>These days? In all of human history your likelihood of being a slave was pretty high. Talk about real meaningless. If anything we live in a rare break from slavery which is an outlier.
Slavery and drudgery are not what make work meaningful or meaningless.
>I think people need to learn some real expectations of what work means and perhaps to read Studs Turkel's Working before they get to complain about their cush white collar jobs being these horrible things.
As someone who's work in factories, grain elevators, grocery, retail, and currently work in software development I can tell you the meaningless of modern work is the same regardless of the drudgery involved. The fact you equate drudgery with meaningless work shows you have no clue as to how the working classes operate (being that I come from the working class I have some insights to impart here so I'll try to be patient with you). What makes work meaningless for the vast majority of humans is the total lack of control or the inability to perceive the end goal (ex. a factory assembler who'll never see the final product or that they have no say what the product should be or even if it's worthwhile to produce it).
The lack of goals or any kind of connection to our work is what drives many people to quit or change jobs regardless of whether it's in an office or in a kitchen or on a factory line. Churn happens because people are intentionally left to be nothing more than trained animal in their task. Punch in, make quota, punch out. And repeat, forever. So, I'm not exactly sure what part of the physical comfort matters when the psychological deprivation weighs as hard as a herniated disk does on a laborer (I know both have similar impact thanks to my mother). And I can say that both physical and psychological pains and deprivations are hell from my own experiences. It's not to say that gilded cages aren't pretty but they're still cages.
>I don't want to spend most of my life working. I feel like a slave
I've never understood this line of thinking. Providing for yourself is being a contributing member of the species, work is a means of providing for yourself. For all of human history you've either had to get up every day and go be productive bringing resources in or you had to depend upon someone else to do it for you.
I see this "working is slavery" attitude constantly in /r/leanfire and other personal finance subs and I just don't get it. Every single thing you use required labor to come into existence. Your phone, your computer, where you live, the clothes you are wearing, the food you eat, all of that required human labor to produce.
Worse, I often seen the 'work is slavery' form 6-figure salary types (at least in /r/leanfire) that have great benefits and are griping they won't be able to retire by 35 or from people that are on their first job (usually retail) and think it is unfair they can't sit at home playing video games and having all their needs met.
This sort of mentality can't be good for the future of mankind. Sitting in an air conditioned building, listening to spotify, while you decide if you want to go get the catered lunch or sit in your cubicle while you screw around on HN/reddit and pretend to work is NOT slavery.
If you genuinely feel this way, go get a job throwing trucks/planes in the dead of summer or go get a landscaping job for a few weeks. Seriously, go get a manual labor job part time on the weekends and realize there are people doing that 40, 50, 60 hours a week all year long.
Go tell someone from the 1950s, 1850s, 1750s, 1650s how hard you have it and how bad it is having to sit at a computer all day in a climate controlled building. They'd look at you in utter disbelief and beg you to tell them how to have such a wonderful life.
I've had a job since I was 12 and working full time since the day I turned 18. I'm grateful that I get to work, grateful that I am able to provide for myself, grateful that I do get to sit a desk and am no longer humping a backpack full of diesel weed eating and digging graves. I'll take sitting at a monitor over getting sunburn to the point of blistered skin from being outside working all day with no cover any day.
> This whole thing has also shown me how working for a wage paycheck to paycheck even at six figures is basically slavery.
I retired at 30 and have done nothing but travel the world developing open source software since then. I have little to no possessions, and nothing tying me to any geographic area aside from a preference for clean air and such.
To your point, in my travels I’ve rarely come across anyone working a job out of anything other than financial necessity. Only a small fraction of people seem to do what they do out of genuine passion. Much more often, artistic, well-natured people are toiling away on menial tasks for money because that’s what it takes for them to survive.
> It turns out that capital is everything.
The gains from this are disproportionately accruing to billionaires while most people add almost nothing to the total output in exchange for cash and at the cost of much of their waking hours. These bullshit jobs are costing people time they’ll never get back, for dubious societal gains in many cases, while also depleting us of creative energy on an unbelievable scale.
Meanwhile, because of the dog-eat-dog nature of our existence, it seems as if there are only two viable paths for most people to achieve “freedom”: either you can withdraw deep into the proverbial jungle, or exploit the underexploited. A staggering amount of what passes for “industry” today is essentially just strip mining our planet of its natural resources, and/or converting it to food in whichever way using as inhumane of a process as is allowed by our current legal systems. The remainder of profitable human activities are by and large facilitating the dominion’s continuity, or quaint distractions from our highly cancerous existence.
> If you can do whatever you want, who is the slave class working more than they need to to service your needs?
Obviously that would be the machines. You need people to maintain those, but less human time is required to produce the same goods. Basic things might get so cheap that they're almost free.
> What we lack is a mechanism to allow people to make that rent.
Sounds like you want something like a job guarantee. Sure, there is never a lack of useful work that you could force people into. But there is simply not enough work that is essential enough that you could argue, from an economic point of view, that everyone has to work 5 days a week just to earn their right to exist.
In other words, we are born into debt and must work all our lives to pay off that debt. This is true in so many ways, and makes what we're talking about amount to at best a kind of bonded child labor.
You don't have to think of it as slavery, but it's very very far from COMPLETELY OPTIONAL. There is no deserted island to live on!! There are no guarantees of universal housing, or healthcare, or much else that is needed to survive. Until there are, working vs. not working can never be a real choice. The working class by definition must work in order to live.
>I think that's a different discourse. Slave labour was not a "bullshit job", it was productive.
That depends on how you do the accounting. If you account for slave labor as the cost of minimal food and housing, then it's not only productive, it's cheaper than almost anything else, especially because the slaves are property, so you can breed them and get a return-on-investment while also extracting labor.
Of course, if you account for slave labor in terms of some equivalent to wages, then all of a sudden society has reason to stop using slave labor and innovate instead. Ditto for today's low-wage labor in which sub-living wages end up subsidized by state antipoverty benefits.
Society has always faced a choice between exploitation and innovation, a zero-sum arrangement and a positive-sum arrangement. Unfortunately, rarely has it been wise enough to choose the latter.
>The entire history of humanity is the fight between those who work, and those who make others work. Workers never won this fight, ever. The pyramids got built for free, serfdom, slavery, wage slaves, it’s the the only fight there is.
Okay? That's why unionization is important for the ones who don't have the power.
>Millions died in the trenches in WW1, millions died in every war. Dumbasses, they played you.
I'm unsure what point you're attempting to make with this statement.
>Have you ever woken up at 6am to go to a job? Did you take a 30 year loan to buy a house? Did they tell you can only really quit working at 65? Sorry, If you don’t optimize for income, you are beyond retarded.
Again unsure what point you're trying to make. Why does it matter when I wake up to do my work? I wake up at 5-6am every day because that's my optimal sleep schedule.
>There’s 8 billion people on this planet, and I intend to have people do my work for me.
Okay? So you purely see work as a means to what, get more stuff and food? That's tragically simple-minded. Work can be done to solve real problems and help people, such as researching diseases that impact humanity. Is that the work you're having people do? You seem more focused on material goods and personal energy expenditure than anything else
> If you can't dazzle them with data, baffle them with bullsh*t, am I right?
Given that your reply contained no data, you tell me.
> Life was better when I at least HAD a crummy job, grumble!
That very much depends on what they do instead.
Plenty of people enjoy gardening who don't get paid to do it now. Plenty of people enjoy making things, craft, art, writing, furniture making, these are largely leisure activities now. Forms of education for themselves and others going to the library, or the park, reading. Working on yourself physically. Cooking. Consumption of media. Volunteering.
The idea that someone would rather do busywork than those things is silly, I think. But if, in that future, we still base our judgement of people's moral worth, by whether they have a crummy job, then I think the lack of crummy jobs becomes an issue.
The future you outline is coming, in some form or another (at least the work part, the 500yr lifespan less certainly). The question is, in that world, do we want to keep tying people's worth to their ability to find drudgery work? Do we want to keep going with a society that would concentrate even more wealth in the hands of those who control the capital, with no meaningful ability for anyone else to raise themselves out of their 'lower-class' status. It is hard to see how a plutocratic capitalism is going to work then. So I think we need more of this debate now, not less.
The solution being brought to the table, a small step in the grand scheme, but a necessary one, is to stop the rhetoric that work of any kind is inherently virtuous, and to stop the rhetoric that work is the way to gain one's success.
> What nonsense is this? The purpose of work is to generate material wealth, so that the population and civilization can survive at a high standard of living, without the system collapsing.
The purpose ought to be that, but surely a cursory glance at the world around us showed we have strayed, trapping ourselves in a rat race rather than relaxing with the abundance we've already achieved.
A great example of this is https://johnjayeconomics.org/prison-labor-in-u-s-state-priso... . Prison labor has delayed per-capita, and is often a reward (feeling of purpose vs terrible boredom). That might sound absurd, but I'd say it is just a microcosm of the world outside bars.
> > Since we haven't yet found a stable social solution for people not working and having purpose
I hope this is a bit tongue in cheak. First let's stop artificially starving and humiliating people who don't have work. Then I bet they will do well finding themselves purpose.
> The historical solution advocated by earlier U.S. politicians and economists was to maximize long-run wages by investing in agricultural productivity that had the potential to raise the net-product at the margin of cultivation, then to eliminate land speculation to bring the margin of cultivation to cities, then to give the unemployed free land.
Not quite sure what you are referring too, but yes, we should ratchet down labor hours with increasing productivity rather than increasing (rarely fulfilling, environmentally degrading) consumption.
> If you have no choice but to work or be discarded, then, when the value you can provide via work is less than that required to maintain your life, you have no choice but to attempt to indenture yourself. And failing that, you're truly, completely fucked.
Work or be discarded? Really? Most people have, you know, other people in their lives. Hell, 20% of the country at any given time is children, and they don't work at all. Somehow, miraculously, they aren't just discarded.
The same is true with old people (i.e. parents). This world you imagine is a complete fantasy, and has never, ever, anywhere been the case.
> Humans are way too intelligent to just sit there getting more and more miserable because they don’t have to work.
We have multitude of examples of populations with generational unemployment, accompanied by crime and drug use even though basic necessities are provided for by the larger welfare state. We see that with rich trust fund kids who also degenerate into drug use, crime, and suicide and are shitty people too.
>Yes, people coming from a capitalist society usually don’t know what to do when their work goes away.
This is not a capitalist thing. This is a human thing. Many people (not all mind you) need some pressure to push themselves ... because if not you can always find a way to fill your time with drugs. I don't think I could survive in a society where you don't have to do anything.
My second point was that you need an outlet for ambition because there are people who will push themselves extraordinarily hard in order to raise themselves, and their families above others - in those cases material wealth is major a factor in that even if there are other goals (like saving the environment, or improving patient outcomes). Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk are examples, startup founders are too, and even immigrants are examples of that. My father left an eastern european communist nation to work (much harder) in a western capitalist democracy even though though his country did not suffer from political instability, nor was it the case the he could not provide food or shelter for his family. Within certain constraints you could live a comfortable life, and yet, a third of the country left over 50 years.
>But people in a society where no one needs to work will find things to do.
Again, we have many many examples where that isn't the case. I can't think of a SINGLE example that illustrates this however (even under communism, it was illegal not to work)
> What's so insidious about this thinking is that its framed as benevolence.
Again, I want to remind the context of this: the context is that you're saying we need to force people to work under the threat of losing their livelihood or they can't be fulfilled.
And you're phrasing this as if I'm coming in and colonizing blue-collar workers or pushing my ideals on them. I don't think "benevolence" is the right word to use here, I just don't think there's anything noble about forcing people to work and saying that it's for their own good. It's an interesting turn of phrase to write about this like it's a "culture" when -- again -- the conversation is about whether or not people in blue-collar positions are too lazy and unmotivated to find meaning unless they're forced to work.
I just... it's wild to hear that phrased using the terms you're using. And I wonder if those blue-collar workers would agree that guaranteed income would be "taking away" their purposes, because most of the blue-collar workers I know are much more engaged in social institutions than the white-collar workers around them, and are therefore probably more prepared to find meaning within their communities and families outside of work than the average programmer on HN is.
> You want to see what people get up to when they have endless free time, just see what idle young men get up to.
This is me imposing my culture on other people? Pointing out that you're basically comparing blue-collar workers to lazy youth? Come on.
We derive tremendous value from blue-collar workers that hold up white-collar jobs and allow society to continue to function, even though they're often paid significantly less than us for what is arguably more important work. The least we can do is not pretend that this arrangement is somehow created for their benefit. This has all the energy of the proletariat complaining that the rabble can't take care of themselves and how the actually offensive thing is suggesting that they can.
If only HN could get out of its bubble and empathize more with the average worker, then it would realize that the average worker is lazy and unmotivated and needs to be managed /s
>Well, today's society isn't that far off from slavery. The main difference is the lash has been replaced by economic punishments. People have the gall to call work voluntary when you literally starve if you opt out.
What's the difference between having to work or else you starve, and having to hunt/gather or else you starve?
> Work can be fulfilling. If money is not a problem what is to stop you from doing something that interests you?
There is nothing stopping you from doing that today. It just doesn't happen immediately.
The vast majority of people will enter the workplace and as they gain more experience they typically will not only earn more but have more opportunities and have a professional network.
> Being part of a community, learning some cool new skill.
You can already do that outside of work. If people really want to do these things they will find the time.
> The idea that everyone will become a zombie on UBI sound unfounded.
Nobody claims they will become a zombie. What people claim is that it will create a underclass of people that are dependant on the state. Many people don't believe this is unfounded.
People are driven by incentives e.g. When I worked minimum wage I was often asked to do overtime. I didn't earn a lot and would have gladly have taken up the offer if it was a worth it. The moment I did any overtime I went over the minimum threshold for income tax and any money I earned from the overtime offered was almost undone by the amount of extra tax that was taken from my paycheck.
> Yes there are useless destructive people out there, they thrive on misery and pain. Capitalism, UBI, Communism, neither will fix them. But why present them as a example of how system will fail.
Because some of these destructive people are products of their environment where their parents and them have lived on benefits which in turn showed their children that they could just do the same and they didn't have to get work. I have seen this personally happen.
> What about next great artist that went into ad company and never took a chance to do their art.
> Or a next great tinker or inventor stuck in some soul draining 5-9 in a factory buried under medical debt.
> What about those who would have a chance to create something tenfold the value they create now?
Truly exceptional people won't be held back and currently western societies give people plenty of opportunities to do that.
Typically for both men and women once they have a family most of their efforts will go towards that rather than any lofty goals as their priorities change once they have a child.
> Meanwhile, the rest of us slave away at our jobs like cattle
Dehumanizing, isn't it? Working hard to contribute to society while these people accumulate 10, 100, 1000 times our yearly salaries in seconds by playing some market. The world we live in is so absurd, it's such a joke.
>We still have stark class divisions between people who make the majority of their money from capital ownership and people who have to work to survive.
It is true that there are divisions, but anyone can now participate in the acquisition of wealth and resources. You can save and reinvest until you attain your goals in life but most people are engaged in the consumption of capital goods such that even if they wanted to set up a small business, it gets to be increasingly difficult.
I also don't look at it in the sense that people HAVE to work to earn a living, I see it as people GET to work to earn a living. Your entire outlook on work is flawed and needs to be reevaluated. Work is good. Work allows us to eat, get shelter, clothing and move civilisation forward while at it.
> But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day.
As long as people keep getting this so badly wrong the problem, whatever it is, is never going to be fixed. Really I just call on people to stop using the wrong language and try to articulate detectable problems.
If you look out the window of your car (or house) and see homeless people (or mobs) - that isn't inequality. If all the homeless people had houses or all the mobers a comfortable life, the amount of inequality would be about the same as it is now. Inequality as measured is all but undetectable in the real world. I have no idea how unequal I am to the people who I see every day - and none of my readers on HN do either unless they've spent a few hours poring over some very dry statistical compendiums.
The problem is much more likely that the link between productive work and reward has been completely severed for more than 40 years [0]. If being productive reliably led to being rewarded there would be many less problems. The people being rewarded aren't the people who are producing results. Go look at the late 60s and early 70s to figure out what changed.
Slavery and drudgery are not what make work meaningful or meaningless.
>I think people need to learn some real expectations of what work means and perhaps to read Studs Turkel's Working before they get to complain about their cush white collar jobs being these horrible things.
As someone who's work in factories, grain elevators, grocery, retail, and currently work in software development I can tell you the meaningless of modern work is the same regardless of the drudgery involved. The fact you equate drudgery with meaningless work shows you have no clue as to how the working classes operate (being that I come from the working class I have some insights to impart here so I'll try to be patient with you). What makes work meaningless for the vast majority of humans is the total lack of control or the inability to perceive the end goal (ex. a factory assembler who'll never see the final product or that they have no say what the product should be or even if it's worthwhile to produce it).
The lack of goals or any kind of connection to our work is what drives many people to quit or change jobs regardless of whether it's in an office or in a kitchen or on a factory line. Churn happens because people are intentionally left to be nothing more than trained animal in their task. Punch in, make quota, punch out. And repeat, forever. So, I'm not exactly sure what part of the physical comfort matters when the psychological deprivation weighs as hard as a herniated disk does on a laborer (I know both have similar impact thanks to my mother). And I can say that both physical and psychological pains and deprivations are hell from my own experiences. It's not to say that gilded cages aren't pretty but they're still cages.
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