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Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness (1932)

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Re: Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness (1932)

#61

Post by kungfooguru »

ludwigvan wrote: post #56
imarg wrote: post #42

Of a similar thinking is, I suppose, "The Right to Be Lazy" by Paul Lafargue. I read it some time ago and if I remember correctly he believed that there isn't/wasn't any need to work more than 3 hours a day because of the technological advances of the time (and to think this was in 1883!) After a quick search I found it is available online at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1883/lazy/

Trivia: Lafargue was Marx's daughter's husband.

Trivia: And one of the people Marx was referring to when he said that if they are Marxists then "what is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist."

Re: Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness (1932)

#62

Post by padobson »

The method of a leisure class without duties was, however, extraordinarily wasteful. None of the members of the class had to be taught to be industrious, and the class as a whole was not exceptionally intelligent. The class might produce one Darwin, but against him had to be set tens of thousands of country gentlemen who never thought of anything more intelligent than fox-hunting and punishing poachers.

I'm down. We should be massively ramping up the amount of leisure time in our society so that we, as a society, never miss out on a potential Darwin or Lincoln or Jesus or whomever. How many world-changing, mental giants have we missed out on because they couldn't free their minds from working 40+ hours a week?

Re: Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness (1932)

#63

Post by padobson »

I have to say there's a good chance that society is already moving toward Russell's ideal.

If you just look at accelerators like YCombinator, you'll see that two successful startups (Dropbox and AirBnb) are by-and-large paying for the investment of the other several hundred startups several times over.

So when will we see it going to the next level? Gather a bunch of people together, using whatever criteria you see fit, and tell them to do whatever they want. Pay for their room and board, and see what is produced from their complete leisure time. If the produce of that investment was one of the individuals simply having an idea on the scale of something like "Democracy" or "Altruism", wouldn't it be completely worth it if the other individuals never did anything more than eat, sleep, and play video games?

Re: Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness (1932)

#64

Post by enduser »

There are a number of beautiful places in the United States where it is possible for a person to subsist quite luxuriously on $1200/mo and preserve the ability to throw parties for friends, buy books and tools, etc. As of January a person with such income will have free Medicare in Oregon.

"Fuck You" money is an illusion that keeps you working. The mind loves to believe that having enough of some external thing will give us control, safety, or whatever we most fear the lack of. It isn't true. A man with with excess money is absorbed in concerns of what to do with it and is hardly free. He might be able to say "fuck you" to people, but he can't say "fuck you" to money.

Freedom is measured by the scarcity of our concerns. And happiness, perhaps, by closeness with people to whom we need never say "fuck you" because we love them and accept them fully.

Re: Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness (1932)

#65

Post by leejoramo »

samograd wrote: post #60
leejoramo wrote: post #46

As wikipedia notes on Bertrand Russell: > His work has had a considerable influence on logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, computer science (see type theory and type system), and philosophy, especially philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics. Plus he won the Nobel Prize in Literature ! For a very approachable overview of Russell's complex life, I highly recommend the gr…

For a very approachable view of Russel's thoughts and work, you can try reading his own writing: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/355 My personal favourite so far has been 'Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays' with 'Analysis of Mind' currently at the top of my reading queue. Not everything he did was like reading 'Principia Mathematica' and his writing is very open, readable and eloquent.

Thanks for that link to Gutenberg. Adding those essays to my reading list.

Re: Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness (1932)

#66

Post by padobson »

gbog wrote: post #28

There is this thing about ancient China: each son, when his father died, had to mourn for three years. Yes, three years. And it meant stopping your official occupation, e.g. official employment. (This didn't apply to the peasant). Result: most of the great products of Chinese culture are a direct consequence of this forced idleness.

Here's something sort of related in Deuteronomy 24:5 - If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married

How much of the rest of the Bible came out of obeying that law, I wonder?

Re: Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness (1932)

#67

Post by thomaslangston »

kamaal wrote: post #15
gyepi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is never ever going to be a period of time in the human history, there was none in the past, nor will there be in the future where we shall attain peaceful uniform equality among humans. The very concept is against our very internal wiring. Equality means, every one gets the same regardless of their efforts in getting it. This is a very strange concept, and the human understanding of motivation rejects it. My c…

>>However in a "post-scarcity" environment Scarcity of which commodity? The western civilization is already at a point where food and clothes aren't even a problem. Yet the debates about rich and poor are common. Problem isn't the lack of things. The problem is the people thinking that rewards must go in proportion to efforts. That will never change. Tomorrow if every one were to get free food, clothes and a home to…

> Hunger in America exists for over 50 million people. That is 1 in 6 of the U.S. population – including more than 1 in 5 children.

http://feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america.aspx

Re: Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness (1932)

#68

Post by VLM »

padobson wrote: post #63

I have to say there's a good chance that society is already moving toward Russell's ideal. If you just look at accelerators like YCombinator, you'll see that two successful startups (Dropbox and AirBnb) are by-and-large paying for the investment of the other several hundred startups several times over. So when will we see it going to the next level? Gather a bunch of people together, using whatever criteria you see f…

We called those "housing projects" and they were not exactly a paradise to live in. Superficially need some minimal level of education/civilization. Which merely excludes those bored by formal education, most of whom are idiots and a small fraction of them are geniuses. For lack of a better idea you could use some weighted GPA/IQ/GRE/SAT/ACT score system. Assuming the smartest people are those who come up with the best ideas. It does seem that to spread an idea you need a smart dude but a think tank should hire marketing people for that? Perhaps a lotto would work just as well for selection. A lotto instead of elections would likely give us a superior government, perhaps it would give us superior ideas on average.

Another interesting example is the Institute for Advanced Studies nearby Princeton, I think. You might want to examine whats been produced there.

Re: Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness (1932)

#70

Post by angrow »

samograd wrote: post #60
leejoramo wrote: post #46

As wikipedia notes on Bertrand Russell: > His work has had a considerable influence on logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, computer science (see type theory and type system), and philosophy, especially philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics. Plus he won the Nobel Prize in Literature ! For a very approachable overview of Russell's complex life, I highly recommend the gr…

For a very approachable view of Russel's thoughts and work, you can try reading his own writing: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/355 My personal favourite so far has been 'Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays' with 'Analysis of Mind' currently at the top of my reading queue. Not everything he did was like reading 'Principia Mathematica' and his writing is very open, readable and eloquent.

> Whoever contemplates the world in the light of an ideal--whether what he seeks be intellect, or art, or love, or simple happiness, or all together--must feel a great sorrow in the evils that men needlessly allow to continue, and--if he be a man of force and vital energy--an urgent desire to lead men to the realization of the good which inspires his creative vision.

"Proposed Roads to Freedom" is my pick for number one.

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