3 ms·

There are many basic social needs that aren't being met for a majority of the population because so much time and energy has to go towards merely surviving. I t

by yterdy 3y ago

There are many basic social needs that aren't being met for a majority of the population because so much time and energy has to go towards merely surviving. I think people who have a vested interest in this paradigm overestimate how much the average person "needs" work for "social mobility and purpose", versus, say, companionship, community, education, curiosity, housing stability, etc. Maybe they're afraid that people will realize that the rat race and daily grind don't fill the hole, but stuff that doesn't cost money or that is difficult to profit from do.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>There are many basic social needs that aren't being met for a majority of the population because so much time and energy has to go towards merely surviving. Always has been since humanity's ~200k year history. The unpriviledged masses having free time for leisure and entertainment between work and sleep that isn't a Sunday, is a relatively new development of about ~100 years or less, for which much blood has been spilled. My grandparents were doing subsistance farming working about ~14h/day, 6-7 days/week just to survive, while today I can have my needs met by clocking in 8h of work in an office 5 days/week. Ideally we should strive for better, but we forget our ancestors had it way worse not too long ago.
- yterdy 3y ago
  >Always has been since humanity's ~200k year history. The unpriviledged masses having free time for leisure and entertainment between work and sleep that isn't a Sunday, is a relatively new development of about ~100 years or less Incorrect. If anything, the period during and immediately preceding the Industrial Revolution (before those hard-won labor victories) is the outlier. The common thread in the traditional societies that still exist is a great deal of leisure time or light physical labor, even for farmers. Through the Middle Ages and up to the the advent of chattel slavery and industrialization in the Americas and Europe, labor schedules were quite mild and left plenty of time for leisure, socializing, labor outside of primary production duties (chores, cooking, etc., through which creative faculties could be exercises); much of the literature describing back-breaking labor, written by the privileged classes, was actually a form of propaganda or wish-fulfillment fiction. I'd suggest reading The Overworked American by Juliet Schor. It provides an overview of historical modes of labor in the West.

by yterdy 3y ago

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

>There are many basic social needs that aren't being met for a majority of the population because so much time and energy has to go towards merely surviving. Always has been since humanity's ~200k year history. The unpriviledged masses having free time for leisure and entertainment between work and sleep that isn't a Sunday, is a relatively new development of about ~100 years or less, for which much blood has been spilled. My grandparents were doing subsistance farming working about ~14h/day, 6-7 days/week just to survive, while today I can have my needs met by clocking in 8h of work in an office 5 days/week. Ideally we should strive for better, but we forget our ancestors had it way worse not too long ago.

yterdy 3y ago
>Always has been since humanity's ~200k year history. The unpriviledged masses having free time for leisure and entertainment between work and sleep that isn't a Sunday, is a relatively new development of about ~100 years or less Incorrect. If anything, the period during and immediately preceding the Industrial Revolution (before those hard-won labor victories) is the outlier. The common thread in the traditional societies that still exist is a great deal of leisure time or light physical labor, even for farmers. Through the Middle Ages and up to the the advent of chattel slavery and industrialization in the Americas and Europe, labor schedules were quite mild and left plenty of time for leisure, socializing, labor outside of primary production duties (chores, cooking, etc., through which creative faculties could be exercises); much of the literature describing back-breaking labor, written by the privileged classes, was actually a form of propaganda or wish-fulfillment fiction. I'd suggest reading The Overworked American by Juliet Schor. It provides an overview of historical modes of labor in the West.