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Maybe you should do less 'work'

johnwhiles.com

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Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#231

Post by vkou »

adwn wrote: post #138
adamsmith143 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These concerns, in many forms, have been present for years, however we were once instilled with the instinct to overcome, but now frailty is more valued because even in failure you can not criticize those who are less able. Actually I think you are totally off base here. I know in my cohort of age 30+ millennials there is a strong sense of doom. Many people have the attitude of "why should I have kids when they'll…

> boomerisms Kind of ironic, given that "boomers" lived under the 4 decades long threat of total nuclear war. Frankly, as an instance of those "age 30+ millenials", that would instill a far stronger sense of doom in me than the rather gradual, rather benign (compared to WW3 between the US and the USSR) effects of climate change.

> Kind of ironic, given that "boomers" lived under the 4 decades long threat of total nuclear war.

We still live under that same threat, almost nothing has changed... Other than public perception [1] of the dangers.

All the same failure modes that lead to nuclear war that were in place in 1980 are still here, today. [2] All the same kinds of people are in still in charge.

[1] Just because the news has gotten bored of writing about a subject doesn't mean the subject has gone away.

[2] Also, India/Pakistan/North Korea are now nuclear powers, but as someone who doesn't live in Asia, I'm far more concerned about the Russia/US dynamic than any of that. Neither of those three parties can 'end the world' in the same way the latter two can.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#232

Post by beaconstudios »

danielvaughn wrote: post #227
beaconstudios wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the parent is critiquing the argument that we are all homo economicus - an agent whose primary function is to operate within the market at maximum efficiency to optimise for profit. The counterargument is that no, we aren't, and optimising for market exploitation is both an effort in frustration and anathema to human wellbeing. The GP is encouraging us to act like robots by living our lives in accordance with market…

I'm not sure if this is a new trend, or if I've only just begun noticing it over the last decade. People seem to have completely lost the ability to infer the meaning of words if it lies beyond face value. What a trite, shallow interpretation.

my point is that we should oppose the system that forces everybody to be in market competition with each other. I understand the position being forwarded, but I think it's describing a system that's antithetical to human values and thus should not be just accepted as a fact like gravity.

Perhaps it is you who is being shallow and trite, not understanding the actual objection I have. I know that what the OP is saying is a description of how to optimise your economic standing - I've done it plenty myself because optimisation comes naturally to me; I'm saying that's a shite way to live and invest your time and energy.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#233

Post by bsedlm »

dxbydt wrote: post #220
caffeine wrote: post #135

You are the boss of a company of one. Your company sells labor to the labor market, it makes investments in assets, it borrows funds, etc. It’s your job to decide how that company is run. It’s your job to decide what investments that company needs to make to get good returns. It’s also your job to interpret the contracts your company enters into and decide what is acceptable, and to appropriately risk-manage legal ha…

ffs. Humans have lived on the planet for 200000 years. This way of organizing people as a company interacting with the labor market with assets & investments & risk management...is at best a 100 years old. Its like a drop in the ocean of time. That said, when I was taking courses in Finance as a young 20 something, I came up with this same exact analogy & took it to its logical end - I conceived a stock exchange call…

> I conceived a stock exchange called the Human Stock Exchange, where every human being was a human stock ticker,

I've had a very vague (somewhat similar) idea that I'm stil trying to articulate well.

something like what you said but the stock is run on a blockchain

then every person can emit their own stock which can get traded around.

at some point, the emitter person must (somehow) be made to respond for what they emitted.

naturally, some people will be reliable (and their emited credits will have high value) and others will constantly flop and default so nobody will be interested in having lots of their credit.

so far, this "idea" (which is just barely a sketch) poses more problems than solutions (maybe it's a bit of a barely-baked idea looking for a problem?) but it's fun to think about what else we could possibly do that nobody's thoght to do yet.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#235

Post by Forgeties79 »

burntoutfire wrote: post #193
ascar wrote: post #30

This reads a bit like deliberately aiming for Parkinson's law. "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." However, I agree to some extent. I'm especially opposed to the concept that there should be 8 productive hours in a day. I sincerely believe that this is for most people not possible in creative knowledge work, which includes software engineering. So, if you have 5 productive hours of eng…

> rather spending your extra time on something else like job-related learning is a great way to prevent mental fatigue. Learning be as draining (or more) as work! Figuring out and internalising new stuff takes a lot of mental power. I don't know why people propose it as some lightweight way to fill the time.

I’d rather learn something useful that keeps me sharp then pretend I’m working.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#236

Post by BobbyJo »

beaconstudios wrote: post #211
danielvaughn wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're severely misreading the original comment, and to be frank, your interpretation is pretty juvenile. Nowhere does the person say that we are robots.

the parent is critiquing the argument that we are all homo economicus - an agent whose primary function is to operate within the market at maximum efficiency to optimise for profit. The counterargument is that no, we aren't, and optimising for market exploitation is both an effort in frustration and anathema to human wellbeing. The GP is encouraging us to act like robots by living our lives in accordance with market…

> The counterargument is that no, we aren't, and optimising for market exploitation is both an effort in frustration and anathema to human wellbeing

I don't see how an argument that agrees with the parent is counter argument. They literally said we all need to look out for our own well being, and a part of that is managing our participation in voluntary exchange.

> We aren't all totally independent actors competing in a ruthless market to maximise profits.

I missed the part where the parent said that. Where was it?

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#237

Post by krinchan »

burntoutfire wrote: post #189
krinchan wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're misinterpreting the article or you did not read it. > When did we become so not only complacent but also discouraging of any genuine effort? It is as if everyone is so aloof that if you show any effort or appreciation of your craft that you're societally[sic] acknowledging your own serfdom or that you're serving "the man". In my decades long experience in corporate programming, when people accus…

On the other hand, there truly are people who can sustainably work 60+ hours weeks for decades. Some of the Internet celebrity developers, like John Carmack or Jon Blow, are like that. However, they mostly work on their own thing, which must help a lot with sustaining motivation.

It really does! Startup compensation is heavily built around employees having a stake in the company for this reason. A sense of ownership really does increase your capacity.

Unfortunately, with corporations being so blatantly "mask off" recently, you've really seen that sense tank outside of small startups. It's just much more in the employees faces now. It could explain the trend, but I still stand by my stance that a vast portion of American-style Work Ethic is really just propaganda to keep workers undervaluing their labor and mental health.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#238

Post by adwn »

avgcorrection wrote: post #159
adwn wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> boomerisms Kind of ironic, given that "boomers" lived under the 4 decades long threat of total nuclear war. Frankly, as an instance of those "age 30+ millenials", that would instill a far stronger sense of doom in me than the rather gradual, rather benign (compared to WW3 between the US and the USSR) effects of climate change.

Nuclear armaggedon is avoidable with some luck and enough safeguards. Catastrophic climate change is inevitable at our current trajectory.

Climate change can be mitigated by technological solutions. Sure, you also need political action, but it's a marathon, not a sprint: a chain of bad decisions will make matters worse, but you'll still have a chance to recover. During the cold war, a chain of bad decisions could have led to immediate, full-scale disaster. That you had to depend on "some luck" to prevent the collapse of civilization as we know is terrifying.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#239

Post by honkycat »

Lately I have been using the metaphor of "keeping the temperature low" at work to describe how I am approaching my work.

You see, in the past, I would work on all cylinders constantly worried about how I was performing and trying to get work done as fast as possible.

I would let the temperature rise and rise until I was boiling over.

And I would get a lot of work done! However:

1. This is unsustainable. It stressed me out and left no slack room for me to take on additional work.

2. It was annoying to work with me because I was constantly stressed out about nothing.

I was judging myself for not working hard enough, while working harder than anyone else around me. And what comes naturally from judging yourself is judging others. And it was a viscous cycle.

Any more my priority is to take regular breaks, meditate, create space for myself to find compassion and love for the people around me, and overall just try and be a positive calming force in the company.

And people love it! I am complemented for my maturity and sensitivity and leadership abilities.

Re: Maybe you should do less 'work'

#240

Post by knubie »

Toine wrote: post #185
caffeine wrote: post #135

You are the boss of a company of one. Your company sells labor to the labor market, it makes investments in assets, it borrows funds, etc. It’s your job to decide how that company is run. It’s your job to decide what investments that company needs to make to get good returns. It’s also your job to interpret the contracts your company enters into and decide what is acceptable, and to appropriately risk-manage legal ha…

From a certain extreme perspective, there is some truth to what you're saying, but wow, this is so one-sided, extreme, partial and damaging. What decades of neo liberal brainwashing has done to people. This is so sad, really. We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy. We are hardcore social animals with huge biological & affective needs, this is scientifically proven…

> We are NOT companies, we're not robots only driven by free will, we don't live in an economy.

It’s just an analogy. A different way of looking at the decisions you make throughout your life.

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