3 ms·

I don't know what's more crushing, not having a job, or knowing deep-down that there is a machine that can trivially do your job. If I was made to lamp street

by pj_mukh 7mo ago

I don't know what's more crushing, not having a job, or knowing deep-down that there is a machine that can trivially do your job. If I was made to lamp street lamps 5 years after incandescent street lights were invented, while not working on any way forward, I'd probably fall into a deep existential crisis.

singpolyma3 7mo ago
Indeed. My first job was in a factory doing things that we had machines to do, but not enough of them or efficient enough. I spent the whole time dreaming of automating the factory properly.
maerF0x0 7mo ago
I agree with aspects of what you mean. But there are exceptions on both sides. Ofc people dont want to become human fax machines (Morse decoders) nowadays, it would feel absurd. But also if a role allows someone to feel satisfaction in accomplishment and in being an active member of a society it can be meaningful. For example tidying up streets/yards in low income neighborhoods can make the place look much better and you can feel like you're serving folks who are in need.
hamasho 7mo ago
I think that nihilistic sentiment arises only when you are materially satisfied, maybe in the 90s and 00s (like office workers in Fight Club or Office Space). Many of us are in survival mode now. We just need money to keep up with inflation. We don't have time to think about the deep meaning of life.
- alex43578 7mo ago
  "Survival mode" is quite an overstatement of current conditions for most people in most of the West. Prices have risen, but people aren't in as rough of a position as 2008, 1970's stagflation, or certainly the great depression.
  - cindyllm 7mo ago
    [dead]
  - tonyedgecombe 7mo ago
    Yes, if anything we are over fed and awash in consumer goods.
Fricken 7mo ago
Huge amounts of effort go to feeding our desires, and to feeding our fears, but it actually doesn't take much to meet our needs. Only 2% of our efforts as a society go to getting food out of the ground. The reason to have a job, to own property, to earn and spend money, to reproduce and fight in wars, it seems, is to maintain a valid stake in the whole game lest your masters designate you an undesireable. For said master the more viable the alternatives to humans become, the more all those excess humans start to look like a liability.

by pj_mukh 7mo ago

singpolyma3 7mo ago

Indeed. My first job was in a factory doing things that we had machines to do, but not enough of them or efficient enough. I spent the whole time dreaming of automating the factory properly.

maerF0x0 7mo ago

I agree with aspects of what you mean. But there are exceptions on both sides. Ofc people dont want to become human fax machines (Morse decoders) nowadays, it would feel absurd. But also if a role allows someone to feel satisfaction in accomplishment and in being an active member of a society it can be meaningful. For example tidying up streets/yards in low income neighborhoods can make the place look much better and you can feel like you're serving folks who are in need.

hamasho 7mo ago

I think that nihilistic sentiment arises only when you are materially satisfied, maybe in the 90s and 00s (like office workers in Fight Club or Office Space). Many of us are in survival mode now. We just need money to keep up with inflation. We don't have time to think about the deep meaning of life.

alex43578 7mo ago
"Survival mode" is quite an overstatement of current conditions for most people in most of the West. Prices have risen, but people aren't in as rough of a position as 2008, 1970's stagflation, or certainly the great depression.
- cindyllm 7mo ago
  [dead]
- tonyedgecombe 7mo ago
  Yes, if anything we are over fed and awash in consumer goods.

Fricken 7mo ago

Huge amounts of effort go to feeding our desires, and to feeding our fears, but it actually doesn't take much to meet our needs. Only 2% of our efforts as a society go to getting food out of the ground. The reason to have a job, to own property, to earn and spend money, to reproduce and fight in wars, it seems, is to maintain a valid stake in the whole game lest your masters designate you an undesireable. For said master the more viable the alternatives to humans become, the more all those excess humans start to look like a liability.