61–70 of 139 posts
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> Which jobs are you considering no one would want to do? Not OP but most low-skill, sanitation-related jobs are most likely the best example. There certainly is craftsmanship behind cleaning but it mostly boils down to hard physical labor.
I once had a conversation with a cleaner, she liked it because she could listen to Spotify podcasts all day (she was working as a cleaner in Sweden).
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> we should fight for an economic system that gives people more leisure We don't even have an economic system that pays well or treats people humanely...
Compared to what?
>I find it really challenging to talk with people who have completely separated their work from their emotional being. For me, work is part of life and it should be a meaningful one. I like my work too but when I hear things like this it's so hard not to cringe because of how much of a place of privilege this comes from. Most jobs are things no one would want to do if they didn't need to survive, and that's fundament…
Before the modern age, most humans worked in agriculture. Really, really hard work, day in day out, no vacations, no sick days, you had to be there no matter the weather (except extreme events where your live would be endangered too much, probably). It's amazing how today we can actually even think that "work should be a meaningful part of life" rather than just a means to keep you alive. Today, I would say most peop…
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Isn't fixating on "privilege" a way of avoiding more troubling thoughts far beyond guilt? As if God made some people rich and some poor, and that's the way the world is. Let's all say a prayer for them? The Protestant work ethic once contained many good things like a sense of duty, efficiency, self-discipline and so on. Emancipation of others, and helping others out of poverty was always built into that! But under la…
I'm not sure many workers building cathedrals considered it a labor of love. Particularly those cathedrals that took many generations to build. > Half of all the work done in the world is childcare and caring for the old. This is a really profound statement, thanks for making me think slightly differently!
youre kidding right? of course some of them were proud of their contribution.
>I find it really challenging to talk with people who have completely separated their work from their emotional being. For me, work is part of life and it should be a meaningful one. I like my work too but when I hear things like this it's so hard not to cringe because of how much of a place of privilege this comes from. Most jobs are things no one would want to do if they didn't need to survive, and that's fundament…
Before the modern age, most humans worked in agriculture. Really, really hard work, day in day out, no vacations, no sick days, you had to be there no matter the weather (except extreme events where your live would be endangered too much, probably). It's amazing how today we can actually even think that "work should be a meaningful part of life" rather than just a means to keep you alive. Today, I would say most peop…
Possibly different on a factory farm that maximises production every day but that’s not really what you’re referring to.
This comes from personal experience working on productive small farms.
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Not quite day in and day out. Agricultural work pre modern times was seasonal.
There was stuff to do outside the growing season still. There were farm animals to tend to, you fixed up your house and the farm buildings, made and mended clothes etc. Although, since the days were shorter, the work time was naturally shorter as well, as artificial light was expensive.
But work is indeed seasonal, and I doubt you'd actually be able to be so effective that you don't have any free time at all. (And if you manage that, presumably you'll be a rather rich farmer...)
Also, in many places, there's nothing much to do in the winter except stay inside the house around a warm fire and try not to freeze. Yes you could take on some other work using the light from the fireplace as well... but did everyone actually exert themselves so much that they didn't have a single day of rest? I really doubt it and it's more likely it's a tale told by capitalists to scare us into being grateful for being employed.
PS: much of Europe also observed the Sabbath too, so there's also at least one day off per week.
Well. The paragraph below really comes at a good time, >> Emotion cannot be separate from work. It has to be a part of it. When working, you’re expressing yourself. You express beliefs, opinions, and strategies, world views. You cannot detach yourself completely from work. I doubt that you ever should. because 2 days ago I had a discussion with the owner of the company I work for (and, therefore, my boss), where I to…
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I'm not sure many workers building cathedrals considered it a labor of love. Particularly those cathedrals that took many generations to build. > Half of all the work done in the world is childcare and caring for the old. This is a really profound statement, thanks for making me think slightly differently!
> I'm not sure many workers building cathedrals considered it a labor of love. Particularly those cathedrals that took many generations to build youre kidding right? of course some of them were proud of their contribution.
But I wonder, factoring out the physical toil, whether future generations might look at giant technological monoliths, maybe The Internet of 2100 and say;
"Those techies were unhappy slaves. they laboured in basements and
cubicles. They wrote code just to eat! It was obscenely inhuman."
"Those who believed in the Great Singularity", devoted their lives
out of religious fervour. Many of them wrote code without being
paid, just because they had a vision. "
edit: s/Interest/Internet/g
I love programming and computer science and everything around it. I love learning about it in my free time and creating programs that serve no other purpose than entertainment (for myself).
I couldn’t care less about the e-commerce software my boss pays me to maintain/fix/add features. I do it because it pays the bills. God, I hate daily stand ups.