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I don't see what high horse you are talking about. The point is that having to work in order to survive is not inherently a desirable situation for a human to b
by m12k 6y ago
I don't see what high horse you are talking about. The point is that having to work in order to survive is not inherently a desirable situation for a human to be in. A more desirable situation is to have your needs such as housing, food and healthcare already taken care of irrespective of what you spend your time on. Historically such a life has been possible for a select few in the aristocracy, and they seem to have had a great time - usually at the expense of serfs, slaves or other less privileged classes. Hopefully, eventually we'll all be able to live a life like that, with robots or software instead of slaves. So when someone says that we shouldn't consider jobs to be inherently valuable, they are pointing out that what is valuable is not our labor, but the fruit of our labor. That we should seek to improve results rather than effort. 150 years ago, ~70% of the population in western countries needed to work in agriculture to ensure the food supply - today it's less than 5%, and that's great! So yes, currently human work is still needed to keep society running, and for that reason we have created social norms around it being ethical to work and unethical not to, in order to get everyone to pitch in. But the truth is that there is nothing inherently unethical about not working, as long is it's not at the expense of someone else having to work even harder. As such, if you want to put on the tin-foil-hat a bit, you might even consider that it could be that the class that already lives a life where they don't need to work - the upper class (who make their living by owning things) has over-sold this whole notion of 'work == good' to the middle class (who make their living by working) in order for them to feel better than the lower class (who are unemployed) and ensure any anger is directed downward and those two classes will fight it out instead of questioning the world order.
- tengbretson 6y ago> A more desirable situation is to have your needs such as housing, food and healthcare already taken care of irrespective of what you spend your time on. What you are describing is already a reality for our house pets. I don't find becoming a house pet to some AI/automated machine to be desirable in any way shape or form.
- m12k 6y agoSo you're saying the aristocracy were the pets of their slaves and serfs? Got it, thank you for adding to the debate.
- tengbretson 6y ago> So you're saying... > Got it, thank you for adding to the debate. How about don't be such a dick?
- stale2002 6y agoYou aren't addressing his main point. The point is that the aristocracy did not engage in "work" as many would define it, but seemed to be pretty happy about that. It worked for them. Why not for others?
- m12k 6y agoHey, there's no need to resort to name calling. You didn't address my main point, but instead just put up a strawman argument by equating the autonomy of not needing to work with the massive lack of autonomy that comes from being someone's pet, a perspective that my comment had already given a counterexample of with the aristocracy. So yes, I called out your comment for being a one-line, low effort, strawman argument, that didn't actually add to the debate by 1) actually addressing any of the points raised or 2) seriously making and backing up any points of its own. If you have something substantive to add, or any actual counterarguments, I'd genuinely love to hear them.
- bamboozled 6y agoThe length of your counter argument is enough to prove to me that your answer is complex and it's not straight forwards. Go leave you job in 2020 and see how that goes for you. I understand "the dream" you're trying to describe, but it's 100% fictitious. Just on the agriculture bit, do you even know where your food comes from or how it's produced? Honest question?