Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
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Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
#2Also see Bob Black's "The Abolition of Work":
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-the-abolit...
Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
#3Thanks to technology, the need for employment is at the lowest it has ever been, if someone is willing to make a lot of sacrifices when it comes to modern luxuries.
However, if one desires to live with luxuries such as, gasp, housing and medical care, then life becomes extremely expensive, especially in US cities.
So increasingly as I see it, you either need to be making big bucks as a developer/executive, or you need to be living in a tent on BLM public land with your only expenses being food and a phone bill.
Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
#4> ... we have realised that it is worth taking an economic hit in order to preserve health.
Have we realized this? I think you'd find a sizable chunk of the country that disagrees. And I also think it's still too soon to say.
> That, after all, is what money is for.
Money that we don't have. We can keep conjuring money out of thin air if we want, but the effects of infinitely deepening debt seem negative in every case study I've ever read (to say the least).
Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
#5Thanks to technology, the need for employment is at the lowest it has ever been, if someone is willing to make a lot of sacrifices when it comes to modern luxuries. However, if one desires to live with luxuries such as, gasp, housing and medical care, then life becomes extremely expensive, especially in US cities. So increasingly as I see it, you either need to be making big bucks as a developer/executive, or you nee…
> or you need to be living in a tent on BLM public land with your only expenses being food and a phone bill.
Can you actually [legally] do this?
Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
#6Thanks to technology, the need for employment is at the lowest it has ever been, if someone is willing to make a lot of sacrifices when it comes to modern luxuries. However, if one desires to live with luxuries such as, gasp, housing and medical care, then life becomes extremely expensive, especially in US cities. So increasingly as I see it, you either need to be making big bucks as a developer/executive, or you nee…
> or you need to be living in a tent on BLM public land with your only expenses being food and a phone bill. Can you actually [legally] do this?
You just have to move around every 20 something days, although I don't know if it's enforced.
Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
#7Thanks to technology, the need for employment is at the lowest it has ever been, if someone is willing to make a lot of sacrifices when it comes to modern luxuries. However, if one desires to live with luxuries such as, gasp, housing and medical care, then life becomes extremely expensive, especially in US cities. So increasingly as I see it, you either need to be making big bucks as a developer/executive, or you nee…
> or you need to be living in a tent on BLM public land with your only expenses being food and a phone bill. Can you actually [legally] do this?
> Dispersed camping is allowed on public land for a period not to exceed 14 days within a 28 consecutive day period. The 28 day period begins when a camper initially occupies a specific location on public lands. The 14 day limit may be reached either through a number of separate visits or through 14 days of continuous overnight occupation during the 28 day period. After the 14th day of occupation, the camper must move outside of a 25 mile radius of the previous location until the 29th day since the initial occupation. The purpose of this special rule is to prevent damage to sensitive resources caused by continual use of any particular areas. In addition, campers must not leave any personal property unattended for more than 10 days (12 months in Alaska).
https://www.blm.gov/programs/recreation/camping
So I guess you would need two or three spots to cycle between if you wanted to do it legally, but you could continuously occupy public land like this.
Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
#8> ... we have realised that it is worth taking an economic hit in order to preserve health. Have we realized this? I think you'd find a sizable chunk of the country that disagrees. And I also think it's still too soon to say. > That, after all, is what money is for. Money that we don't have. We can keep conjuring money out of thin air if we want, but the effects of infinitely deepening debt seem negative in every cas…
> Have we realized this?
It doesn't matter even if people do—techno-capitalist industrial society wants ever-growing efficiency and production, and if it harms humans (like, say, causing wide-spread depression) it will simply invent new mitigations (e.g. anti-depressants) that, natch, result in new products to sell that improve the GDP.
There are no brakes on this train and humans aren't even driving it anyway.
Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
#9Thanks to technology, the need for employment is at the lowest it has ever been, if someone is willing to make a lot of sacrifices when it comes to modern luxuries. However, if one desires to live with luxuries such as, gasp, housing and medical care, then life becomes extremely expensive, especially in US cities. So increasingly as I see it, you either need to be making big bucks as a developer/executive, or you nee…
> your only expenses being food and a phone bill.
Just hope you don't get sick.
Also, food expenses add up. State food assistance programs are already overloaded (even before COVID), if you're a single dude living as a hermit you go to the back of the line.
Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever
#10>we also need to challenge the cultural ethic that teaches us to value ourselves in proportion to our capacity for “economically productive” labour. Human beings are more than just workers. We need to learn how to value idleness.
I think much more than valueing idleness it's also a massive indictement of the system we live in. The number of people who I've talked to who legitimately don't know what to do without work during the pandemic is staggering.
It says a lot that as a society there is so little attention paid to instilling curiousity in people and fostering people's potential that, left without menial work to do, nobody knows what to do with themselves.