11 ms·

Curious, forced upon you by whom? if you move somewhere where no one else can force you to work (maybe the wilderness?), then what forces you to work?

dajoh 5y ago
Just because you're in the woods does not mean you can ignore the law. Where do I find this mythical wilderness where no laws apply to me?
- mlac 5y ago
  Alaska. You can move out there by yourself, do whatever the hell you want (as long as its by yourself and doesn’t impact others), and no one will notice or care. Or you can be a hermit.
  - mlac 5y ago
    In re-reading this thread, I realize something: if you move to Alaska to avoid being forced to work by society, you better damn well believe that you will be forced to work by nature. I think this says something about the very nature of work. In our modern times it is detached from its purpose (survival of self and species), but that is ultimately what drives the need to work. This idea that a capable, working-age living thing should be able to free load off of others’ work to stay alive is not dignifying for that person, and unfairly burdens the one who is working to keep the other person alive. Put another way, just because a farmer can make enough to feed a town doesn’t mean the farmer should only be allowed enough grain to feed his family, with everything else divided among those who don’t work. What’s the incentive to work? And when you introduce government rules to enforce those things, the farmer is compelled by violence and force to give away his labor. Just like missing the connection between work and survival, people miss the connection between government regulation and the promise of force behind it as a punishment for non-compliance. The reason people pay taxes (which is the only way we have as a society to redistribute resources from those who work to those who don’t) is because their money will be taken if it is not paid, or they will be put in jail if they lie about how much they owe. So while the original comment complains about how you’re compelled to work, that’s actually not true. It is a societal norm to work and to have a good quality of life, but no one is forcing you. But at the same time they are asking to increase government benefits and force those who work to pay for their survival. All this said - if the conversation is framed around how much work it takes to survive, I think as a society it would make sense for that number to drop as we’ve increased scale of production and automation.
    - bjourne 5y ago
      This is only true if you define "work" as "tasks that has to be executed to survive". If you live in the wilderness you have to "work" a lot because you have to execute many tasks to survive. That is not what work is. I have to eat and defecate to survive, but you wouldn't call that "work", would you? The definition of "work" used by every leftist movement in the world is different. They define it as "directly or indirectly selling your time to other humans in exchange for material benefits." Thus, if I hunt alone in the wilderness to get meat for myself I'm not "working". But if there is another person in the wilderness who forces me to hunt to get meat for us then I'm "working". I hope you understand the difference. Scrubbing toilets is not per se "work". Scrubbing toilets so that someone will give you money to buy food is "work".
      - d1sxeyes 5y ago
        > But if there is another person in the wilderness who forces me to hunt to get meat for us then I'm "working". So in your work-free society, hunters have to work?
        bjourne 5y ago
        No.
hjanssen 5y ago
To take part in society in any meaningful way you certainly have to work.
- vagrantJin 5y ago
  Is a writer considered not meaningful then?
  - pyoeos 5y ago
    Writing is work. Work isn't just physical labor.
bjourne 5y ago
People are herd animals so for most (including me) living in the wilderness is not an option. But to participate in society I have to pay the "entrance fee" - to subject myself to work. As a species, we can do better.
- d1sxeyes 5y ago
  Well, I agree we can do better, especially in terms of the fairness of distribution of wealth, but frankly yes, to take part in a society, you either need to 'pay the entrance fee' or have it waived for you. We generally 'waive' the fee for children, the elderly, and the disabled, but ultimately, right at the very sharp end, some folks HAVE to work so the others have food. So those of us who are not growing food need to produce something of value to trade in order to get food. The solution we have today (we all contribute our labour in exchange for tokens which can be used to buy food and other things) is significantly better than how it was a couple of hundred years ago (slaves do the work).
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - bjourne 5y ago
    But why should I have to pay the entrance fee and why should I have to work? Unless you believe axiomatically that everyone "should" work there is no rational reason why everyone should work. Hunter gatherers didn't work. They hunted, gathered food, took care of the children and whatnot but they decidedly did not work. But now, thousands of years later, we're devoting most of waking hours to work. That's not progress. And all for no good reason. All those developers optimizing ctr rates for ads or building casino sites for gambling addicts, are not adding anything of value to society. They are making it worse. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much pointless work out there that is just work for work's own sake.
    - robot_no_419 5y ago
      "But why should I have to pay the entrance fee and why should I have to work?" You don't have to, nobody is forcing you to work. If you want to dumpster dive and live on the streets you never have to work. Plenty of people live like this. You choose to work because it's the easiest way for you to support the lifestyle you want to live. What you're really asking is "why won't society give me nice things while I do nothing" and the reason is because you're not that special. If everyone thought like this then we would all end up worse off.

dajoh 5y ago

Just because you're in the woods does not mean you can ignore the law. Where do I find this mythical wilderness where no laws apply to me?

mlac 5y ago
Alaska. You can move out there by yourself, do whatever the hell you want (as long as its by yourself and doesn’t impact others), and no one will notice or care. Or you can be a hermit.
- mlac 5y ago
  In re-reading this thread, I realize something: if you move to Alaska to avoid being forced to work by society, you better damn well believe that you will be forced to work by nature. I think this says something about the very nature of work. In our modern times it is detached from its purpose (survival of self and species), but that is ultimately what drives the need to work. This idea that a capable, working-age living thing should be able to free load off of others’ work to stay alive is not dignifying for that person, and unfairly burdens the one who is working to keep the other person alive. Put another way, just because a farmer can make enough to feed a town doesn’t mean the farmer should only be allowed enough grain to feed his family, with everything else divided among those who don’t work. What’s the incentive to work? And when you introduce government rules to enforce those things, the farmer is compelled by violence and force to give away his labor. Just like missing the connection between work and survival, people miss the connection between government regulation and the promise of force behind it as a punishment for non-compliance. The reason people pay taxes (which is the only way we have as a society to redistribute resources from those who work to those who don’t) is because their money will be taken if it is not paid, or they will be put in jail if they lie about how much they owe. So while the original comment complains about how you’re compelled to work, that’s actually not true. It is a societal norm to work and to have a good quality of life, but no one is forcing you. But at the same time they are asking to increase government benefits and force those who work to pay for their survival. All this said - if the conversation is framed around how much work it takes to survive, I think as a society it would make sense for that number to drop as we’ve increased scale of production and automation.
  - bjourne 5y ago
    This is only true if you define "work" as "tasks that has to be executed to survive". If you live in the wilderness you have to "work" a lot because you have to execute many tasks to survive. That is not what work is. I have to eat and defecate to survive, but you wouldn't call that "work", would you? The definition of "work" used by every leftist movement in the world is different. They define it as "directly or indirectly selling your time to other humans in exchange for material benefits." Thus, if I hunt alone in the wilderness to get meat for myself I'm not "working". But if there is another person in the wilderness who forces me to hunt to get meat for us then I'm "working". I hope you understand the difference. Scrubbing toilets is not per se "work". Scrubbing toilets so that someone will give you money to buy food is "work".
    - d1sxeyes 5y ago
      > But if there is another person in the wilderness who forces me to hunt to get meat for us then I'm "working". So in your work-free society, hunters have to work?
      - bjourne 5y ago
        No.

hjanssen 5y ago

To take part in society in any meaningful way you certainly have to work.

vagrantJin 5y ago
Is a writer considered not meaningful then?
- pyoeos 5y ago
  Writing is work. Work isn't just physical labor.

bjourne 5y ago

People are herd animals so for most (including me) living in the wilderness is not an option. But to participate in society I have to pay the "entrance fee" - to subject myself to work. As a species, we can do better.

d1sxeyes 5y ago
Well, I agree we can do better, especially in terms of the fairness of distribution of wealth, but frankly yes, to take part in a society, you either need to 'pay the entrance fee' or have it waived for you. We generally 'waive' the fee for children, the elderly, and the disabled, but ultimately, right at the very sharp end, some folks HAVE to work so the others have food. So those of us who are not growing food need to produce something of value to trade in order to get food. The solution we have today (we all contribute our labour in exchange for tokens which can be used to buy food and other things) is significantly better than how it was a couple of hundred years ago (slaves do the work).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bjourne 5y ago
  But why should I have to pay the entrance fee and why should I have to work? Unless you believe axiomatically that everyone "should" work there is no rational reason why everyone should work. Hunter gatherers didn't work. They hunted, gathered food, took care of the children and whatnot but they decidedly did not work. But now, thousands of years later, we're devoting most of waking hours to work. That's not progress. And all for no good reason. All those developers optimizing ctr rates for ads or building casino sites for gambling addicts, are not adding anything of value to society. They are making it worse. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much pointless work out there that is just work for work's own sake.
  - robot_no_419 5y ago
    "But why should I have to pay the entrance fee and why should I have to work?" You don't have to, nobody is forcing you to work. If you want to dumpster dive and live on the streets you never have to work. Plenty of people live like this. You choose to work because it's the easiest way for you to support the lifestyle you want to live. What you're really asking is "why won't society give me nice things while I do nothing" and the reason is because you're not that special. If everyone thought like this then we would all end up worse off.