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The Importance of Being Idle

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Re: The Importance of Being Idle

#131

Post by mjklin »

dripdry45 wrote: post #3

I started with “How to Be Idle” by Hodgkinson about 20 years ago. Found “The importance of living “ by Lin yutang. I now have a small collection of books about idleness… yet here i am working and then throwing myself into working on a century house in my spare time… feeling starved for idleness. Yet my most creative ideas for it come when I’m idle. Idleness led to Taoism, the pursuit of being useless. Led to Buddhism…

Reading Lin as a teenager made me want to visit China, where I met my wife. Thanks Lin!

Re: The Importance of Being Idle

#132

Post by nisegami »

bombcar wrote: post #125
nisegami wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always found it interesting that homeless folks in the US seem to live in tents a lot of the time, but in my country they rarely have more than a piece of cardboard. I don't know if my perception is incorrect, or if I'm ready too much into this, but my conclusion has been basically what you said: at every socio-economic level, the people at that level have higher standards of living in developed countries than in d…

It’s really hard to compare when you get down to it, even if you ignore “homeless” as a category. Using money as a proxy doesn’t work perfectly because things can be more expensive, and trying to normalize with things like “living sq ft” doesn’t calculate externalities. The best I’ve found is to track relative migration pressure - where do people want to go?

Excellent points. In my small island country, prices mostly come down to being labor-dominant or material-dominant. The former is cheaper* than the developed world, whereas the latter is more expensive* than the developed world.

*compared using nominal exchange

>The best I’ve found is to track relative migration pressure - where do people want to go?

I like this approach. It's much more holistic and captures stuff that really cannot be quantified with prices and numbers, like freedoms and rights.

Re: The Importance of Being Idle

#133

Post by kakacik »

ben_w wrote: post #103
graemep wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its complacency, at least in Western Europe. Centuries of being the world's leading powers have left an underlying sense of being at the top is just normal and is a position that does not need work to maintain. Even those who might accept this is no longer true intellectually find it hard to internalise.

I don't think that's the current problem. It was up to, perhaps, the Suez crisis or up until decolonisation, but since then I think we've mostly internalised that America (and more recently China) have been the leading powers. The current complacency, one which we are currently still in the process of unwinding from (it will take years) is that of trade turning violent enemies into mutually beneficial growth opportun…

War is very expensive, but it also creates tons of jobs in supply. In ideal world its a fools errand, in reality if you dont have a mighty force to defend yourself and deter enemy, you can be easily taken over. Even a big well funded military is a paper tiger at best if it never experienced complex combat, maintaining supply lines etc.

Thats the only thing that works for the likes of russia (or anybody really) who is by far the biggest threat to Europe and would love to see it subjugated.

That was also the only reason Switzerland wasnt taken over by nazi Germany like Austria was, they mustered up to 800k voluntees/draftees in a country of 5 million, fortified and made it clear that Germany would bleed hard to gain that territory (they would invade anyway after defeating russia that was clear also from hitler&himmler's writings, top german brass hated Switzerland, what it represented and considered it a mortal enemy to 3rd reich but I am going off topic here).

5% is nothing if there is enough motivation. Overbuilt bureaucracy for nothing juse employing tons of rather useless paper pushers, ineffective social systems that are abused hard by those really not deserving it, bad budget management by politicians, corruption in megaprojects and ao on. Its really nothing.

Re: The Importance of Being Idle

#134

Post by embedding-shape »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #39
lmf4lol wrote: post #35

I really do like the idea and the thinking behind it. I wpuld even argue that modern Europeans are already embracing and practicing much if it. Nearly no one I know in NL and DE works more than 36hrs per week. And we all have a sh”tload of holidays and irregular days off additionally. Need to get kids from school earlier? no prob… Need to spontanously (!) to go the dentist? no prob. (Honest disclaimer: I am talking h…

European who has travelled/lived extensively in China and the US. I don't believe our problem is idleness. It's instead a pernicious belief in peace. There's no sense of geopolitical competition in society at large. We generate a lot of wealth in those 36 hours, but an immense amount of it is syphoned into areas that don't help us get ahead. We are too invested in tides that lift all boats. Being well-rested is not t…

> We are too invested in tides that lift all boats.

Why is that a problem? Yes, it means less "amazing individuals who own N% of the economy", but it also means that none of my neighbors are starving or can't afford healthcare, definitively a tradeoff I (and most people I'm proud to call friends) are willing to make, even if it makes our own lives a small percentage less comfortable.

I'd say that why I personally prefer the (European) country over other places I've lived in the world, or could live. I don't want to live in a place where people don't help lifting all the boats, but instead are just interested in lifting their own boat, or want to lift a small amount of boats.

Re: The Importance of Being Idle

#135

Post by hhlevnjak2 »

joe_mamba wrote: post #109
vinaigrette wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poverty levels are roughly the same between Vietnam and the US from a quick search. Mean standard of living is a poor way to calculate inequality. If you have a link to a median one it would help to compare.

>Poverty levels are roughly the same between Vietnam and the US from a quick search. How is this an argument? A poor person in the US has a massively better standard of living than a poor person in Vietnam. Poverty is relative. If you have a small apartment in a city of McMansions, you're poor, but if you have a goat in a village of no goats, you're rich.

Not sure if up to date anymore, but if you look at some samples like here, at equivalent adjusted income levels, people across the world have similar standards of living regardless of where they live.

https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street

Re: The Importance of Being Idle

#136

Post by artirdx »

lmf4lol wrote: post #35

I really do like the idea and the thinking behind it. I wpuld even argue that modern Europeans are already embracing and practicing much if it. Nearly no one I know in NL and DE works more than 36hrs per week. And we all have a sh”tload of holidays and irregular days off additionally. Need to get kids from school earlier? no prob… Need to spontanously (!) to go the dentist? no prob. (Honest disclaimer: I am talking h…

Europe is not behind because Europeans are working less and taking more vacations. This message that is being loudly broadcasted hides the real problem.

Europe is behind because we do not have good leadership. The decisions taken by leadership, no matter what level you look at - local, company, national, supranational - are rarely in the best interest of Europeans. Our markets - housing, rental, labor, capital, pension - are broken and therefore the population does not find opportunities to express their talent completely and the more motivated migrate. Europeans lack well-paying jobs and pay is low because pay is not transparent.

Issues like raising funds easily or faster bankruptcy processing are not something an ordinary European citizen can solve. These are leadership issues. The proliferation of consultants means that management talent is never developed. Avoiding accountability is rewarded.

Consistently what could become common wealth in form of company is sold to private equity or sold to US. Friction in movement of information is sheer incompetence at leadership level.

For years blue-collar jobs were being moved to China, while white-collar jobs were being moved to US. And now the workers are being blamed for not working hard enough. It is never asked - is there work?

Re: The Importance of Being Idle

#137

Post by benhurmarcel »

joe_mamba wrote: post #43
lmf4lol wrote: post #35

I really do like the idea and the thinking behind it. I wpuld even argue that modern Europeans are already embracing and practicing much if it. Nearly no one I know in NL and DE works more than 36hrs per week. And we all have a sh”tload of holidays and irregular days off additionally. Need to get kids from school earlier? no prob… Need to spontanously (!) to go the dentist? no prob. (Honest disclaimer: I am talking h…

>Nearly no one I know in NL and DE works more than 36hrs per week. You mean 36h in a full time employment contract or by self reported work hours or is it part time work? > I am talking here solely about my white collar bubble Well from where I am in the EU and across other people I know in EU, for white collar jobs 40h contract is the norm in most places for most people I know. 36h is kind of an exception in select…

I'm guessing he means actual time physically working, not the theoretical time in the contract.

It really depends on your bubble but a lot of people have "full time" contracts (meaning 40-ish hours) but real hours vary. You can come later, leave earlier, go do something else in the day, and don't have to report it to anyone. Just make sure you're not missing a meeting and deliver what's needed on time. So in practice you end up working fewer hours on average, as long as you can produce enough on average (which honestly isn't hard in many large organisations, and hard to measure).

Re: The Importance of Being Idle

#138

Post by marcosdumay »

bregma wrote: post #114
jiriknesl wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The average person gets no benefit from this" this is a very bad take. In Europe, innovation in the end help everyone. Better healthcare starts with the rich, and ends distributed to everyone. The same is true for everything else.

Ah, the good old "trickle down" theory of Thatcher and Reagan. Remember how much better off we became when we gave more to the wealthy?

Do you have any evidence that new products don't start expensive and become accessible when they mature?

Re: The Importance of Being Idle

#139

Post by atwrk »

paganel wrote: post #70
zemvpferreira wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European who has travelled/lived extensively in China and the US. I don't believe our problem is idleness. It's instead a pernicious belief in peace. There's no sense of geopolitical competition in society at large. We generate a lot of wealth in those 36 hours, but an immense amount of it is syphoned into areas that don't help us get ahead. We are too invested in tides that lift all boats. Being well-rested is not t…

> We generate a lot of wealth in those 36 hours, You don't, (Western) Europe is just a rentier-place at this point, living on other people's backs. For example look at Maersk, from the much-beloved and relaxed Denmark, their business would crumble over night if it weren't for the Americans keeping the seas open for them.

Bad timing with that example - currently the US is the reason for an important part of the seas being closed :)

Re: The Importance of Being Idle

#140

Post by ernst_klim »

hhlevnjak2 wrote: post #135
joe_mamba wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Poverty levels are roughly the same between Vietnam and the US from a quick search. How is this an argument? A poor person in the US has a massively better standard of living than a poor person in Vietnam. Poverty is relative. If you have a small apartment in a city of McMansions, you're poor, but if you have a goat in a village of no goats, you're rich.

Not sure if up to date anymore, but if you look at some samples like here, at equivalent adjusted income levels, people across the world have similar standards of living regardless of where they live. https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street

> at equivalent adjusted income levels

What is equivalent adjusted income level? PPP between Russia and USA is around 1.8. Median annual salary in the US is $57 ($1196 per week), median salary in Russia is $13200. Even if you adjust it, it's roughly two times smaller.

As someone who lived in a bunch of countries, some rich and some poor, no, living standards among the avg. Joes of the world are not even remotely the same.

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