Memes

What I want to do with my time doesn't involve whoring my best years out to some asshole I'll probably never even meet.

I'm a programmer and would happily spend 8 hours doing it in my free time haha

It's nice to get paid to do something you enjoy. But it's still not as enjoyable as doing it for fun.

4 days of work, 3 days off would be a great start.

Such a rigid view of life man

Here's a crazy idea: decouple work from personal survival. People will work just as much, and live easier.

I love writing software. I write a fair amount of it, and upload it for free. And my experience is that the best way I've found of turning something you love into something you hate is to tie it to being something you have to do, and do by other people's rules. I only started liking writing code again when I moved into management and didn't have to write code for other people anymore. I was able to go back to doing it for pleasure.

So, yeah. In an ideal world, I'd be free to write and publish software, on my time. When I burned myself out, I'd switch to something else; home projects, setting up selfhost servers, maybe build a table. You can't do that when you're doing it for a living. Fuck if I know how we make that happen; I'm not an economist. And I think it's probably another couple of generations away before we could possibly get to a post-scarcity society - even assuming that we don't extinct ourselves, and that the people who could make it happen actually let it rather than greedily using it to enrich themselves.

Automation, clean energy; I think we're close to having the tech for post scarcity. I do believe this: if we freed people from defacto indentured servitude, they might turn into unproductive fat slobs like on Wall•E. Or they might become artists and artisans ushering in a new Renaissance. But I'm optimistic: we won't know until we try, and not trying because we have a low opinion of our fellow man is just callow.

this reads like a capitalist propaganda leaflet that falls out of the sky for you to read in the 1940s. what if I told you that you can have a functioning society that isn't predicted on exploitation of labor and doesn't require you to live like a hermit in the forest. you should read some Adam Smith or some shit if you're going to talk about labour division and specialization as if it's a good thing. you can laud it all you want, but Smith is very clear this is a system of masters and labourers where society is built on your masters giving you just enough rent so you can afford to pay another (or even the same) master back while you and the other laborers compete against each other in a labor market while the masters watch. he even warns if you divide too much, you end up with a pile of shit. we're there now. we're a pile of shit. nobody wants to work their meaningless job that was sold to them on this capitalist American dream thought up by a bunch of anglos from 1790.

Humans are social creatures and people of all strokes in the anti work movement wish to return to a less structured, communal version of labor and survival. Starting on the premise of "you're the last person in earth" is a non-starter. It's coming from the perspective of this toxic individualism that denies people's innate desire for community and connection to others.

I'm generalizing and opinions vary widely but I think this would be a fair summary. Most want to decouple labor from survival. It is inherently coercive to be denied food and shelter on the basis of being unwilling/unable to work. Most want to divide essential labor (farming, housing, transportation, sanitation, etc.) as evenly as possible among a given population to ensure everyone is fed, sheltered and healthy. I'd type more but I'm at work and don't have the time to go into further detail.

Here's more of the "why". As for how, I don't have a handy resource right this second but I'd be happy to talk more when I can. For further reading I'd recommend that you look into degrowth, solar punk, anti-work, anarchism/ libertarian socialism, mutual aid, UBI, and social ecology. They're all pieces of the puzzle

That's why ancient civilcations had slaves and we have bots. Yes, we are only half there. But we need to find a way, so the other half has to eat and a place to live until then.

Btw, if not for 2% possessing 90% of world wealth, average work week would be much shorter.

That's the lie of capitalism: "you can be anything you want! Just as long as what you want can be easily monetized and turned into a product, otherwise you're welcome to die in a ditch you leech."

I've done jobs I loved. I've been harassed, degraded, and threatened by bosses at each such job such that I suffered psychologically and eventually had to leave each job.

Doing the thing I love as a job, just destroyed my hobby for me

Yeah was going to say.. if you equate what you do with slavery, you prrrooobably aren't doing something you love.

Sometimes this is referred to as "grad school."

Sounds like the way to not hate your job is to be rich?

Yea but if you read into the fanfic you'll learn they all want to be cookie bakers and dogwalkers among other essential work