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Enjoying taking part in hobbies doesn't mean you would like to spend your life doing these hobbies. Or that, in the absence of work and/or other tasks, you'd enjoy these hobbies the same way.
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Oct 18, 2014 23:05
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Pedro De Heredia posted:Enjoying taking part in hobbies doesn't mean you would like to spend your life doing these hobbies. Or that, in the absence of work and/or other tasks, you'd enjoy these hobbies the same way. Well we shouldn't generalize - some people probably can't function well without the structure of a job while others are perfectly happy to spend their lives building robots in their basement. Certainly we can find examples of both people who work a lot at the expense of all other things in their lives and others who work very little or not at all to pursue hobbies. One thing to note is that when people get bored without a job it might be because everybody else is working. Most activities are scheduled around the 9-5 work day and if you want to socialize you have a problem when there's nobody around. Obviously this wouldn't be an issue if fewer people worked. Honestly I find it exceedingly difficult to imagine I'd be bored doing different things with different people in different places everyday.
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Oct 18, 2014 23:37
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Pedro De Heredia posted:The way people spend their time outside of work has to do with what they need after having worked (rest, contact with people they like, etc.). The way people spend their time when they don't have to work anymore isn't the same, because the needs aren't the same, which is why people say that they start getting bored after being unemployed too long or having a vacation that's too long. I'm not sure I agree with this, because it sounds as if you're saying most people are (and should be) defined entirely by their jobs. I'd argue that most people seek out hobbies and other interests because they're disengaged from or unfulfilled by their work, and that obviously people would seek out rest and social contact regardless of how they spend their day. This is why I think it's important to separate the idea of "employment" (which is what we're really talking about in this thread) from work. Most people would probably gravitate towards some kind of work, but that doesn't mean that employment as it currently exists has inherent value.
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Oct 18, 2014 23:44
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Surprised no one has mentioned Marx's analysis of alienation. Work absolutely can be satisfying, as long as you aren't doing too much of it, you have agency within it, you feel safe within it and you do not feel exploited by it. Unfortunately it's a function of capitalism that all of those factors are systemically diminished over time. As much as people in these jobs are often denigrated, I couldn't hack it on the floor of McDonalds for example. Full time hours doing repetitive, heavily mediated tasks, constantly aware that as a 'low-skilled' worker your position is precarious and being paid the minimum wage by a highly profitable multinational corporation, it would be too much for me. I'm privileged enough that I've never been desperate enough to have to sell my labour for so little, I do much nicer, easier work that is far more respected. Which is bizarre when you think about it.
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Oct 19, 2014 00:04
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crack mayor posted:The basketball player may find value in a sports agent dealing with the front office or sponsors so that he can concentrate on his game. But if the Knicks or Adidas dealt with their athletes in an honest manner, would the agent be out of a job? quote:Does the farm supply store in Agraria really give Old MacDonald a better deal on a tractor than if he just dealt with the tractor maker directly? Now, Old MacDonald could go to the factory and get a custom tractor made for them, but it's probably going to be more costly and he'll have to find some way of transporting it back to Agraria on his own. An example of this would be Scamp trailers, which have no showroom, kinda pricey, are ordered directly from the Scamp factory, and are custom built and must either be picked up in Minnesota or you pay a hell of a shipping fee. And they're great trailers, but at the same time consumers tend to want some (just a few) choices and the ability to compare, which is where you get a wholesaler.
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Oct 19, 2014 01:33
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Saying the new athlete's "honest" value is low seems a bit ambiguous to me. I would think that any large sporting goods company has some kind of formula to project the potential revenue they will receive over the lifetime of a contract with any athlete, even accounting for injury possibilities and whatever else can happen. With that they can come up with a number. Whether that number is low is subjective. Yes, the agent can mediate negotiations and walk somebody through paperwork. But why is he necessary? If the athlete doesn't like it, he can talk to someone else. If the sponsor comes back with more money, than the initial valuation wasn't honest. For me, the agent is analogous to a wedding planner. Can a couple plan a ceremony and reception without a wedding planner? Yes. Can a wedding planner make things go a lot easier? Absolutely. Does that make the wedding planner necessary? No. Regarding the farmer example, you have a better grasp of the logistics and distribution stuff than I do. But just from what I can glean from your post, the wholesaler in this seems extraneous. Yes, it is convenient and probably good for business that the tractor maker doesn't have to maintain their on shipping and processing department just to get a tractor to a farmer in BFE. Costs are always calculated with profits in mind. So when the wholesaler buys the tractor manufacturers whole stock of tractors for the year, he gets some kind of bulk discount, with each tractor having a cost n. The wholesaler then has to sell each tractor at a cost of n+x, to account for maintaining their distribution network, overhead, etc. And still turn a profit. I think what it comes down to is that the pursuit of profit is incompatible with reducing or abolishing work because technological advances that allow a company to maintain current productivity while reducing man-hours and costs (and maybe even raising wages haha), is better put to use increasing output and just reducing costs.
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Oct 21, 2014 02:34
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Zachack posted:I kinda get what you're going for with this but you really should have picked something like a headhunter (which I think have been heavily replaced by the internet) over a sports agent. Oh boy would you be wrong. Maybe at the low-to-medium end of the market, headhunters are having a rough time, but at the top end, headhunters make a shitload of money and are heavily, heavily in demand. When you're looking for the best of the best, you have to cast a very wide net, and you're probably looking to hire people that aren't actively looking for a new job. A good friend of mine does this, and his company makes at least six figures per successful hire from what he tells me. Of course, that process can take anywhere from six months to two years depending on the requirements, but even so, it's a lot of money. I don't think monster.com is going to put him out of work any time soon.
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Oct 21, 2014 06:12
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crack mayor posted:Saying the new athlete's "honest" value is low seems a bit ambiguous to me. I would think that any large sporting goods company has some kind of formula to project the potential revenue they will receive over the lifetime of a contract with any athlete, even accounting for injury possibilities and whatever else can happen. With that they can come up with a number. Whether that number is low is subjective. Yes, the agent can mediate negotiations and walk somebody through paperwork. But why is he necessary? If the athlete doesn't like it, he can talk to someone else. A new athlete's "honest" value to a sponsor is itself ambiguous. It depends on the athlete's performance, on the team´s performance, on the athlete´s image ... really on all sorts of things that don't lend themselves to being able to construct a precise point estimate of that athlete's value. An athlete's "honest" value to a sponsor is a range so what would be considered fair compensation is a range as well - potentially a very large range from the point of view of the athlete, which is one reason why having an agent who knows the sponsor and knows the market is valuable. But negotiation is not the biggest part of an agent's value. Endorsement offers also don't walk themselves in the front door and land in your lap very often. Part of an agent's job is hunting up those leads and then pitching his clients to potential sponsors. The agent builds up a network of contacts during his career and spends a ton of time working them which is good, because the athlete has to spend most of his or her time being an athlete to compete at the elite level that makes big sponsorship deals a possible thing. So sure it's not technically necessary for an athlete to have an agent in the sense that it's not literally impossible to be an athlete and not have one, but there are big advantages to being represented that explain why it's a common arrangement. crack mayor posted:Regarding the farmer example, you have a better grasp of the logistics and distribution stuff than I do. But just from what I can glean from your post, the wholesaler in this seems extraneous. Wholesalers are pretty important in the distribution chain. Part of it is what Zachack wrote - many manufacturers don't want to deal with (and don't have the means to deal with) small buyers or with creating and maintaining diffuse distribution networks that can be managed more efficiently by third parties. Part of it is that wholesalers and retailers do the work of cultivating markets that manufacturers are poorly placed to do. In general you could not have the same product availability at a lower cost just by cutting out middle men. crack mayor posted:I think what it comes down to is that the pursuit of profit is incompatible with reducing or abolishing work because technological advances that allow a company to maintain current productivity while reducing man-hours and costs (and maybe even raising wages haha), is better put to use increasing output and just reducing costs. Reducing man-hours and costs is a thing that happens, though! Raising wages is trickier because the same technologies you use to be more productive are being used by your competitors, so as costs fall prices tend to fall as well.
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Oct 21, 2014 16:00
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crack mayor posted:- What is the moral value of work, if any exists? Is there some kind of character-building aspect of work that is unavailable with any other activity? I think work develops a sense that the money you spend money comes from somewhere, which is an important value that isn't really imparted by leisure activities. That's sort of beside the point, though, which is that work creates the things we consume and enjoy as a standard of living. crack mayor posted:- What is it about the culture/society that the idea of diminishing the need for work isn't discussed often today, even when guys from like a hundred years ago were saying it was technically possible in their time? Those guys were wrong. We don't live in a post-scarcity society and we for sure didn't 100 years ago. Most work is necessary (or at least useful) when you look at it specifically, in its real context instead of in the context of an abstract intellectual exercise. So in the sense you seem to mean it - "wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to do a bunch of things that instead happened because ROBOTS or BECAUSE NOT CAPITALISM" or etc - it's the sort of childish fantasy that people outgrow. In a practical way, though, people are working on how we can work less all the time because productivity is pretty important. crack mayor posted:- What would a world with more leisure time for everyone really look like? If nothing changed but we all worked less? We'd probably be a lot poorer. Stuff would cost more. You could go to the movies or a restaurant whenever but almost no one would have money to do that so they wouldn't. IDK, not great IMO. crack mayor posted:- Do you enjoy your work? What specifically do you love or hate about it? Would you quit if you hit the lotto? I own my company so it's pretty ok. I like being the ultimate authority and not having my livelyhood exist at the whim of some rear end in a top hat. I sometimes hate being ultimately responsible for everything and having my livelyhood exist at the whim of thousands of assholes instead of just one. I wouldn't do what I do if I were just working for a wage and if I hit the lotto or had a good offer to buy my business I'd peace out and chill on a beach making 5%.
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Oct 21, 2014 16:24
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crack mayor posted:
Current productivity is often maintained with fewer costs. There's an entire branch of engineering dedicated to reducing queuing times (i.e., time spent in line) without increasing the number of jobs you output. And there's been *plenty* of technological advancements that have been making work unnecessary. The problem is that those people displaced by those jobs don't have any sort of safety net to fall back on. This is a noted and real phenomenon. For example: 
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Oct 22, 2014 03:41
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I derivse immense pleasure, almost orgasmic pleasure, from my work destroying the American worker by procuring H-1B and L-class visas for foreign (inferior, because they are foreign) workers. It is its own reward.
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Oct 22, 2014 08:24
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crack mayor posted:- What is the moral value of work, if any exists? Is there some kind of character-building aspect of work that is unavailable with any other activity? Depends on how one defines work. If work is service for others or humanity then yes it has unique moral/character building value. If work is only trading labor for money it doesn't have any particular moral value peculiar to it. crack mayor posted:- What is it about the culture/society that the idea of diminishing the need for work isn't discussed often today, even when guys from like a hundred years ago were saying it was technically possible in their time? Greed of the rich and the consumerism of the rest of us. Some work is necessary and will always be necessary, but quite a lot of it isn't. crack mayor posted:- What would a world with more leisure time for everyone really look like? No idea. crack mayor posted:- Do you enjoy your work? What specifically do you love or hate about it? Would you quit if you hit the lotto? Yes. I keep people from doing stupid poo poo that might kill themselves ( or others) and potentially cause large catastrophes in a maritime / heavy industry context for a non-profit. Being well compensated is nice. Yes I would quit in a second. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 14:41
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wateroverfire posted:I think work develops a sense that the money you spend money comes from somewhere, which is an important value that isn't really imparted by leisure activities. That's sort of beside the point, though, which is that work creates the things we consume and enjoy as a standard of living. Imagine if a burger flipper was a magician and could do his job completely just by waving his finger, and instead of flipping burgers he could be binge-watching Futurama and still get his job done. Has he lost something?
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Oct 22, 2014 16:13
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TwoQuestions posted:Imagine if a burger flipper was a magician and could do his job completely just by waving his finger, and instead of flipping burgers he could be binge-watching Futurama and still get his job done. Has he lost something? He has developed the ability to transcend the laws of physics and literally script reality. Why is he using that power to flip burgers?
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Oct 22, 2014 16:27
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wateroverfire posted:He has developed the ability to transcend the laws of physics and literally script reality. Why is he using that power to flip burgers? He doesn't like the press, and flipping burgers lets him lay low. Care to answer the question, or are you going to dodge it again? EDIT: I'll state the question more clearly instead of just being snarky. Does work have value aside from it's products? TwoQuestions fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Oct 22, 2014 |
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Oct 22, 2014 17:25
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TwoQuestions posted:EDIT: I'll state the question more clearly instead of just being snarky. Does work have value aside from it's products? Yeah, I think it does. It's cliche to say work builds character, but it totally does, sometimes. There isn't necessarily value in doing work purely for the sake of it. I mean, if you're carrying bricks to a work site one by one when you have a dolly or a wheel barrow that's expending way more effort than necessary to no purpose. Or to put it another way, in a world in which you can flip burgers with your mind while you watch TV there isn't much value to flipping burgers, but there would be value in doing something that makes full use of your remarkable ability.
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Oct 22, 2014 18:57
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Let's not forget the other "important" parts of employment and work that factor into whether or not you're allowed (by society) to provide for yourself. Such as; appeasement of the boss's personal whims, pretending to be a team player, pretending to like golf, wearing uncomfortable dress clothing even in positions where you do not interact with clients, lying outright to every HR rep in history that your "greatest weakness" is that you just care too much, working through sickness, working on your vacation (if you even get one), pretending to work every minute of every day at a desk job in which your actual job only "happens" in the first quarter of the year, or any number of other bullshit things we do to be allowed to survive.
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Oct 22, 2014 20:41
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TwoQuestions posted:He doesn't like the press, and flipping burgers lets him lay low. I would suggest that in the context of this question discussing "work" is too abstract. What kind of work? Flipping burgers, taking part in a space shuttle launch, writing a novel and giving somebody a $5 blowjob could all potentially fall under your definition of "work" but I'm not sure they'd all have equal value in a post-scarcity world. wateroverfire posted:Yeah, I think it does. It's cliche to say work builds character, but it totally does, sometimes. Working builds character, but so does leisure. It's really a question of what kind of "character" society is trying to build. Obviously in a society with a lot of work to be done it is good to try and create people who are "hard working" but if we were to assume that society only really needs each of us to work a few hours a week then we might decide we want to instil a different kind of 'character' in people, and work might not be the appropriate way to do that. Also I'd suggest that we should probably separate "work" from "labour". To me "work" just indicates that you're doing something that you'll (hopefully) get paid for, i.e. it is your job. "Labour" is a broader term that just means you're doing something that requires effort to accomplish. I definitely think that a human people who didn't perform any kind of labour would be a rather sad and shallow creature. However, I'm not convinced that a human being who didn't "work" would automatically be any worse off.
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Oct 22, 2014 21:00
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If I had some guaranteed permanent annuity I'd probably be a lot more relaxed. I would likely work on writing and would be more active in my community too. I think I'd definitely "do things," even if I wasn't laboring for a wage. There is the question of just what will our communities and so forth will look like if we have more and more people working in them, but frankly that's an experiment I'm willing to risk.
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Oct 22, 2014 21:11
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Work doesn't have any sort of inherent moral or character building quality. You could imagine an 18th century slave traders who, on the surface, had a very good work ethic and good character. They did their job well and were fair and honest with their customers. But that is sort of ruined by how they treated their "product". There are so many examples of work, as defined in the OP as a job with a paycheck, that violates so many morals that you can only say work is moral under certain conditions. Same goes for any sort of character building, as their are many jobs that will reinforce bad attitudes, like lying to make a sale, or ignoring quality control to the point that it causes injuries to the consumers. So if work is moral, provided one does this, that, and the other thing, then work is not really moral. It is this, that, and the other thing that are moral. And those qualities can be applied to work that is for charity or just household chores done only for yourself. With all that in mind, society does not need work-for-a-paycheck to produce or sustain moral people with good character. I would go so far to argue that the idea that one must work-for-a-paycheck is immoral on a couple levels. First, their just isn't enough work to go around, especially with all the labor saving devices and techniques being used, and with more just around the corner. People like to say that our economic system is not zero-sum, and is capable of infinite growth. But right here and right now, there are a finite number of jobs that need workers. Same thing tomorrow. And 5 years from now, there may be a need for more more workers, but never enough jobs for everyone. So this notion just causes needless suffering. And this notion has spread to the point where people who do have jobs are still brow beaten for not have a good enough job. If work is inherently moral, then why is trash talking fast food workers so universal? Secondly, if everyone on Earth were to work a modern 40 hour/week job, the Earth would be burnt to a cinder. Unless we found jobs that didn't require any energy or raw materials, we would have to plow over all the forests, strip mine all the mountains, burn all the oil, to keep everyone busy being as productive as possible by our modern standards for 8 hours a day. One only has to look to China to see what working just for the sake of work and economic growth has done. Sure, smart phones and TVs are cheaper, but the air isn't breathable and people are still miserable.
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Oct 22, 2014 21:32
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People say work builds character, but what do we mean by character? Oftentimes, character is the ability to work without complaint. So, it is a meaningless tautology. Work can be meaningful, even liberating. But that type of work is relatively rare and more of a sort of compensated luxury.
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Oct 22, 2014 23:27
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Shbobdb posted:People say work builds character, but what do we mean by character? Oftentimes, character is the ability to work without complaint. So, it is a meaningless tautology. Work can be meaningful, even liberating. But that type of work is relatively rare and more of a sort of compensated luxury. I wouldn't say that. Oftentimes, character is the ability to do poo poo you don't want to do but have to without complaint. That can be work, yes, but it can also mean cleaning your toilet, and doing the dishes, and all the little tasks that we hate doing but still have to do.
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Oct 23, 2014 03:23
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PT6A posted:I wouldn't say that. Oftentimes, character is the ability to do poo poo you don't want to do but have to without complaint. That can be work, yes, but it can also mean cleaning your toilet, and doing the dishes, and all the little tasks that we hate doing but still have to do. Talking about adults working to "build character" strikes me as exceptionally condescending. Sure, whatever, maybe flipping burgers as your first job really does teach you something useful, but beyond that it reeks of just world nonsense that we tell ourselves to feel better about the fact that some people will spend their whole lives doing menial work for very little pay.
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Oct 23, 2014 03:44
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Perhaps I have a slightly different perspective to offer as, due to disability, I have never worked, in the sense of holding a paying job. However I have put in tremendous amounts of effort in various projects to better myself (going to university), which I enjoy (videogames), or which I simply feel compelled to do (writing novels*). I can't objectively analyze what this has all done for me, because I don't have a point of comparison, but I can and do derive pleasure from a wide variety of activities, some productive and some not. The sense of accomplishment at finishing a 120,000 novel is pretty great, and thinking about and planning a new one is extremely exciting, but I'm also pretty happy watching Star Trek in my PJs with my fiancee or playing a shitload of Paradox games. I don't think working at a paying job has any inherent moral value over and above that of non-paying work. It seems to me that what matters to most people is having a job which is challenging and where they have personal agency and recognition. I recall a video somewhere on YouTube where they were talking about how tech nerds will go to work, come home, and spend another 40 hours a week doing tech work to put out a new Linux kernal or something. There's no monetary incentive or reward, but that sort of personal project is clearly hugely important to a lot of people. By the very nature of such work, if you manage to find a job that fulfils those ends, you're probably going to do really well in it just by virtue of being engaged and enthusiastic. All that said, I'm leery of making blanket statements about people. I see things about alienation or how certain activities are only done for want of a better alternative, and it is really strange to me. Give me a billion dollars and I'll use it to play a lot of loving videogames; I don't play them solely to escape or because other things are poo poo, I play them because I love them and they're a huge part of my personal identity. (I also hate loving saying that because so many self-proclaimed gamers are horrendous, misogynistic, racist neckbeards but there it is.) I think some people won't really be happy without traditional work to do to the exclusion of much else, and I think some people will be very happy laying around watching Maury 15 hours a day. Most of us probably fall in between, but I don't know how well we can discuss our natures in this regard when the great majority of us have to go into work and stay there for decades, often in jobs so terrible they allow little energy for anything except basic relaxation when you get home. *I can't not write, and whether I was working a poo poo job in McD's or an amazing one for some laidback high-paying tech company, I'd still do it in my time off.
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Oct 23, 2014 04:16
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Paradoxish posted:Talking about adults working to "build character" strikes me as exceptionally condescending. Sure, whatever, maybe flipping burgers as your first job really does teach you something useful, but beyond that it reeks of just world nonsense that we tell ourselves to feel better about the fact that some people will spend their whole lives doing menial work for very little pay. The reason society spreads such a message is because it's antithetical to the existence of society for a large portion of society to be doing nothing productive, regardless of ideology or post-scarcity situations.
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Oct 23, 2014 05:59
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I recommend the thread consider Arendt's discussion of work, labor, and action in The Human Condition:quote:With the term vita activa, I propose to designate three fundamental human activities: labor, work, and action. They are fundamental because each corresponds to one of the basic conditions under which life on earth has been given to man.
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Oct 23, 2014 06:10
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Certain segments of society have a great stake in making sure people continue to believe that not being employed is immoral.
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Oct 23, 2014 11:49
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Arri posted:Certain segments of society have a great stake in making sure people continue to believe that not being employed is immoral. eg the Waltons on the left posted:The reason society spreads such a message is because it's antithetical to the existence of society for a large portion of society to be doing nothing productive, regardless of ideology or post-scarcity situations. Explain how in a post scarcity situation society needs extra people doing meaningless work because that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
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Oct 23, 2014 14:58
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Amused to Death posted:However many people feel doing whatever you want all day with no real purpose or obligations actually does get kind of old after a while. I legitimately don't understand how someone could ever get bored of self-directed activity unless they suffered from a serious lack of imagination.
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Oct 23, 2014 15:22
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Torka posted:I legitimately don't understand how someone could ever get bored of self-directed activity unless they suffered from a serious lack of imagination. Same. It is really weird to me. There is SO MUCH STUFF to do. I could live to be ten thousand and not be half done, to say nothing of all the new stuff that would emerge.
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Oct 23, 2014 16:01
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Mister Adequate posted:Same. It is really weird to me. There is SO MUCH STUFF to do. I could live to be ten thousand and not be half done, to say nothing of all the new stuff that would emerge. Because a lot of stuff requires significant setup time and materials (eg, "want to build a shed? Time to make sure you have all the tools and then spend an hour at Home Depot") and a lot of people are not in the mood for extended excursion into a project. Like, I enjoy cooking but I won't do some recipes because it will take a long time and I'll probably gently caress it up anyway because its the first time I've done it. Or take my uncle, who goes all out into a project, loses interest halfway through, and then dumps the half completed thing on anyone who'll take it.
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Oct 23, 2014 16:23
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Torka posted:I legitimately don't understand how someone could ever get bored of self-directed activity unless they suffered from a serious lack of imagination. Most people never really learn how to pursue self-directed activities or projects because it's not something we really value or teach. Secondary and post-secondary education is extremely job oriented, and there's an expectation that you'll move into the working world either before you complete your education or as soon as you do. Anyone who's unemployed for an extended period of time is expected to put most of their effort into finding a job and vacations are generally viewed as recuperation time.
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Oct 23, 2014 19:41
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Paradoxish posted:Most people never really learn how to pursue self-directed activities or projects because it's not something we really value or teach. Secondary and post-secondary education is extremely job oriented, and there's an expectation that you'll move into the working world either before you complete your education or as soon as you do. Anyone who's unemployed for an extended period of time is expected to put most of their effort into finding a job and vacations are generally viewed as recuperation time. To add to this, there are also a lot of activities that people are sort of discouraged from pursuing. Sewing and cooking aren't manly enough for men. Car and home repair projects are too manly for women. And tons of things are considered too childish for adults.
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Oct 23, 2014 19:58
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wateroverfire posted:Or to put it another way, in a world in which you can flip burgers with your mind while you watch TV there isn't much value to flipping burgers, but there would be value in doing something that makes full use of your remarkable ability. Ignoring the telekinesis, we do have the ability to flip burgers while watching tv. It's called automation. We do have a remarkable ability to automate simple tasks. Even complex jobs taken as whole, can be broken down into simple tasks in steps. We don't make full use of this remarkable ability because for some reason we have to keep everyone busy. Which in my mind sounds analogous to the idea of domesticated food animals. If we all of sudden decided to stop eating beef, poultry ,and pork, the animals that give us the meat don't just disappear. And since they have been bred to be fat and docile, their survival instincts are not in good shape. Even if they could take care of themselves, we would have millions of animals that need food and water milling about, waiting for the moon or whatever. I guess that's related to one of my previous questions. What does a world with little need for labor look like? Maybe it wouldn't be some alternate dimension paradise with people enjoying each others company and playing stringed instruments. Since curiosity and human relationships are not emphasized in modern work culture, a post-work world may be populated by a fair amount of drunk dudes standing around with their thumb up their rear end. I don't think that's an argument against reducing the work week though. It's an argument that what out current culture values is maybe not the best foundation for a fulfilling life. Beowulfs_Ghost posted:You could imagine an 18th century slave traders who, on the surface, had a very good work ethic and good character. They did their job well and were fair and honest with their customers. But that is sort of ruined by how they treated their "product". I like this example. I may steal it if I ever decide to go stupid and attempt a discussion like this in real life haha. Eripsa posted:I recommend the thread consider Arendt's discussion of work, labor, and action in The Human Condition: I tried to give this a read, but it's a bit dense. I'll give it another shot, but do you have any highlights you wanna share? computer parts posted:Because a lot of stuff requires significant setup time and materials (eg, "want to build a shed? Time to make sure you have all the tools and then spend an hour at Home Depot") and a lot of people are not in the mood for extended excursion into a project. Time and materials are the first problems to go in a post-scarcity world.
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Oct 23, 2014 23:01
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crack mayor posted:Time and materials are the first problems to go in a post-scarcity world. Not in the way I describe. Sure, if Bob's Robot Delivery Service existed so that you didn't have to get all of the materials yourself that would help, but even then a lot of people start ambitious projects and then just stop because it's too much work. Sure, you could then hire up a bunch of robot laborers to finish it for you, but that's not the same thing as going out and doing a hobby yourself. I'm not talking about retiling a roof and being lazy about doing it, I'm talking about (e.g.) working a garden or building something because you want to build something. And often you lose interest because the final product is not worth all of the work.
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Oct 23, 2014 23:09
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computer parts posted:... I'm talking about (e.g.) working a garden or building something because you want to build something. And often you lose interest because the final product is not worth all of the work. Not that I disagree, but do you think this might be because people have a certain capacity for "work" and maybe the effort required to sustain a job and sustain a hobby come from the same pool of energy?
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Oct 23, 2014 23:16
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So people should not pursue hobbies because they'll probably give up on them?computer parts posted:Like, I enjoy cooking but I won't do some recipes because it will take a long time and I'll probably gently caress it up anyway because its the first time I've done it. What even is this? I can't comprehend that as an impediment to doing something. Elaborate a bit more if you could.
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Oct 23, 2014 23:21
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crack mayor posted:
You've never said "I don't want to do x because it's too hard"? Never ever in your life? Not because you didn't have time or money to do it, but because it wouldn't be worth the effort you put in? sim posted:Not that I disagree, but do you think this might be because people have a certain capacity for "work" and maybe the effort required to sustain a job and sustain a hobby come from the same pool of energy? My uncle in my previous example was retired so he literally had all of the free time in the world. That same phenomenon still happened.
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Oct 23, 2014 23:27
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computer parts posted:And often you lose interest because the final product is not worth all of the work. There is nothing really wrong with this. Especially if it is a hobby people are new to. They may have started off thinking the reward was worth the effort, and then came to a different conclusion once they started doing it. But it isn't like the world will come to an end if one lets their tomato plant die because they found it wasn't worth the effort. Especially when you consider how finicky the consumer market can be, and how many workers can be put out on the street because a CEO decided it wasn't worth making some product any more. On one hand, we can see this as some sort of individual flaw. On the other, if a CEO does it and has a bunch of accountants with charts saying it isn't worth the effort, they are kind of praised for being rational about giving up on a project.
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Oct 23, 2014 23:34
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Yes, I have. But you posted that in response to someone who said they couldn't understand how a person could get bored of self-directed activity. I guess it seemed to me like that was an argument against people having to work less and decide how to use their time. If you were just offering it up as an explanation, then ok.
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Oct 23, 2014 23:35
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