by mmebane »

hoggle wrote: post #75
nnq wrote: post #61

> “There is so much to learn and produce and improve that we should not spend more than a dribble of time living as if we were in Eden. Grandchildren, keep trucking.” - Richard Freeman, of Harvard ...somebody shoot this guy. Please. When will we realize that so many great thought were thought because smart people have had free time to "let their minds wonder around". Think Darwin, the leisure-class naturalist with lo…

That was exactly what I needed at the moment, thanks for sharing "In Praise of Idleness". Brainwashed as I am I keep thinking that I need to shake the slave mentality and focus my life on leisure time to ultimately become more productive of course.

Along the same lines, I would recommend Pieper's Leisure, The Basis Of Culture. It's somewhat a religious work, but for the most part is broadly applicable.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#115

Post by jmzbond »

I think it's a combination of many reasons, many of which the article cited, but then from other articles I've read as well.

At least for myself, I've noticed that I have used busy-ness as an excuse to not do something I dislike. A rapidly growing synonym by the way, is I'm "tired."

As for why people stay "busy" beyond the excuse factor, I buy most into the argument about keeping up with the Joneses. We live in a very consumption-driven society and people are always scaling up their "needs" rather than being happy with what they have. Consider the consultant that buys a house upon making manager, and then a bigger house upon making partner. Were any of those upgrades truly necessary for the 2-person couple? No, but they"felt" necessary because that's what we do. We climb ladders and scale up.

I'm less inclined to buy the argument that people stay busy because working provides meaning. It's not that I don't think work provides meaning, it's that I don't think most people find meaning in their work today. Rather, work is the tedium that you experience so that you can climb a ladder and get stuff, and continue the up-and-to-the-right cycle.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#116

Post by wpietri »

jpatokal wrote: post #45
nlawalker wrote: post #24

Reminds me of this article, which was also here on HN ages ago: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-tra... "Busyness" is a social defense against other people making us do things we don't really want to do and a mechanism for coping with feeling guilty about things we know we should do, but don't. My intuition is that people have had to project themselves as busier and busier over the last couple…

Came here to post this. I think this is the key bit: It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence. There was an…

>* [...] they’re addicted to and dread what they might have to face in its absence.*

This definitely was me. Meditating was very hard for me to take up. Eventually I realized it was because whenever I had a quiet moment, I would start to think about something I didn't want to think about. I'd get anxious and suddenly find that I "had" to go do something.

People catch on if you drink all day. But if you're busy (always working, always coding, always arguing with somebody on the internet, always caught up in an absorbing game) they (and you) may never think, "Gosh, maybe there's something wrong here."

Re: How did we get so busy?

#117

Post by lmm »

navait wrote: post #85
chondos wrote: post #63

How did we get we busy? (or did we?) Average American watches 5 hours of TV per day: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/average-american-watch... . Perhaps people spend more time at work then they used to, but while not at work they spend way less time working on things like mowing the lawn, cooking, washing clothes, ETC. Women blaming men for them being too busy need to weight their options IMO. If you are too bu…

Or, you know, male significant others could take up an equal amount of responsibility in the household.

Most of the "responsibility" is dumb things that don't actually need doing; more equal households are generally more equal not because a man's doing more but because a woman's doing less.

US employers make it hard for professionals to work part-time and hard for those who do to get promoted, so it's probably better to have one partner focus solely on gaining income and the other taking care of the household. AIUI the evidence is that both men and women are happier when they adopt the traditional roles than when they reverse or try to balance them.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#118

Post by wpietri »

chondos wrote: post #62
maerF0x0 wrote: post #21

Of course they blame men. Never mind blaming misguided feminism, pushing women to endlessly new heights of perfectionism, elitism and competition both within and across their fairer sex. And strangely its not OK that the man knows how to relax, minimizes extraneous work and does a sufficient job... Hits a nerve for me if you can't tell.

You sexist... How dare you challenge feminists, They have every right to fight mother nature... So what if they are biologically and mentally a perfect fit for taking care of children and domestic duties. So what if men are the obvious natural choice as breadwinner. So what if this ruins countless marriages and families, so what if kids are raised by day care providers who don't give a lick about them, so what if it…

Dude, when you figured out you were banned, what maked you think that posting the same comment under a new account is a good idea? Try taking a hint.

By the way, that's the naturalistic fallacy you're pushing, and it's horseshit. Horseshit you have elaborated into a self-justifying worldview. You might ask what's so wrong with your life that you need to spend your time like this.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#119

Post by wpietri »

charlespwd wrote: post #27

Hi, I've been a lurker here for some time now. I rarely ever comment on stories because, well, I have better things to do. But now, I really need to broaden my perspective. I just don't get it. *Disclaimer : I am young (23), broke but happy. This past year, I spent four months in Asia travelling. I rock-climbed for a while, tried bungee, canyon swing, diving, trekking and the motorcycle. I was able to afford all that…

Broke gets old. Being thrifty is hard. It's easy to judge yourself by comparison with your peers' improving lives. Loss aversion means that any improvement you make in your material circumstances tends to stick. And once you start paying more attention to your circumstances, it's surprisingly hard to always choose not to improve them.

It's certainly possible to keep a minimalist, low-burn lifestyle. But it's hard. At 23, you're at the easy end of it. I don't think it's that most people really say, "Hey, I'd like a busy, harried lifestyle in exchange for nice material circumstances." It's that they don't have a guiding passion or enormous discipline helping them say no to every single physical comfort or material pleasure that society offers them.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#120

Post by josephjrobison »

VonGuard wrote: post #56
NDizzle wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works a 40 hr/week job and a 20 hr/week job, (and the extra hours associated with learning various things that apply to each) while also having 3 kids, sometimes people are actually busy. I coach little league, too.

Yeah, I think it's deeper than just being a self-important asshole. It's more about the fact that we are 1000 times more productive, as a species, than we were just 20 years ago, and yet, we all still work just as hard. This, coupled with always being connected means that our work and obligations never end, they just follow us around.

It all comes down to the yuppies (myself included) wanting to get ahead. The dream of becoming a wealthy entrepreneur is what keeps me from being satisfied working 40 hours a week and reading and relaxing after that, for better or for worse! Also the dream of injecting wealth into my larger family for generations to come.
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