The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#31

Post by winternett » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 2:38 PM UTC

The gig economy has worn many out... The promise of services like social media, Uber, Political Parties, and airBnB that promised to create wealthy entrepreneurs fell flat on it's face after making the people at the top of the pyramids very wealthy.

I think that social media really tipped the balance of fairness in the working world... With social media, suddenly Trust fund Babies could fake success, and promote schemes that helped them to profit. The Social Media model was set up to raise Trust Funders and Popular individuals far above everyone else, and it killed hopes of upward mobility for people who didn't fall into any fame or wealth category unless they became famous for negative reasons or for ridicule.

It's not that no one wants to work anymore, it's that people are tired of weak work schemes, and being used and then thrown away in order to elevate others. It's not until real opportunity for growth, entrepreneurship, and excellence returns that things will begin to get back to normal.

Talking about is as "Nobody wants to work anymore" is an injustice... Millions of people are working very hard every day on content creation that rivals TV programming and others are regularly posting their best and fully composed and edited work on Internet sites daily, most without any pay in HOPES of being discovered for their work, as proof of that.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#32

Post by shove » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 2:38 PM UTC

cypherpunks01 wrote: post #22

I found 2011 to be the most enlightening quote: > Man, what a weird week. Unless it's on their own terms, it seems nobody wants to work anymore. It's the only one with any acknowledgement that agreeable terms may actually be needed in order to attract people to work. It doesn't take a PhD to figure this out! Utah Phillips, one of my favorite storytellers and all-around anarchist and hobo has a line I was reminded of:…

In a similar vein, this poem by Pedro Pietri: Telephone Booth (number 905 1/2)

woke up this morning feeling excellent, picked up the telephone dialed the number of my equal opportunity employer to inform him I will not be into work today Are you feeling sick? the boss asked me No Sir I replied: I am feeling too good to report to work today, if I feel sick tomorrow I will come in early

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#33

Post by mandelbrotwurst » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 2:38 PM UTC

Belphemur wrote: post #19

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #7

Similarly … The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. 400BC

Always wondered if it was an actual Ancient Time quote. Doesn't seem like it : > It was crafted by a student, Kenneth John Freeman, for his Cambridge dissertation published in 1907. Freeman did not claim that the passage under analysis was a direct quotation of anyone; instead, he was presenting his own summary of the complaints directed against young people in ancient times. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/…

What is "Ancient Time"? Is that capitalization intentional?

Edit: Oh, maybe you meant "Ancient Rome"?

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#34

Post by shove » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 2:39 PM UTC

cypherpunks01 wrote: post #22

I found 2011 to be the most enlightening quote: > Man, what a weird week. Unless it's on their own terms, it seems nobody wants to work anymore. It's the only one with any acknowledgement that agreeable terms may actually be needed in order to attract people to work. It doesn't take a PhD to figure this out! Utah Phillips, one of my favorite storytellers and all-around anarchist and hobo has a line I was reminded of:…

IF I CANNOT DICTATE THE CONDITIONS OF MY LABOR I WILL HENCEFORTH CEASE TO WORK

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#35

Post by cmilton » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 2:40 PM UTC

pelagic_sky wrote: post #14

To be fair, I've never wanted to "work".

This. When I started my career it wasn’t just “work”, I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. That passion seems to be fading, and it was put into overdrive by the lockdowns. I can see a day in the very near future of giving up in this whole “work” thing.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#36

Post by z7 » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 2:40 PM UTC

Noam Chomsky:

"For two millennia the idea of getting a job was regarded as a fundamental attack against basic human rights and human dignity. Why? Because getting a job means accepting servitude to a master. It means saying, 'Okay, I'll rent myself to you for most of my waking life and I will follow your orders during this period.' That was considered an utter abomination. By now it's sort of taken for granted. But should we take it for granted? Or should we go back to the ideals of working people, classical liberals, Cicero, all the way to Abraham Lincoln, saying that this is not a decent way for human beings to live, that people should be in control of their own work and their own destiny. One of the founders of classical liberalism, Wilhelm von Humboldt, captured the point very lucidly. He said, suppose an artisan creates a beautiful object on command, in a job. We may admire what he did, but we despise what he is: a tool in the hands of others. That was common belief right through the nineteenth century. We now accept that renting yourself into servitude is one of the highest goals in life – an idea that would have been an abomination for 2000 years."

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6MU5zQwtT4&t=3540s

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#37

Post by cypherpunks01 » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 2:40 PM UTC

shove wrote: post #34

cypherpunks01 wrote: post #22

I found 2011 to be the most enlightening quote: > Man, what a weird week. Unless it's on their own terms, it seems nobody wants to work anymore. It's the only one with any acknowledgement that agreeable terms may actually be needed in order to attract people to work. It doesn't take a PhD to figure this out! Utah Phillips, one of my favorite storytellers and all-around anarchist and hobo has a line I was reminded of:…

IF I CANNOT DICTATE THE CONDITIONS OF MY LABOR I WILL HENCEFORTH CEASE TO WORK

Yes, thank you! That's the related one I could not think of : )

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#38

Post by wiseowise » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 2:40 PM UTC

swayvil wrote: post #4

Modern work is weird. All your energy goes into it. But at the end of the day there's no satisfaction. Just emptiness and exhaustion. So you invest your remaining time in entertainments, drugs and shopping. Frantically groping for a scrap of joy. My friends in carpentry call it "feeding the monkey". The monkey must be fed, one way or another.

> Modern work is weird. All your energy goes into it. But at the end of the day there's no satisfaction. Just emptiness and exhaustion.

As opposed to what? Works was always like that.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#39

Post by randomdata » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 2:41 PM UTC

api wrote: post #2

It's always nobody wants to work anymore at the wages you are presently offering. It's like concluding we've run out of oil because the price of gasoline went up.

Of course, when you get down to the heart of the matter, it is really: The customer doesn't want what you have to offer anymore.

Not having enough revenue to pay the workers a sufficient rate is just a symptom of that.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#40

Post by bmmayer1 » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 2:42 PM UTC

z7 wrote: post #36

Noam Chomsky: "For two millennia the idea of getting a job was regarded as a fundamental attack against basic human rights and human dignity. Why? Because getting a job means accepting servitude to a master. It means saying, 'Okay, I'll rent myself to you for most of my waking life and I will follow your orders during this period.' That was considered an utter abomination. By now it's sort of taken for granted. But s…

What evidence is there of people 2000 years ago claiming that having a "job" was a "fundamental attack against basic human rights and human dignity."?