181–190 of 381 posts
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Assuming you are from a rich country, I find this kind of comment amusing. I mean, how can we really consider ourselves being the proletariat when our clothes are sewed by children in Pakistan?
It’s simple: They are our proletariat.
It seems obvious that we have no more leisure time now than before. But consider the huge leisure industries that have grown over the past 100 years. Movies, TV, now streaming services. Radio and now Spotify and podcasts. Video games. Sports and all the media around sports. Even social media is arguably mostly entertainment these days. Or look at active leisure. How many more cyclists and rock climbers are there toda…
If that seems a bit off, consider that a lot of people barely work at all (especially those under 25 and over 65), and those that have full time employment usually only work 5 days per week, which lowers the average hours per day considerably. So throughout an entire lifetime, I think it's true that Americans spend a lot more time on leisure and sport than on work. It just doesn't feel that way, especially when you're in prime working age.
But even full time employed parents (probably the group that perceives themselves most time starved) still spend 2.95 (mothers) to 3.52 (fathers) hours per day on Leisure and sports[2].
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I live in Australia. Australia produces 190% of the food it requires, exports 71% of its agricultural production, and only 2.2% of its population work in agriculture. In earlier societies around 60% or more of the population worked in agriculture. I don't believe most of this increasing agricultural productivity is due to us buying things from poor countries, although it's probably a factor at some level. I think it'…
On this topic, a question I've had for a while but never learned the answer to is: if nobody did anything outside farming, how expensive would farm equipment be? I assume there's some scale benefit to agricultural vehicles from the production of everyone else's vehicles, and likewise the construction and maintenance of the transport infrastructure to get food from the farms to the people, but I don't know whether or…
Not only do we have less time: 1. Both couple partners have to work in the past only one. 2. We work more. 3. We take loans (obligate to future work).
> 1. Both couple partners have to work in the past only one. Why is it so? I always hear that. I am not married yet but I keep it a little challenge to myself to one day disprove that. I believe with a clever lifestyle of not spending on useless stuff and moving into a cheap region one can easily make that work. So I say, brazenly and naively ...
New houses have more than doubled in size since the 1950s while holding one less occupant on average.
Houses have a lot more amenities than they used to have, like AC and a clothes dryer instead of a clothes line.
We have torn down about a million SROs* since the 1950s and largely zoned out of existence the ability to build new Missing Middle housing.
We are more car oriented than in the past and cars are typically the second largest expense in a household budget and they've gotten crazy expensive as well.
Having said that, I will recommend the (possibly out of print) book How to survive without a salary by Charles Long in support of your crazy plan. ;)
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> 1. Both couple partners have to work in the past only one. Why is it so? I always hear that. I am not married yet but I keep it a little challenge to myself to one day disprove that. I believe with a clever lifestyle of not spending on useless stuff and moving into a cheap region one can easily make that work. So I say, brazenly and naively ...
> clever lifestyle … not spending … cheap region This is easy to do alone. Bring a partner into your life and slowly but surely you will be seen as a resource to be maxed out and consumed. I know billionaires that share your dream. Do it. Save yourself. Go now.
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Humanity is much more productive per capita than 50 years ago, but we are collectively working more hours, not less. The goal should not be for everyone to do no work. The goal should not be for everyone to work full time and fear unemployment.
We work more in large part because we consume much more. Increased consumption requires increased supply which requires increased production which means more work to be done.
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> 1. Both couple partners have to work in the past only one. Why is it so? I always hear that. I am not married yet but I keep it a little challenge to myself to one day disprove that. I believe with a clever lifestyle of not spending on useless stuff and moving into a cheap region one can easily make that work. So I say, brazenly and naively ...
A large part of this is that many people feel that a two-person household must inevitably grow to more than two people. If children aren't a life goal for you, it gets a lot easier.
Every generation looks at technological progress and predicts the obvious conclusion, that people will have more leisure time. It’s easy to see that what you are doing now will be easier and quicker. They don’t see the new things that people will be doing, new social structures to adapt and compete in, new information to process, and especially the cognitive burden of managing risk in so many new choices. The simples…
It seems obvious that we have no more leisure time now than before. But consider the huge leisure industries that have grown over the past 100 years. Movies, TV, now streaming services. Radio and now Spotify and podcasts. Video games. Sports and all the media around sports. Even social media is arguably mostly entertainment these days. Or look at active leisure. How many more cyclists and rock climbers are there toda…
What explains that?