Why do people waste so much time at work? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#221

Post by sillygoose » Wed, May 27, 2015, 3:09 PM UTC

rorykoehler wrote: post #220

LLWM wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's definitely not the message you send when you start interrogating someone about their background like that.

All I was doing was pointing out that his life experiences are nothing but a fantasy to all but less than 1% of the world's population. I have never met someone who has no choice but to work in a whatever job they can find have such skewed views so your subsistence farmer proposition is highly if not completely improbable. Sillygoose was born with more economic purchasing power than most people will ever achieve in t…

If you want to be taken seriously, you need to be able to differentiate between subjective and objective things ("there is no right or wrong") for starters.

Then it would be great if you could just accept valid points when they're staring you in the face.

My purchasing power or personal history has nothing to do with whether handing out things that cost something to produce is sustainable or not. Hint: it's not.

But nevermind. So much sophistry is spewing out of your mouth that you're most likely a psychopath. Yes, I realize I haven't proven anything, so there's no need to point that out. I'm either right or I'm wrong.. and yes, here in the real world, there's this thing called "truth".

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#222

Post by AndrewKemendo » Wed, May 27, 2015, 4:25 PM UTC

juliangregorian wrote: post #206

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point. Any investment, ETFs or otherwise, work, when the market is going up or sideways. It falls apart if you needed money in - oh say 2008 or 2009. Or at any of the other points in time when things were shit. It also falls apart 200 years from now - so it's not like it's a law that this is a system that will remain in place.

You're being rather argumentative, don't you think? Did you have something worth elaborating with the bit about the random walk? I would still be curious to know.

Oh, I just overlooked that part...not intending to be argumentative.

See: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4479810

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#223

Post by LLWM » Wed, May 27, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

rorykoehler wrote: post #220

LLWM wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's definitely not the message you send when you start interrogating someone about their background like that.

All I was doing was pointing out that his life experiences are nothing but a fantasy to all but less than 1% of the world's population. I have never met someone who has no choice but to work in a whatever job they can find have such skewed views so your subsistence farmer proposition is highly if not completely improbable. Sillygoose was born with more economic purchasing power than most people will ever achieve in t…

Where "skewed views" primarily means "opposing the idea of a universal basic income based on the moral principle that people should earn what they receive"? Because that's what I got out of his comment.

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#224

Post by rorykoehler » Wed, May 27, 2015, 11:28 PM UTC

LLWM wrote: post #223

rorykoehler wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All I was doing was pointing out that his life experiences are nothing but a fantasy to all but less than 1% of the world's population. I have never met someone who has no choice but to work in a whatever job they can find have such skewed views so your subsistence farmer proposition is highly if not completely improbable. Sillygoose was born with more economic purchasing power than most people will ever achieve in t…

Where "skewed views" primarily means "opposing the idea of a universal basic income based on the moral principle that people should earn what they receive"? Because that's what I got out of his comment.

Exactly. How can someone who was born with more economic purchasing power than what most of the worlds population can achieve in a lifetime have the view that people have to earn what they receive? Did he earn the right to be born into a wealthy family? The world is not that simple and doesn't work on such one dimensional premises. Once that is acknowledged then there is a foundation upon which a discussion can be built.

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#225

Post by sillygoose » Thu, May 28, 2015, 12:47 AM UTC

LLWM wrote: post #223

rorykoehler wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All I was doing was pointing out that his life experiences are nothing but a fantasy to all but less than 1% of the world's population. I have never met someone who has no choice but to work in a whatever job they can find have such skewed views so your subsistence farmer proposition is highly if not completely improbable. Sillygoose was born with more economic purchasing power than most people will ever achieve in t…

Where "skewed views" primarily means "opposing the idea of a universal basic income based on the moral principle that people should earn what they receive"? Because that's what I got out of his comment.

I'm opposed to the idea of UBI for two main reasons:

    1) It's not economically viable/sustainable.
    2) Taxation is extortion anyway.

And yeah, people should earn what they receive too.

The guy you're responding to is at the very least intellectually dishonest, and probably a psychopath playing games with us.

In total, I've wasted massive effort on trying to debate people who were just plain dishonest. Old habits die hard.

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#226

Post by asgard1024 » Thu, May 28, 2015, 9:03 AM UTC

rorykoehler wrote: post #43

mistaken wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that having jobs is the problem. A lot of people can benefit from having jobs. Ideally a workplace should provide a way to develop people, a stable income and clear goals. It is also less risky for the employer (doesn't have to search for someone when a task needs to be done) and the employees (stable income). I personally like to work in an environment where I can decide what has to be done, how to do…

The issue is that from birth most of us are conditioned, through education and culture to not take this responsibility. Most of those who beat the trap have their passion squeezed from them through poverty or dreary corporate jobs that consume them. You wouldn't believe how many people ask me what people would do if they didn't have to work due to guaranteed basic income or some such. Why do I even have to answer tha…

> Why do I even have to answer that question.

There is an excellent Chomsky snippet that agrees with you and gives more context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWZltIXZ2WY

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#227

Post by giuscri » Thu, May 28, 2015, 1:11 PM UTC

mikekchar wrote: post #151

Foomandoonian wrote: post #12

"We must 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 because…

To be honest, people pay me to do a job, but I am a fraud. I don't work for a living. Somewhere on a piece of paper my name is printed and it says that I will receive a sum of money each month in exchange for some effort at programming computers or some such thing, but I never really pay attention to it. I program computers all day. It is quite an enjoyable pastime and I look forward to it almost all the time. Althou…

Can I ask you which country do you live in?

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#228

Post by LLWM » Thu, May 28, 2015, 2:26 PM UTC

rorykoehler wrote: post #224

LLWM wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where "skewed views" primarily means "opposing the idea of a universal basic income based on the moral principle that people should earn what they receive"? Because that's what I got out of his comment.

Exactly. How can someone who was born with more economic purchasing power than what most of the worlds population can achieve in a lifetime have the view that people have to earn what they receive? Did he earn the right to be born into a wealthy family? The world is not that simple and doesn't work on such one dimensional premises. Once that is acknowledged then there is a foundation upon which a discussion can be bu…

Why not? Someone whose mother died giving birth to them can still believe murder is wrong. Heck, even someone who has consciously murdered another person as an adult can believe that. Humans are rarely capable of perfectly following their own moral codes, but that doesn't make that morality invalid. Especially when the "violation" happened as a circumstance of someone's birth that they themselves had no control over.

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#229

Post by asgard1024 » Fri, May 29, 2015, 8:02 AM UTC

Anderkent wrote: post #68

davidgerard wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still a Bullshit Job. http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ The answer to the BBC news story's question is: "because our jobs increasingly have more and more bullshit."

People creating a vibe in pubs doesn't feel like a bullshit job. They're providing a service to other pub goers, making it a more pleasant place. You can't ignore pleasure and satisfaction of other people when considering a job is useful or not. In the end, those are the goals of anything we do; that the job does it directly rather than indirectly (by say improving industry, which makes life easier, which means peopl…

I think the "bullshitness" of a job is determined primarily by the person that does the job, if she judges it to be socially useful or not (under assumption that being the person doing the job, that is an expert, she is the most qualified to judge its utility).

So, someone creating a "phoney" friendly atmosphere is a bullshit job, even if it increases the bar attendance, while a genuine entertainer (like a magician) is not a bullshit job. Even though both may be payed the same, both may have to smile when they don't really have reason to, and both may lie (in case of magician). The dividing line is that phoney friendly atmosphere is not socially useful thing (as judged by both by people who do it and common sense), while a magic trick may be.

> You can't ignore pleasure and satisfaction of other people when considering a job is useful or not.

Extreme example would be a drug dealer - his job is not useful yet he provides pleasure and satisfaction (and also gets it himself, in making money). It's not necessarily a bullshit job, because drug dealer does not have to care about it being socially useful.

Re: Why do people waste so much time at work?

#230

Post by mikekchar » Wed, Jun 03, 2015, 3:24 AM UTC

giuscri wrote: post #227

mikekchar wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, people pay me to do a job, but I am a fraud. I don't work for a living. Somewhere on a piece of paper my name is printed and it says that I will receive a sum of money each month in exchange for some effort at programming computers or some such thing, but I never really pay attention to it. I program computers all day. It is quite an enjoyable pastime and I look forward to it almost all the time. Althou…

Can I ask you which country do you live in?

Sorry for the slow response. I didn't notice your question. I hope you see it!

I currently live in Japan. I started my career in Canada and have worked in the UK as well. Different countries have different challenges. For example, it's easy for me to do what I do in Japan since I have given up the "salary man" track a long time ago. I think it would be quite difficult, socially, to make that kind of transition in Japan, though -- especially if you are married. Also in Canada, no matter what kind of low paying programmer job I got, I was never going to starve. There was never any real risk in trying to optimise my happiness even if I ended up pissing off my boss and getting fired. Of course, as it turned out my efforts to be happy only increased my success at work so everything was fine in the end. As they say, your mileage may vary.