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Charles Bukowski: The Slavery of the 9 to 5
- osrec 10y agoBukowski, a truly insightful individual. Sometimes reading his thoughts and ideas can bring a tear to my eye, simply because of their pithy practicality and clarity (and possibly because I'm reminded of my grandfather, who was similarly gifted in the art of brevity and honest observation).
- paganel 10y agoKafka wrote many of his works by night, while by day he was an employee of the insurance company Assicurazioni Generali (and a good one at that, judging by the latest studies written about his life). If Bukowski wasn't capable of being a good writer while also holding a busy job that does not mean that it's not doable, it just means that the task was too much for Bukowski.
- dgfgfdagasdfgfa 10y agoYes, because they held the same job and had similar strengths and weaknesses. ...
- paganel 10y agoJudging by Kafka's journal his job was at least as mentally taxing as Bukowski's job at the post office (or at least his recollection of it). And yes, I agree with you, we all have different strengths and weaknesses, people like Bukowski seem to be weak when it comes to keeping a 9-to-5 job while still managing to write something down. I'm sure though that he also had his strengths (his writing doesn't seem bad, even though I'm only judging him by the words written in this letter). Bukowski also seems to be a bad reader of characters in asking himself why do people choose to keep those 9-to-5 jobs. Answer: they do it in order to pay rent/mortgage and to have money for food and to buy clothes for their kids (if they can afford to have kids).
- dgfgfdagasdfgfa 10y agoI mean, I don't even know what "weak" means. Maybe Bukowski just found the job too draining to write, whereas Kafka found it was inspiring. You can't write people off into categories of strength and weakness without understanding them—weakness in one area does not imply a weak person. In fact, I'd say a decent short-hand to finding unempathetic people are people who use words like "lazy", "weak", and "undeserving".
- lolc 10y agoHis point was that he didn't want to.
- boomboomsubban 10y agoKafka wasn't that capable of being a good writer in that situation either. He finished a handful of short stories, never finished a novel, and most of his writing lay unfinished and unpublished at his death.
- voidhorse 10y agoYou're being unfair to Kafka here by reducing literary accomplishment to mere quantity. Yes, his works were all short, but all of them far surpass the majority of "novels" pumped out daily by the modern publishing industry and all its hacks, idiots who compose at a 6th grade level, for the indisputably puerile audiences they pander to. The metamorphosis is apparently 20k words or so, and hell, it could be less. But those are 20k words of tight, well crafted prose and artistic execution. Far better than the 50-100k plus words of complete and utter doggerel the majority of us consume on a daily basis. This is another issue of capitalism--reduction of human experience to mere quantity. You begin to ignore quality and humanity fades. You become content consuming the most infantile garbage so long as the industry keeps it flowing, so long as the magnitude of crap is great and undisrupted. Few are those possessing the willingness or mental fortitude to devote a few hours to care about humanity and its progression, we'd rather spend our hours playing video games or watching movies or tv to "relax" or "unwind"; surprise, surprise, this constant availability of mindless entertainment is another one of capitalism's traps designed to keep you content with a life unlived. I realize I sort of got off topic from what you stated about Kafka, and none of this is aimed at you specifically boomboomsubban, you just got me on a roooolllll. I understand your point about Kafka was probably more so that he could've produced more as a writer had his situation been different, not that what he didn't manage to produce wasn't necessarily good, but we don't know that -- we can't argue counterfactuals. It may well have been the case that Kafka simply spent more time on a given piece than most authors, and thus even had he more time to write his output may not have increased too significantly.
- girum 10y agoAm I the only person here who thinks his "slavery" analogy is written in poor taste?
- leephillips 10y agoI haven't read the article yet, and I like Bukowski when in the right mood, but I just feel I should point out that "taste" is probably not one of his highest priorities.
- elliotec 10y agoYou must not have encountered much Bukowski.
- Clubber 10y agoActual slavery was worse because of beatings, and being torn from your family at a whim, and being raped, forced to breed, and a bunch of other things. Having said all that, the main tenant of slavery is being forced to work. It's not the same, but it's similar. Slaves that were treated relatively well were still slaves. Now, you can quit, but you can't stop working.
- loafa 10y agoYou're not "forced" to work by other people though, you're forced to work by thermodynamics. Our cousins the plants can photosynthesise, but we poor sods in Kingdom Animalia have to work for our food one way or another. While my hunter/gatherer and subsistence farmer ancestors had to work all day every day to get enough food to eat, I'm sure they'd be pretty envious of the fact that I could reliably eat for a week on the back of one hour's work in an air-conditioned office.
- flukus 10y agoI do and don't. Obviously real slavery was a lot worse, yet this is the direction I see us heading towards more and more. Things like social media policies and drug testing are limiting what we do on our time off, not just our time on.
- draw_down 10y agoIt is true, there is no real freedom except for the independently wealthy. (And if you "work for yourself" you trade having 1 boss for having n bosses.) This is the world we live in. There is a saying, "life sucks and then you die"- it is certainly always possible to be more specific than that, but that's pretty much what it boils down to. Our challenge is to be happy despite it. What really bugs me is that we can't just admit to each other that having a job is shitty, even if it's a good one. We all have to be "doing what we love" and so forth.
- Clubber 10y agoI haven't done it in a while, but when working for yourself exclusively, you feel more in control of your destiny. Even if you have n bosses and 1 fires you, you still have n-1 paychecks. If you have 1 boss and he fires you, you have 0 paychecks until you find another boss.
- SEJeff 10y agoReminds me of F.I.R.E. (financial independence and retire early) from: www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence Really interesting stuff on that sub.
- chris_7 10y agoReally, I just want a 9-to-5, instead of a 9-to-8 + "oh hey quick question" notification from Slack at 11.
- jboggan 10y agoDon't answer.
- mistersquid 10y agoI've taken to signing out of Slack on my mobile phone every evening and signing back in in the morning. Works like a charm.
- TomMarius 10y agoI simply don't have slack on my personal mobile phone. Works even better.
- mistersquid 10y agoThat does work even better. In my case, my personal and work mobile phones are one the same (company pays for data), so I'm expected to be at least Slack-responsive during business hours.
- TomMarius 10y agoSame in my case, but 99% when I'm able to respond during business hours, I'm sitting in front of a computer. If it's an emergency, a phone call is more suitable anyways. Sure there was this one time when I had to use Slack from my phone browser (set to desktop mode), but it's a small sacrifice.
- mjfl 10y agoSeriously, 9-5 is the dream. This article is so filled with naive melodrama. Does this person realize how much effort it takes to kill, pluck, and dress a single chicken? to grow a single ear of corn? Things you might eat in a single meal? Someone has to "slave" themselves away to grow that for you. They can't just quit and become a poet, if they did the author would starve. That attitude is the definition of childish because it always assumes that someone is going to be there to provide for you, whether it is the state, some rich patron, or your actual parents.
- baursak 10y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ4VzhIuKCQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ4VzhIuKCQ
- trengrj 10y agoWorking without a calling, especially in an unskilled job, is horrifying. It's main use is to convince yourself that you never want to be in that position again and motivate studying or a career change.
- scarface74 10y agoI don't know if you consider factory work "unskilled work" or not, but as I mentioned above, my dad was a factory worker for 30 years before he retired at 55, my mom was a high school math teacher, before she retired. My mom came home, graded papers, took phone calls from parents and teachers (these days teachers do the same and respond to emails after hours), had to attend after school functions, and had to deal with politics, paper work, parents of spoiled children etc. and never got paid extra for it. My dad went to work at 8, came home at 5 and left the job at work. If he did have to work extra he got paid for it. He has a degree in accounting but said he couldn't imagine sitting behind a desk all day. I on the other hand, besides a few stints at contracting, have mostly been in the same boat - not getting paid overtime. I'm not complaining, I also get paid well, can work from home when needed/wanted and get paid to do work I would be doing as a hobby any way.
- CmdrKrool 10y agoThe recent movie 'Paterson' is perhaps an interesting illustration of a character who is apparently content in an unskilled job. The title character is a bus driver whose passion is for poetry which he writes during breaks, partly inspired by the people he sees while driving around (so perhaps the job is somewhat aligned with his passion, there). Also blessed with an extremely stable home life, Paterson radiates a zen-like modesty, acceptance and contentment. Of course it's just a movie, but then Bukowski was a poet whose works are 'just' books (and movies) themselves. Not disagreeing with you - I would hate to feel stuck in an unskilled job also - just throwing this out because I think it's interesting.
- jstewartmobile 10y agoBukowski is absolutely right here, and Taleb also hits this topic pretty hard in his drafts. The worst years I've had working for myself have still been better than the best years I've had as an employee, and that was justice! It's like with all of the problems in the world, I'm going to spend my days being a lackey to make more money for someone who already has plenty so I can ride the status/consumption bandwagon even harder. My slave mentality deserved slave results. Praise God I accidentally broke free!
- willbw 10y agoCould you point me in the direction of where Taleb has written on this topic?
- jstewartmobile 10y agoHere's the relevant draft from SITG: http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/employee.pdf http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/employee.pdf He also has the same idea peppered throughout Antifragile.
- wslh 10y agoAnd here [1] (Reddit AMA) "The point is that if you want to be a writer, an artist, or a researcher in something solitary, better have a job that is steady and not taxing intellectually. Think of Spinoza, Einstein, Bayes..." It is not what initiated this thread but it is related in the sense that you can find a job to cover your basic expenses but not being demanding intelectually to pursue other interests. I read the same from the artist Leon Ferrari [2] [3] he was an engineer and the son of an artist. His father told him to have a career and just then be an artist. This was an anti-fragile advice. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/options/comments/38onec/i_am_nassim_nicholas_taleb_ask_me_anything_on/crwki2o/ https://www.reddit.com/r/options/comments/38onec/i_am_nassim... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le%C3%B3n_Ferrari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le%C3%B3n_Ferrari [3] https://www.amazon.com/Ferrari-Leon-Prologo-Andrea-Giunta/dp/9873754091/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485223620&sr=1-1&refinements=p_27%3Awain+andrea%2Cp_n_condition-type%3A1294423011 https://www.amazon.com/Ferrari-Leon-Prologo-Andrea-Giunta/dp...
- thyselius 10y agoI'm making enough money to live on from apps I released last year. I don't know what to do with my time. Freedom is of course wonderful but I don't _feel_ it, I often long for the office context of a good Swedish workplace. You need to feel you accomplish something every day, and (good) work does that.
- a3n 10y agoThen go work in a Swedish workplace part time. :)
- kafkaesq 10y agoYou need to feel you accomplish something every day, and (good) work does that. That's great for you, but of course Bukowski wasn't thinking of the "have your cake and eat it, too" world of tech workers in 2017 (who are generally overpaid and/or get to do what they love most of the time -- and quite often, subject to both fates). But rather, you know, regular people.
- personomas 10y agoBelieve in Jesus Christ, and you will know the truth; the truth will set you free.
- a3n 10y agoThe truth will set you free. Unfortunately it's a different truth for everyone, and so it's hard to find, sometimes impossible.
- Melchizedek 10y agoThe truth, by definition, is one and the same for everyone.
- sctb 10y agoPosting only ideological comments (whatever ideology!) isn't an appropriate use of this site. We're here to gratify our intellectual curiosity, so please participate with that in mind. We've detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13466677 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13466677. https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- swayvil 10y agoThis place is 100% ideology. Pretty stinky sctb.
- baby 10y agoI might have read a bunch of books and articles about work, but the biggest lessons I've learned are from Bukowski. The Post Office and Factotum are two of my favorite books. Here are a few quotes from Factotum that I really liked: ~~ “Look,” I said, “these books aren’t worth reading let alone arguing about.” “All right,” one of the women said, “we know you think you’re too good for this job.” “Too good?” “Yes, your attitude. You think we didn’t notice it?” That’s when I first learned that it wasn’t enough to just do your job, you had to have an interest in it, even a passion for it. ~~ “You knew we were going to let you go?” “Bosses are never hard to fathom.” “Chinaski, you haven’t been pulling your weight for a month and you know it.” “A guy busts his damned ass and you don’t appreciate it.” “You haven’t been busting your ass, Chinaski.” I stared down at my shoes for some time. I didn’t know what to say. Then I looked at him. “I’ve given you my time. It’s all I’ve got to give—it’s all any man has. And for a pitiful buck and a quarter an hour.” “Remember you begged for this job. You said your job was your second home.” “…my time so that you can live in your big house on the hill and have all the things that go with it. If anybody has lost anything on this deal, on this arrangement…I’ve been the loser. Do you understand?” “All right, Chinaski.” “All right?” “Yes. Just go.” ~~ It was true that I didn’t have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so? ~~~ I always started a job with the feeling that I’d soon quit or be fired, and this gave me a relaxed manner that was mistaken for intelligence or some secret power. ~~~ Here are the one I liked from Women: http://www.p1x3l.com/story/171/bukovsky-women http://www.p1x3l.com/story/171/bukovsky-women
- ams6110 10y agoPlease quote with italics (asterisk before and after the text) rather than indenting, as the line wrapping is lost when you indent and it's much harder to read.
- serhadiletir 10y agoFactotum is one of my favs Bukowski's book to. I bought as a gift for my friends when she throws somewhere I find myself to read.
- pw 10y agoIt hardly seems accurate to say the average software development job is in any way analogous to what Bukowski describes. We're well compensated professionals who, relative to the other professions, tend to have reasonable hours and a lot of latitude in what we work on and when. Yet, we have a supremely weird tendency to identify as some sort of labor slaves.
- dvt 10y agoWe're well-compensated commensurate with the skill required (not everyone can write code) and the ebb and flow of the markets (need I remind you of the late 90s?). The work, more often than not, is not interesting, not valuable (in an intrinsic, not financial, sense of the word), and forgettable. I would say that we are the prototypical "company men" of the new millennium: non-essential cogs in a machine that are easily replaced. I think that's Bukowski's point and I wholeheartedly agree. With all this talk of culture, and paid time off, and personal development, the world hasn't changed that much in the past 50 years. At least I have the good sense of knowing what I am. We all would like to think we're Steve Wozniaks. But we're not. Because if we were, we would've co-founded Apple. And this is precisely why I'll be leaving my cushy 6-figure job soon. As Nassim Taleb put it, "Risk takers can be socially unpredictable people. Freedom is always associated with risk taking, whether it led to it or came from it. You take risks, you feel part of history."
- yetihehe 10y agoNot all people have talent in music, also not all people have talent in founding companies or working on their own. Some prefer onvenience of working a known routine and having liveable amount of money given to them. Doing something for themselves would mean leaving their zone of comfort and they just don't want to do it for fear of failing. It's basic risk-aversion. Why risk being homeless when you can just go to work doing what you already know and get paid.
- dvt 10y ago> Why risk being homeless when you can just go to work doing what you already know and get paid. That's incredibly hyperbolic. You don't risk financial ruin by trying to take a start-up off the ground for 6 months (~0.6% of your lifespan), especially if you're single in your 20s or 30s. I'd also argue it's probably a lot less talent than you think, but then again, I am a Malcolm Gladwell fan.
- scarface74 10y agoTo say that work is like "slavery" shows little understanding of what slavery was. If I don't go to work, I'm not going to have my feet cut off, be chased down by dogs or hung. I've quit plenty of jobs over the years. My livelihood is not based on my job. My livelihood is based on my having marketable skills so if I do get laid off, I can walk to my car, call a bunch of recruiters and have another job in two weeks tops. It's been that way for 20 years. Also, a factory job only "enslaves" you for 35 years if you don't live below your means and make life choices that allows you to save and get out of the rat race. My dad knew he couldn't work in a factory until he was 65 or 70. He saved, and lived below his means for 20 years and both of my parents retired at 55, young and healthy enough to enjoy life. I won't be able to retire that young because of stupid mistakes I made in the past, but that's okay. I can honestly say that I enjoy my job and have enjoyed my jobs for 20 years. Once I don't enjoy my job any more, I find another one. I could easily do this for another 20 years.
- PaulRobinson 10y agoIt was a dramatic metaphor, and a lazy one at that. However, there is a grain of truth in the idea of freedom. A slave could not choose who they worked for or what they did with their lives. The metaphor points out that those of us who think we do may be deluding ourselves to a certain extent. There are very few people - proportional to the population - who get to do anything they want all day long without consequence. Freedom vs. slavery may be a scale rather than a "vs.", and in that, I think there is a point. And yes, you're right, if you are being paid but not saving, you are in essence enslaved to another master, that of consumerism and desire. If you can avoid being "on trend", it's possible true freedom is yours a decade or two earlier than the next chap. But it tells you a lot about society that this is hard to achieve for many people.
- eeZah7Ux 10y agoNo, the use of the term is appropriate: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/slavery http://www.thefreedictionary.com/slavery
- Aaargh20318 10y ago> My dad knew he couldn't work in a factory until he was 65 or 70. He saved, and lived below his means for 20 years and both of my parents retired at 55, young and healthy enough to enjoy life. That's nice for him, but that doesn't apply to the younger generations. My retirement age is currently set at 70.7 (it will go up before I reach that age). I have to pay into a pension plan, but if I were to quit before my pension age that would mean a HUGE penalty on my pension payout, and I'm not talking about quitting at 55, I'm talking about quitting at 68. Furthermore, many older generations had really nice pension plans, a common one was 70% of your last salary. If you stop at 55 and spend 10 years living off savings and then can get a pension at 70% of your last income, that would be amazing. Doesn't work like that anymore. The 70% of last income changed to 70% of your median income and then was replaced by a system where you basically save up for for your pension with no guarantees as to the payout. When I turn 70 I have to buy a pension from the money i've saved (minus the fees for the pension fund and devalued by inflation, so maybe 70% of what I put in). The money can only be used for buying a pension from an insurance company who will base the monthly payout I can buy based on the life expectancy figures they have at that time (and of course, I have to spend my money with them so I'm sure to get screwed anyway). Right now, I don't expect every to be able to stop working, the pension I'm saving for is just a way of getting more money in the hands of the finance industry. Your parents were born at the exact right time, pensions never were about enjoying yourself in your later years, they were an insurance just in case you didn't die before you were too old to work. We're returning to that attitude towards pensions.
- achairapart 10y agoRead also: The Lucky Ones[1] Everytime I read it I can't stop myself to compare it with the popular The Crazy Ones Apple ad. [1]: https://bukowski.net/poems/the_lucky_ones.php https://bukowski.net/poems/the_lucky_ones.php
- diyseguy 10y agoI have this notion that they invented work to keep adolescent boys from getting up to trouble. Then work turned into this thing that became respectable. Then they pasted capitalism on top of it. After a while, women felt left out and wanted in on it. Now we're all working and stressed out and it feels awful and absurd. Yet we gotta do it or left to our own devices might get up to trouble.
- rmason 10y agoOne of my all time entrepreneurial quotes: “The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary." — Nassim Taleb
- ebbv 10y agoI like having a predictable schedule and not having to manage people. All the money in the world isn't worth the stress and misery that comes from running your own company.
- bogomipz 10y agoBut yet it was also Bukowskis tenure as a 9-5 proletariat that gave him fodder for his first novel "Post Office" and his nom de gare "Chinaski" the mail carrier. It's hard for me to imagine Bukowski producing the work he did without having experienced the tension expressed in that medium blog post. The story I heard is that John Martin agreed to pay Bukowski his Post Office salary for the rest of his life if he would quit and write full time.
- nitwit005 10y agoI strongly suspect that while Bukowski might have been depressed at his job, he probably had some cheerful as fuck coworkers annoying the crap out of him. I have a friend who became a barista out of university. For most people that would be a depressing failure to get a "real job", but she got enthused, became hugely knowledgable about coffee, and seems to enjoy it. Her company keeps shipping her out to various coffee related events, so they clearly like her. Sometimes people fit snugly into a crack in the world that fits their shape, and sometimes no such crack exists.
- AVTizzle 10y agoThis is profound: "Sometimes people fit snugly into a crack in the world that fits their shape, and sometimes no such crack exists." Kudos for creativity if that's original. Kudos of sharing if it's not.
- marklgr 10y agoCan't help thinking about Amigara Fault -- but more seriously, yes, nice zen/taoist perspective.
- Vinkekatten 10y agoSometimes you shape your own crack. Sometimes your crack shapes you.
- jraedisch 10y agoThe lost may add to their suffering by worrying if they aren't looking or working hard enough to produce their niche.
- bitJericho 10y agoA big part of the problem in the US is indentured servitude to financial aide.
- MisterKent 10y ago
- EleventhSun 10y agoEven Egyptian slaves weren't at the bottom of the ladder (eg. they had subservient wives). Not advocating "sexism" here but it's worth mentioning subservience. Software engineers often really are at the bottom of the ladder, however. Food for thought.
- SturgeonsLaw 10y agoYou're kidding me if you think software engineers are at the bottom of the ladder. They are highly respected, well compensated, and get paid to work on interesting and challenging problems. In certain labour markets, money and perks are thrown at them. I live very far from SV, and my job is certainly not as enjoyable as software development, and I can tell you with 100% conviction that there are much, much worse options out there. I'm struggling to understand your viewpoint. You must have led a very [charmed/sheltered] life if you honestly believe that software engineers are lower than Egyptian slaves on the totem pole. I don't mean that as a personal dig at you, but comments like that rub me the wrong way when I would drag myself through broken glass and barbed wire to have the life of a Silicon Valley software dev.
- wakkaflokka 10y agoI struggle really hard to understand this. Relative to many other professions, software engineering (IMHO) is a respected and very well-paid profession, with a fairly positive outlook. I'm somewhat surprised to see so many comments here about software engineers being 'at the bottom of the ladder'.
- kriro 10y agoI find it a bit tasteless to use the term slavery or wage slavery for essentially a job that you don't like but feel compelled to do to survive when there's still real slavery going on in the world. The outcome of disobedience is (assumed) unemployment which in most countries where this term is used doesn't even mean you starve or suffer severely. The outcome for real slaves is a bit more dramatic.
- Aaargh20318 10y ago> The outcome of disobedience is (assumed) unemployment which in most countries where this term is used doesn't even mean you starve or suffer severely. Yes it does. I live in the Netherlands, one of the most developed countries in the world and one with what is considered excellent social security. If I would 'disobey' and decide to stop working, I would get nothing at all. Zero Euros. I would be out on the streets in no time flat. If I quit my job, I would be 'at fault' for being unemployed and would not qualify for unemployment. Even if I get fired, I couldn't decide to stay unemployed. Pretty much every type of social security benefit comes with the requirement to apply for jobs (which as a Software engineer means that I'd be back in the 9-to-5 grind within days), failure to apply for jobs means no money. It has come to the point that even if you are disabled you get no social security if you have 'the capacity to work', which means that if some civil servant can dream up a job you could possibly do (regardless of if that job actually exist or if someone is hiring people for such a position), you get nothing. No arms and no legs ? Your tongue works so you could be a stamp-licker, no social security for you. Of course, if you do have a job they take a huge chunk out of your monthly salary to pay for 'social security'.
- bambax 10y agoBukowski the postal worker was offered a basic income and he took it, and in the process became Bukowski the writer. Currently in France there is a big debate about a universal, unconditional basic income, that one of the candidates to the left primaries defends, against the mockery and outrage of everyone else, right, left and center. (He arrived first at the first round with 35% of the vote, and looks like he will win next week, so all is not lost). Still, it's surprising that so many people are against this idea. They're not just saying it's impractical, impossible, too expensive, etc. (although they are saying that as well) -- they're opposed to it on principle. But what principle? For lack of a better explanation and at the risk of being polemical, I think the reason is, people hate other people's freedom. People want other people to be not free, even at the cost of their own freedom. Thinking that we could actually be able to choose a life without work or bosses or a schedule drives many people mad.
- galfarragem 10y ago> I think the reason is, people hate other people's freedom. Most people, even if they don't like the actual system, are 'invested' in it and don't want any change. Changing rules in the middle of the game would take any meaning (already residual) from their past life strategy. All would have been just a big waste of time.
- woldendans 10y agoI am living in France and here are the arguments I heard against the Universal income so far that has nothing to do with cost or impossibility to set up. Some say this is a patch to hide misery. The idea is that they think we should not give people charity, keeping them alive but still poor, and instead focus on the real problem: the lack of jobs and the disparity of incomes. I even heard from some that the Universal Income is a Silicon Valley idea to keep getting richer while giving the poor just enough to keep consuming, thus maintaining the capitalistic economy alive. An other argument I have heard beside cost is that it encourages/rewards laziness and inactivity.
- coldtea 10y ago>Some say this is a patch to hide misery. The idea is that they think we should not give people charity, keeping them alive in misery, but instead focus on the real problem: the lack of jobs and the disparity of incomes. The "lack of jobs" would be the real problem is jobs were premised to be available. But jobs are there to accomplish things (and a number of them could be enough for doing those things) not to give people a paycheck.
- Mendenhall 10y agoDepends who you are and what fits I suppose. I worked from a super young age and got to a point in my 20s where the idea of working for someone would drive me crazy. I also hated the concept of someone being able to fire me or make a bad decision above me. I like having no one to blame but me, it allows me to sleep well at night. Some people love their 9-5 and I find nothing wrong with that at all, Its not a one size fits all solution. What I will say though is you learn a heck of a lot about yourself when you are responsible for "everything". I love the challenge of it.
- galfarragem 10y agoPutting it with other words: Society doesn't allow most to be a genius and most of these potential geniuses will fade eventually. 'I think we have an ideology about talent that says that talent is a tangible, resilient, hardened, shiny thing. It will always rise to the top. To find and encourage talent, all you have to do as a society, is to make sure the right doors are open. Free campus visits, free tuition, letters to the kids with high score. You raise your hand and say, «over here!» and the talent will come running, but that's not true. It’s not resilient and shiny, talent is really, really fragile.' -- Malcolm Gladwell
- xchaotic 10y agoNot sure why people expect a lifetime of gratitude for a menial job. You enter a contract the be paid right now and if the terms of the contract grossly differ from what has been agreed either side can (and should) break it.
- z3t4 10y agoIt's hard to feel free if you have never been non-free.
- Heraclite 10y agoAfter failing at taking my startup off the ground, I just started working for a "normal" company (read: startup that actually raised serious series A, has nice and lofty offices, a good tech team etc). I always have this feeling in my gut that I want to escape from it, even if everything is going great. I wonder if this will leave eventually.
- jondubois 10y agoI definitely feel like a slave. I have very little freedom of thought (I'm always thinking about work), very little freedom of speech (the range of topics that I can discuss while at work is very limited). No means of making a difference; all software companies these days are huge corporations that treat you like a number - They don't even bother looking at your past work to understand your potential; they just care about labels. Also, there are no means of escape; I can't even start my own business in this industry unless I win the VC lottery (and I've tried). Software workers are among lowest class of people in society. Those few engineers who happen to have any business leverage tend to be the most compliant ones and don't use that leverage for the benefit of their own kind; instead they are fully subservient to their corporate masters. The corporates made sure that only the most docile engineers rose to the top. The problem is that as engineers we spend too much time working on our IQ and not enough on our EQ (which is unlike most other professions where some degree of hustling and social scheming is the norm) - As a result, others take advantage of us. As I'm writing this, I understand that there will be repercussions some day for making inflammatory comments like this online. As big data get more effective, this comment will probably come up next to my profile picture somewhere with a big red cross next to it. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to write this because this point of view needs to be expressed more often even if it sounds a bit extreme.
- pjc50 10y ago> Software workers are among lowest class of people in society Only in the very general sense of being part of the class of "workers" rather than those who live off capital. Which puts you on the same rung as rather a lot of people. I'd say the people on zero-hour or unpredictable schedules are treated as the lowest rung of workers: extreme economic uncertainty. If you don't know how many hours you're going to work, you can't know if you'll make rent at the end of the month. If you don't know when you'll work, you can't make other plans. The people who are really treated as the lowest class are those unable to work, who are forever under suspicion.
- CalRobert 10y ago"Software workers are among lowest class of people in society" That might depend on where you are, but in my experience it seems like one of the more solidly middle-class professions around. Doctors and lawyers (if employed) enjoy more prestige, but cleaners, salespeople, etc. appear to enjoy less. Do you have a source re: lowest class? Note that I refer to prestige and societal reputation, rather than remuneration.
- jksmith 10y ago"Better ten dead men than one live slave." Don Juan, GB Shaw's Man and Superman
- SZJX 10y agoThe top comment on Medium is hilarious. It contains "Get off the plantation and build your own." I remember quite well what Taleb said, that to be truly free, you need to be neither a slave nor a slave owner. What good is "building your own plantation"? That literally makes you nowhere better than a slave/the people who originally kept you in the first place.
- harrydry 10y agothis thread is dope. kanye said it. "we are the new slaves." we all started out as gardeners. but pretty soon gardening is too much effort. they sit on their ass to long and before they know it they become part of the garden. we are all shrubbery. but we are happy. shrubs don't know that there shrubs. Once in a while the gardener swings by, feeds us, waters us, tells us we are doing a good job, then he goes to jerk off.