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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

#81

Post by aslfksdfl »

wiz21c wrote: post #72
brushfoot wrote: post #67

The article sets up a bit of a false dichotomy. It's partly inherent in using idleness as the alternative to economically productive work. Did Russell himself use that term (edit: yes :-))? I'm guessing it's supposed to be provocative, to make it stick. But I'd imagine that's part of the problem. Many people would balk, and I think rightly so, at the connotations. There's nothing positive about undirected free time o…

> There's nothing positive about undirected free time over a long period. I could easily fill that time with dozens of ideas. But you see, I'm lucky enough to be a "creative" person. That is, I'm in love with the things I invent. The more I invent, the more passionnated I am. I can sustain an incredible level of activity just to achieve goals I create myself. But these goals are mostly non economic. So being able to…

>I'm lucky enough to be a "creative" person

This is the kind of insanity Russel's original essay alludes to. If we weren't taught to fill every hour with "productive" work, then anyone could foster their creativity with idle pursuits that aren't limited by their ability to produce value.

People feel like they're not creative because they feel the constant need to produce something of value and are afraid to experiment with anything else. Creativity requires that type of experimentation.

The fact that we claim some people are creative and some are not is a complete facade. It's similar to saying "oh I can't draw" or "I'm bad at math" — well no, you've likely just spent less time practicing it... maybe you're too afraid to fail to even try.

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

#82

Post by UncleOxidant »

silveroriole wrote: post #64
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.

Yeah, if you get a 4-day week job or a remote job you can work a lot fewer hours and it’s much easier than FIRE. Other people are ‘hustling’ or scrimping and saving nonstop so they can have leisure time later. Why not skip the hustle and go straight for the leisure time? Like the old story about the fisherman and the businessman. Works great for me.

I agree, but it's difficult to find a part-time technical job. Which is why some folks opt for the work-like-mad until they've saved up enough to retire early approach.

What I do instead is work for a year or two and then take six month or so off between the gigs.

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

#83

Post by nomel »

ncallaway wrote: post #30
Xophmeister wrote: post #24

Why did Keynes believe that, say, a doubling of efficiency (through technology) would half work time for everyone? Sure it’s a solution to the equation, but so is what actually happened[1]: half the workforce gets laid off. This halves the costs, which facilitates price reduction and thus a competitive edge. Did Keynes believe that benevolence would win over profit? Don’t get me wrong, I wish it had, but that seems a…

> It occurs to me that another solution is to keep the work force, but double the work I think one other solution is to keep the work force, but double the output. I think this also happened (in addition to the other two that you identified). The overall productivity and output of society has massively increased.

And, of course, output doesn't have to be number of bars of soap.

All of the automation I'm familiar with is making the design and manufacturing processes more fluid, giving faster iterations at reduced cost. This allows the tech/process/whatever to progress faster. You'll finish your product sooner, but that means you can start the next sooner.

This whole concept of having more time assumes there's nothing else to do. There will always be something to do if you're not making something static, like soap.

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

#84

Post by akiselev »

baddox wrote: post #79
perfunctory wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Why do you associate those things specifically with urban life? Cinemas, televised sports, and listening to music are pretty broadly-enjoyed things. I don’t think they’re particularly “passive” either, but they’re certainly not uniquely urban. When I think of unique opportunities in urban environments, I’m thinking more along the lines of nightlife, live sports, music, and theatre, boutique shopping, art galleries, e…

That is a quote from Russell from 1932 written before desegregation, white flight, and the explosion of the suburbs so the differences between urban and rural life was far more stark than it is today. The big networks like NBC and CBS were born just a few years before and it took them until WWII IIRC to really penetrate into all the rural areas of the US (in the 1930 census only 40% of households owned a radio, mostly as a sign of middle class wealth in urban areas). Sports teams could only be supported by relatively high densities of people because television wasn't yet a major source of revenue.

Today's equivalent would be smartphones, which are definitely harder to use the further out you are from civilization (I've got no reception 40 minutes from DT San Diego!)

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

#86

Post by DenisM »

sebastianconcpt wrote: post #21

Why a partisan article is being discussed here? Really. This is material affiliated to the Labour Party in the U.K. which is associated to the International Socialist. Why is it a subject here?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.

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

#87

Post by goldenkey »

josho wrote: post #69
marcusverus wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

The core of it stands that 'urban populations have become mainly passive'. Perhaps I'd consider revising to replace passive with consumers. So, we've been taught and continually urged to spend our idle hours consuming. So, it isn't a surprise to me that most folks don't know any other way to spend their time.

Consumption usually costs money and increases money velocity, which leads to a better economy. So it's a bit different than "idleness."

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

#88

Post by spanhandler »

baddox wrote: post #79
perfunctory wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Why do you associate those things specifically with urban life? Cinemas, televised sports, and listening to music are pretty broadly-enjoyed things. I don’t think they’re particularly “passive” either, but they’re certainly not uniquely urban. When I think of unique opportunities in urban environments, I’m thinking more along the lines of nightlife, live sports, music, and theatre, boutique shopping, art galleries, e…

Yeah, I think Russell got this one wrong and Vonnegut got it right. Consuming-all, creating-none became normal because of mass media. Its availability drove down the social value of playing on an unremarkable, very-local sports team, or playing the piano unremarkably, or singing, or being pretty good at telling a story (but not as good as the radio), and so on.

Know what you see references to all the time in previous centuries? Reading aloud as entertainment among family and friends, sometimes even in public places, and even staging little dramas at home. Kids might do the latter still, a bit, but one gets the impression it was much more common then. People didn't stop doing that because they were working more, they stopped because radio was invented.

When there was no radio or gramophone, if you could play the piano tolerably well and sing a little you were, to your social circle, hot shit. Not so much afterward. You could play a pick-up game on the green off town square against a neighboring town and people would show up and watch with enthusiasm. When things were expected to be repaired and a blanket might cost quite a damn bit to buy, being able to sew pretty well or being fairly handy at woodworking was far more valuable than it is now. Mass production has driven the social (and economic) value of both way down.

Direct personal enjoyment wasn't the only thing one could hope to get from all those "leisure" activities.

Oh, your sketches and watercolors? Yeah they're nice I guess. Have you seen Deviantart? Instagram? I follow 200 artists better than you, from around the globe, and most of them aren't even good enough to make any money at it. And so on. Social value approaching zero.

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

#89

Post by zemvpferreira »

icelancer wrote: post #55
gthtjtkt wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Plenty of us here founded companies with eight-figure valuations. Not that uncommon on hacker news.

I did and I’ve never worked-worked more than 30 hours per week except for short bursts at a time. The more critical your work is, the more time you should dedicate to being at your best.

I don’t take any umbrage at your chosen path nor do I disagree that america is a winner take most society. But when most is a bunch of unnecessary consumer faff, maybe enough is better to shoot for.

These days I work 15-20 hours per week. I spend as much time as I want abroad/surfing/screwing around on the internet. I’m 35. I don’t care to fly first class or buy Vuitton. But I do have all my meals and my bed made for me.

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

#90

Post by rainonmoon »

throwaway45349 wrote: post #74
sm4rk0 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Self organizing doesn't work because everyone wants what's best for themselves. Every grassroots activity has figureheads and leaders. Hierarchy is literally older than civilisation and observed in most animal life.

While this is a familiar Peterson talking point, society has in many ways sublimated our nature for the broader collective good. Addressing the problems of capitalism would be another step in that progress.
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