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Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever

newstatesman.com

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Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever

#51

Post by gthtjtkt »

icelancer wrote: post #23
UncleOxidant wrote: post #16

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.

I can only speak for myself, but I know a lot of people with similar goals to me - I've worked a full-time job since I was 17, and upon leaving college, have always worked 2 or more jobs (typically one-full time, one entrepreneurial venture or part-time internship to gain experience - currently I just work two full-time jobs, one of them my own company, and do some sporadic consulting as well). I'm in my late 30's an…

This honestly sounds just like my nightmares.

I'd rather go live in a tent than spend 10+ years putting in 70+ hour weeks just to retire when all of my best years are behind me.

Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever

#52

Post by hirundo »

> Bertrand Russell wrote “In Praise of Idleness” in 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, idleness was an unavoidable reality for the millions who had lost their jobs

What a passive attitude. Unless you're in a straight jacket idleness is a thoroughly avoidable reality. Hustle matters most when you're broke and unemployed. If you're doing it right being unemployed is a full-time job, job hunting. Or building your own.

Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever

#53

Post by sm4rk0 »

sm4rk0 wrote: post #43
vslira wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, what's funny is that we'll never be sure if that's the case[0]. What guarantee is there that the median socialist voter wouldn't vote for more work for everyone because they want fancier tvs, or more dazzling musical spectacles, or fancier video games, bigger homes, etc? What if society doesn't democratically vote for idleness and quality of life / tranquility? [0] I mean unless there's a real and successfu…

Fancier TVs are not going to make their ~miserable~ (edit: too heavy word) lifes more meaningful. That's what capitalism has made you believe in order to keep you in its chains voluntarily.

Sitting 8+ hours at desk plus few more in a car only to get home and continue sitting in front of a fancy TV. And you call this advanced society or civilisation?

Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever

#54

Post by megameter »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #45
sm4rk0 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> From above, we can only conclude that capitalism and profit-oriented economy are insane I don't see the conclusion. I can only see there are many specific problems with capitalism.

A major function of capitalism is to direct human attention towards utilitarian valuation, which produces the growth-and-exploitation formula we are familiar with: more stuff is made, more land is developed, but it is often done by overfitting to market prices.

But increasingly we are turning the valuation process over to algorithms, sensors, and other precision instruments. If we extrapolate this onwards, the market exchange will become vestigial in not that many years: the algorithms involved will already know how much can be sustainably produced, consumed, transported and trashed, and there will be known bounds to personal and societal consumption relative to planetary capacity. At that point, transition away from capitalism will seem obvious. And we might be closer to this point than it looks.

Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever

#55

Post by icelancer »

gthtjtkt wrote: post #51
icelancer wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only speak for myself, but I know a lot of people with similar goals to me - I've worked a full-time job since I was 17, and upon leaving college, have always worked 2 or more jobs (typically one-full time, one entrepreneurial venture or part-time internship to gain experience - currently I just work two full-time jobs, one of them my own company, and do some sporadic consulting as well). I'm in my late 30's an…

This honestly sounds just like my nightmares. I'd rather go live in a tent than spend 10+ years putting in 70+ hour weeks just to retire when all of my best years are behind me.

Feel free. Different strokes. I spent 3 years of my life professionally gambling as one of my full-time jobs and lived more in those 3 years than most do in a lifetime, and founded a company with an eight-figure valuation that is a lot of fun to run. If I worked some boring desk job that I hated, sure.

Besides, my best years are ahead of me. I'll be in great shape in my 50s with nothing but time and options. The idea that your 20s and 30s are the best years of your life is a very antiquated concept.

Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever

#56

Post by odshoifsdhfs »

icelancer wrote: post #23
UncleOxidant wrote: post #16

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.

I can only speak for myself, but I know a lot of people with similar goals to me - I've worked a full-time job since I was 17, and upon leaving college, have always worked 2 or more jobs (typically one-full time, one entrepreneurial venture or part-time internship to gain experience - currently I just work two full-time jobs, one of them my own company, and do some sporadic consulting as well). I'm in my late 30's an…

I am in a very similar situation (and I think even age/life experience)

I don't have any public words to say to you, but I would love to chat a bit if you ever want to.

My email is brunomtsousa @ the biggest search company email service.com

Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever

#57

Post by perfunctory »

ooobit2 wrote: post #48
sm4rk0 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Why the only alternatives to capitalism that come to mind are always China and Gulags? Is there absolutely nothing else we can imagine?

(Maybe if we had some more leisure we could become more imaginative)

Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever

#58

Post by sm4rk0 »

ooobit2 wrote: post #48
sm4rk0 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

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.

Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever

#59

Post by marcusverus »

perfunctory wrote: post #31
Barrin92 wrote: post #10

>we also need to challenge the cultural ethic that teaches us to value ourselves in proportion to our capacity for “economically productive” labour. Human beings are more than just workers. We need to learn how to value idleness. I think much more than valueing idleness it's also a massive indictement of the system we live in. The number of people who I've talked to who legitimately don't know what to do without work…

> The number of people who I've talked to who legitimately don't know what to do without work during the pandemic is staggering. The pleasures of urban populations have become mainly passive: seeing cinemas, watching football matches, listening to the radio, and so on. This results from the fact that their active energies are fully taken up with work; if they had more leisure, they would again enjoy pleasures in whic…

I'm not sure that this little nugget of wisdom has withstood the test of time. The average number of hours worked has fallen dramatically since the 30s[0] even as interest in passive entertainment has skyrocketed.

[0]https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/

Re: Bertrand Russell's argument for idleness is more relevant than ever

#60

Post by omphalos »

umvi wrote: post #4

> ... we have realised that it is worth taking an economic hit in order to preserve health. Have we realized this? I think you'd find a sizable chunk of the country that disagrees. And I also think it's still too soon to say. > That, after all, is what money is for. Money that we don't have. We can keep conjuring money out of thin air if we want, but the effects of infinitely deepening debt seem negative in every cas…

The money is there, it just mostly resides in the hands of the few. The mean net worth of an American household is almost $700,000 - that's total net worth of all households, divided by number of households.
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