4 ms·

I think one of the best possible desiderata for society is to reconfigure work so that we do a lot less of it, and so that less of our self-identity and self-re

I think one of the best possible desiderata for society is to reconfigure work so that we do a lot less of it, and so that less of our self-identity and self-respect depends upon it. By the way, for those that didn't realise, this article is clearly riffing off Bertrand Russell's well-known essay, 'In Praise of Idleness'.

afpx 8y ago
When I bring that up to many people, they gawk. That’s just abhorrent. But, at some point, that must be the end goal, right? For at least five generations, my ancestors have been working hard to “give their kids a better life.” But, at what point will the goal be to give one’s kids the time and resources to be idle? If I was president of the world, I’d make that Humanity’s moonshot project. Of course, it may not ever be possible. But, hey, there are 100 million people out there smarter than me. Surely, someone can figure it out.
- natalyarostova 8y ago
  >But, at some point, that must be the end goal, right? Not necessarily. For some of us work is itself the meaning we need from life. For me, it's not work-work, but it's learning new things. Idleness is extremely correlated with depression in myself. I can't be idle, or I get bad.
  - afpx 8y ago
    I agree. I like to work. I think most people do. But, people also like to work on what they want to, when they want to.
- chasote 8y ago
  Your comment reminded me of this quote even though it might not entirely fit the topic at hand: "I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematicks and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, musick, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelaine.” John Adams, Letter to Abigail Adams, May 12, 1780. As I said, it might not apply to this overall discussion but I've always found it quite poignant. Sadly society is more apt to ridicule those who still pursue liberal arts due to it's economic opportunity costs. While technically correct I believe that should come from the viewpoint that this could be considered a sad failure in humanity's progress.
  - burfog 8y ago
    If only that were the end, but it is a cycle: Hard times create strong men, Strong men create good times, Good times create weak men, Weak men create hard times. Progress is something desirable only when you are in the bad part of that cycle. When you are in the good part of that cycle, progress takes you around to the bad part.
    - watwut 8y ago
      I dont think that poem describes real world and real history. Hard times often generated men who did not created good times, but create even worst way more violent oppressive times. Think world wars, French revolution, communists in Russia etc. Hard times create hard people and that that can have very unfortunate consequences. And good times did not necessary created men who create hard times, they often created men wanted to keep things good.
      - TeMPOraL 8y ago
        > And good times did not necessary created men who create hard times, they often created men wanted to keep things good. But did they? Looking at the world today, I feel that good times create men who take good times for granted, not understanding what made those good times possible in the first place, and who through inaction or cluelessness work to undo those things. See e.g. our generation working hard to undo all the improvements for the workers, ones which our great-^n-grandparents paid in blood for.
        watwut 8y ago
        Given that I don't know which generation and country you are from, it is hard to counteract. I don't know who or what causes your great-^n-grandparents were fighting for. I have no idea about link between past wars and whatever your generation is undoing. If anything else it sounds a bit like caricature. Past generation fought against others of the past generation. Members of past generations have different interests and some have good life others bad. So maybe it is more about which sub-group of whatever generation is winning and able to effectively push for own interests.
- mnm1 8y ago
  That point is definitely now! Not only for kids but also for ourselves (as some of us don't have kids). If we can give ourselves more idleness to fill up with things that we enjoy, we should be pursuing that. Some people simply cannot see beyond work as you say and can't even fathom the idea. They don't matter. Let them work sixteen hour days while we do four or six or even less, play soccer, write, paint, travel, or even passively watch tv. Why not? To each his own. The great thing is that some of us have this freedom and we should indeed take advantage of it. We should provide it to our kids if we can. And the masses who want to work 80 hour weeks? They are free to do that too. It's the people that don't but are forced to work like that that we should try to help and lift up.
  - taneq 8y ago
    Totally agree, with one caveat - don't then turn around and complain when these hard workers, or especially their hardworking children and grandchildren, have more resources than you and yours.
    - mnm1 8y ago
      I would not as in my case, and most people's I would bet, working harder does not produce more money or resources. Whether I work four hours or sixteen a day, I still get paid the same. As a programmer, there really is no place to get promoted and bonuses/raises seem to be non-existent. The less I, and other salaried employees, manage to spend working each day, the higher our hourly rate. If I was working for myself or paid hourly, things would be different. If my employer cared enough to give me bonuses/raises/more vacation instead of taking benefits away, things would also be different. As it stands, the only thing I get from working more is poorer health, stress, and the extreme costs that come with that.
- ksdale 8y ago
  I agree completely! I remember having a conversation with my parents about one of those "robots taking all the jobs" articles and I brought up universal basic income as a solution to mass technological unemployment and they seemed very unconvinced that it would be a good world where nobody had to "work." I think a lot of people equate not working with not doing anything and they imagine massive slums full of unemployed people sitting around being miserable. I've always felt nearly the opposite. Even doing work like estate planning felt kind of silly in the big picture compared to just spending time with my family, reading, writing, exercising, learning new things. A person can spend just a couple thousand dollars on a car that works. Or somewhere between ten and twenty thousand dollars on a car that's really reliable. But you can also spend as much as many people earn in a lifetime on a car. Clothes are similar. You can buy decent clothes at Target for cheap, or you can buy similar clothing for hundreds of times as much from designer brands. I'm not saying those goods are all the same quality, but the prices of lots of things can be arbitrarily high based on their social importance. I think work loses a ton of meaning when so much of the product of your work can be devoured by status goods like these. There will always be another status good to buy. The end goal can't possibly be for everyone to have a yacht... Even if it were, everyone would just want a bigger yacht. If we don't need more stuff forever, eventually we'll be able to make all the stuff we need with almost no work, and all that will be left is to figure out how to lead fulfilling lives that don't revolve around acquiring yachts.
  - rland 8y ago
    > all that will be left is to figure out how to lead fulfilling lives that don't revolve around acquiring yachts. Well, there is the huge problem. Finding meaning is not only a difficult problem on a personal level, but the entire inertia of the existing system is moving precisely to prevent finding that meaning. This is cause to be skeptical of any technological solution. Imho, it is easier to approach from a cultural level. To that end, we seem to be moving backwards: we already had huge cultural apparatuses which (mostly) eschewed material things for a meaning based (somewhat, depending on who you ask...) on humanistic connection. We have been doing our best to dismantle it in the past few generations.
- jlawson 8y ago
  I don't think it has to be the end goal. In fact I think idleness should not be foisted on anyone. It's awful. There are demonstrably many people who don't need to work (e.g. anyone with over a few millions dollars), who choose to work anyway. It gives a sense of purpose, a reason to get up in the morning. Human beings are not well adapted to being idle. It's like a muscle - you don't want to overload it, but it needs some load to thrive. Hormesis. Humans need stress to grow and thrive. Even animals need work. Zookeepers don't just feed animals, they put food inside metal boxes with holes in the corners, or hidden in nooks, so the animal has to work to get at it. They understand that it's good for the animal.
kazinator 8y ago
> clearly riffing off Bertrand Russell's well-known essay Originality takes ... work.
meiraleal 8y ago
> I think one of the best possible desiderata for society is to reconfigure work so that we do a lot less of it Never gonna happen, someone always going to do the job for less or for more time. That's the grace of globalization.
- Emma_Goldman 8y ago
  Strange how we, in the UK, have an eight hour day, weekends, public holidays, sick pay, and maternity and paternity leave, then. Or that France has a legally mandated 35-hour working week. What exactly do you think would happen if we had a four day working week? Labour would be more evenly distributed. Productivity would go up. We'd all live better and more fulfilling lives. What is good for humans, and for societies, is not to amass as much wealth as possible. I think UBI (or even better, universal basic services) would be a colossal act of social liberation.
  - meiraleal 8y ago
    And I think that if these were the optimal way for society to operate, we would already been doing it. Capitalism and Communism, in the form of bartering and tribes exist since the first societies. > Strange how we, in the UK, have an eight hour day, weekends, public holidays, sick pay, and maternity and paternity leave, then. Or that France has a legally mandated 35-hour working week. To make it clear, if France started to decline compared to other countries economically where their competitors have a labor force doing better work and spending more time, something would have to change. Wannabe "productivity" would go up don't show in numbers.
    - Emma_Goldman 8y ago
      "And I think that if these were the optimal way for society to operate, we would already been doing it." Why? That seems like an extraordinarily implausible claim to me. Presumably you don't think human societies at all times and places are 'optimal', so why would the Western world at the present moment be? And in any case, what is understood to be optimal is historically variable, which is, in part, my point: maybe we should realign our culture. "Capitalism and Communism, in the form of bartering and tribes exist since the first societies." Again, I profoundly disagree. Capitalism is a historically specific configuration of social, economic and legal arrangements. It requires that the economy be elevated into an independent sphere of production and exchange, free of direct political control (contrary to feudalism). It requires the creation of a large surplus population, driven out of subsistence agriculture (the historical norm for the last six-thousand years), who come to depend for the means of life on renting themselves out to a small elite with a monopoly on the means of production. It requires this to be at a sufficient scale that large profits can be ploughed back into investment in a cumulative process of self-expansion. This has generally required a certain amount of stability, a powerful military base, and sophisticated trade networks, among much else (as in Northern Italy in the middle of the last millennium, or the Dutch imperial network after that, or the British Empire after that). Similar things can be said about communism - though it's more complicated. "If France started to decline compared to other countries economically where their competitors have a labor force doing better work and spending more time, something would have to change". Why would they do 'better work'? Generally, if people do less hours of work, their productivity in the hours they do work goes up. Part of the point of reducing working hours is to redistribute those hours more evenly. So it is not simply a reduction; it is also an addition. But I would assume net working hours would decline, and thus net GDP. I don't see why that's a problem. "Wannabe "productivity" would go up don't show in numbers". I don't know what this means.
wes-k 8y ago
Bring on FALC! Fully automated luxury communism. This, or simply the push for more free time for everybody, is one of my life goals. Kinda my main goal actually.

afpx 8y ago

When I bring that up to many people, they gawk. That’s just abhorrent. But, at some point, that must be the end goal, right? For at least five generations, my ancestors have been working hard to “give their kids a better life.” But, at what point will the goal be to give one’s kids the time and resources to be idle? If I was president of the world, I’d make that Humanity’s moonshot project. Of course, it may not ever be possible. But, hey, there are 100 million people out there smarter than me. Surely, someone can figure it out.

natalyarostova 8y ago
>But, at some point, that must be the end goal, right? Not necessarily. For some of us work is itself the meaning we need from life. For me, it's not work-work, but it's learning new things. Idleness is extremely correlated with depression in myself. I can't be idle, or I get bad.
- afpx 8y ago
  I agree. I like to work. I think most people do. But, people also like to work on what they want to, when they want to.
chasote 8y ago
Your comment reminded me of this quote even though it might not entirely fit the topic at hand: "I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematicks and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, musick, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelaine.” John Adams, Letter to Abigail Adams, May 12, 1780. As I said, it might not apply to this overall discussion but I've always found it quite poignant. Sadly society is more apt to ridicule those who still pursue liberal arts due to it's economic opportunity costs. While technically correct I believe that should come from the viewpoint that this could be considered a sad failure in humanity's progress.
- burfog 8y ago
  If only that were the end, but it is a cycle: Hard times create strong men, Strong men create good times, Good times create weak men, Weak men create hard times. Progress is something desirable only when you are in the bad part of that cycle. When you are in the good part of that cycle, progress takes you around to the bad part.
  - watwut 8y ago
    I dont think that poem describes real world and real history. Hard times often generated men who did not created good times, but create even worst way more violent oppressive times. Think world wars, French revolution, communists in Russia etc. Hard times create hard people and that that can have very unfortunate consequences. And good times did not necessary created men who create hard times, they often created men wanted to keep things good.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      > And good times did not necessary created men who create hard times, they often created men wanted to keep things good. But did they? Looking at the world today, I feel that good times create men who take good times for granted, not understanding what made those good times possible in the first place, and who through inaction or cluelessness work to undo those things. See e.g. our generation working hard to undo all the improvements for the workers, ones which our great-^n-grandparents paid in blood for.
      - watwut 8y ago
        Given that I don't know which generation and country you are from, it is hard to counteract. I don't know who or what causes your great-^n-grandparents were fighting for. I have no idea about link between past wars and whatever your generation is undoing. If anything else it sounds a bit like caricature. Past generation fought against others of the past generation. Members of past generations have different interests and some have good life others bad. So maybe it is more about which sub-group of whatever generation is winning and able to effectively push for own interests.
mnm1 8y ago
That point is definitely now! Not only for kids but also for ourselves (as some of us don't have kids). If we can give ourselves more idleness to fill up with things that we enjoy, we should be pursuing that. Some people simply cannot see beyond work as you say and can't even fathom the idea. They don't matter. Let them work sixteen hour days while we do four or six or even less, play soccer, write, paint, travel, or even passively watch tv. Why not? To each his own. The great thing is that some of us have this freedom and we should indeed take advantage of it. We should provide it to our kids if we can. And the masses who want to work 80 hour weeks? They are free to do that too. It's the people that don't but are forced to work like that that we should try to help and lift up.
- taneq 8y ago
  Totally agree, with one caveat - don't then turn around and complain when these hard workers, or especially their hardworking children and grandchildren, have more resources than you and yours.
  - mnm1 8y ago
    I would not as in my case, and most people's I would bet, working harder does not produce more money or resources. Whether I work four hours or sixteen a day, I still get paid the same. As a programmer, there really is no place to get promoted and bonuses/raises seem to be non-existent. The less I, and other salaried employees, manage to spend working each day, the higher our hourly rate. If I was working for myself or paid hourly, things would be different. If my employer cared enough to give me bonuses/raises/more vacation instead of taking benefits away, things would also be different. As it stands, the only thing I get from working more is poorer health, stress, and the extreme costs that come with that.
ksdale 8y ago
I agree completely! I remember having a conversation with my parents about one of those "robots taking all the jobs" articles and I brought up universal basic income as a solution to mass technological unemployment and they seemed very unconvinced that it would be a good world where nobody had to "work." I think a lot of people equate not working with not doing anything and they imagine massive slums full of unemployed people sitting around being miserable. I've always felt nearly the opposite. Even doing work like estate planning felt kind of silly in the big picture compared to just spending time with my family, reading, writing, exercising, learning new things. A person can spend just a couple thousand dollars on a car that works. Or somewhere between ten and twenty thousand dollars on a car that's really reliable. But you can also spend as much as many people earn in a lifetime on a car. Clothes are similar. You can buy decent clothes at Target for cheap, or you can buy similar clothing for hundreds of times as much from designer brands. I'm not saying those goods are all the same quality, but the prices of lots of things can be arbitrarily high based on their social importance. I think work loses a ton of meaning when so much of the product of your work can be devoured by status goods like these. There will always be another status good to buy. The end goal can't possibly be for everyone to have a yacht... Even if it were, everyone would just want a bigger yacht. If we don't need more stuff forever, eventually we'll be able to make all the stuff we need with almost no work, and all that will be left is to figure out how to lead fulfilling lives that don't revolve around acquiring yachts.
- rland 8y ago
  > all that will be left is to figure out how to lead fulfilling lives that don't revolve around acquiring yachts. Well, there is the huge problem. Finding meaning is not only a difficult problem on a personal level, but the entire inertia of the existing system is moving precisely to prevent finding that meaning. This is cause to be skeptical of any technological solution. Imho, it is easier to approach from a cultural level. To that end, we seem to be moving backwards: we already had huge cultural apparatuses which (mostly) eschewed material things for a meaning based (somewhat, depending on who you ask...) on humanistic connection. We have been doing our best to dismantle it in the past few generations.
jlawson 8y ago
I don't think it has to be the end goal. In fact I think idleness should not be foisted on anyone. It's awful. There are demonstrably many people who don't need to work (e.g. anyone with over a few millions dollars), who choose to work anyway. It gives a sense of purpose, a reason to get up in the morning. Human beings are not well adapted to being idle. It's like a muscle - you don't want to overload it, but it needs some load to thrive. Hormesis. Humans need stress to grow and thrive. Even animals need work. Zookeepers don't just feed animals, they put food inside metal boxes with holes in the corners, or hidden in nooks, so the animal has to work to get at it. They understand that it's good for the animal.

kazinator 8y ago

> clearly riffing off Bertrand Russell's well-known essay Originality takes ... work.

meiraleal 8y ago

> I think one of the best possible desiderata for society is to reconfigure work so that we do a lot less of it Never gonna happen, someone always going to do the job for less or for more time. That's the grace of globalization.

Emma_Goldman 8y ago
Strange how we, in the UK, have an eight hour day, weekends, public holidays, sick pay, and maternity and paternity leave, then. Or that France has a legally mandated 35-hour working week. What exactly do you think would happen if we had a four day working week? Labour would be more evenly distributed. Productivity would go up. We'd all live better and more fulfilling lives. What is good for humans, and for societies, is not to amass as much wealth as possible. I think UBI (or even better, universal basic services) would be a colossal act of social liberation.
- meiraleal 8y ago
  And I think that if these were the optimal way for society to operate, we would already been doing it. Capitalism and Communism, in the form of bartering and tribes exist since the first societies. > Strange how we, in the UK, have an eight hour day, weekends, public holidays, sick pay, and maternity and paternity leave, then. Or that France has a legally mandated 35-hour working week. To make it clear, if France started to decline compared to other countries economically where their competitors have a labor force doing better work and spending more time, something would have to change. Wannabe "productivity" would go up don't show in numbers.
  - Emma_Goldman 8y ago
    "And I think that if these were the optimal way for society to operate, we would already been doing it." Why? That seems like an extraordinarily implausible claim to me. Presumably you don't think human societies at all times and places are 'optimal', so why would the Western world at the present moment be? And in any case, what is understood to be optimal is historically variable, which is, in part, my point: maybe we should realign our culture. "Capitalism and Communism, in the form of bartering and tribes exist since the first societies." Again, I profoundly disagree. Capitalism is a historically specific configuration of social, economic and legal arrangements. It requires that the economy be elevated into an independent sphere of production and exchange, free of direct political control (contrary to feudalism). It requires the creation of a large surplus population, driven out of subsistence agriculture (the historical norm for the last six-thousand years), who come to depend for the means of life on renting themselves out to a small elite with a monopoly on the means of production. It requires this to be at a sufficient scale that large profits can be ploughed back into investment in a cumulative process of self-expansion. This has generally required a certain amount of stability, a powerful military base, and sophisticated trade networks, among much else (as in Northern Italy in the middle of the last millennium, or the Dutch imperial network after that, or the British Empire after that). Similar things can be said about communism - though it's more complicated. "If France started to decline compared to other countries economically where their competitors have a labor force doing better work and spending more time, something would have to change". Why would they do 'better work'? Generally, if people do less hours of work, their productivity in the hours they do work goes up. Part of the point of reducing working hours is to redistribute those hours more evenly. So it is not simply a reduction; it is also an addition. But I would assume net working hours would decline, and thus net GDP. I don't see why that's a problem. "Wannabe "productivity" would go up don't show in numbers". I don't know what this means.

wes-k 8y ago

Bring on FALC! Fully automated luxury communism. This, or simply the push for more free time for everybody, is one of my life goals. Kinda my main goal actually.