4 ms·

I'd rather the losers of society stay in their house, high and playing video games, rather than trying to impress women and provide a family legacy by engaging

I'd rather the losers of society stay in their house, high and playing video games, rather than trying to impress women and provide a family legacy by engaging in gangster behavior to get money. Also, if society is so plentiful that it can handle a certain percentage of people doing nothing but living for pleasure, why not let them? Work is not valuable except for its product, and if its product is not needed, the work is worthless. If you are using work to bend adult people to a specific ideology (making the worker the product of his/her own work), you're being inefficient - it's not the job of a profession, company, etc. to provide social or moral training. Your comment seems to indicate a serious hatred of pleasure. I don't mind working hard, but if we don't have to, there's no point in it.

tathougies 7y ago
> Your comment seems to indicate a serious hatred of pleasure. On the contrary. My comment indicates a serious love affair with pleasure, but not a particular fondness for fleeting pleasure. The things I mention -- family, dependents, and responsibility -- are a pathway to long-term happiness, satisfaction, and ecstasy beyond the reach of so many. > I'd rather the losers of society stay in their house, high and playing video games, rather than trying to impress women and provide a family legacy by engaging in gangster behavior to get money. Well, no it's quite the opposite really. First of all, stop with the strawmanning. The men in this article are not 'gangsters'. They are otherwise law-abiding men. Secondly, you are employing a circular reasoning. You call these men losers because they are unmarried and play video games all day and don't work. You then tell me to not cast judgement on their idleness. I am not the one calling them 'losers'. These men being married and productive would not see them engaging in any kind of 'gangster' behavior. That is not a typical way to marriage and productive family life. > I don't mind working hard, but if we don't have to, there's no point in it. Well that's the point. Hard work is a path to happiness, but it's not one the human mind is naturally oriented towards unless there's some point to it.
wwweston 7y ago
I agree with your comment up to a point. At several points in my life I've dedicated it to recreation and felt great about it. :) I'm not sure that work is only valuable for its product, though, unless you expand the definition of "product" to include changes in the worker. There are certain forms of work we realize this about: we call them exercises or practice. But it applies to a lot of work whose point might be primarily understood as production. That isn't the only issue at hand, though. The number of unsolved problems or things that could just use dutiful attention in the world isn't so small that we can just write off hundreds of thousands of people from engagement with them. We seem to have a culture and institutions that increasingly leave a gap between some people and these attentions/duties, though. And that sounds like a problem worth reflecting on.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lopmotr 7y ago
I used to believe that work was only there for what it produced, but now know that that's wrong. Being useful is very important for mental well-being. It gives happiness and reduces anxiety and depression. When I was unemployed, I did volunteer work to keep my spirits up. It's important for people to work or otherwise have some purpose beyond personal pleasure.
- tenebrisalietum 7y ago
  > Being useful is very important for mental well-being. I really think ultimately this is rooted in trying to impose a transactional or "karma bank" nature on things beyond humanity. "If you are good, the world will be nice", but the world/God/what is beyond humanity doesn't obey human rules, because it isn't human. You'll impress other human beings with this mindset, and that's extremely useful and will definitely reduce anxiety if you are among a group of people that recognize that, but if you are dealing with something beyond humanity, it's invalid. For example, someone gets cancer/murdered, and they/their loved one think(s) they are being punished, or someone knows someone else who has cancer/got murdered/suffered X great loss purely at random, and they try to live a good life thinking on some subconscious level they can avoid it. It's tempting, because no one likes to be scared or out of control, but it's false and doesn't even work. For companies to swoop in and be allowed or even encouraged to advantage of that--let's soak a third of your precious free time on this planet so you can pay a guilt/fear debt imposed by others out of fear and uncertainity--is terrible.
- livueta 7y ago
  Fwiw, usefulness, even as a hikkiNEET, isn't only to be found in formal employment - but I totally agree with you about its importance. I've known a lot of the sort of people described in the article over the years and one of the big factors that seems to dictate whether you love or hate the infinite free time lifestyle is what you do with that time. Doing nothing but consuming leaves you in a sad spot, while the full-time wiki editors, fansubbers, forum mods and guide-writers do a lot better in terms of self-respect and general mental state. I think the phenomenon of the NEET is here to stay in rich societies, so I'm hoping that those affected are increasingly able to channel their energies into productive and rewarding outlets rather than drowning forever in vapid consumption.
raducu 7y ago
I'd agree with you if we reached peak development and unemployment was high. But there are people dying of hunger in the world, disseases that require funds to find a cure, infrastructure to be payed for and so on. So if you pay your taxes, even if you consider your work "meaningless", your tax money, if spent well, is not meaningless. Sure it's better than them joining crime, but its a sad state of affairs and not exactly optimal. Some societies have been plentiful enough for a couple hundreds years to afford people not working/not net contributing, but those people would still be a burden, at least to missed development.

tathougies 7y ago

> Your comment seems to indicate a serious hatred of pleasure. On the contrary. My comment indicates a serious love affair with pleasure, but not a particular fondness for fleeting pleasure. The things I mention -- family, dependents, and responsibility -- are a pathway to long-term happiness, satisfaction, and ecstasy beyond the reach of so many. > I'd rather the losers of society stay in their house, high and playing video games, rather than trying to impress women and provide a family legacy by engaging in gangster behavior to get money. Well, no it's quite the opposite really. First of all, stop with the strawmanning. The men in this article are not 'gangsters'. They are otherwise law-abiding men. Secondly, you are employing a circular reasoning. You call these men losers because they are unmarried and play video games all day and don't work. You then tell me to not cast judgement on their idleness. I am not the one calling them 'losers'. These men being married and productive would not see them engaging in any kind of 'gangster' behavior. That is not a typical way to marriage and productive family life. > I don't mind working hard, but if we don't have to, there's no point in it. Well that's the point. Hard work is a path to happiness, but it's not one the human mind is naturally oriented towards unless there's some point to it.

wwweston 7y ago

I agree with your comment up to a point. At several points in my life I've dedicated it to recreation and felt great about it. :) I'm not sure that work is only valuable for its product, though, unless you expand the definition of "product" to include changes in the worker. There are certain forms of work we realize this about: we call them exercises or practice. But it applies to a lot of work whose point might be primarily understood as production. That isn't the only issue at hand, though. The number of unsolved problems or things that could just use dutiful attention in the world isn't so small that we can just write off hundreds of thousands of people from engagement with them. We seem to have a culture and institutions that increasingly leave a gap between some people and these attentions/duties, though. And that sounds like a problem worth reflecting on.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

lopmotr 7y ago

I used to believe that work was only there for what it produced, but now know that that's wrong. Being useful is very important for mental well-being. It gives happiness and reduces anxiety and depression. When I was unemployed, I did volunteer work to keep my spirits up. It's important for people to work or otherwise have some purpose beyond personal pleasure.

tenebrisalietum 7y ago
> Being useful is very important for mental well-being. I really think ultimately this is rooted in trying to impose a transactional or "karma bank" nature on things beyond humanity. "If you are good, the world will be nice", but the world/God/what is beyond humanity doesn't obey human rules, because it isn't human. You'll impress other human beings with this mindset, and that's extremely useful and will definitely reduce anxiety if you are among a group of people that recognize that, but if you are dealing with something beyond humanity, it's invalid. For example, someone gets cancer/murdered, and they/their loved one think(s) they are being punished, or someone knows someone else who has cancer/got murdered/suffered X great loss purely at random, and they try to live a good life thinking on some subconscious level they can avoid it. It's tempting, because no one likes to be scared or out of control, but it's false and doesn't even work. For companies to swoop in and be allowed or even encouraged to advantage of that--let's soak a third of your precious free time on this planet so you can pay a guilt/fear debt imposed by others out of fear and uncertainity--is terrible.
livueta 7y ago
Fwiw, usefulness, even as a hikkiNEET, isn't only to be found in formal employment - but I totally agree with you about its importance. I've known a lot of the sort of people described in the article over the years and one of the big factors that seems to dictate whether you love or hate the infinite free time lifestyle is what you do with that time. Doing nothing but consuming leaves you in a sad spot, while the full-time wiki editors, fansubbers, forum mods and guide-writers do a lot better in terms of self-respect and general mental state. I think the phenomenon of the NEET is here to stay in rich societies, so I'm hoping that those affected are increasingly able to channel their energies into productive and rewarding outlets rather than drowning forever in vapid consumption.

raducu 7y ago

I'd agree with you if we reached peak development and unemployment was high. But there are people dying of hunger in the world, disseases that require funds to find a cure, infrastructure to be payed for and so on. So if you pay your taxes, even if you consider your work "meaningless", your tax money, if spent well, is not meaningless. Sure it's better than them joining crime, but its a sad state of affairs and not exactly optimal. Some societies have been plentiful enough for a couple hundreds years to afford people not working/not net contributing, but those people would still be a burden, at least to missed development.