5 ms·

> Not true at all. If I could work two days a week for 40% of my current income I would take the opportunity in a heartbeat Most people wouldn’t be content to

by jameslk 4mo ago

> Not true at all. If I could work two days a week for 40% of my current income I would take the opportunity in a heartbeat Most people wouldn’t be content to live in one room huts with thatched roofs and no hospitals or antibiotics. There might be some that do, but most prefer having more things and “better” lives. If we kept progressing, we’d look back at the era we live today and consider it just as primitive

AngryData 4mo ago
Please, not even poor starving destitute people in 3rd world countries live in thatched huts anymore. Also antibiotics are not that expensive, especially if you buy them for "fish" and get them closer to production cost. You could sell some watermelons and afford antibiotics.
- jameslk 4mo ago
  I’m talking about how many people lived in the past OP said they would be content with 40% less income for less work. That's fine, but I think it misses the point. On a large enough time scale, progress is so great that most wouldn't choose the past, nor would they choose our present if the future is substantially better. That's what I mean by "everyone wants more" ... it's what contributes to endless consumption rather than us working less hours when technology improves
- defrost 4mo ago
  Upper middle class people in the UK live in traditional thatched cottages today - it's still a trade. African traditional cattle herders are still a thing and they're still living in thatched huts with weave walls. Elsewhere in Africa, Thatching is still an up market thing: https://www.africathatch.co.za/ https://www.africathatch.co.za/ Perhaps spend some time learning about the wider world before making such obviously incorrect sweeping generalisations?
- Maxatar 4mo ago
  >Please, not even poor starving destitute people in 3rd world countries live in thatched huts anymore. UN data on housing somewhat disagrees with you. The somewhat is only because people living in such housing aren't starving/destitute, but they are still incredibly poor.
- nephihaha 4mo ago
  Many of them live in shacks made from wooden pallets and corrugated iron roofs instead. This is true across much of the Third World – Brazil, Haiti, South Africa and Indonesia all have them for example.
CalRobert 4mo ago
Thatched roofs are an expensive art installation compared to many other types
Ma8ee 4mo ago
If you instead imagine the perspective of anyone from 16th century, you’d realise we are already living as kings. We have way more food and clothes than we can eat and use, we have self driving carriages, magic devices with entertainment in our pockets, not to mention that almost all our kids live to adulthood. At what point do we say that we don’t need to waste more of earth’s resources and instead find time to enjoy our current enormous wealth?
- jameslk 4mo ago
  Well that's kinda my point. If we could all afford yachts tomorrow because AI robot factories made it a commodity like Swiss watches of yore[0], we'd all be buying yachts. And instead of bickering about not being able to afford yachts, people would be bickering about the rich asshole with the limited edition Aston Martin space yacht, while they could only afford the 3-speed helipad Temu yacht 0. https://www.paulgraham.com/brandage.html https://www.paulgraham.com/brandage.html
  - supriyo-biswas 4mo ago
    > If we could all afford yachts tomorrow because AI robot factories Handwaving away constraints on production on physical goods because of advances in code generation is a new one.
    - rcxdude 4mo ago
      I think this is a deliberately somewhat fantastical hypothetical scenario (though not far off the sales pitch from humanoid robot companies).
  - Ma8ee 4mo ago
    What a miserable world view. What do you need a yacht to when you have two weeks of holiday every year? While I agree that many people are status seekers, that can be different things. Where I live, a yacht is vulgar. Even a bigger car is looked down on if it isn't for some specific utility. Status is showing your care for the climate by leaving your kids in daycare with a cargo bike. Status is being able to leave work early to be able to spend time in the afternoon with your family, or do so some garden work. No one wants to be the one with an expensive car but not knowing your own kids.
toasty228 4mo ago
It's always the choice between flying cars and living in a hut made of cow dung, right? No in between is conceivable by the human brain, either boundless growth or the Neolithic
- inglor_cz 4mo ago
  I am not sure if the choice is so binary, but neither am I sure whether you can sustain a reasonable compromise without a certain level of societal and economic complexity. A lot depends on what "in between" actually means. I think almost no one would be willing to return, say, to the early 1900s when it comes to medical science and available treatment options. Things like anti-retroviral therapy and CAR-T are just too nice to have when something otherwise fatal hits you. But that requires top-notch chemistry and biology, which requires top-notch lab equipment and computers, which requires top-notch material science and industry etc. I am not sure if you can sustain all of this if all the the relevant PhDs work 16 hour workweeks. I am also not sure which parts of the modern economy can be left out to regress to a previous stage of development if you still want to retain the capability to treat cancer with advanced biologicals. The supply chains are just too complex. Maybe in the age of AI and robots the options are different, but not before.
  - toasty228 4mo ago
    > A lot depends on what "in between" actually means. Smaller local economies/communities like my grandparents had in the 60s don't sound too bad, especially if we keep a few nice things from today. Do you need aliexpress? Fruits shipped form the other side of the planets? Etc. Once everyone has electricity, water, shelter, food and a tight local community were good to go, I'd even argue the "progress" we made since then actually broke some of the core things we require to thrive as humans (purpose, stability, communities,...) I don't care about medicine that save 0.00001% of the population if the price of it is what we're witnessing today tbh, otherwise there is truly no limits and no arguments to growth at all cost
    - inglor_cz 4mo ago
      Cancer kills about 25 per cent of the population and would kill maybe 35 per cent in absence of modern medicine. Granted, most of its victims are old people. You personally may not care about regressing to 19xx medicine, but in a democratic society, I doubt that this would be an attractive policy for voters. BTW I believe that "shipping fruit around the world" was already a thing 120+ years ago. United Fruit Company and its banana republics have a long, long (and dirty) history.
TheOtherHobbes 4mo ago
From people I know who traveled, the people in thatched huts are sometimes reported to be far happier than we are. And a lot of people in the US can't afford hospitals or antibiotics today.
- Windchaser 4mo ago
  It's one hospital, how much could it cost? $200 million?
preg_match 4mo ago
People work less = we live in mud huts? I’m not understanding the connection at all. You can’t just make that jump and then not explain it and pretend as though it makes sense. No, it doesn’t make sense, only in your head. We’re not mind readers, please elaborate and at least try to use logic or reasoning. It’s frustrating to readers otherwise.

by jameslk 4mo ago

AngryData 4mo ago

Please, not even poor starving destitute people in 3rd world countries live in thatched huts anymore. Also antibiotics are not that expensive, especially if you buy them for "fish" and get them closer to production cost. You could sell some watermelons and afford antibiotics.

jameslk 4mo ago
I’m talking about how many people lived in the past OP said they would be content with 40% less income for less work. That's fine, but I think it misses the point. On a large enough time scale, progress is so great that most wouldn't choose the past, nor would they choose our present if the future is substantially better. That's what I mean by "everyone wants more" ... it's what contributes to endless consumption rather than us working less hours when technology improves
defrost 4mo ago
Upper middle class people in the UK live in traditional thatched cottages today - it's still a trade. African traditional cattle herders are still a thing and they're still living in thatched huts with weave walls. Elsewhere in Africa, Thatching is still an up market thing: https://www.africathatch.co.za/ https://www.africathatch.co.za/ Perhaps spend some time learning about the wider world before making such obviously incorrect sweeping generalisations?
Maxatar 4mo ago
>Please, not even poor starving destitute people in 3rd world countries live in thatched huts anymore. UN data on housing somewhat disagrees with you. The somewhat is only because people living in such housing aren't starving/destitute, but they are still incredibly poor.
nephihaha 4mo ago
Many of them live in shacks made from wooden pallets and corrugated iron roofs instead. This is true across much of the Third World – Brazil, Haiti, South Africa and Indonesia all have them for example.

CalRobert 4mo ago

Thatched roofs are an expensive art installation compared to many other types

Ma8ee 4mo ago

If you instead imagine the perspective of anyone from 16th century, you’d realise we are already living as kings. We have way more food and clothes than we can eat and use, we have self driving carriages, magic devices with entertainment in our pockets, not to mention that almost all our kids live to adulthood. At what point do we say that we don’t need to waste more of earth’s resources and instead find time to enjoy our current enormous wealth?

jameslk 4mo ago
Well that's kinda my point. If we could all afford yachts tomorrow because AI robot factories made it a commodity like Swiss watches of yore[0], we'd all be buying yachts. And instead of bickering about not being able to afford yachts, people would be bickering about the rich asshole with the limited edition Aston Martin space yacht, while they could only afford the 3-speed helipad Temu yacht 0. https://www.paulgraham.com/brandage.html https://www.paulgraham.com/brandage.html
- supriyo-biswas 4mo ago
  > If we could all afford yachts tomorrow because AI robot factories Handwaving away constraints on production on physical goods because of advances in code generation is a new one.
  - rcxdude 4mo ago
    I think this is a deliberately somewhat fantastical hypothetical scenario (though not far off the sales pitch from humanoid robot companies).
- Ma8ee 4mo ago
  What a miserable world view. What do you need a yacht to when you have two weeks of holiday every year? While I agree that many people are status seekers, that can be different things. Where I live, a yacht is vulgar. Even a bigger car is looked down on if it isn't for some specific utility. Status is showing your care for the climate by leaving your kids in daycare with a cargo bike. Status is being able to leave work early to be able to spend time in the afternoon with your family, or do so some garden work. No one wants to be the one with an expensive car but not knowing your own kids.

toasty228 4mo ago

It's always the choice between flying cars and living in a hut made of cow dung, right? No in between is conceivable by the human brain, either boundless growth or the Neolithic

inglor_cz 4mo ago
I am not sure if the choice is so binary, but neither am I sure whether you can sustain a reasonable compromise without a certain level of societal and economic complexity. A lot depends on what "in between" actually means. I think almost no one would be willing to return, say, to the early 1900s when it comes to medical science and available treatment options. Things like anti-retroviral therapy and CAR-T are just too nice to have when something otherwise fatal hits you. But that requires top-notch chemistry and biology, which requires top-notch lab equipment and computers, which requires top-notch material science and industry etc. I am not sure if you can sustain all of this if all the the relevant PhDs work 16 hour workweeks. I am also not sure which parts of the modern economy can be left out to regress to a previous stage of development if you still want to retain the capability to treat cancer with advanced biologicals. The supply chains are just too complex. Maybe in the age of AI and robots the options are different, but not before.
- toasty228 4mo ago
  > A lot depends on what "in between" actually means. Smaller local economies/communities like my grandparents had in the 60s don't sound too bad, especially if we keep a few nice things from today. Do you need aliexpress? Fruits shipped form the other side of the planets? Etc. Once everyone has electricity, water, shelter, food and a tight local community were good to go, I'd even argue the "progress" we made since then actually broke some of the core things we require to thrive as humans (purpose, stability, communities,...) I don't care about medicine that save 0.00001% of the population if the price of it is what we're witnessing today tbh, otherwise there is truly no limits and no arguments to growth at all cost
  - inglor_cz 4mo ago
    Cancer kills about 25 per cent of the population and would kill maybe 35 per cent in absence of modern medicine. Granted, most of its victims are old people. You personally may not care about regressing to 19xx medicine, but in a democratic society, I doubt that this would be an attractive policy for voters. BTW I believe that "shipping fruit around the world" was already a thing 120+ years ago. United Fruit Company and its banana republics have a long, long (and dirty) history.

TheOtherHobbes 4mo ago

From people I know who traveled, the people in thatched huts are sometimes reported to be far happier than we are. And a lot of people in the US can't afford hospitals or antibiotics today.

Windchaser 4mo ago
It's one hospital, how much could it cost? $200 million?

preg_match 4mo ago

People work less = we live in mud huts? I’m not understanding the connection at all. You can’t just make that jump and then not explain it and pretend as though it makes sense. No, it doesn’t make sense, only in your head. We’re not mind readers, please elaborate and at least try to use logic or reasoning. It’s frustrating to readers otherwise.