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[Lagslayer]

Relevant reading material, even though it's fiction.

Read the whole story, and found myself most creeped out by that "utopia". All it would take is for one guy to figure the system out and take control of everyone simultaneously (a guy that just wants to dominate everyone for kicks). Even if their minds could not be controlled directly as they said, all that would need to be done is to plant a false image and sensations into the brain and then just assume all bodily functions. It all hinges on the robots, which can still easily be controlled. It's like being hooked up to the matrix; you don't know it's happening and so you don't even care. Even the people themselves can be directly manipulated. It's how charismatic people rise to positions of power in the first place.

Then there's the people who can't seem to fit in and have to be "re-trained".

Besides, conflicts are part of the basic human experience. To take it all away like that is... unnatural.



edits: adding stuff. The more I think about it, the less I like the idea. Maybe I should just turn my body off and live in my fantasy world program...

[Drunken]

On the subject of laziness, and its nonexistance, there is also another factor that people often miss. The feeling of achievement can be easily and strongly achieved as a sense of community achievement. Let me put it this way, I love computer games, one of my favourite games is Dwarf fortress. If Toady created a development studio to develop the game, someone would need to clean the toilets and vacuum the floors. If that was my job, every time a great new release of DF came out I would feel a sense of personal accomplishment that the world was now a richer place for it. My work helped make it possible, mundane though it is. On the other hand if I were working for mcdonalds or haliburton, cleaning the toilets and the floors, I would last about a month before I offed myself or went on a rampage. If you extrapolate this to society at large, it is easy to see why some people might not want to do mundane jobs. Basically in modern society you are contributing to the luxuries of the super rich, the consumption of unneeded and meaningless possessions by society at large, and the bombing of impoverished foreign villages. It is no wonder depression is rife and no one wants to work. If we had a society that was trying to better itself and its members, and to explore the universe, then people would love their jobs regardless of what they were doing. Another great example is the fact that growing plants is seen as a bad job to have, gardening and farming and such, and yet those people who (by reputation) are the laziest on earth, pot smokers, love to grow pot. Have you ever talked to a marijuana grower about their plants? It goes way beyond job satisfaction. It is like talking to a mother about her children. So it is not what you do, but why it needs to be done that gives satisfaction.

[Lagslayer]

Then I thought about the drug cartels.

Not that your main point has no merit, just that it seems like a poor example.

[Drunken]

Yeah I was talking about smokers who grow their own. Drug cartels are a whole other ball game. I don't think many people in the cartels have any real job satisfaction. The motivation is very different.

[Lagslayer]

Ah, thanks for the clarification.

[SalmonGod]

I almost completely agree Drunken, and it's a large part of what I was saying.  We resent work because we don't work for the sake of what our work produces.  We work to justify our survival through the abstract imaginary number game of currency.  Our job description is not actually our job.  No matter what we actually do, our job is to make money, and we don't even receive most of the money that we make.  Of course it breeds resentment and a poisoning of work ethic.  These experiences are what people think of when they hear the word "work".  It's completely different when "work" means getting together with community on equal terms to directly improve each other's lives.

[Lord Dullard]

I've been reading this, and I think it's rather relevant to the topic:

In Praise of Idleness
By Bertrand Russell
http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

Modern technique has made it possible to diminish enormously the amount of labor required to secure the necessaries of life for everyone. This was made obvious during the war. At that time all the men in the armed forces, and all the men and women engaged in the production of munitions, all the men and women engaged in spying, war propaganda, or Government offices connected with the war, were withdrawn from productive occupations. In spite of this, the general level of well-being among unskilled wage-earners on the side of the Allies was higher than before or since. The significance of this fact was concealed by finance: borrowing made it appear as if the future was nourishing the present. But that, of course, would have been impossible; a man cannot eat a loaf of bread that does not yet exist. The war showed conclusively that, by the scientific organization of production, it is possible to keep modern populations in fair comfort on a small part of the working capacity of the modern world. If, at the end of the war, the scientific organization, which had been created in order to liberate men for fighting and munition work, had been preserved, and the hours of the week had been cut down to four, all would have been well. Instead of that the old chaos was restored, those whose work was demanded were made to work long hours, and the rest were left to starve as unemployed. Why? Because work is a duty, and a man should not receive wages in proportion to what he has produced, but in proportion to his virtue as exemplified by his industry.

This is the morality of the Slave State, applied in circumstances totally unlike those in which it arose. No wonder the result has been disastrous. Let us take an illustration. Suppose that, at a given moment, a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day. Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacturing of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralizing. The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work. There is, in the end, just as much leisure as on the other plan, but half the men are totally idle while half are still overworked. In this way, it is insured that the unavoidable leisure shall cause misery all round instead of being a universal source of happiness. Can anything more insane be imagined?

[Lagslayer]

A perfectly valid conclusion, if your priorities support it. The thing is, that happiness isn't everything. People want to gain power and influence. It's in our DNA, otherwise we would still be hunter-gatherers. Happiness is important, but there is also a great deal of glory to be had. Perhaps some sort of balance. An 8 hour workweek for the typical adult, whatever that work happens to be, and enough jobs for everyone (if we can't find a use for labor, then something has gone horribly, horribly wrong). At least that's my take on it.

[kaijyuu]

People want to gain power and influence. It's in our DNA, otherwise we would still be hunter-gatherers. Happiness is important, but there is also a great deal of glory to be had.

What's the point of "glory" if it doesn't result in happiness (or one of its various synonyms)?

As for "what's in our DNA," not everything we have instincts for should be indulged in (in real life, anyway). If we want glory, well, that's what Starcraft league rankings are for.

[Lagslayer]

People want to gain power and influence. It's in our DNA, otherwise we would still be hunter-gatherers. Happiness is important, but there is also a great deal of glory to be had.

What's the point of "glory" if it doesn't result in happiness (or one of its various synonyms)?

As for "what's in our DNA," not everything we have instincts for should be indulged in (in real life, anyway). If we want glory, well, that's what Starcraft league rankings are for.

What's the point of happiness if you only live to be 35?

As for glory, some people want to have a real impact. To increase the longevity and influence of the human race or themselves. To be remembered for their accomplishments after they are gone. it's about what you want out of your life, not about what is "inherently" right or wrong.

[kaijyuu]

I don't think happiness has an inverse relationship with lifespan. Not until you get into the extremes, anyway.

And there will always be problems to solve that glory seeking people can tackle. Cure cancer. Make strides in a new energy revolution. Those are things they can do today, and who knows what we'll face in the future.

[Truean]

Seconded....
....

You wanna know what the real problem is and why all this crap about "productivity" is complete and total bullshit, an absolutely bad joke? Productivity isn't rewarded in work. It's punished. That's right, punished, absolutely and completely in every sense of the word:

1.) Let's say you work in department A, which does something.
2.) You, as a worker, figure out a revolutionary way to do something incredibly faster, cheaper, better. Your idea is fucking stupendous, mind blowingly amazing. It is god damn genius, revolutionary....
3.) You'd expect to get a reward for this cost and labor saving productivity idea you created. After all, the bullshit we're fed is to "be productive," right?
4.) The department is deemed "redundant," and closed, to be merged with another department as a minor task using your new system.... Your boss takes credit for the idea and credits his or her "leadership."
5.) Congratulations, your reward is unemployment for yourself and all your co workers..... Your boss' stock price just went up 1/4 of a point though. He'll forget by next Tuesday, never giving you real credit any thought.

This really happened to a friend of mine who worked in a warehouse doing inventory control. It was an inventory monitoring system he thought up. His idea saved the company $100,000/year in lost inventory time, etc. His boss found a way to save the company $130,000/year by stealing his idea and firing my friend, and possibly more by firing others for the hell of it.... He has no legal recourse, because his idea is "company property" thought up on the job....

That's right, if you actually solve the problem you were hired to solve, you get fired.... But, don't worry you'll find a job doing "something else...." Nobody ever tells you what that is.... Merit? Productivity? Bullshit....

[Drunken]

A perfectly valid conclusion, if your priorities support it. The thing is, that happiness isn't everything. People want to gain power and influence. It's in our DNA, otherwise we would still be hunter-gatherers. Happiness is important, but there is also a great deal of glory to be had. Perhaps some sort of balance. An 8 hour workweek for the typical adult, whatever that work happens to be, and enough jobs for everyone (if we can't find a use for labor, then something has gone horribly, horribly wrong). At least that's my take on it.

All the points you make are correct, but I dispute the conclusion. You use the word glory, I am interpreting that as the general idea of recognition, correct me if I misunderstood. The difference in our conclusions I think stems from the assumption that not working means not being productive. This is not strictly the case, and my hypothesis is that the opposite is true. This desire for recognition and accomplishment will drive all people in one way or another, and in many cases I believe it will drive them to accomplish great things. The only difference between our current system and a system with an 8 hour working week is that the great things would be accomplished during unpaid time. Anyone who has a dream of accomplishing something in the current system, has to earn money to live and therefore must work. The odds of getting a job in a position that allows you to pursue that dream while working. Most people try to work on these things in between work, and that is very restrictive. I speak from personal experience - I work towards my dreams whilst unemployed, but progress stops when I get a job. I would stay unemployed forever but that means my wife has to work under slavery conditions just to pay the bills and that is not ok. Given the time and resources by my society there is a significant chance that my contributions toward my goals could become economically viable and even profitable, but not when they are in the initial dream state, and it takes time and work to get them out of that.

tl;dr I hypothesise that a reduction in the working week would result in a golden age of art, science and innovation. I believe this because humans are instinctively driven to be productive.

[bombzero]

-snip-

hmph, welcome to life, its shit like this that killed any respect I had for the human race. I see maybe one person that wouldn't step on everyone around them to get ahead out of every several thousand people in the world.

[kaijyuu]

Not sure what else you might expect when our economic system is essentially playing king of the hill. Only the hill is made of people.