3 ms·

It's patently ridiculous to spend even half your life working, yet alone from 18 to 65 (or whatever the retirement age is now). Why have we automated so many th

It's patently ridiculous to spend even half your life working, yet alone from 18 to 65 (or whatever the retirement age is now). Why have we automated so many things yet work the same hours? There is no virtue in work what-so-ever. It is a means to an end and nothing more. If I could have robots grow my food, manufacture my appliances and create entertainment for me then I would spend all my life enjoying it and not give that a second thought. This 'cult of work' needs to go. We're not here to use our hands to modify the structure of matter and energy, we're here to figure out why we're here, enjoy and love each other and have a good time.

philwelch 14y ago
> we're here to figure out why we're here Turns out we're here to work. Seriously, I don't know about you, but I have a list a million pages long of problems I'd like to see solved by the human race, and I'm pretty sure everyone can chip in on at least one of them. Navel-gazing doesn't get anyone very far.
- StavrosK 14y ago
  If you like what you're doing, it's not work, it's a hobby.
- jrogers65 14y ago
  My list of problems is about as long and I would love to see them solved. I've researched and thought a great deal about why these problems occur and the root cause of them is invariably humanity itself. We look at how much food the human race produces and see that there is absolutely no reason why anyone should starve, yet many people do. We have plenty of water yet people die of dehydration. Why is this? Our technology is clearly advanced enough that these problems should not exist. Should we keep working to improve our technology? My argument is that we should drop what we're doing, take a step back and think about how we got into this mess - that we stop working and consider where we're going and how we are getting there. Why, in a huge corporation, are there some employees earning minimum wage and barely making enough to survive while someone working the exact same hours has two houses and three cars? Why are there people living on the streets in what are apparently first world countries? Why is the inequality gap growing instead of decreasing? Shouldn't all this work be improving the situation? My contention is that we cannot work ourselves out of this problem. We need to sit down, think and talk. We need to empathise with each other and share. I believe that the solution to the problems that plague people will find their remedy on the social level. That is, information, and access to that information, is the key to resolving them, not working hard to keep the streets clean or developing the newest iPhone or building new houses. Don't get me wrong, those things are important too, but we have the capability to automate a lot of them yet we have not done so. Why are robots not roaming the streets and keeping them spotless? Why are people working for pennies in factories to make our smartphones? I believe that answering these questions and doing something about them will go a lot further than turning up to a 9-5 every day. It's all very good having an engine that can produce a thousand horsepower but if the steering wheel is not used to aim the car in the right direction, it will crash. The engine is already good enough - the direction seems to be terribly wrong.
  - philwelch 14y ago
    Sitting around and navel-gazing still isn't going to solve any of those problems. You won't know what the solutions are for sure until you try them, and that takes work. > Why are people working for pennies in factories to make our smartphones? Because it's a better alternative to subsistence farming, usually. I mean, whatever caused them to voluntarily choose to work for pennies in a factory must have been even worse. Now you want to put them out of a job? Even if you want to redistribute the wealth, it still needs to be generated in the first place or the whole thing collapses. And you're not going to stumble upon a better social and economic system by not producing as much wealth anymore.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
dnc 14y ago
I couldn't agree more. I'm in good company too: "road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work" (Bertrand Russell - In Prise of Idleness, http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html). The trouble is that the organized diminution of (human) work requires so much work itself :).

philwelch 14y ago

> we're here to figure out why we're here Turns out we're here to work. Seriously, I don't know about you, but I have a list a million pages long of problems I'd like to see solved by the human race, and I'm pretty sure everyone can chip in on at least one of them. Navel-gazing doesn't get anyone very far.

StavrosK 14y ago
If you like what you're doing, it's not work, it's a hobby.
jrogers65 14y ago
My list of problems is about as long and I would love to see them solved. I've researched and thought a great deal about why these problems occur and the root cause of them is invariably humanity itself. We look at how much food the human race produces and see that there is absolutely no reason why anyone should starve, yet many people do. We have plenty of water yet people die of dehydration. Why is this? Our technology is clearly advanced enough that these problems should not exist. Should we keep working to improve our technology? My argument is that we should drop what we're doing, take a step back and think about how we got into this mess - that we stop working and consider where we're going and how we are getting there. Why, in a huge corporation, are there some employees earning minimum wage and barely making enough to survive while someone working the exact same hours has two houses and three cars? Why are there people living on the streets in what are apparently first world countries? Why is the inequality gap growing instead of decreasing? Shouldn't all this work be improving the situation? My contention is that we cannot work ourselves out of this problem. We need to sit down, think and talk. We need to empathise with each other and share. I believe that the solution to the problems that plague people will find their remedy on the social level. That is, information, and access to that information, is the key to resolving them, not working hard to keep the streets clean or developing the newest iPhone or building new houses. Don't get me wrong, those things are important too, but we have the capability to automate a lot of them yet we have not done so. Why are robots not roaming the streets and keeping them spotless? Why are people working for pennies in factories to make our smartphones? I believe that answering these questions and doing something about them will go a lot further than turning up to a 9-5 every day. It's all very good having an engine that can produce a thousand horsepower but if the steering wheel is not used to aim the car in the right direction, it will crash. The engine is already good enough - the direction seems to be terribly wrong.
- philwelch 14y ago
  Sitting around and navel-gazing still isn't going to solve any of those problems. You won't know what the solutions are for sure until you try them, and that takes work. > Why are people working for pennies in factories to make our smartphones? Because it's a better alternative to subsistence farming, usually. I mean, whatever caused them to voluntarily choose to work for pennies in a factory must have been even worse. Now you want to put them out of a job? Even if you want to redistribute the wealth, it still needs to be generated in the first place or the whole thing collapses. And you're not going to stumble upon a better social and economic system by not producing as much wealth anymore.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

dnc 14y ago

I couldn't agree more. I'm in good company too: "road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work" (Bertrand Russell - In Prise of Idleness, http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html). The trouble is that the organized diminution of (human) work requires so much work itself :).