4 ms·

> The reality is, a great many jobs make us sick. Depression, anxiety, heightened aggression, sedentary atrophy, getting overweight because there's no time for

> The reality is, a great many jobs make us sick. Depression, anxiety, heightened aggression, sedentary atrophy, getting overweight because there's no time for the gym... the modern office workplace is no heath-farm. And Google throwing a few coloured bean bags around, or providing healthy food and gym equipment is only a sticking plaster if the foundational culture is toxic. What is the cost to society? I have no idea, or how to even measure it. Are you positing that there are loads of healthier jobs or healthier ways to do office work (without foregoing the actual productivity)? Or maybe that work itself is inherently unhealthy (which I kind of believe, but at least until we have automation meeting our physical needs 'work' seems healthier for society).

csande17 4y ago
> Are you positing that there are loads of healthier jobs or healthier ways to do office work (without foregoing the actual productivity)? Bold of you to assume office work involves "productivity".
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  I'm not saying that office work is a particularly productive form of work, but rather that there is some work product that gets done and it's difficult to increase the mental health aspects of office work without directly trading off on productivity.
nonrandomstring 4y ago
> maybe that work itself is inherently unhealthy (which I kind of believe, but at least until we have automation meeting our physical needs 'work' seems healthier for society). You remember the Tom Sawyer story, where he gets the others to paint the fence for him? Work is very much "in the mind". You can have the work of Sisyphus and get to love the rock. In the best cases work is the making of some people. It can liberate you from boredom and self indulgence. An artist or poet talks about their "work" in an entirely different spirit. We must not equate indentured servitude, wage slavery, and pointless anxiety driven makework for "real work". > without foregoing the actual productivity Please don't fall for that 18th century factory-owner terminology. Producing what? Productivity is a slippery word. Unless you're a farmer most of us can't point to anything tangible we produce. The best we can hope for is to help fellow human beings in whatever small way we can each day. Increasingly that is done by subverting the system. Worthwhile work occurs despite, not through the systems we inhabit.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  > We must not equate indentured servitude, wage slavery, and pointless anxiety driven makework for "real work". I'm explicitly not doing that. My whole comment can be rephrased as: "if we can meet society's needs with less soul-crushing, we should do so, but some of the soul crushing may be inherent (needing to work to meet our own physical needs can be inherently exasperating for some)". > Please don't fall for that 18th century factory-owner terminology. I'm inclined to defer to credentialed economists over arbitrary Internet strangers.
  - nonrandomstring 4y ago
    > I'm explicitly not doing that. My whole comment can be rephrased as: "if we can meet society's needs with less soul-crushing, we should do so, but some of the soul crushing may be inherent (needing to work to meet our own physical needs can be inherently exasperating for some)". We can absolutely "meet society's needs". We already do, amply, and have for many decades. The problem is that we've over-supplied needs, and replaced huge tracts of activity pandering to wants and whims. It is that over-provision that is at the root of so much of the soul crushing emptiness. > I'm inclined to defer to credentialed economists over arbitrary Internet strangers. Of course. I know the square root of jack about economics. But I do know how to read what credentialed economists write. So I think the difference may be in our choice of credentialed economists. Here's one take [1]. But who I am really echoing is Yanis Varoufakis, who says it much better than either Thompson or myself, that we've a very poor idea what "productivity" really is. [1] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201230-how-the-pandemic-could-redefine-our-productivity-obsession https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201230-how-the-pandem...
    - throwaway894345 4y ago
      > We can absolutely "meet society's needs". We already do, amply, and have for many decades. The problem is that we've over-supplied needs, and replaced huge tracts of activity pandering to wants and whims. It is that over-provision that is at the root of so much of the soul crushing emptiness. Yes, we have plenty of resources to feed everyone and provide people with the things that I personally value, but defining "productivity" in terms of one person's values and then organizing society to optimize for that "productivity" (in other words, a sort of planned economy) is a much worse oppression than laboring for one's own values. If that's not what you're getting at, then please state it plainly because we're several comments into this exchange and it's still unclear what solution you're imagining.

csande17 4y ago

> Are you positing that there are loads of healthier jobs or healthier ways to do office work (without foregoing the actual productivity)? Bold of you to assume office work involves "productivity".

throwaway894345 4y ago
I'm not saying that office work is a particularly productive form of work, but rather that there is some work product that gets done and it's difficult to increase the mental health aspects of office work without directly trading off on productivity.

nonrandomstring 4y ago

> maybe that work itself is inherently unhealthy (which I kind of believe, but at least until we have automation meeting our physical needs 'work' seems healthier for society). You remember the Tom Sawyer story, where he gets the others to paint the fence for him? Work is very much "in the mind". You can have the work of Sisyphus and get to love the rock. In the best cases work is the making of some people. It can liberate you from boredom and self indulgence. An artist or poet talks about their "work" in an entirely different spirit. We must not equate indentured servitude, wage slavery, and pointless anxiety driven makework for "real work". > without foregoing the actual productivity Please don't fall for that 18th century factory-owner terminology. Producing what? Productivity is a slippery word. Unless you're a farmer most of us can't point to anything tangible we produce. The best we can hope for is to help fellow human beings in whatever small way we can each day. Increasingly that is done by subverting the system. Worthwhile work occurs despite, not through the systems we inhabit.

throwaway894345 4y ago
> We must not equate indentured servitude, wage slavery, and pointless anxiety driven makework for "real work". I'm explicitly not doing that. My whole comment can be rephrased as: "if we can meet society's needs with less soul-crushing, we should do so, but some of the soul crushing may be inherent (needing to work to meet our own physical needs can be inherently exasperating for some)". > Please don't fall for that 18th century factory-owner terminology. I'm inclined to defer to credentialed economists over arbitrary Internet strangers.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  > I'm explicitly not doing that. My whole comment can be rephrased as: "if we can meet society's needs with less soul-crushing, we should do so, but some of the soul crushing may be inherent (needing to work to meet our own physical needs can be inherently exasperating for some)". We can absolutely "meet society's needs". We already do, amply, and have for many decades. The problem is that we've over-supplied needs, and replaced huge tracts of activity pandering to wants and whims. It is that over-provision that is at the root of so much of the soul crushing emptiness. > I'm inclined to defer to credentialed economists over arbitrary Internet strangers. Of course. I know the square root of jack about economics. But I do know how to read what credentialed economists write. So I think the difference may be in our choice of credentialed economists. Here's one take [1]. But who I am really echoing is Yanis Varoufakis, who says it much better than either Thompson or myself, that we've a very poor idea what "productivity" really is. [1] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201230-how-the-pandemic-could-redefine-our-productivity-obsession https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201230-how-the-pandem...
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    > We can absolutely "meet society's needs". We already do, amply, and have for many decades. The problem is that we've over-supplied needs, and replaced huge tracts of activity pandering to wants and whims. It is that over-provision that is at the root of so much of the soul crushing emptiness. Yes, we have plenty of resources to feed everyone and provide people with the things that I personally value, but defining "productivity" in terms of one person's values and then organizing society to optimize for that "productivity" (in other words, a sort of planned economy) is a much worse oppression than laboring for one's own values. If that's not what you're getting at, then please state it plainly because we're several comments into this exchange and it's still unclear what solution you're imagining.