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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 'p

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
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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.
  - bjourne 5y ago
    You claim that work is optional because you can choose not to work and become a homeless bum? That to me seems like a facetious argument. The only time global CO2 emissions significantly decreased was when people stopped working due to the Covid pandemic. Thus, I think the evidence is against your claim that we would all be worse off.
    - robot_no_419 5y ago
      If you're a homeless bum you'll have all the free time in the world to draw and make music and read and hang out with friends. That's what you want, right? You sound pretty classist asserting the life of a bohemian is beneath you. Sounds like you do really want nice things. Well, everyone wants nice things. That's why we came up with a fair system to allocate nice things to people who pay for nice things. If nobody works, nobody has nice things.
      - bjourne 5y ago
        Ok boomer. :)
        robot_no_419 5y ago
        I'm not even 30, born to poor immigrants who didn't graduate from school, and I own my own property that I paid for with my hard work >;)
- d1sxeyes 5y ago
  I think you’re completely wrong about progress. We can travel in less than 24 hours to pretty much anywhere on the planet. We can put telescopes in space. We can speak to each other even when we’re in different cities. None of this would be possible if no-one worked. Either we all go back to being hunter gatherers, or we exploit the poor to do our fair share of the work that needs to be done for us to live the lifestyles we want to lead. You don’t want to work? Fine. But then you are not entitled to other people’s work product either. No computer, no electricity, no plants you don’t grow yourself, no meat you haven’t personally slaughtered. Don’t get me wrong, I still think we could be doing better. But the problem starts with consumerism and same-day shipping and buy-now, pay-later, and LaCroix, not with work. If we could reduce consumerism, we could for sure reduce our working hours significantly.
  - bjourne 5y ago
    Well, I think technological progress is driven by human ingenuity and not work. I don't think work should be the entrance fee to society. You're saying that if I don't work then bad things should happen to me. I should starve (since I can't hunt nor grow vegetables) and I should not have a computer or even electricity. I.e. I should be punished. I don't see how that improves my life or society. I think these ideas rub you the wrong way because your identity is tied to your work. If people see work as a problem rather than a solution then your status would evaporate. The guy working part-time as a dog walker and sleeps through most of it would be on an equal footing to you who work XX hours per week and earns $YYYk dollars per year.
    - dnadler 5y ago
      I think what most people are saying is that if you're not working to feed yourself, then someone else is. And further, it's not fair to ask society to pick up the slack for people who could contribute, but choose not to. In other words: by saying you shouldn't starve for refusing to work, aren't you also saying that someone else should grow your food for you for free?
      - bjourne 5y ago
- NeutralCrane 5y ago
  Because society isn't a free resource, it requires time and effort (i.e. work) to create and maintain, and that work can either be distributed across its members, or it can be done entirely by some and others simply mooch off of their work. If you feel like work is disproportionately done by some and not others, or that some work creates no value, that's a valid argument and worth exploring. But the idea that people should just be free to consume societal benefits without contributing to those benefits is obviously flawed. It assumes you should be free to personally consume, but others will be required to work to provide you with the goods and services you are consuming, meaning the ability to opt out of work isn't available to all. At that point it becomes clear that people with this particular anti-work view don't actually have issues with the current capitalist system in which some coerce others to labor and exploit the benefits, they simply have an issue that they aren't in the position to do the exploiting. Perhaps that kind of utopia becomes more feasible when we become a society in which everything is completely automated, but we aren't anywhere close to that, so in the meantime, everybody should be expected to contribute.
  - bjourne 5y ago
    Workfree societies have existed so it is incorrect to claim that work is required for society to exist. For example, the free software community exists and is workfree. However, it seems you and many others are incapable to rationally reason about these issues since you implied that "people with this particular anti-work view" (i.e. me) just wants to be the ones doing the exploiting. It's plain as day that a massive number of jobs are not necessary. The conclusion should be that people shouldn't be coerced to do them.
    - d1sxeyes 5y ago
      The free software community is not ‘work free’. Many free software developers work for organisations who have chosen to share their work freely because their revenue stream comes from support or hosting. There are free software projects where hobbyists build things to scratch a personal itch, but most of these people are contributing their free time and have another job. You keep repeating the point that ‘a massive number of jobs are not necessary’. Can you define what is ‘necessary work’ and how society can determine a priori what that work might be?

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.
- bjourne 5y ago
  You claim that work is optional because you can choose not to work and become a homeless bum? That to me seems like a facetious argument. The only time global CO2 emissions significantly decreased was when people stopped working due to the Covid pandemic. Thus, I think the evidence is against your claim that we would all be worse off.
  - robot_no_419 5y ago
    If you're a homeless bum you'll have all the free time in the world to draw and make music and read and hang out with friends. That's what you want, right? You sound pretty classist asserting the life of a bohemian is beneath you. Sounds like you do really want nice things. Well, everyone wants nice things. That's why we came up with a fair system to allocate nice things to people who pay for nice things. If nobody works, nobody has nice things.
    - bjourne 5y ago
      Ok boomer. :)
      - robot_no_419 5y ago
        I'm not even 30, born to poor immigrants who didn't graduate from school, and I own my own property that I paid for with my hard work >;)
d1sxeyes 5y ago
I think you’re completely wrong about progress. We can travel in less than 24 hours to pretty much anywhere on the planet. We can put telescopes in space. We can speak to each other even when we’re in different cities. None of this would be possible if no-one worked. Either we all go back to being hunter gatherers, or we exploit the poor to do our fair share of the work that needs to be done for us to live the lifestyles we want to lead. You don’t want to work? Fine. But then you are not entitled to other people’s work product either. No computer, no electricity, no plants you don’t grow yourself, no meat you haven’t personally slaughtered. Don’t get me wrong, I still think we could be doing better. But the problem starts with consumerism and same-day shipping and buy-now, pay-later, and LaCroix, not with work. If we could reduce consumerism, we could for sure reduce our working hours significantly.
- bjourne 5y ago
  Well, I think technological progress is driven by human ingenuity and not work. I don't think work should be the entrance fee to society. You're saying that if I don't work then bad things should happen to me. I should starve (since I can't hunt nor grow vegetables) and I should not have a computer or even electricity. I.e. I should be punished. I don't see how that improves my life or society. I think these ideas rub you the wrong way because your identity is tied to your work. If people see work as a problem rather than a solution then your status would evaporate. The guy working part-time as a dog walker and sleeps through most of it would be on an equal footing to you who work XX hours per week and earns $YYYk dollars per year.
  - dnadler 5y ago
    I think what most people are saying is that if you're not working to feed yourself, then someone else is. And further, it's not fair to ask society to pick up the slack for people who could contribute, but choose not to. In other words: by saying you shouldn't starve for refusing to work, aren't you also saying that someone else should grow your food for you for free?
    - bjourne 5y ago
NeutralCrane 5y ago
Because society isn't a free resource, it requires time and effort (i.e. work) to create and maintain, and that work can either be distributed across its members, or it can be done entirely by some and others simply mooch off of their work. If you feel like work is disproportionately done by some and not others, or that some work creates no value, that's a valid argument and worth exploring. But the idea that people should just be free to consume societal benefits without contributing to those benefits is obviously flawed. It assumes you should be free to personally consume, but others will be required to work to provide you with the goods and services you are consuming, meaning the ability to opt out of work isn't available to all. At that point it becomes clear that people with this particular anti-work view don't actually have issues with the current capitalist system in which some coerce others to labor and exploit the benefits, they simply have an issue that they aren't in the position to do the exploiting. Perhaps that kind of utopia becomes more feasible when we become a society in which everything is completely automated, but we aren't anywhere close to that, so in the meantime, everybody should be expected to contribute.
- bjourne 5y ago
  Workfree societies have existed so it is incorrect to claim that work is required for society to exist. For example, the free software community exists and is workfree. However, it seems you and many others are incapable to rationally reason about these issues since you implied that "people with this particular anti-work view" (i.e. me) just wants to be the ones doing the exploiting. It's plain as day that a massive number of jobs are not necessary. The conclusion should be that people shouldn't be coerced to do them.
  - d1sxeyes 5y ago
    The free software community is not ‘work free’. Many free software developers work for organisations who have chosen to share their work freely because their revenue stream comes from support or hosting. There are free software projects where hobbyists build things to scratch a personal itch, but most of these people are contributing their free time and have another job. You keep repeating the point that ‘a massive number of jobs are not necessary’. Can you define what is ‘necessary work’ and how society can determine a priori what that work might be?