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Google and tech’s elite are living in a parallel universe – John Naughton

theguardian.com

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Re: Google and tech’s elite are living in a parallel universe – John Naughton

#81

Post by swombat »

cmsj wrote: post #15
swombat wrote: post #4

Dr Schmidt’s smart creatives work all the hours that God sends, and then some. They are, to use his term, “overworked in a good way”. The concept of work-life balance can, he thinks, “be insulting to smart, dedicated employees”, for whom work is an important part of life, not something to be separated. The best corporate cultures, he thinks, “invite and enable people to be overworked in a good way, with too many inte…

Good luck finding enough people who will be passionate about cleaning your office, or collecting your trash, or driving your Uber, or processing your DMV application, or building your new house, or stripping your old laptop for recycling, or making your Starbucks, or exterminating your pests, or cleaning your blocked sewer, or picking your fruit, etc etc. It sounds lovely to say we can all be passion workers, and of…

Good luck finding enough people who will be passionate about cleaning your office, or collecting your trash, or driving your Uber, or processing your DMV application, or building your new house, or stripping your old laptop for recycling, or making your Starbucks, or exterminating your pests, or cleaning your blocked sewer, or picking your fruit, etc etc.

It sounds lovely to say we can all be passion workers, and of course there will be people who are passionate about the above jobs, but not all of them, not by a long shot.

There are definitely jobs that are hard to find enjoyment in... then again, it all depends on your perspective. Even cleaning someone's shit-stained bed can be a work of passion for someone who cares about what they're doing there. Or it can be a curse, a horrid job to escape from. It all depends on your perspective. I'm not saying everyone should magically find a sense of purpose in those jobs. I'm saying that when no one needs to work one of these jobs for money (i.e. we get away from subsistence work as a major mode of operation), the only people who will do those jobs are those who want to.

And yes, automation will play a big part in reducing the more unpleasant aspects of such jobs, I'd imagine. We don't need to wait for AGI, either - the Artificial Narrow Intelligences we've built everywhere already do take care of many menial jobs - soon including driving cars, etc.

Re: Google and tech’s elite are living in a parallel universe – John Naughton

#82

Post by swombat »

arrrg wrote: post #16
swombat wrote: post #4

Dr Schmidt’s smart creatives work all the hours that God sends, and then some. They are, to use his term, “overworked in a good way”. The concept of work-life balance can, he thinks, “be insulting to smart, dedicated employees”, for whom work is an important part of life, not something to be separated. The best corporate cultures, he thinks, “invite and enable people to be overworked in a good way, with too many inte…

The net result is that employees are exploited to an absurd degree, without proper compensation. That's just how it is, it's a disgusting ideological tool for oppression.

In the wrong hands, all our best ideas become disgusting ideological tools for oppression. How many people have been murdered for truth, freedom, beauty, etc? Doesn't make the ideals any less appealing, or indeed any less worthwhile. You just have to use them for the right purposes - for example, not "to maximise shareholder value" - a depressingly lame and dehumanising goal for any organisation.

Re: Google and tech’s elite are living in a parallel universe – John Naughton

#83

Post by JoeAltmaier »

jdimov wrote: post #76
aragot wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether you like it or not, redistribution is the basis for most of the laws of my country (and certainly yours). It's not up to you or me, it's how the People think. In fact, that's what the OP is about. It is besides the point to know which side I am. In fact, I've just said tax complexity squashes new enterprises. I've written an article about how an entrepreneur in France loses 70% of his income in tax-and-admini…

Just because the majority think they are entitled to the 1%'s wealth, does not make it so. The French government might as well take 90% of that entrepreneur's wealth and "re-distribute" it to the so-called "People" (I call them "Sheep") and guess what? That one entrepreneur will still be wealthier than any of them and the "People" will still mumble. In other words, NOTHING will change.

...except that 45% of the economy just got given back to the people, mitigating the shameful status quo. Now the regular folk run 95% of the economy.

There's no issue of having rich people or not; its ok to be wealthy. Its not about punishing the rich. Its about them hoarding almost the entire pie.

Re: Google and tech’s elite are living in a parallel universe – John Naughton

#84

Post by jacquesm »

jdimov wrote: post #49
disputin wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't share your cookies, we will revolt and take your cookies, and everything else you have while we're at it.

And you will still die poor and miserable, because try as you might YOU CAN NOT TAKE this which I have and you don't. You will just never have it and I always will.

Enjoy your cake. While you can.

Re: Google and tech’s elite are living in a parallel universe – John Naughton

#85

Post by consz »

jdimov wrote: post #34
aragot wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm worried about the form of the redistribution. In France, we have small taxes in many places. Just one example: We dealt with copyright issues by creating a tax on storage mediums, from a few cents to 20-40€ depending on the container, the size and the volatility - more than 40 different tax levels (see tables here [1]). Obviously they included the bureaucracy feature, where if you're a company you can send back a…

Re-distribution?? Ex-cuse-me?? These aren't YOUR cookies, you bum! Make your own cookies and THEN worry about re-distribution! When someone else has made the cookies, YOU DON'T GET A SAY in how they are distributed, do you get that?

Might makes right. If the rest of the world wants your cookies, then of course they can take it -- you'd either have to give it up or take a bullet to the head.

Re: Google and tech’s elite are living in a parallel universe – John Naughton

#86

Post by swombat »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #26
swombat wrote: post #4

Dr Schmidt’s smart creatives work all the hours that God sends, and then some. They are, to use his term, “overworked in a good way”. The concept of work-life balance can, he thinks, “be insulting to smart, dedicated employees”, for whom work is an important part of life, not something to be separated. The best corporate cultures, he thinks, “invite and enable people to be overworked in a good way, with too many inte…

>At this point in time, the majority of humanity toils for subsistence. A sizeable minority work to pay for their lifestyle (aka the work-life balance level), and they are a bajillion times more productive than the subsistence workers. A tiny slice of us are now able to work with passion, on what we want to do. Like artists working on a song or a painting or a book, they do not draw a clear line between work and play…

You don't disagree, we just have a misunderstanding of terms :-)

To me, going on holiday, learning the guitar, writing fiction, sleeping, etc. are all also part of my work/purpose, which is multi-faceted and not contained in a single job description (not that I have one of those).

There's a saying that "sleep is when you work with your eyes closed". How many brilliant work-related answers and solutions have you come up with while sleeping or in the shower? Obvious conclusion: your ability to sleep, take showers, and do other things that "recharge" your mind is not something separate to your work, it is crucially important so that you can actually do good creative work, rather than just bashing out mediocre widget after mediocre widget. And pretty much everyone on HN does what Schmidt calls "smart creative" work.

And there definitely needs to be a two-sided trade-off between organisation and employee in this: if the person is expected to be effectively "working" (i.e. considering work-related topics in the back of their mind) at all times, then the organisation needs to recognise that and not impose ridiculous restrictions like fixed working hours and workplaces. As Ricardo Semler puts it, we've all mastered the art of checking our work email on a Saturday evening, but few of us have mastered the art of going to watch a movie on Tuesday afternoon.

Please note that no company will, imho, be able to develop such a culture without it turning into a manipulative scam unless the people who are trying to create this culture actually genuinely care about people, rather than just pretending to care. I've covered that idea in this article: http://danieltenner.com/2014/07/31/you-cant-hide-from-yourse...

Re: Google and tech’s elite are living in a parallel universe – John Naughton

#87

Post by jdimov »

consz wrote: post #85
jdimov wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re-distribution?? Ex-cuse-me?? These aren't YOUR cookies, you bum! Make your own cookies and THEN worry about re-distribution! When someone else has made the cookies, YOU DON'T GET A SAY in how they are distributed, do you get that?

Might makes right. If the rest of the world wants your cookies, then of course they can take it -- you'd either have to give it up or take a bullet to the head.

This is what you don't get, pal. The rest of the world may be able to get some of my cookies but they will NEVER have access to the COOKIE MACHINE because they are SHEEP. They just don't have it in them! Get it? You know what this means? It means I'll ALWAYS have my cookies and they will ALWAYS starve.

Re: Google and tech’s elite are living in a parallel universe – John Naughton

#88

Post by swombat »

nperson wrote: post #17
swombat wrote: post #4

Dr Schmidt’s smart creatives work all the hours that God sends, and then some. They are, to use his term, “overworked in a good way”. The concept of work-life balance can, he thinks, “be insulting to smart, dedicated employees”, for whom work is an important part of life, not something to be separated. The best corporate cultures, he thinks, “invite and enable people to be overworked in a good way, with too many inte…

> [...] A tiny slice of us are now able to work with passion, on what we want to do. Like artists working on a song or a painting or a book, they do not draw a clear line between work and play. They're always working and always playing. [...] Yes and this lifestyle is simply unhealthy. Life should be your top priority, not work. Even artists sometimes need a break and care about different things then art itself.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9089660

Re: Google and tech’s elite are living in a parallel universe – John Naughton

#89

Post by jdimov »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #83
jdimov wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because the majority think they are entitled to the 1%'s wealth, does not make it so. The French government might as well take 90% of that entrepreneur's wealth and "re-distribute" it to the so-called "People" (I call them "Sheep") and guess what? That one entrepreneur will still be wealthier than any of them and the "People" will still mumble. In other words, NOTHING will change.

...except that 45% of the economy just got given back to the people, mitigating the shameful status quo. Now the regular folk run 95% of the economy. There's no issue of having rich people or not; its ok to be wealthy. Its not about punishing the rich. Its about them hoarding almost the entire pie.

Not almost. I will hoard THE entire pie and I will not feel ONE bit of shame about it, because it is MY PIE! You are the one who should be ashamed for wanting to steal from my pie just because you are incapable of baking your own.
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