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> Seems fairly obvious to me that the boringness comes from adults having to… make a living. And for most people that equates to a 9-5 job that demands conformi

> Seems fairly obvious to me that the boringness comes from adults having to… make a living. And for most people that equates to a 9-5 job that demands conformity and leaves little room for other things after you factor in all the other things adults have to be responsible for. A full-time job and adult responsibilities still leave plenty of time to be “not boring” for people who make an effort to manage their time. Many jobs also provide an opportunity for social exposure, get people out of the house (or at least out of their comfort zone and interacting with others remotely). I suspect a lot of people would actually become less socialized and outgoing if they didn’t have the structure of a job to make them adopt routine and discipline in their lives. > I have an unproven suspicion that if UBI was a thing we would see a lot more “not boring” adults The only remotely feasible UBI programs wouldn’t be supplying enough money for people to go out and live their best lives. It’s more of a subsistence amount of money. In a theoretical world where large numbers of people received significant amounts of money and didn’t have to work, we wouldn’t all be going around doing leisure activities everywhere. The work of running, building, and maintaining the world we all inhabit must still be done, which would require significantly higher labor costs to make up for the decreased supply of labor. This would make everything more expensive, which means people would have to go back and get jobs if they wanted to have enough funds to do the “interesting” things beyond subsistence living on UBI. It’s a common fantasy that removing the 40 hours per week of work would cause individuals to suddenly become more outgoing, adventurous, and interesting, but if people aren’t already doing those interesting and outgoing things on the weekends then I don’t think they’d suddenly start doing more of them with the job removed.

chii 4y ago
> The work of running, building, and maintaining the world we all inhabit must still be done the magic that UBI proponents bank on is automation and increased productivity of the remaining workers. And also taxing the wealthy.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  Right. It’s more of a fantasy where they don’t have to give up any of the things they enjoy about the world we inhabit, but the things they don’t enjoy (paying money and doing work) are shifted to the rich and robots.
  - Riverheart 4y ago
    UBI isn't going to pay for people to go on tropical vacations, people will still work, just less to survive. And the rich? The rich are going to replace the average person's job with a robot/software anyway. What's the point of all this automation if not to work less? I didn't realize The Jetsons was such a dystopian vision of the future. Well, as long as we're the Haves it's not our problem.
    - red-iron-pine 4y ago
      The vast, vast majority of HN are the haves, or aspiring haves, e.g. jr programmers waiting to bootstrap.
NikolaNovak 4y ago
See my other post, but for many people, "do interesting things on weekends" is a fantasy for at least a specific period of their life that teens tend to comment/judge upon. You work 9-10 hours a day, you commute another 1-2, you pickup your kids after work/school and feed them and get them to bed; and weekend is about actually making connections with your kids and keeping them alive and healthy and taking them to their playdates and activities (not that you can't participate but THAT is not what'll make you seem cool to teenagers:), and then trying to catch up on stuff (impossible!) like fix up the leaky roof and vacuum the living room and wash the dishes and take car for maintenance and go to the doctor since your body is increasingly giving up and catch up with work because your kid was sick two days this week and maybe even get some sleep since your kids alternately wake up every bloody night at 1 3 5am to go potty / vomit / need water / are hungry / are scared / is it morning yet :D I took 2 months unpaid paternity because I'm lucky and privileged that way, and let me tell you how much more interesting and outgoing and fun and exciting and involved I was :->
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  > and weekend is about actually making connections with your kids and keeping them alive and healthy and taking them to their playdates and activities I’m in the exact situation you describe (mid-career, kids at home, demanding job). These weekend activities are still an opportunity to have fun and do interesting things. Do interesting things with your kids! The weekend may not be the same opportunity to go out and do an unplanned adventure into the mountains or travel spontaneously, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go do something fun with your kids. It gets better as you adapt and figure out parenthood. It also doesn’t last for very long, all things considered, so make the most of the time you have with your young kids.
  - NikolaNovak 4y ago
    Oh agreed, but there's a few lenses the article brings up and one of them is "would teenager find it boring", and that's both a very high and very specific litmus test. Taking my 4 and 2 year old's skating for the first time last weekend was... Exciting and interesting to say the least! :-) but would still be perceived as boring to average teenager, as opposed to the time I went night time snow car rallying etc:-D
themitigating 4y ago
It’s a common fantasy that removing the 40 hours per week of work would cause individuals to suddenly become more outgoing, adventurous, and interesting, but if people aren’t already doing those interesting and outgoing things on the weekends then I don’t think they’d suddenly start doing more of them with the job removed. When work is over aren't there still tasks and chores that need to be done? You're assuming that outside of work is all free time. Maybe I'm painting my house on the weekend, maybe I'm taking my kid to a doctor The fantasy is that just because you work only 40 hours you should have enough free time to be interesting. I also want to accuse you of assuming your lifestyle translates to everyone
- Riverheart 4y ago
  Why not? I get the bit about chores and kids but don't you think an entire week of video games and Netflix would lose its allure after a while? This scenario plays out when people retire. In the absence of work many start to lose their minds from boredom and seek new hobbies/experiences.
  - lotsoweiners 4y ago
    Or the retired people go back to work in some capacity.
gvedem 4y ago
> It’s a common fantasy that removing the 40 hours per week of work would cause individuals to suddenly become more outgoing, adventurous, and interesting, but if people aren’t already doing those interesting and outgoing things on the weekends then I don’t think they’d suddenly start doing more of them with the job removed. Many people spend their weekends doing chores and relaxing--i.e. maintaining. You don't think having even, say, a four day weekend and ample time to go beyond that would result in more people spending more time doing interesting things? Really?
- PurpleRamen 4y ago
  The last 2-3 years, many people had much more free time because of home office and other reasons. Did it change things? I don't get that impression. The lively people shifted their places of actions. The boring people remained boring. Instead of doing interesting things, most people started renovating their houses, did more chores, and relaxed more.
  - Riverheart 4y ago
    There was a pandemic that occurred in the last 2-3 years that put a damper on social and outdoor activities. Also home office is less important than how available your work requires you to be. Constantly 5m away from your computer doesn't give you much runway.
    - red-iron-pine 4y ago
      "you don't have to commute, so that means you can be available from 8 to 6! and we know you can't go out many places, so let's do a maintenance window this weekend"
  - watwut 4y ago
    Renovating homes is interesting for a lot of people tho. They like doing that. They are proud about how result looks like. They are engaged, study options etc.
cmurf 4y ago
UBI may be infeasible today. There simply isn't enough wealth to redistribute to make it substantial, there are too few benefactors of wealth concentration at the top, and too many below the median wage. But there probably is enough income. What if everyone had a robot who could do their job, yet still collect the pay check? Yes, I'm already thinking of STNG:The Measure of a Man.
- jpetso 4y ago
  The company/organization/government capable of making the robot wouldn't hand it out to random people, and would instead reap the paycheck by themselves.
coldtea 4y ago
>A full-time job and adult responsibilities still leave plenty of time to be “not boring” for people who make an effort to manage their time. It's not about "time management", it's about energy. After a day at a stressful job, even if it's just 9-5, and with all the commuting, the chores, cooking, and things like working out, etc., you don't have energy to do much else. Add having young kids to the mix, and this gets even worse. Be above 35-ish, where every levels drop even more, and it's even worse. >The work of running, building, and maintaining the world we all inhabit must still be done A huge part of that work done today is BS busy-jobs, or redundant stuff we can without, and mostly buy as "shopping therapy" or fashion and fad, because we're too tired to do anything else for entertainment due to the rat race.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  I am “above 35-ish” and have kids, and I disagree. Yes, jobs are stressful and demand energy, but they shouldn’t demand so much energy that a person is unable to do anything enjoyable on the weekends or pick a night each week to go out with friends. If a job becomes so draining that it leaves no energy for anything other than work and chores, you might be describing more of a burn out scenario. Either than or you have a toxic 70-hour per week job. Either way, I’d encourage you to reject this experience as “normal” and take a deep, hard look at what you can change or other jobs that might be better. Life is too short to spend it on a job that leaves you lifeless.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    >I am “above 35-ish” and have kids, and I disagree. Yes, jobs are stressful and demand energy, but they shouldn’t demand so much energy that a person is unable to do anything enjoyable on the weekends or pick a night each week to go out with friends. Some people have more energy naturally (some, for explanaible reasons: e.g. obese people have less energy to be that kinetic, same for depressed people, but some people also due to their genetics). And, of course, some people have easier jobs, or like their jobs more, or don't have to deal with BS at their jobs or family life as much. Or have small commutes, enough salary not to have money stress, and several other factors. Some or all of which might include you, and place you I'd say in an outlier category. I'd bet the more universal "35 with job and kids" experience is not much energy and doing fun stuff around town. >Life is too short to spend it on a job that leaves you lifeless Yes, but is still long enough to risk spending it homeless, divorced, or with hungry kids. Especially as not all industries and skills are in high demand, and not all locations have jobs easy to come by. And not everybody has a cushion of money to spend months looking for a new job they'd like more, especially with rent, kids, and bills running...

chii 4y ago

> The work of running, building, and maintaining the world we all inhabit must still be done the magic that UBI proponents bank on is automation and increased productivity of the remaining workers. And also taxing the wealthy.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago
Right. It’s more of a fantasy where they don’t have to give up any of the things they enjoy about the world we inhabit, but the things they don’t enjoy (paying money and doing work) are shifted to the rich and robots.
- Riverheart 4y ago
  UBI isn't going to pay for people to go on tropical vacations, people will still work, just less to survive. And the rich? The rich are going to replace the average person's job with a robot/software anyway. What's the point of all this automation if not to work less? I didn't realize The Jetsons was such a dystopian vision of the future. Well, as long as we're the Haves it's not our problem.
  - red-iron-pine 4y ago
    The vast, vast majority of HN are the haves, or aspiring haves, e.g. jr programmers waiting to bootstrap.

NikolaNovak 4y ago

See my other post, but for many people, "do interesting things on weekends" is a fantasy for at least a specific period of their life that teens tend to comment/judge upon. You work 9-10 hours a day, you commute another 1-2, you pickup your kids after work/school and feed them and get them to bed; and weekend is about actually making connections with your kids and keeping them alive and healthy and taking them to their playdates and activities (not that you can't participate but THAT is not what'll make you seem cool to teenagers:), and then trying to catch up on stuff (impossible!) like fix up the leaky roof and vacuum the living room and wash the dishes and take car for maintenance and go to the doctor since your body is increasingly giving up and catch up with work because your kid was sick two days this week and maybe even get some sleep since your kids alternately wake up every bloody night at 1 3 5am to go potty / vomit / need water / are hungry / are scared / is it morning yet :D I took 2 months unpaid paternity because I'm lucky and privileged that way, and let me tell you how much more interesting and outgoing and fun and exciting and involved I was :->

PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> and weekend is about actually making connections with your kids and keeping them alive and healthy and taking them to their playdates and activities I’m in the exact situation you describe (mid-career, kids at home, demanding job). These weekend activities are still an opportunity to have fun and do interesting things. Do interesting things with your kids! The weekend may not be the same opportunity to go out and do an unplanned adventure into the mountains or travel spontaneously, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go do something fun with your kids. It gets better as you adapt and figure out parenthood. It also doesn’t last for very long, all things considered, so make the most of the time you have with your young kids.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  Oh agreed, but there's a few lenses the article brings up and one of them is "would teenager find it boring", and that's both a very high and very specific litmus test. Taking my 4 and 2 year old's skating for the first time last weekend was... Exciting and interesting to say the least! :-) but would still be perceived as boring to average teenager, as opposed to the time I went night time snow car rallying etc:-D

themitigating 4y ago

It’s a common fantasy that removing the 40 hours per week of work would cause individuals to suddenly become more outgoing, adventurous, and interesting, but if people aren’t already doing those interesting and outgoing things on the weekends then I don’t think they’d suddenly start doing more of them with the job removed. When work is over aren't there still tasks and chores that need to be done? You're assuming that outside of work is all free time. Maybe I'm painting my house on the weekend, maybe I'm taking my kid to a doctor The fantasy is that just because you work only 40 hours you should have enough free time to be interesting. I also want to accuse you of assuming your lifestyle translates to everyone

Riverheart 4y ago
Why not? I get the bit about chores and kids but don't you think an entire week of video games and Netflix would lose its allure after a while? This scenario plays out when people retire. In the absence of work many start to lose their minds from boredom and seek new hobbies/experiences.
- lotsoweiners 4y ago
  Or the retired people go back to work in some capacity.

gvedem 4y ago

> It’s a common fantasy that removing the 40 hours per week of work would cause individuals to suddenly become more outgoing, adventurous, and interesting, but if people aren’t already doing those interesting and outgoing things on the weekends then I don’t think they’d suddenly start doing more of them with the job removed. Many people spend their weekends doing chores and relaxing--i.e. maintaining. You don't think having even, say, a four day weekend and ample time to go beyond that would result in more people spending more time doing interesting things? Really?

PurpleRamen 4y ago
The last 2-3 years, many people had much more free time because of home office and other reasons. Did it change things? I don't get that impression. The lively people shifted their places of actions. The boring people remained boring. Instead of doing interesting things, most people started renovating their houses, did more chores, and relaxed more.
- Riverheart 4y ago
  There was a pandemic that occurred in the last 2-3 years that put a damper on social and outdoor activities. Also home office is less important than how available your work requires you to be. Constantly 5m away from your computer doesn't give you much runway.
  - red-iron-pine 4y ago
    "you don't have to commute, so that means you can be available from 8 to 6! and we know you can't go out many places, so let's do a maintenance window this weekend"
- watwut 4y ago
  Renovating homes is interesting for a lot of people tho. They like doing that. They are proud about how result looks like. They are engaged, study options etc.

cmurf 4y ago

UBI may be infeasible today. There simply isn't enough wealth to redistribute to make it substantial, there are too few benefactors of wealth concentration at the top, and too many below the median wage. But there probably is enough income. What if everyone had a robot who could do their job, yet still collect the pay check? Yes, I'm already thinking of STNG:The Measure of a Man.

jpetso 4y ago
The company/organization/government capable of making the robot wouldn't hand it out to random people, and would instead reap the paycheck by themselves.

coldtea 4y ago

>A full-time job and adult responsibilities still leave plenty of time to be “not boring” for people who make an effort to manage their time. It's not about "time management", it's about energy. After a day at a stressful job, even if it's just 9-5, and with all the commuting, the chores, cooking, and things like working out, etc., you don't have energy to do much else. Add having young kids to the mix, and this gets even worse. Be above 35-ish, where every levels drop even more, and it's even worse. >The work of running, building, and maintaining the world we all inhabit must still be done A huge part of that work done today is BS busy-jobs, or redundant stuff we can without, and mostly buy as "shopping therapy" or fashion and fad, because we're too tired to do anything else for entertainment due to the rat race.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago
I am “above 35-ish” and have kids, and I disagree. Yes, jobs are stressful and demand energy, but they shouldn’t demand so much energy that a person is unable to do anything enjoyable on the weekends or pick a night each week to go out with friends. If a job becomes so draining that it leaves no energy for anything other than work and chores, you might be describing more of a burn out scenario. Either than or you have a toxic 70-hour per week job. Either way, I’d encourage you to reject this experience as “normal” and take a deep, hard look at what you can change or other jobs that might be better. Life is too short to spend it on a job that leaves you lifeless.
- coldtea 4y ago
  >I am “above 35-ish” and have kids, and I disagree. Yes, jobs are stressful and demand energy, but they shouldn’t demand so much energy that a person is unable to do anything enjoyable on the weekends or pick a night each week to go out with friends. Some people have more energy naturally (some, for explanaible reasons: e.g. obese people have less energy to be that kinetic, same for depressed people, but some people also due to their genetics). And, of course, some people have easier jobs, or like their jobs more, or don't have to deal with BS at their jobs or family life as much. Or have small commutes, enough salary not to have money stress, and several other factors. Some or all of which might include you, and place you I'd say in an outlier category. I'd bet the more universal "35 with job and kids" experience is not much energy and doing fun stuff around town. >Life is too short to spend it on a job that leaves you lifeless Yes, but is still long enough to risk spending it homeless, divorced, or with hungry kids. Especially as not all industries and skills are in high demand, and not all locations have jobs easy to come by. And not everybody has a cushion of money to spend months looking for a new job they'd like more, especially with rent, kids, and bills running...