We need goods and services. This causes people to focus on things which produce necessary goods and services. This causes a loss of individual freedom to think about other things. Post hoc justifications are then put in place from social promptings- "work hard, play hard", the novelty of a "new" career move, a slight "raise", "group think", "team meetings", etc. This is the best we can do? — schopenhauer1
An easy solution is to guarantee the right to work in the constitution. If you cannot find work, the state will assign you one. You need to look at this perspective from a more analytical one rather than assuming that everyone has their inner individualistic needs which take priority over the monarch (who's right to rule has been given by God). If you cannot understand this and the other policies that made conservatism so successful until the birth of liberal ideas, no wonder you support this false idea of individualism and liberalism. — Count Radetzky von Radetz
It was really, really tedious work, but simple. It was great. The supervisor told us we could all talk, snack, joke, and laugh or whatever, as long as there was a steady stream of boxes moving through the process. So, we did -- talk, laugh, joke, and so on, and we sorted and re boxed thousands of boxes of files. It was good, because we had control over our time and over our style of interacting. 3 months was plenty of that activity, but it demonstrates the point. — Bitter Crank
The logic of life is what makes living "make sense" - everything we do "makes sense" because it's "part of life", it's what people do and what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to have projects, we're supposed to have jobs, relationships, progeny, etc. "Edge of life" issues, like suicide, are swept under the carpet because they are outside of the logic of life. Suicide does not make sense, from that perspective. — darthbarracuda
Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment — a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to an answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man’s existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer. — Schopenhauer- On Suicide
I don't like to use the brain-computer, mind-software metaphor too much, but it does seem to be as you say - the software ("us") is fundamentally an infinite loop that only breaks when it is interrupted by some priority. When there is no queue, we are simply idly looping, waiting for something to happen. — darthbarracuda
And that alone is significant, because they displace workers who once carried out the tasks which computers now do. Lost jobs for humans or not, there are a lot of jobs I would prefer a computer to do because the job is so gawd-awful boring, detailed, and tedious. — Bitter Crank
The technological revolution we have all witnessed over the last 60 years ought to have freed us all to have more leisure. Sadly the good old Protestant work ethnic has meant the contrary, has happened.
Inequality is up; we are more dependant on work, yet we have less work security; we have more labour saving devices, yet we we seem to work more, longer hours with fewer rights and lower guarantees.
This travesty of the possible has been brought to you by Neoliberal Ideology which has made the rich richer, the poor poorer, and continues to restrict democratic rights and freedoms.
This is not the world predicted in the 1970s. — charleton
And what is this idly looping? What is the nature behind all the looping? What does this tell us about what it means to be human, about life, about humanity as whole? Are the projects/programs something to quickly queue up in memory so to execute post haste or does the idling have any merit? — schopenhauer1
"In the slaughterhouse that morning, I watched the cattle being led to their death. Almost every animal, at the last moment, refused to move forward. To make them do so, a man hit them on the hind legs. This scene often comes to mind when, ejected from sleep, I lack the strength to confront the daily torture of Time." — Emil Cioran,
Also, I know you don't like the idea of a mind as a computer- but what is your best analogy if there is one? If not neural networks, what would you use? Is there any appropriate analogy or is the brain's mechanism of a category original and ontologically different? — schopenhauer1
But what of the distribution of resources? What would make people, en masse, NOT do the 8 hour work day? — schopenhauer1
Julio Cabrera sees this idle behavior as ultimately negative - the authentic decision to commit to projects and whatnot is an onerous reaction of disgust. Every sequences of positive instance that comes from our own initiative is preceded by this gathering-of-oneself: — darthbarracuda
A window would be a better analogy, in my opinion. Dasein is the "opening" from which Being is understood, including its value. — darthbarracuda
Too expensive? No. For one thing the UBI or GBI would replace other welfare programs. For present day single welfare recipients without children, UBI would represent an increase in their standard of living. The UBI or GBI, like welfare payments, would flow back into the economy almost immediately. Buying food, clothing, and shelter would use up most of the payment. Government spending of this sort stimulates the economy (or helps support the economy) because it buys goods and services.
It isn't necessary now for many people to work an 8 hour day. 8 hours has become, in many cases, a convention. Managers figure that a worker will spend 8 hours per day at their task. Workers figure that if they do their job In 6 hours, they'll just get more work, or they'll be dropped down to part-time. But a lot of jobs can actually be dome in less time than is spent.
Of course some jobs don't work that way. A waiter In a restaurant can't serve customers until they arrive. Actors in a play can't say their limes all at once and leave early. (Hmmm, perhaps an interesting play could be written where characters come on stage one at a time, say all their limes, then depart--leaving the audience to surmise who was telling the truth.) A lot of jobs do space out work on an unpredictable basis. But production workers (whether it's paper production or widget production) can be done at variable speeds. — Bitter Crank
Paying out $2000 a month to millions of people is economically feasible ($24,000 a year is not a large income for one person) because most of it would still be spent on goods and services immediately, but it becomes a steeper political challenge. Legislators would probably feel that $24,000 a year for nothing just would not entail enough suffering on the part of recipients.
But let me remind you again, this proposal came from conservative economists, not closet communists. They understood that money spent by the government on individuals across the board would come back to the government by way of greater income for companies supplying basic needs, and then the taxes on their profits. — Bitter Crank
The thing about the UBI, or an advanced economy anywhere, is that if one lives simply one wouldn't have to work so much. But living simply is hard -- the cultural code doesn't encourage it. Even simpler living is viewed as something of a pathology. There are barriers put I'm the way. — Bitter Crank
How about the relation to work itself? I guess here's my problem. — schopenhauer1
I realize that's a whole book — Moliere
Not so straightforward as "what humans really want out of life". There is some structure that humans want. It's in the background. It just happens that the result is what we now have -- jobs, goods, recreation, buildings, material possessions. If you want to change human habits, you need to change that "structure", whatever that may be. (And now we are speaking about humans as if we're not of the same composition!)Do you think the modern business dynamic is just a natural outgrowth of what humans really want out of life? — schopenhauer1
Not so straightforward as "what humans really want out of life". There is some structure that humans want. It's in the background. It just happens that the result is what we now have -- jobs, goods, recreation, buildings, material possessions. If you want to change human habits, you need to change that "structure", whatever that may be. (And now we are speaking about humans as if we're not of the same composition!) — Caldwell
Yes, actually that is what I'm getting at. What do we humans have to do en masse to change the structure and thus change the habits? — schopenhauer1
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