Why is working *less* a vision of utopia?

[RavenSky]

Some people currently earn nice livings by writing books, painting pictures or running around the block. Why don't those count as meaningful work (with or without pay) in your mind?

I wasn't suggesting those things weren't meaningful, I was trying to suggest that passive hobbies wouldn't be a reliable way to spend one's whole life.

Now if you made a career out of writing books or some other form of art, then it's not a passive hobby and would move back into the realm of doing work.

What is the difference? (besides money)

 

[rousseau]

I wasn't suggesting those things weren't meaningful, I was trying to suggest that passive hobbies wouldn't be a reliable way to spend one's whole life.

Now if you made a career out of writing books or some other form of art, then it's not a passive hobby and would move back into the realm of doing work.

What is the difference? (besides money)

The examples I used weren't really relevant, I was trying to make a distinction between taking on responsibility and not taking on any responsibility.

The gist was that having responsibility forces you to do things and acts as an outlet.

 

[ryan]

Over the past few months I've read a few quotes and discussions about people who predicted that technology will eventually become so advanced that people won't *have* to work. We could feasibly have very short work weeks, if not, not work at all, and have technology take care of the hard stuff. Years ago I would have thought that this was a reasonable goal, but these days I'm not so sure, at least to a degree.

To put it simply, it comes back to the old saying: happiness comes from something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for. When you look at people as a biological system we're energy consumers who ideally need to expend as much energy as we intake. So in our natural state we have to do things, we have to do energetic work, whether that work is obligatory or not. And so it would seem that eliminating the need for things to do is actually counter-productive to our natural state.

Take the idea to the extreme and imagine that no one at all worked. Just think about how much free time we would have to spend, and how much time we'd have to spend doing pointless things just to move around a bit.

And so I think the reality of a happy, or happier life, happens when people find a good balance between work and free time, not have nothing but free time.

I totally disagree. And I am actually saddened to read this.

The problem is that people like my dad who worked all his life and does not know himself or what his interests are don't know what they want to do. My dad essentially does not know what he enjoys because his whole life he worked. My parents are retired, but they don't seem to do very much. But this can be dealt with.

When I was severely depressed, my psychologists and psychiatrists constantly drilled it into my head that I need to find more interests. It really sucked at first because I hated almost everything I tried. But one by one, I started realizing a whole new world of interests. It changed my life, but unfortunately I don't have the money or time to be doing them.

People can find all kinds of things to do. Automated systems will give us a choice in what we want to work on.

Here's a list of things that I wish I had more time and resources to do:

- travel the world and spend as much time as possible learning the culture, seeing the random sights, and just being a part of a foreign society.

- meet new people and hear their stories

- learn a few languages

- learn as much history, physics, math, computer programming, computer science, etc. as possible

- cook amazing meals for supper everyday (the recipes are expensive and complicated but are absolutely thrilling to eat!)

- work on an old car and make it look brand new

- screenwriting in hopes of seeing it make it to the big screen

- write a novel

- play more tennis and golf

- try paining, acting, rally racing, drifting

- I have always wanted to canoe across Canada

- read more novels, watch more movies, play video games, etc.

- build a small habitat in my house for sugar gliders (I loved my sugar glider; he was actually a lot of work)

I have a friend who hasn't had to work in 10 years. He's only 38 now. He always calls me from some city while doing something interesting and fun. I see him doing these things, and it is as good as one would think it could be.

 

[RavenSky]

What is the difference? (besides money)

The examples I used weren't really relevant, I was trying to make a distinction between taking on responsibility and not taking on any responsibility.

The gist was that having responsibility forces you to do things and acts as an outlet.

Are you suggesting that the only way to have responsibility, and thereby be "forced" to do stuff, is by working for pay? Because that has not been my personal experience. I volunteer for various organizations because they involve issues that interest me. In the act of volunteering, I am making commitments that I have a responsibility to keep... I am "forced" to do stuff because I gave my word I would. How is this any less worthy than if I were being paid to do it and called it my job?

 

[Nexus]

I was trying to suggest that passive hobbies wouldn't be a reliable way to spend one's whole life.

What do you mean by reliable? That word doesn't make sense in the context of your sentence. For instance if you car isn't reliable it might break down leaving you stranded. If you refrigerator isn't reliable your food may spoil etc. What are the negatives if your "life is spent" unreliably?

 

[rousseau]

I was trying to suggest that passive hobbies wouldn't be a reliable way to spend one's whole life.

What do you mean by reliable? That word doesn't make sense in the context of your sentence. For instance if you car isn't reliable it might break down leaving you stranded. If you refrigerator isn't reliable your food may spoil etc. What are the negatives if your "life is spent" unreliably?

What I've been getting at in this thread is that people actually need to expend as much energy as they intake. Previously I said: expend energy. What I meant was: expend enough energy to counter-balance energy intake. That is literally how the body works. We're not meant to be passive, we're not meant to not do things, and doing nothing is actually pretty unhealthy for us.

So if we had a very small amount to do, and no real outlet for our energies, negatives could be: depression, fatigue, weight gain, psychological problems, etc.

 

[Metaphor]

We would all be idle if we could.

I don't have the writing prowess to express how forcefully I disagree with the OP.

If work were wonderful, no-one would ever have fought for a 40 hour workweek. But work is not wonderful, for the majority of workers everywhere in the world. It's something to be done so you can fund the things that are intrinsically enjoyable.

If I won the lottery, I freely confess I'd throw the towel in with my job, even though by world standards it's interesting well compensated work. I'd then do whatever I wanted all day (which would probably be to write the pilot episode of a long running beloved sitcom and sit back and count the royalty cheques).

Once upon a time, running a household was a dawn-to-dusk, physically gruelling nightmare. There is psychological value in having a clean toilet. There is no psychological value in having to clean it.

 

[Nexus]

So if we had a very small amount to do, and no real outlet for our energies, negatives could be: depression, fatigue, weight gain, psychological problems, etc.

You're back to using new-age "energy". You have repeatedly said hobbies and leisure can't be a "real" outlet for our energies. You said it would lead to an unreliable life. You're using words in the vaguest sense to say people would be unhappy unless forced to do something they don't like to survive. Yet haven't demonstrated why.

 

[rousseau]

So if we had a very small amount to do, and no real outlet for our energies, negatives could be: depression, fatigue, weight gain, psychological problems, etc.

You're back to using new-age "energy". You have repeatedly said hobbies and leisure can't be a "real" outlet for our energies. You said it would lead to an unreliable life. You're using words in the vaguest sense to say people would be unhappy unless forced to do something they don't like to survive. Yet haven't demonstrated why.

I'm not using energy in a new-age sense. I mean exactly what energy means. People have to consume energy to survive, and to maintain balance they also have to use it.

A post I wrote above mentions a happier medium, that people don't necessarily need to be *forced* to do work, but the problem is that people aren't doing the work that they want to be doing. I still assert that people need to do work, and enough work to maintain internal equilibrium. I'll admit that could be done in theoretical land if nobody had any real responsibility, but I think it would be very hard.

 

[Metaphor]

You're back to using new-age "energy". You have repeatedly said hobbies and leisure can't be a "real" outlet for our energies. You said it would lead to an unreliable life. You're using words in the vaguest sense to say people would be unhappy unless forced to do something they don't like to survive. Yet haven't demonstrated why.

I'm not using energy in a new-age sense. I mean exactly what energy means. People have to consume energy to survive, and to maintain balance they also have to use it.

A post I wrote above mentions a happier medium, that people don't necessarily need to be *forced* to do work, but the problem is that people aren't doing the work that they want to be doing. I still assert that people need to do work, and enough work to maintain internal equilibrium. I'll admit that could be done in theoretical land if nobody had any real responsibility, but I think it would be very hard.

What the hell is 'internal equilibrium'?

If you are talking about calories in versus calories out, then a world where people consume fine food and then go to the gym to get aesthetically pleasing bodies, then that is a better world where people have to work.

 

[ksen]

I just . . . wat

 

[Unbeatable]

Okay, so people need to do "work" in the physical sense of "expending energy". This is a need imposed upon them by their own biology(which, given sufficient knowledge, we could eventually alter).

In the vision of utopia where people don't need to do work, the type of "work" they don't need to do is in the economic sense of "performing tasks they don't necessary enjoy or want to do for fear of deprivation of physical resources needed to avoid dying in a fucking gutter".

The latter is a subset of the former, not a synonym. It seems to have more to do with satisfying Maslow's hierarchy than anything else, although it can, optionally, also fulfill higher levels.

 

[Archimedes]

So if we had a very small amount to do, and no real outlet for our energies, negatives could be: depression, fatigue, weight gain, psychological problems, etc.

Exercise is good for you. If that's what you wanted to say, then the OP and subsequent posts you made seem to be a very odd way of going about it.

 

[Axulus]

I get paid to provide software support. I don't enjoy it much - and I don't hate it much (or at least, not often).

In my spare time, I brew beer.

I pay quite a lot for equipment and ingredients for brewing. There is lots of brewing equipment I would like, but can't afford; So if I want that stuff, I have to raise money for it. I can do this by working as a support engineer; I am debarred by law from even attempting to do this by selling beer - which is a shame, because I could make about $4 a litre of pure profit if I sold my beer for half what the local bottle-shop sells similar beer for.

Of course, I could apply for a license; but then I would need a much larger scale operation to cover the cost of the license, and the excise duty charged on the finished product. I don't want a larger scale operation; I don't want to employ staff, and find distributors and do all the other crap that small businesses do. I want to brew beer, in small lots, and perhaps sell some of what I make to my friends to cover some of my costs.

I could get a job at a microbrewery - or even at a big brewery (there are two in town); but I wouldn't be doing what I want to do, which is experimenting with recipes, and producing nice beer for parties, on my own terms, and to my own timetable.

If I didn't have to work for an income - let's imagine I won the lottery, and have invested the winnings; and the capital is just sufficient to give me the same disposable income I have today, indefinitely - I would spend a lot more time brewing beer, and a lot less time staring at a computer screen. I would also spend a lot of time working on making my home nicer, doing odd repairs and improvements, keeping the yard neat, planting some nice vegetables and maybe a fruit tree or two; I might even have a go at growing some barley, and malting it myself. It would be fun.

I can't do these things, because I don't have the time, after spending 40 hours+ a week at work; and because I can't get the time without losing the money that makes these things possible.

If machines could do all the work, and the money they make by producing and selling the stuff we need could be distributed such that none of us need to work in order to get the income we need to live as I just described, then I would see that as a very significant improvement, if not necessarily utopia.

Sadly, when machines do the work, instead of everyone getting enough to live that way (covering our basic needs plus a few hobbies), a handful of people who happen to own the machines get enough income to buy private jets, multiple mansions, mega yachts, and all that crap, while still earning faster than they can spend. While the rest of us get laid off, and reduced to living off food stamps and unemployment insurance. I can't maintain my hobby on that level of income, and if I tried to spend my time on my hobbies in those circumstances, I would be lambasted as a moocher, and told I must spend all that new 'free' time looking for a job.

And what happens when the machines with the perfect calculations, using all the knowledge of human taste and drink experience, deterine the absolute best beer recipies and spit out the perfect brewing process, exceeding the capabilities of any independent brewer?

 

[Unbeatable]

The latter is a subset of the former, not a synonym. It seems to have more to do with satisfying Maslow's hierarchy than anything else, although it can, optionally, also fulfill higher levels.

I meant to say"satisfying the bottom two levels of Maslow's hierarchy". Mostly the bottom one. Less energy devoted to deficiency needs means more energy available for growth needs. But in today's society, how many people are psychologically prepared for a significantly less insecure existence?

 

[Unbeatable]

And what happens when the machines with the perfect calculations, using all the knowledge of human taste and drink experience, deterine the absolute best beer recipies and spit out the perfect brewing process, exceeding the capabilities of any independent brewer?

Chances are we'll be paper clips before that can happen.

 

[dx713]

If by "work", you (OP) just mean exercise, or take responsibilities, then I know nearly no one who doesn't.
Humans aren't wired like that.
Once you become invested in something, you want belonging and recognition (see Maslow hierarchy of needs). We're social animals.
Even people who would rather spend all their time playing video games, if you tell them that's really all they have to do in life, will eventually take responsibilities by wanting to start a blog, becoming a beta tester, creating a gamers club, or something like that. Plus one day, they will find they're too sluggish or have too many health problems and that impacts their gaming abilities and start an exercise regimen to complement their gaming lifestyle.
I've played music with a high-school dropout who was the hardest working drummer I ever met, despite his reputation of lazyness in his family and school friends.
But I don't understand the aim of the OP in that case - it's not like you have to say that people need to get to work, they'll be doing it naturaly.

On the other hand, if you agree that the definition of work is what we have to do for money (it clearly is in French, "travail" coming from a latin word for torture), I fully disagree with the OP, for the reasons explained above.
I don't know a lot of people who would be worse if the got an early retirement - as long as you let the ones passionate about their current job stay in it.

The only case where I see mandatory "work" valid is with children: children are in the age of best brain plasticity, and tend to live in the present without believing much in plans for the future, so it's the parents or society duty to keep their future options open by making them work at their education.

 

[Unbeatable]

I totally disagree. And I am actually saddened to read this.

The problem is that people like my dad who worked all his life and does not know himself or what his interests are don't know what they want to do. My dad essentially does not know what he enjoys because his whole life he worked. My parents are retired, but they don't seem to do very much. But this can be dealt with.

Amazing. A topic with "utopia" in the title where I actually agree with you. Indeed, it stands to reason that a person is going to "need" work if work is the only life they know, if they've failed to properly develop the parts of themselves that would thrive under different circumstances. A person's inability to cope with having more free time isn't an indication that human beings are unsuited for more free time; it's an indication that rigid lifestyles breed rigid minds, and that the process of adapting one's mind to a different lifestyle may require a period of adjustment which can go awry, and which is probably more likely to go awry in a culture of "work for a living or you will literally die" than in a utopia where work is optional.

 

[bilby]

I get paid to provide software support. I don't enjoy it much - and I don't hate it much (or at least, not often).

In my spare time, I brew beer.

I pay quite a lot for equipment and ingredients for brewing. There is lots of brewing equipment I would like, but can't afford; So if I want that stuff, I have to raise money for it. I can do this by working as a support engineer; I am debarred by law from even attempting to do this by selling beer - which is a shame, because I could make about $4 a litre of pure profit if I sold my beer for half what the local bottle-shop sells similar beer for.

Of course, I could apply for a license; but then I would need a much larger scale operation to cover the cost of the license, and the excise duty charged on the finished product. I don't want a larger scale operation; I don't want to employ staff, and find distributors and do all the other crap that small businesses do. I want to brew beer, in small lots, and perhaps sell some of what I make to my friends to cover some of my costs.

I could get a job at a microbrewery - or even at a big brewery (there are two in town); but I wouldn't be doing what I want to do, which is experimenting with recipes, and producing nice beer for parties, on my own terms, and to my own timetable.

If I didn't have to work for an income - let's imagine I won the lottery, and have invested the winnings; and the capital is just sufficient to give me the same disposable income I have today, indefinitely - I would spend a lot more time brewing beer, and a lot less time staring at a computer screen. I would also spend a lot of time working on making my home nicer, doing odd repairs and improvements, keeping the yard neat, planting some nice vegetables and maybe a fruit tree or two; I might even have a go at growing some barley, and malting it myself. It would be fun.

I can't do these things, because I don't have the time, after spending 40 hours+ a week at work; and because I can't get the time without losing the money that makes these things possible.

If machines could do all the work, and the money they make by producing and selling the stuff we need could be distributed such that none of us need to work in order to get the income we need to live as I just described, then I would see that as a very significant improvement, if not necessarily utopia.

Sadly, when machines do the work, instead of everyone getting enough to live that way (covering our basic needs plus a few hobbies), a handful of people who happen to own the machines get enough income to buy private jets, multiple mansions, mega yachts, and all that crap, while still earning faster than they can spend. While the rest of us get laid off, and reduced to living off food stamps and unemployment insurance. I can't maintain my hobby on that level of income, and if I tried to spend my time on my hobbies in those circumstances, I would be lambasted as a moocher, and told I must spend all that new 'free' time looking for a job.

And what happens when the machines with the perfect calculations, using all the knowledge of human taste and drink experience, deterine the absolute best beer recipies and spit out the perfect brewing process, exceeding the capabilities of any independent brewer?

What if they do? It is about what I, personally can do. I am not looking for perfection; I am looking for a way for me, as a brewer, to be better today than I was yesterday.

A perfect beer couldn't possibly compete.

 

[RavenSky]

Okay, so people need to do "work" in the physical sense of "expending energy". This is a need imposed upon them by their own biology(which, given sufficient knowledge, we could eventually alter).

In the vision of utopia where people don't need to do work, the type of "work" they don't need to do is in the economic sense of "performing tasks they don't necessary enjoy or want to do for fear of deprivation of physical resources needed to avoid dying in a fucking gutter".

The latter is a subset of the former, not a synonym. It seems to have more to do with satisfying Maslow's hierarchy than anything else, although it can, optionally, also fulfill higher levels.

Your reference to Maslow is spot on, in my opinion. Even though all of the talk about "energy expended" sounds more like the lowest level (physiological needs), I think Rousseau is trying to describe Maslow's "self-actualization" principle.

To that point, however, I maintain that a society wherein people did not have to work for money to meet the physiological needs would be a society freer to work towards self-actualization.