2 ms·

> perhaps that was because the center of power had shifted to the U.S How does that follow? For as long as we can remember or we have written records for, we'v

by Sakos 2y ago

> perhaps that was because the center of power had shifted to the U.S How does that follow? For as long as we can remember or we have written records for, we've had jobs. So it's natural to assume that a million years in the future, if we still inhabit roughly similar form as we do now, we'd have something resembling jobs (for a multitude of reasons). What does envisioning a future with jobs have to do with the US?

bryanrasmussen 2y ago
that perhaps U.S culture valued work more than say European cultures as being a good thing in itself. Perhaps European writers envisioned a future where the life of the upper classes was available to everyone - a life of leisure, a utopia without work. Whereas the American's envisioned a future in which there was always work because there was an ever expanding frontier (space) that needed conquering.
- Sakos 2y ago
  > Perhaps European writers envisioned a future where the life of the upper classes was available to everyone - a life of leisure, a utopia without work. Perhaps? I'm not aware of many European writers who categorically only wrote books like that. And there are plenty of US writers who wrote about future societies about a life of leisure and a utopia without work. Most of the science fiction I've read isn't even particularly about jobs or work. Characters having work to do is often only tangential to what they're trying to accomplish - who would listen to Elijah Bailey and why would he bother doing what he was doing if he wasn't a detective? > Whereas the American's envisioned a future in which there was always work because there was an ever expanding frontier (space) that needed conquering. Europe conquered much of the known world before the US was even a thing. WW2 was started by the country I'm from because we felt like we had to conquer all of Europe. Meanwhile Japan was in the middle of conquering much of Asia, brutally.

by Sakos 2y ago

bryanrasmussen 2y ago

that perhaps U.S culture valued work more than say European cultures as being a good thing in itself. Perhaps European writers envisioned a future where the life of the upper classes was available to everyone - a life of leisure, a utopia without work. Whereas the American's envisioned a future in which there was always work because there was an ever expanding frontier (space) that needed conquering.

Sakos 2y ago
> Perhaps European writers envisioned a future where the life of the upper classes was available to everyone - a life of leisure, a utopia without work. Perhaps? I'm not aware of many European writers who categorically only wrote books like that. And there are plenty of US writers who wrote about future societies about a life of leisure and a utopia without work. Most of the science fiction I've read isn't even particularly about jobs or work. Characters having work to do is often only tangential to what they're trying to accomplish - who would listen to Elijah Bailey and why would he bother doing what he was doing if he wasn't a detective? > Whereas the American's envisioned a future in which there was always work because there was an ever expanding frontier (space) that needed conquering. Europe conquered much of the known world before the US was even a thing. WW2 was started by the country I'm from because we felt like we had to conquer all of Europe. Meanwhile Japan was in the middle of conquering much of Asia, brutally.