151–160 of 278 posts
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There is a leisure class at both ends of the economic spectrum.
That's an interesting observation, although it does depend on the benefits landscape where you live.
I'm a huge fan of sloth. I frequently take many months off between jobs, sometimes a year or more. I refuse to work more than 40 hours a week except for genuine emergencies (things like outages; being behind schedule never counts), and I'm close to drawing the line at four days a week. I always take at least three weeks off a year, and that's in a bad year. I take "mental health days" often and with no guilt. If you…
I could not agree more. I'm pretty early in my software career after a few years as a military officer, and if that job taught me one thing, it's that NOTHING at work is as important as you think it is. Looking back on those times, even in a job where lives are sometimes on the line, I can't believe how seriously I took some things and how much more fun I could have had. It's a disappointing lesson to have to learn i…
i genuinely thought it was that important, but looking back it was really not a big deal at all (and the judge knew it) :)
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> 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.
Individuals can make personal, effective efforts on this front.
Also see Bob Black's "The Abolition of Work" : https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-the-abolit...
FIRE (Financial Independence/Retire Early) is now a popular goal among the young. If you retire early, however, you're going to have to figure out what to do with all the leisure time. It would perhaps be better to have people working fewer hours, but over more years - a longterm 3-day workweek would allow for plenty of leisure as well as work.
Not an issue for me, nor anyone else I know who has retired early. Maybe the same sort of energy that supports early retirement also leads to a fully engaged post-retirement life.
As long as you love to learn or create (or both) you will have a shortage of free time, even in retirement.
Off the top of my head, I spend time on: foreign language, guitar, writing, blogging, photography/videography, programming challenges, fitness, meditation, cooking, history, math, politics, biking, kayaking, hiking, golf, travel, volunteering, reading books/magazines/news, watching movies/shows, surfing the web, home improvement and repair, investing.
And that's just the fun stuff. There's still bills, taxes, paperwork, repairs, laundry, dishes, on and on.
Honestly, I still don't have anywhere near enough time and am annoyed by how much time sleep steals. I have no idea how I went 30 years with 50 hours lost every week to work, not to mention raising a family.
It's a trite saying, but true: you won't be bored unless you're boring!
I'm a huge fan of sloth. I frequently take many months off between jobs, sometimes a year or more. I refuse to work more than 40 hours a week except for genuine emergencies (things like outages; being behind schedule never counts), and I'm close to drawing the line at four days a week. I always take at least three weeks off a year, and that's in a bad year. I take "mental health days" often and with no guilt. If you…
> it's not that hard to achieve ... from minimum wage jobs through decades of professional career. i highly doubt somebody on a minimum wage job can choose to work only 4 days a week.
The weirdest part, though, is voluntary taking several months or even a year between jobs. Now that is proper privilege.
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I believe that both capitalism and communism are broken because of broken brains of people who are "implementing" them. We need enlightened, self-organized people (no "leaders" or "representatives") as a starting point for any successful implementation of a Utopia (whatever -ism you like to call it). But no current system is going to support enlightenment of people because it would mean its end.
The Daemon/Freedom novels have an original solution for that An highly advanced non-conscious AI takes over everything Then people can rate each other. And gain experience levels like in a mmorpg. And then people work to improve their rating and levels Hopefully the AI is smart enough to prevent fraudulent ratings.
Found your problem.
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I could not agree more. I'm pretty early in my software career after a few years as a military officer, and if that job taught me one thing, it's that NOTHING at work is as important as you think it is. Looking back on those times, even in a job where lives are sometimes on the line, I can't believe how seriously I took some things and how much more fun I could have had. It's a disappointing lesson to have to learn i…
i still remember the time (early in my career) i was summoned to jury duty and tried to register an "undue hardship" with the judge because i had a project deadline coming up. i genuinely thought it was that important, but looking back it was really not a big deal at all (and the judge knew it) :)
Another level of enlightenment is when you understand somethings don't have to be done at all.
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"Worker-controlled workplaces" are rather common in some industries where capital intensity is especially low, such as legal services (with firms being organized as partnerships; indeed, capital intensity is the main obstacle to this kind of structure in other industries). And yet, top lawyers tend to work quite a bit more than the typical worker.
> And yet, top lawyers tend to work quite a bit more than the typical worker. I would argue that the reason for that is that they more directly see the fruits of their labour.