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The virtuous mean between time drunkenness and work martyrdom

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Re: The virtuous mean between time drunkenness and work martyrdom

#81

Post by jvanderbot »

watwut wrote: post #52
jvanderbot wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument has another side, equally preposterous: That because of the increased productivity we should all be wealthy, working a few hours a day to do the "same" work, or being rewarded proportionally more (of course, inflation adjusted) for working more than that. It's preposterous because relative wages have stagnated relative to productivity boons, but oh man has standard of living increased as you say. A perso…

iPhone is irrelevant. Relevant issues are homelessness rates, affordability of healthcare or education, pensions in an old age.

I hope it was clear that an iphone was just an example. But your examples are better. Healthcare and education is more accessible and better than it was in the 1920s or 30s by a long shot. It's not even comparable.

And very few people had pensions back then either. The standard 401k is like a money printer compared to options back then. There certainly were times when pensions were more widespread. But I don't think if you zoom out to 50-100-200 year timelines, that healthcare, education, and retirement security are even comparable.

Re: The virtuous mean between time drunkenness and work martyrdom

#82

Post by xyzelement »

lm28469 wrote: post #80
caddemon wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How big was their house? 3 of my 4 grandparents grew up in multi-generational houses, all of their parents were very working class, and yes they "afforded" raising kids and housing their elderly. Their houses were not bigger than 100 sqm though. All shared rooms, and there was typically 1 bathroom for the entire household. Clothes were hand me downs and meals were only what they could afford, so the meat in their die…

In the tech bubble maybe, but in the real world certainly not. In the golden age you had that as a fancy factory worker, now you have that if you're well paid in a well paid industry Real wages completely flattened since the 70s, and even declined in some western countries, while working hours and retirement age both increased. No one in 2024 supports a family and buys a new home/car on a factory salary, I can't even…

// can't even afford any of that while being in the top 20% earners in Germany

I ask this as a sincere question - according to Google, 50% of germans live in a home they own, and obviously some Germans are having kids (although the birth rate is horrendous)

Who are the people that are buying home and having kids? Are these activities limited to the 1%?

Re: The virtuous mean between time drunkenness and work martyrdom

#83

Post by xyzelement »

lm28469 wrote: post #61
xyzelement wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

//It’s strange that we even work more or even at the same amount of time as 100 years ago. We don’t. A hundred years the average man was putting in 7 to 7 shifts on the factory or the farm. Physically exhausting, dangerous and painful labor that required your physical presence and likely left you too exhausted for anything else. Today you and I are click clacking our keyboards in a safe and air conditioned environmen…

> We don’t. A hundred years the average man was putting in 7 to 7 shifts on the factory or the farm. Physically exhausting, dangerous and painful labor that required your physical presence and likely left you too exhausted for anything else. This as been debunked countless of time, besides the dark ages of the industrial revolution people actually worked less than our 40-50 hours per weeks, every week of the year, fr…

I am confident that if you were given the option of toiling like someone had to do 100+ years ago, you'd run back crying to your 42 hours a week German tech sector job after like an hour.

I can't help but notice that you're basically broadcasting signs of depression all over this thread. It's like "the answer is: everything is horrible and worse than even, what was the question?" I don't mean to pick on that but do you know this about yourself?

Re: The virtuous mean between time drunkenness and work martyrdom

#84

Post by lm28469 »

xyzelement wrote: post #82
lm28469 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the tech bubble maybe, but in the real world certainly not. In the golden age you had that as a fancy factory worker, now you have that if you're well paid in a well paid industry Real wages completely flattened since the 70s, and even declined in some western countries, while working hours and retirement age both increased. No one in 2024 supports a family and buys a new home/car on a factory salary, I can't even…

// can't even afford any of that while being in the top 20% earners in Germany I ask this as a sincere question - according to Google, 50% of germans live in a home they own, and obviously some Germans are having kids (although the birth rate is horrendous) Who are the people that are buying home and having kids? Are these activities limited to the 1%?

Couples with high income, inheritance, people who live on credit and debt, &c.

Not many can afford a new house with a single income, let alone to support a family with kids, maybe not 1% earners but definitely around 10%. A friend of mine has kids, they spend 60% of their household income on the flat they rent (2 salaries, both a good 20% above average for the city), that's before the car, heating, electricity, kids spendings, food, &c. and they're already one hour away from the city center by train

There isn't much up for debate I'm afraid:

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/ifomkf25BuW...

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?id=QDEN628BI...

https://www.statista.com/graphic/1/416207/average-annual-wag...

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carlo-Jaeger/publicatio...

https://www.move.org/app/uploads/2020/04/Home-price-changes-...

Re: The virtuous mean between time drunkenness and work martyrdom

#85

Post by purplerabbit »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #44
purplerabbit wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the purpose of life is to create possibility. If that’s true, there will never be an incentive to work less so long as there is more possibility to be created (assuming that people are living purposefully, and it seems to me that those that don’t are evolutionarily selected against)

What if there's a point where superintelligent AI is out there creating all the possibility? Also, "creating possibility" sounds kind of like "self actualization" ie. the top of Maslow's hierarchy.

Your first question is a good one to which I don’t have an answer.

On the second: possibility applies at all levels of the hierarchy. Obtaining basic health increases possibility — it increases the ways you can navigate the world at a simple physical level, and “unlocks” The possibility of “higher levels” e.g. relationships, which unlock still higher levels of possibility.

Re: The virtuous mean between time drunkenness and work martyrdom

#86

Post by lm28469 »

xyzelement wrote: post #83
lm28469 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don’t. A hundred years the average man was putting in 7 to 7 shifts on the factory or the farm. Physically exhausting, dangerous and painful labor that required your physical presence and likely left you too exhausted for anything else. This as been debunked countless of time, besides the dark ages of the industrial revolution people actually worked less than our 40-50 hours per weeks, every week of the year, fr…

I am confident that if you were given the option of toiling like someone had to do 100+ years ago, you'd run back crying to your 42 hours a week German tech sector job after like an hour. I can't help but notice that you're basically broadcasting signs of depression all over this thread. It's like "the answer is: everything is horrible and worse than even, what was the question?" I don't mean to pick on that but do y…

Everything isn't worse and horrible, it's just that the value proposition shifted so much that it's not worth the effort, you have to run faster and faster to maintain the mirage. You get a deluge of cheap bells and whistles gadgets while the fundamentals keep getting further and further.

The social contract holds when you know your kids will have a better life than you did, when you notice you don't even have your grandparents standards you know it's fucked

Re: The virtuous mean between time drunkenness and work martyrdom

#87

Post by mschuster91 »

richrichie wrote: post #79
mschuster91 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only a pathological pessimist would describe today’s world a mess compared to what it was 100 years ago. The problem is the future outlook, not the status quo. Climate change effects on the Northern Hemisphere (i.e. continental USA, most of Europe) haven't really become visible yet, at least not for up until the last 5-ish years that have all blown past records for extreme adversary weather events. In addition to t…

If we really do care, we cannot have people living in Northern Europe, America and Canada. It is criminal to insist to live under conditions humans cannot survive without heating. I suggest mass migration to Africa.

The problem is not heating or cooling for humans, we have technology for that (and solar power to provide power for it).

The problem is growing the crops to feed these people, which is getting harder and harder every year due to the combination of Western donations out-competing local farms and especially the rise of desertification - in 2012, it was estimated that two thirds of the land area of the entirety of Africa that's still viable for farming would be gone by 2030 [1].

[1] https://www.un.org/africarenewal/web-features/desertificatio...

Re: The virtuous mean between time drunkenness and work martyrdom

#88

Post by jhp123 »

watwut wrote: post #49
jhp123 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that in 1924 people were working 84-hour weeks (including Sunday!) is preposterous. For example Ford introduced the 8-hour day at its factories in 1914.

The actual origin of kindergarten were 4 years old running the streets alone - while BOTH parents worked 12 hours a day in a factory. Maybe excluding Sunday, I am not sure now. Industrial revolution was brutal on people. Ford could introduce 8 hours long day only because 8 hours a day was far from norm at that time.

if you go back another 100 years to 1824 then yes you have a truly awful system. The "infernal mills" of England were fed by cotton exported from Southern slave plantations. Most people took Sunday off but 12-hour days were common. This period was absolutely not seen as normal or acceptable by the people living through it and gave rise to massive social unrest as well as the socialist movement. It is immortalized in fictional works like "Oliver Twist" and "Les Miserables" which show widespread concern for the shocking plight of the urban poor at that time. By 1924 material conditions had improved vastly, industrial action and labor movements worldwide had won legal concessions, and 12-hour days were much more rare. Ford's 8-hour day was less than the average but not radically so.

Re: The virtuous mean between time drunkenness and work martyrdom

#89

Post by tw04 »

nyokodo wrote: post #32
tw04 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much like the anti-vax movement, the average American seems in complete denial of how things really were a hundred years ago. Prior to unions, work looked completely different - EVERYONE has benefitted from the change unions brought about. It's easy to tell yourself that sort of thing would never happen in a country like this when you weren't a direct witness to people (including children) literally being worked to d…

> Prior to unions, work looked completely different Average working hours were dropping for decades before Labor Unions became popular in the 1930s driven by the productivity gains referenced elsewhere in the thread. The trend continued unabated other than an increase during WWII even after Union membership peaked in 1980 and dropped for 30 years. It doesn’t seem that Labor Unions were the cause of this improvement t…

>Average working hours were dropping for decades before Labor Unions became popular in the 1930s driven by the productivity gains referenced elsewhere in the thread. The trend continued unabated other than an increase during WWII even after Union membership peaked in 1980 and dropped for 30 years. It doesn’t seem that Labor Unions were the cause of this improvement trend.

Huh? The first labor union in the US was created in 1768. Unions were WELL established in the US in the 1930s. Did you think corporate owners were willingly giving back the time gained through productivity to workers? You need only look to China where they've had even greater productivity gains over the last 20 years and people are still literally living at their place of work and clocking in 12+ hour days every day of the week.

https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0113/the-history...

Re: The virtuous mean between time drunkenness and work martyrdom

#90

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #4

It’s strange that we even work more or even at the same amount of time as 100 years ago. We have systems that increase worker productivity and even software by itself for the most part should be decreasing the amount of work to be done since it’s supposedly a large force multiplier for productivity. Economists predicted we would be working less (but they are bad at predicting most things) so while there might be a fe…

> It’s strange that we even work more or even at the same amount of time as 100 years ago.

why is this strange?

if a candybar maker spends $0.75 to make a candybar and sell it for $1.00 and then they suddenly find they can make 2 for the same price, they're going to continue selling them individually for $1.00.

When you increase productivity like that you now have an effective increase in available resources, why would you assume there's only 1 place those effective resources can go?

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