3 ms·

At our current level of technological advancement, we should be able to get far more than a 5y Kerouac road trip before joining the grind. Where are all those s

by archagon 11mo ago

At our current level of technological advancement, we should be able to get far more than a 5y Kerouac road trip before joining the grind. Where are all those supposed productivity gains going? Why are we becoming less free? (This is sort of an aside. Yes, bring all the hardworking immigrants here, please. And maybe let them have those road trips, too.)

array_key_first 11mo ago
It's obvious to me the gains of our productivity is being siphoned up. The US economy is... very weird right now, and has been getting weird for a few decades. I wouldn't even consider the US a capitalist nation, what we have is something new. Most companies don't do anything, most investors make money without putting in any labor, and money just... poof, appears. But not for us. Nothing really seems to make sense anymore. Things that were trivial before, like having a receptionist to answer your phone, now seems economically impossible. And yet, our GDP continues to rise. We run companies with a tenth of the people we did before - everything is computerized, automated. But the wages are lower.
jswelker 11mo ago
The productivity gains go to: - an ever increasing standard of living - stonks go up to prevent a pensioner revolt and to inflate egos of billionaires We are kind of equivocating about "the grind" though. There is the grind of a student keeping their heads in books and activities while friends play video games or party or whatever. This grind has a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of obvious graduation dates and similar rites of passage. Then there is the grind of working at McDonalds or Walmart because that is the only opportunity left to you, and that is a grind that might easily go on forever unless you win the hunger games and get into a management track rat race.

3 ms·

At our current level of technological advancement, we should be able to get far more than a 5y Kerouac road trip before joining the grind. Where are all those s

by archagon 11mo ago

array_key_first 11mo ago
It's obvious to me the gains of our productivity is being siphoned up. The US economy is... very weird right now, and has been getting weird for a few decades. I wouldn't even consider the US a capitalist nation, what we have is something new. Most companies don't do anything, most investors make money without putting in any labor, and money just... poof, appears. But not for us. Nothing really seems to make sense anymore. Things that were trivial before, like having a receptionist to answer your phone, now seems economically impossible. And yet, our GDP continues to rise. We run companies with a tenth of the people we did before - everything is computerized, automated. But the wages are lower.
jswelker 11mo ago
The productivity gains go to: - an ever increasing standard of living - stonks go up to prevent a pensioner revolt and to inflate egos of billionaires We are kind of equivocating about "the grind" though. There is the grind of a student keeping their heads in books and activities while friends play video games or party or whatever. This grind has a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of obvious graduation dates and similar rites of passage. Then there is the grind of working at McDonalds or Walmart because that is the only opportunity left to you, and that is a grind that might easily go on forever unless you win the hunger games and get into a management track rat race.