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> 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
by 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.