6 ms·

Makes sense to me. Their "work" was essentially just ... living life! Now, living life is what you do with about 5-15% of your time. The rest is work/red tape/

Makes sense to me. Their "work" was essentially just ... living life! Now, living life is what you do with about 5-15% of your time. The rest is work/red tape/...

mandmandam 3y ago
Yeah. So much work is one of three things: 1. Utter bullshit - completely useless to everyone; unjustifiable. 2. Actively evil - work that may be respected in society but is killing the world. Suits with BMWs selling weapons, insurance, oil, corporate tax loopholes etc. 3. Honest, but with most profits funneled upward, creating an ever more unequal society. Even artists, musicians, beadmakers etc are forced to do grisly hustly things to survive - the fun gets sucked out of it for most. Our society is deathly ill.
- rpmisms 3y ago
  Hey now, selling guns is amazingly nonprofitable. I only sell guns for good feels.
- slothtrop 3y ago
  > 1. Utter bullshit - completely useless to everyone; unjustifiable. Isn't part of what you're romanticizing of these traditional societies the utterly useless shit they might do with some of their time? Our work pays because someone values it, that is tautological.
  - mandmandam 3y ago
    > Our work pays because someone values it, that is tautological. You say that as if it helps your point? I'm talking about "bullshit jobs" as in those described in the book 'Bullshit Jobs' by Graeber. Think Wally from Dilbert; sinecures without the dignity. Here: > Bullshit Jobs: A Theory is a 2018 book by anthropologist David Graeber that postulates the existence of meaningless jobs and analyzes their societal harm. He contends that over half of societal work is pointless and becomes psychologically destructive when paired with a work ethic that associates work with self-worth. Graeber describes five types of meaningless jobs, in which workers pretend their role is not as pointless or harmful as they know it to be: flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers, and taskmasters. He argues that the association of labor with virtuous suffering is recent in human history and proposes unions and universal basic income as a potential solution.
    - slothtrop 3y ago
      > You say that as if it helps your point? Yes.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Not sure if that point stands in the light of modern, or any, organisational theory so. Bureaucracy does exist for a reason, to organize things and activities. That organization allows us to live the pampered life we life (at least some do, especially in the developed world). Bullshit jobs are seen as such because division of activities was taken to a point were people fail to see the overall picture. Because, as sad as it is sometimes, in a capitalist society as long as someone pays for job being done, that job holds some value. Even if the people doing it fail to see that sometimes. If you care about some greater meaning ij your job, otherwise if it pays the bills, gets food on the table and, ideally, provides some financial stability, tue job actually provides a ton of value to thw person holding it, regardless if someone classifies it as a BS job or not. By the way, being to conplain about the metaphysical nature and philosophocal meaning of a day job is one of the highest privileges a person can have.
      - mandmandam 3y ago
        Value to the yachting class is not the same thing as value to society. Value to the psychopathic dictator buying billions in weapons for his country is not the same thing as value to society. Value to Exxon is not the same thing as value to every living creature on the planet. What Graeber did was look at the net balance. I recommend you look more into it, because your interpretation of what he and I are saying is way off. > By the way, being to conplain about the metaphysical nature and philosophocal meaning of a day job is one of the highest privileges a person can have. Did your boss tell you that? Look at a graph of productivy versus wages over the last 50 years. We should be working 15 hours a week, like our prehistoric ancestors did. We're killing the planet. Thousands of species are being lost. Infinite growth is a lie that is literally going to kill us. It has to stop. This isn't metaphysical or philosophical, it's life and death.
        hef19898 3y ago
slothtrop 3y ago
They were constantly either hunting, foraging, fighting, or roaming. Is that your idea of "living life"?
- GrumpySloth 3y ago
  Yes? Spend a day endlessly walking (roaming), searching in the forest for berries, mushrooms etc., doing hand-to-hand combat, hunting... Spend a day in front of a computer. Which one do you think will end in a feeling of happiness?
  - hef19898 3y ago
    The one where nobody of my family starves in winter because I failed to send that last e-mail of the day?
  - slothtrop 3y ago
    The one I'm living. > Spend a day endlessly walking (roaming) We can already do that at leisure, but most would not care to go a whole day (let alone every day) trudging around by necessity. > searching in the forest for berries, mushrooms etc You seem to be framing the search for food as a low-stakes endeavor. > doing hand-to-hand combat Between tribes (or even within your own), it can easily be more fatal than that. Not only are you worried about calories, you're also concerned about not being outright murdered.
    - GrumpySloth 3y ago
      > We can already do that at leisure, but most would not care to go a whole day (let alone every day) trudging around by necessity. We can do that at best 2/7 days a week. In reality, modern life forces us to dedicate even less time to that. I've done that many times. The feeling at the end of the day is always unlike any other. Wouldn't swap those experiences for anything else. > You seem to be framing the search for food as a low-stakes endeavor. Have you ever picked mushrooms? Do you know how little time it takes to get enough mushrooms for weeks to come? And then how much meat there is in a deer? I agree that the risk of being murdered is higher. Although I think you overestimate the frequency of encounters. There weren't a lot of people back then on Earth. I also don't think this decreases happiness all that much. The slow senseless willowing away in an office everyday seems like a much less happy existence, even if it's a longer one.
Aunche 3y ago
Alternatively, their "living life" was just work. The modern concept of leisure was non-existent outside the very elite until well into the industrial revolution. For the billions of people who moved away from subsidence farming into factories were willing to make the trade off between working more in exchange for more security.
- eikoongaepaikei 3y ago
  That directly contradicts a position the article takes and supports with citations. One contributing factor to the play-like quality of hunter-gatherer work is that the work was not excessive. According to several quantitative studies, hunter-gatherers typically devoted about 20 hours per week to hunting or gathering and another 10 to 20 hours to chores at the campsite, such as food processing and making or mending tools (e.g. Lee, 1972; Sahlins, 1972 ). All in all, the research suggests, hunter-gatherer adults spent an average of 30 to 40 hours per week on all subsistence-related activities combined, which is considerably less than the workweek of the typical modern American, if the American’s 40 or more hours of paid employment is added to the hours spent on domestic chores. One anthropologist, Marshall Sahlins (1972), famously characterized hunter-gatherer societies collectively as “the original affluent society.” An affluent society, by Sahlins’s definition, is one in which “people’s material wants are easily satisfied.” Hunter-gatherers were affluent not because they had so much, but because they wanted so little. They could provide for those wants with relatively little work, and, as a result, had lots of free time, which they spent, according to one observer of the Ju/’hoansi (Shostak, 1981), at such activities as “singing and composing songs, playing musical instruments, sewing intricate bead designs, telling stories, playing games, visiting, or just lying around and resting.”
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Especially the last paragraph sounda like pure entitlement, by the author, not the observed people. Something tells me, that Shostak was pretty happy with all the things modern society provided him with: an academic career, a roof over his head, ample food, the ability to travel, healzh care... And yet, he and Sahlins seem to be completely oblivious to what is necessary to provide all of that. Instead, they seem to look at some "noble primitives", see that thosep seem to live a simpler live, and glorify that. After said observation, they return to their offices, go grocery shoping, see a dentist and write papers and books about what they observed... It is almost ironic, isn't it?

Makes sense to me. Their "work" was essentially just ... living life! Now, living life is what you do with about 5-15% of your time. The rest is work/red tape/...

mandmandam 3y ago

Yeah. So much work is one of three things: 1. Utter bullshit - completely useless to everyone; unjustifiable. 2. Actively evil - work that may be respected in society but is killing the world. Suits with BMWs selling weapons, insurance, oil, corporate tax loopholes etc. 3. Honest, but with most profits funneled upward, creating an ever more unequal society. Even artists, musicians, beadmakers etc are forced to do grisly hustly things to survive - the fun gets sucked out of it for most. Our society is deathly ill.

rpmisms 3y ago
Hey now, selling guns is amazingly nonprofitable. I only sell guns for good feels.
slothtrop 3y ago
> 1. Utter bullshit - completely useless to everyone; unjustifiable. Isn't part of what you're romanticizing of these traditional societies the utterly useless shit they might do with some of their time? Our work pays because someone values it, that is tautological.
- mandmandam 3y ago
  > Our work pays because someone values it, that is tautological. You say that as if it helps your point? I'm talking about "bullshit jobs" as in those described in the book 'Bullshit Jobs' by Graeber. Think Wally from Dilbert; sinecures without the dignity. Here: > Bullshit Jobs: A Theory is a 2018 book by anthropologist David Graeber that postulates the existence of meaningless jobs and analyzes their societal harm. He contends that over half of societal work is pointless and becomes psychologically destructive when paired with a work ethic that associates work with self-worth. Graeber describes five types of meaningless jobs, in which workers pretend their role is not as pointless or harmful as they know it to be: flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers, and taskmasters. He argues that the association of labor with virtuous suffering is recent in human history and proposes unions and universal basic income as a potential solution.
  - slothtrop 3y ago
    > You say that as if it helps your point? Yes.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Not sure if that point stands in the light of modern, or any, organisational theory so. Bureaucracy does exist for a reason, to organize things and activities. That organization allows us to live the pampered life we life (at least some do, especially in the developed world). Bullshit jobs are seen as such because division of activities was taken to a point were people fail to see the overall picture. Because, as sad as it is sometimes, in a capitalist society as long as someone pays for job being done, that job holds some value. Even if the people doing it fail to see that sometimes. If you care about some greater meaning ij your job, otherwise if it pays the bills, gets food on the table and, ideally, provides some financial stability, tue job actually provides a ton of value to thw person holding it, regardless if someone classifies it as a BS job or not. By the way, being to conplain about the metaphysical nature and philosophocal meaning of a day job is one of the highest privileges a person can have.
    - mandmandam 3y ago
      Value to the yachting class is not the same thing as value to society. Value to the psychopathic dictator buying billions in weapons for his country is not the same thing as value to society. Value to Exxon is not the same thing as value to every living creature on the planet. What Graeber did was look at the net balance. I recommend you look more into it, because your interpretation of what he and I are saying is way off. > By the way, being to conplain about the metaphysical nature and philosophocal meaning of a day job is one of the highest privileges a person can have. Did your boss tell you that? Look at a graph of productivy versus wages over the last 50 years. We should be working 15 hours a week, like our prehistoric ancestors did. We're killing the planet. Thousands of species are being lost. Infinite growth is a lie that is literally going to kill us. It has to stop. This isn't metaphysical or philosophical, it's life and death.
      - hef19898 3y ago

slothtrop 3y ago

They were constantly either hunting, foraging, fighting, or roaming. Is that your idea of "living life"?

GrumpySloth 3y ago
Yes? Spend a day endlessly walking (roaming), searching in the forest for berries, mushrooms etc., doing hand-to-hand combat, hunting... Spend a day in front of a computer. Which one do you think will end in a feeling of happiness?
- hef19898 3y ago
  The one where nobody of my family starves in winter because I failed to send that last e-mail of the day?
- slothtrop 3y ago
  The one I'm living. > Spend a day endlessly walking (roaming) We can already do that at leisure, but most would not care to go a whole day (let alone every day) trudging around by necessity. > searching in the forest for berries, mushrooms etc You seem to be framing the search for food as a low-stakes endeavor. > doing hand-to-hand combat Between tribes (or even within your own), it can easily be more fatal than that. Not only are you worried about calories, you're also concerned about not being outright murdered.
  - GrumpySloth 3y ago
    > We can already do that at leisure, but most would not care to go a whole day (let alone every day) trudging around by necessity. We can do that at best 2/7 days a week. In reality, modern life forces us to dedicate even less time to that. I've done that many times. The feeling at the end of the day is always unlike any other. Wouldn't swap those experiences for anything else. > You seem to be framing the search for food as a low-stakes endeavor. Have you ever picked mushrooms? Do you know how little time it takes to get enough mushrooms for weeks to come? And then how much meat there is in a deer? I agree that the risk of being murdered is higher. Although I think you overestimate the frequency of encounters. There weren't a lot of people back then on Earth. I also don't think this decreases happiness all that much. The slow senseless willowing away in an office everyday seems like a much less happy existence, even if it's a longer one.

Aunche 3y ago

Alternatively, their "living life" was just work. The modern concept of leisure was non-existent outside the very elite until well into the industrial revolution. For the billions of people who moved away from subsidence farming into factories were willing to make the trade off between working more in exchange for more security.

eikoongaepaikei 3y ago
That directly contradicts a position the article takes and supports with citations. One contributing factor to the play-like quality of hunter-gatherer work is that the work was not excessive. According to several quantitative studies, hunter-gatherers typically devoted about 20 hours per week to hunting or gathering and another 10 to 20 hours to chores at the campsite, such as food processing and making or mending tools (e.g. Lee, 1972; Sahlins, 1972 ). All in all, the research suggests, hunter-gatherer adults spent an average of 30 to 40 hours per week on all subsistence-related activities combined, which is considerably less than the workweek of the typical modern American, if the American’s 40 or more hours of paid employment is added to the hours spent on domestic chores. One anthropologist, Marshall Sahlins (1972), famously characterized hunter-gatherer societies collectively as “the original affluent society.” An affluent society, by Sahlins’s definition, is one in which “people’s material wants are easily satisfied.” Hunter-gatherers were affluent not because they had so much, but because they wanted so little. They could provide for those wants with relatively little work, and, as a result, had lots of free time, which they spent, according to one observer of the Ju/’hoansi (Shostak, 1981), at such activities as “singing and composing songs, playing musical instruments, sewing intricate bead designs, telling stories, playing games, visiting, or just lying around and resting.”
- hef19898 3y ago
  Especially the last paragraph sounda like pure entitlement, by the author, not the observed people. Something tells me, that Shostak was pretty happy with all the things modern society provided him with: an academic career, a roof over his head, ample food, the ability to travel, healzh care... And yet, he and Sahlins seem to be completely oblivious to what is necessary to provide all of that. Instead, they seem to look at some "noble primitives", see that thosep seem to live a simpler live, and glorify that. After said observation, they return to their offices, go grocery shoping, see a dentist and write papers and books about what they observed... It is almost ironic, isn't it?