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> Just think what kind of culture, music, science, ideas might result if all those people were liberated to do things they actually thought were important. Is

> Just think what kind of culture, music, science, ideas might result if all those people were liberated to do things they actually thought were important. Is there really any reason to believe that this would amount to anything? Sure, there might be some people out there who would do useful or important work. But isn't there also the possibility that the majority of people would just feed their pleasure side all day long? Without any constraints, maybe we would just consume, have fun and go to the beach all day long? Maybe a rather unintended purpose of some of these bullshit jobs is to put a strain on the endless desires some of us might have.

jinfiesto 8y ago
The whole argument is essentially that if we take people at their word and assume that 50% of the work being done today is bullshit do we believe that if we liberated everyone to do whatever they wanted, would 50% of what they do then be bullshit? I'm inclined to think not, but I'm fairly sanguine about people's desire to do meaningful work.
- molteanu 8y ago
  Well, think about what people do on their holidays. Think about what people do on a Friday night or on weekends. Do they take one week vacation to do meaningful work or for "having a blast"? Are Friday nights usually reserved for reading Plato or for "going out for drinks"? On the other side of the argument, yes, this having fun in your free time might just be a way to blow off steam after a mindless, pointless day or year at work. Following this argument, then yes, taking out the boring work from the equation might also reduce or eliminate the need to feed your pleasure side. But I, for one, I'm not really convinced of this. It might still be true, but it's not a given in my view.
  - anewhnaccount2 8y ago
    Certainly it's not given for everyone, but UBI would change social norms. The real question is not whether anyone would feed their pleasure side as much, more, or even "full-time" but rather that aggregate happiness and life satisfaction would grow and thus society would benefit. EDIT: If you read the end of Gruber's book, there's an exploration of this and the associated moralising.
  - undreren 8y ago
    I don't understand your reasoning here. If we accept the premise that 40% of people add no value to the world in the jobs they have, it seems preposterous to even entertain the thought that none of these people would add any value to society, if you liberated them from their jobs. The whole open source software movement is proof to his position. People spend a lot of free time delivering value out of hours, value to both businesses and society. Most of these people have a normal day job.
    - molteanu 8y ago
      I just feel we (and Graeber) are ignoring details here. Sure, it's nice to think that "all will be well in fairyland". Reality is so much different and it doesn't help if we just use wishful thinking without understanding that reality. Sure, maybe 1% or 2$ of that 40% would do meaningful work. Let's say we take that for granted. What about the others? What social role would they play? Who or what will pay for their idleness? Who would want to clean up the garbage if a majority of people do nothing and still get payed? How would you explain to someone who cleans the streets the the idle folk might come out with something useful in some distant future? How would the social fabric just not disintegrate? How can you keep the society functioning as a whole?
      - watwut 8y ago
        I don't think it is necessary for people to have threat of absolute poverty and destruction over their heads for the society to function and for social fabric to not disintegrate. Really.
      - Ultimatt 8y ago
        Youre already paying for their bullshit job indirectly but theyre miserable. Why not pay for them to be happy. Thats the definition of a BS job. I have a job thats meaningful to me. I am willing to work without pay for that even. If being a cleaner is valuable and under appreciated. Guess what cleaners become well paid in the new reality adjusted economy. That you think they shouldnt be speaks volumes about broken social norms around work.
      - jostylr 8y ago
  - jstanley 8y ago
    People can spend their free time doing whatever they want. What's the problem with that?
  - jinfiesto 8y ago
    I don't know man. I just took a week of PTO to "Marie Kondo" my house. Before I had kids, I used to take a week or a long weekend pretty frequently to work through a book or learn some new tech, so I don't think it's that unusual. Probably at least half of my yearly PTO ends up being me going to conferences (professional) on my own dime.
- techdmn 8y ago
  I had some contact with the unschooling movement while growing up, and came away with some interesting conclusions. It isn't uncommon when a kid stops going to school, for them to basically mope around and play video games and not do anything for some period of time - weeks or months. But after a while they do get bored, and start to get interested in learning about and doing things. I think people intrinsically want to be active and have projects and learn and create. BUT you have to detox from living such a structured life, and that's a process that takes time. It's no surprise to me that people who have gone to school or daycare since before they can remember, then had to work full-time after that, don't really know what to do with themselves when they have a few days or a week off, or that they spend that time in ways that appear to be wasted. You need to recover from having someone else tell you what to do all the time. Sadly not everyone does.
coldtea 8y ago
>But isn't there also the possibility that the majority of people would just feed their pleasure side all day long? Without any constraints, maybe we would just consume, have fun and go to the beach all day long? And why not? Is there some ethical imperative that says you should not "have fun and go to the beach all day long", if you have what you need to go by? I'd extend Pascal's praise of idleness: ""All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room." -- to including "go to the beach" and such along with sitting still in a room. The point (and I think Pascal's point) is not doing nothing, but in being able to be content without having to create schemes and busywork when there's no need for any, but instead find satisfaction to being itself.
- lmm 8y ago
  Because I don't want to? I like taking breaks at times but, fundamentally, I do also like having a job. I don't want to sit still in a room, I don't want to find satisfaction when not actually doing anything, and why should I?
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >Because I don't want to? Well, don't let the door hit you on your way out of the beach then! Who said anything about making this mandatory for everybody? What I discussed is that it shouldn't be seen as bad to "have fun and go to the beach".
- davemp 8y ago
  Pascal is talking about an inherent need in humans to be busy. I do not see how denying such a need would be very effective at increasing satisfaction. Ignoring human nature just seems idealistic to me, like ignoring the target architecture of the software you're trying to hyper-optimize.
  - magicnubs 8y ago
    But if humans have an inherent need to be busy, why wouldn't they busy themselves with more interesting or useful things in the void left behind by their busy-work?
piaste 8y ago
Two words: child rearing. Imagine if every pair of prospective parents had a couple dozen more hours available per week, because they don't need to spend more time at the office than what is actually needed to do real work. Parental engagement has a massive influence on a child's achievements.
foozed 8y ago
This makes me think of what happened in West-Berlin during the cold war. West-Berlin offered young people that were willing to move there from West-Germany extra welfare and the ability to dodge the military service. This coupled with extremely low rents and lots of abandoned houses available for squatting meant that many young people were more or less free to study, sing, talk with each other in bars as much as they wanted without having to work. I believe this was an important contribution to Berlin becoming such an important cultural haven, making the city so attractive still to newcomers and is imho a perfect example of the thought you quoted.
- tuyiown 8y ago
  That said, young people willing to move from west germany to west berlin is an very non-representative sample of people.

jinfiesto 8y ago

The whole argument is essentially that if we take people at their word and assume that 50% of the work being done today is bullshit do we believe that if we liberated everyone to do whatever they wanted, would 50% of what they do then be bullshit? I'm inclined to think not, but I'm fairly sanguine about people's desire to do meaningful work.

molteanu 8y ago
Well, think about what people do on their holidays. Think about what people do on a Friday night or on weekends. Do they take one week vacation to do meaningful work or for "having a blast"? Are Friday nights usually reserved for reading Plato or for "going out for drinks"? On the other side of the argument, yes, this having fun in your free time might just be a way to blow off steam after a mindless, pointless day or year at work. Following this argument, then yes, taking out the boring work from the equation might also reduce or eliminate the need to feed your pleasure side. But I, for one, I'm not really convinced of this. It might still be true, but it's not a given in my view.
- anewhnaccount2 8y ago
  Certainly it's not given for everyone, but UBI would change social norms. The real question is not whether anyone would feed their pleasure side as much, more, or even "full-time" but rather that aggregate happiness and life satisfaction would grow and thus society would benefit. EDIT: If you read the end of Gruber's book, there's an exploration of this and the associated moralising.
- undreren 8y ago
  I don't understand your reasoning here. If we accept the premise that 40% of people add no value to the world in the jobs they have, it seems preposterous to even entertain the thought that none of these people would add any value to society, if you liberated them from their jobs. The whole open source software movement is proof to his position. People spend a lot of free time delivering value out of hours, value to both businesses and society. Most of these people have a normal day job.
  - molteanu 8y ago
    I just feel we (and Graeber) are ignoring details here. Sure, it's nice to think that "all will be well in fairyland". Reality is so much different and it doesn't help if we just use wishful thinking without understanding that reality. Sure, maybe 1% or 2$ of that 40% would do meaningful work. Let's say we take that for granted. What about the others? What social role would they play? Who or what will pay for their idleness? Who would want to clean up the garbage if a majority of people do nothing and still get payed? How would you explain to someone who cleans the streets the the idle folk might come out with something useful in some distant future? How would the social fabric just not disintegrate? How can you keep the society functioning as a whole?
    - watwut 8y ago
      I don't think it is necessary for people to have threat of absolute poverty and destruction over their heads for the society to function and for social fabric to not disintegrate. Really.
    - Ultimatt 8y ago
      Youre already paying for their bullshit job indirectly but theyre miserable. Why not pay for them to be happy. Thats the definition of a BS job. I have a job thats meaningful to me. I am willing to work without pay for that even. If being a cleaner is valuable and under appreciated. Guess what cleaners become well paid in the new reality adjusted economy. That you think they shouldnt be speaks volumes about broken social norms around work.
    - jostylr 8y ago
- jstanley 8y ago
  People can spend their free time doing whatever they want. What's the problem with that?
- jinfiesto 8y ago
  I don't know man. I just took a week of PTO to "Marie Kondo" my house. Before I had kids, I used to take a week or a long weekend pretty frequently to work through a book or learn some new tech, so I don't think it's that unusual. Probably at least half of my yearly PTO ends up being me going to conferences (professional) on my own dime.
techdmn 8y ago
I had some contact with the unschooling movement while growing up, and came away with some interesting conclusions. It isn't uncommon when a kid stops going to school, for them to basically mope around and play video games and not do anything for some period of time - weeks or months. But after a while they do get bored, and start to get interested in learning about and doing things. I think people intrinsically want to be active and have projects and learn and create. BUT you have to detox from living such a structured life, and that's a process that takes time. It's no surprise to me that people who have gone to school or daycare since before they can remember, then had to work full-time after that, don't really know what to do with themselves when they have a few days or a week off, or that they spend that time in ways that appear to be wasted. You need to recover from having someone else tell you what to do all the time. Sadly not everyone does.

coldtea 8y ago

>But isn't there also the possibility that the majority of people would just feed their pleasure side all day long? Without any constraints, maybe we would just consume, have fun and go to the beach all day long? And why not? Is there some ethical imperative that says you should not "have fun and go to the beach all day long", if you have what you need to go by? I'd extend Pascal's praise of idleness: ""All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room." -- to including "go to the beach" and such along with sitting still in a room. The point (and I think Pascal's point) is not doing nothing, but in being able to be content without having to create schemes and busywork when there's no need for any, but instead find satisfaction to being itself.

lmm 8y ago
Because I don't want to? I like taking breaks at times but, fundamentally, I do also like having a job. I don't want to sit still in a room, I don't want to find satisfaction when not actually doing anything, and why should I?
- coldtea 8y ago
  >Because I don't want to? Well, don't let the door hit you on your way out of the beach then! Who said anything about making this mandatory for everybody? What I discussed is that it shouldn't be seen as bad to "have fun and go to the beach".
davemp 8y ago
Pascal is talking about an inherent need in humans to be busy. I do not see how denying such a need would be very effective at increasing satisfaction. Ignoring human nature just seems idealistic to me, like ignoring the target architecture of the software you're trying to hyper-optimize.
- magicnubs 8y ago
  But if humans have an inherent need to be busy, why wouldn't they busy themselves with more interesting or useful things in the void left behind by their busy-work?

piaste 8y ago

Two words: child rearing. Imagine if every pair of prospective parents had a couple dozen more hours available per week, because they don't need to spend more time at the office than what is actually needed to do real work. Parental engagement has a massive influence on a child's achievements.

foozed 8y ago

This makes me think of what happened in West-Berlin during the cold war. West-Berlin offered young people that were willing to move there from West-Germany extra welfare and the ability to dodge the military service. This coupled with extremely low rents and lots of abandoned houses available for squatting meant that many young people were more or less free to study, sing, talk with each other in bars as much as they wanted without having to work. I believe this was an important contribution to Berlin becoming such an important cultural haven, making the city so attractive still to newcomers and is imho a perfect example of the thought you quoted.

tuyiown 8y ago
That said, young people willing to move from west germany to west berlin is an very non-representative sample of people.