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The history of what we call work

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Re: The history of what we call work

#21

Post by wayoutthere »

cwoolfe wrote: post #6

“Humankind,” Suzman writes, is apparently “not yet ready to claim its collective pension.” So why haven’t we traded rising incomes for more free time? Good question. This is part of the reason I'm in process of switching to a part-time schedule as a software engineer and parent of 3 young children. "...economists assure us that, in any case, the only long-term solution to global poverty is more economic growth." Whil…

The counter perspective is that some amount of degrowth will happen eventually. And in the west, decades of austerity have led to oppressive working conditions to the point people aren’t having children. We’re already seeing this effect on the workforce; my hypothesis is that much of the worker shortage is due to older workers dying from Covid or simply retiring and there aren’t enough millennials and Gen Z to fill the jobs at the bottom of the hierarchy after everyone shifts up.

We cannot continue increasing productivity exponentially forever, and likely not for a whole lot longer. We’re already seeing the system collapsing in on itself — the supply chain woes we’re seeing right now are IMO the result of over-optimization over the last 3 decades. Infinite growth assumes there’s an ample workforce. When birth rates are below replacement levels, that’s not a good assumption.

We need to take a mindset of “what is the most productive way to optimize the limited and shrinking resources we have” rather than “how do we keep productivity growing forever”. Otherwise unrest will grow, and it’s a lot easier to smash a broken system than it is to maintain one.

Re: The history of what we call work

#22

Post by sillyquiet »

francisofascii wrote: post #18
sillyquiet wrote: post #13

'Gathering food' is not the extent of the 'work' that hunter-gatherer societies performed, which is kind of the basis of that ridiculous pop-anthropology notion of hunter-gathers working some silly low number of hours per week. Food preparation and preservation, shelter, crafting necessaries like eating implements, food storage vessels, clothing, and weapons - these keep a member of that society (except for some of t…

The world still has some hunter gatherer societies living today, so studying them could give us some insight into how many hours our hunter gatherer ancestors worked.

Those existing hunter gathers, almost invariably, have close economic contact with modern agricultural societies, so unfortunately there's a limit to how much studying them can tell us as far as that goes.

Re: The history of what we call work

#23

Post by pozdnyshev90 »

sillyquiet wrote: post #11

This is the kind of article that can only be written in rich, privileged times by rich, privileged people. For the majority of history and or for the majority of people even today, 'work' was what you did to fulfill the most bottom of the tiers of Maslow's hierarchy of needs - survival. IOW, 'work' isn't some activity that exists outside of your 'real' life, it IS your life in a very literal sense. I realize that kin…

> IOW, 'work' isn't some activity that exists outside of your 'real' life, it IS your life in a very literal sense

Not exactly. You sell your labor power in order to earn a living so you can go out an acquire goods to survive. You work to have the means to live. That doesn't mean it is your life. You don't reap the benefits of what you create.

Re: The history of what we call work

#24

Post by arvinsim »

saba2008 wrote: post #12
agumonkey wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every sunday. You want some pictures ? People in the wild don't hunt elephants to survive. They survived pretty well for ages, they climb for honey, find smaller animals. It's not easy but it seems most humans are capable of it. I'm pretty sure the deal is worth it. The amount of satisfaction in apt usage of your senses and body is quite immense. I suffer daily due to insufficient stimulation (to the point I voluntee…

You miss hobby you do for entertainment with work you do for survival. Once it's no longer choice between 'apt usage of your senses and body' and 'insufficient stimulation', but between maximum performance and starvation, it stops being fun. Just read the happiness on faces of homeless.

The homeless don't hunt.

The "homeless" who do, don't stay homeless for long.

Re: The history of what we call work

#25

Post by sillyquiet »

pozdnyshev90 wrote: post #23
sillyquiet wrote: post #11

This is the kind of article that can only be written in rich, privileged times by rich, privileged people. For the majority of history and or for the majority of people even today, 'work' was what you did to fulfill the most bottom of the tiers of Maslow's hierarchy of needs - survival. IOW, 'work' isn't some activity that exists outside of your 'real' life, it IS your life in a very literal sense. I realize that kin…

> IOW, 'work' isn't some activity that exists outside of your 'real' life, it IS your life in a very literal sense Not exactly. You sell your labor power in order to earn a living so you can go out an acquire goods to survive. You work to have the means to live . That doesn't mean it is your life. You don't reap the benefits of what you create.

I meant that sentence as a follow on to the preceding - I was talking about the work performed by people that don't live in rich privileged agricultural societies.

> You don't reap the benefit of what you create

And your risk is also much lessened and abstracted. If you produce a few bugs in your code, you don't get eaten by a tiger or have your family starve to death.

Re: The history of what we call work

#26

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

wayoutthere wrote: post #21
cwoolfe wrote: post #6

“Humankind,” Suzman writes, is apparently “not yet ready to claim its collective pension.” So why haven’t we traded rising incomes for more free time? Good question. This is part of the reason I'm in process of switching to a part-time schedule as a software engineer and parent of 3 young children. "...economists assure us that, in any case, the only long-term solution to global poverty is more economic growth." Whil…

The counter perspective is that some amount of degrowth will happen eventually. And in the west, decades of austerity have led to oppressive working conditions to the point people aren’t having children. We’re already seeing this effect on the workforce; my hypothesis is that much of the worker shortage is due to older workers dying from Covid or simply retiring and there aren’t enough millennials and Gen Z to fill t…

Yes, but at the point 'degrowth' surviving companies will likely be the most productive companies bar government bailouts. I don't really disagree with you for the most part. I just really see negative birth rates as inherently bad things.

Re: The history of what we call work

#27

Post by [deleted] »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #17
lelanthran wrote: post #10

> The chemical analysis of bones has demonstrated conclusively that early humans were not constantly teetering on the brink of starvation. On the contrary, they ate well despite having at their disposal only a few stone and wooden implements. > These findings support a surprising thesis, one that reverses everything we used to believe about the deep history of humanity. It was not the hunter-gatherers who “suffered f…

What makes you assume that dental hygiene wouldn't exist in a foraging society with primitive tools? People were using things akin to toothbrushes as far back as 3000BCE and, as I understand it, a lot of modern man's issues with dental health are due to our high grain diets anyway.

[deleted]

Re: The history of what we call work

#28

Post by tosser0001 »

lelanthran wrote: post #10

> The chemical analysis of bones has demonstrated conclusively that early humans were not constantly teetering on the brink of starvation. On the contrary, they ate well despite having at their disposal only a few stone and wooden implements. > These findings support a surprising thesis, one that reverses everything we used to believe about the deep history of humanity. It was not the hunter-gatherers who “suffered f…

That advent of tooth decay has long been seen as a marker of a society's transition away from foraging and to agriculture which generally brings a lot more starch into the diet.

Re: The history of what we call work

#29

Post by tharkun__ »

lelanthran wrote: post #20
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you assume that dental hygiene wouldn't exist in a foraging society with primitive tools? People were using things akin to toothbrushes as far back as 3000BCE and, as I understand it, a lot of modern man's issues with dental health are due to our high grain diets anyway.

> People were using things akin to toothbrushes as far back as 3000BCE So? They were using clothing as well, doesn't mean they weren't transmitting infections to one another willy-nilly. > as I understand it, a lot of modern man's issues with dental health are due to our grain righ diets anyway. Maybe. I never heard of that theory myself. Bu regardless of diet, foragers still eat a lot of fruit with sugar. That's bad…

Well you haven't. I have. Multiple documentaries I remember seeing as a kid mentioned it actually. Not just sugar but also starches.

Not sure what you mean by "the tribe's toothbrush" being passed down. You can make toothbrushes (that don't last very long) from small branches by feathering out the end. You can also use toothpicks (e.g. made from bone).

Anecdote: My dad was not really good at brushing his teeth at all. "Forgot" about it quite often. He was "always" using a toothpick though. He'd be watching TV and you'd see him poking around with his toothpick. Sitting in front of the computer doing something and he's be poking around with his toothpick etc. He never had a single filling done or any issues with his teeth whatsoever. Try it some time. When the wooden toothpick is new, it can be used to get larger sticky things out from in between your teeth, which is only a problem if you have something sticky to eat in the first place. Once the toothpick has "feathered out" naturally from that, it can be used like a mini toothbrush and you can get your teeth squeaky clean little by little. I guess it's not a 3 minute brushing ritual, more of a lazy do-something-with-your-idle-hands while doing something else but hey.

Re: The history of what we call work

#30

Post by handrous »

Aunche wrote: post #9

"Work" here is defined as the amount of time it takes to gather food. By that logic, a minimum wage worker who spends $40 a week on groceries only spends 6 hours a week on "work" including time spent grocery shopping.

For anyone deciding whether or not to read the review, this is not an accurate description of how the piece treats "work" throughout.
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