I mean… probably originally, but that’s not all that it is, nowadays. Some people really do unironically mean the former, in that sub on the social network that shall not be named (though I haven’t checked it for… hrm, almost a year now!:-P).
I can’t speak for living like a king but we were able to recently confirmed again the whole lazy proletariat myth is a capitalist fiction. During the COVID-19 lockdown we had furloughed workers with a perfect opportunity to just lounge for months, and they just couldn’t. Healthy adults just can’t couch potato and watch TV for two weeks. When they try, they get cabin fever and start leaning how to widdle whittle wood into bear sculptures. The Great Resignation was driven partially by lockdown hobbies that became lucrative,
I, personally, can couch-potato out for weeks, but at my worst, I have slept for months, getting up only to eat and excrete. I didn’t sleep always; sometimes I’d lie there awake but my inertia would be so great I couldn’t lift a hand. This is avolition a symptom of mental illness, such as major depression. When doctors noticed that I can make like a log for almost a year, I was diagnosed and qualify for disability.
When all your workers are lethargic or crabby or stealing all the nitrous canisters, maybe your workplace is toxic. Maybe the managers aren’t actually managing but acting like children who need to be handled. Or maybe you’re not paying them enough to get out of precarity, which is a major cause of chronic mental illness like major depression.
You mean that sub that saw a huge surge in subscribers, increased bad faith actors, and general chaos ahead of the infamous mod schism that shredded any credibility that might have been hanging on?
As someone who watched it happen in real time, no one will ever be able to convince me that all of that was a coincidence.
Um… you probably meant the latter, as in the second one, right? Eating Doritos while slaves do all the hard work - presuming we aren’t talking about non-sentient robots but actual people - sounds kinda selfish to me:-P.
Edit: to clarify, I’m down with the live like a King 👑 and eat Doritos 🔺 parts, it’s only the pesky slavery 🤕 part that I’m against!
Oh man, so very many movies would disagree with you there. “I, Robot” and “Terminator” come to mind, and “The Matrix”. But perhaps most important: “Wall-E”, as in those fat fuckers sat down and simply… never stood up again. (yeah, you can tell I am old from my selection:-D)
Don’t get me wrong, Doritos are effing delicious! But also, we need some amount of balance in our lives to help make them worth living. What we gain in comfort there, we lose in autonomy, and that’s not a trade-off I would willingly make, even if I could. I mean, I’m not insane - or Amish - I use technology and I enjoy comfort, but I also value the ability to give something back to society through my work.
What e.g. “made America great” (in the 50-60s) was that people’s work would get them something in return for it - a house, a family, college education for their kids, etc. - as opposed to today where other than rent work only buys the ability to purchase barely some food & weed, and many people have lost all hope of ever owning their own home, or getting healthcare.:-( I get it - that’s beyond fucked up. But what that means is that something was stolen from us (autonomy & freedom), not given (comfort & ease, e.g. look at Google search).
TLDR: When we become reliant upon the machines, that’s when they own us rather than the other way around.
we need some amount of balance in our lives to help make them worth living. What we gain in comfort there, we lose in autonomy,
Is it really inherently a reduction in autonomy to remove compulsory labor from society using automation? Why? IMO the whole, spend your life in a job and get the American Dream in exchange thing, is not really freedom and is not much of a choice, even when the work to reward ratio is favorable. Being able to actually choose how your time is spent beyond picking between various jobs which all require you to live the same general sort of on-rails lifestyle could ideally mean a lot more autonomy than we’ve ever had, and there’s no reason I can see to think the result would have to be a bland culture of Wall-E style consumerist vacationers. Our imagination of leisure is defined by its nature as a brief reprieve from working life. Why should we be limited to that, if we had space to grow past it?
I mean… probably originally, but that’s not all that it is, nowadays. Some people really do unironically mean the former, in that sub on the social network that shall not be named (though I haven’t checked it for… hrm, almost a year now!:-P).
I can’t speak for living like a king but we were able to recently confirmed again the whole lazy proletariat myth is a capitalist fiction. During the COVID-19 lockdown we had furloughed workers with a perfect opportunity to just lounge for months, and they just couldn’t. Healthy adults just can’t couch potato and watch TV for two weeks. When they try, they get cabin fever and start leaning how to
widdlewhittle wood into bear sculptures. The Great Resignation was driven partially by lockdown hobbies that became lucrative,I, personally, can couch-potato out for weeks, but at my worst, I have slept for months, getting up only to eat and excrete. I didn’t sleep always; sometimes I’d lie there awake but my inertia would be so great I couldn’t lift a hand. This is avolition a symptom of mental illness, such as major depression. When doctors noticed that I can make like a log for almost a year, I was diagnosed and qualify for disability.
When all your workers are lethargic or crabby or stealing all the nitrous canisters, maybe your workplace is toxic. Maybe the managers aren’t actually managing but acting like children who need to be handled. Or maybe you’re not paying them enough to get out of precarity, which is a major cause of chronic mental illness like major depression.
“Whittle.”
Barring some hobbies both risky and risque.
Work as capitalism defines it is alienating. I am very much against unfulfilling drudgery.
You mean that sub that saw a huge surge in subscribers, increased bad faith actors, and general chaos ahead of the infamous mod schism that shredded any credibility that might have been hanging on?
As someone who watched it happen in real time, no one will ever be able to convince me that all of that was a coincidence.
I do feel like the former or something close to it should be our goal as a society.
Um… you probably meant the latter, as in the second one, right? Eating Doritos while slaves do all the hard work - presuming we aren’t talking about non-sentient robots but actual people - sounds kinda selfish to me:-P.
Edit: to clarify, I’m down with the live like a King 👑 and eat Doritos 🔺 parts, it’s only the pesky slavery 🤕 part that I’m against!
Lol, I did mean the former, but yes, I was imagining automation/etc taking over the role of most jobs.
Best I can do is bad AI art and music to take away the hobbies of a lot of people and to stop paying people who do that for a living.
Oh man, so very many movies would disagree with you there. “I, Robot” and “Terminator” come to mind, and “The Matrix”. But perhaps most important: “Wall-E”, as in those fat fuckers sat down and simply… never stood up again. (yeah, you can tell I am old from my selection:-D)
Don’t get me wrong, Doritos are effing delicious! But also, we need some amount of balance in our lives to help make them worth living. What we gain in comfort there, we lose in autonomy, and that’s not a trade-off I would willingly make, even if I could. I mean, I’m not insane - or Amish - I use technology and I enjoy comfort, but I also value the ability to give something back to society through my work.
What e.g. “made America great” (in the 50-60s) was that people’s work would get them something in return for it - a house, a family, college education for their kids, etc. - as opposed to today where other than rent work only buys the ability to purchase barely some food & weed, and many people have lost all hope of ever owning their own home, or getting healthcare.:-( I get it - that’s beyond fucked up. But what that means is that something was stolen from us (autonomy & freedom), not given (comfort & ease, e.g. look at Google search).
TLDR: When we become reliant upon the machines, that’s when they own us rather than the other way around.
Is it really inherently a reduction in autonomy to remove compulsory labor from society using automation? Why? IMO the whole, spend your life in a job and get the American Dream in exchange thing, is not really freedom and is not much of a choice, even when the work to reward ratio is favorable. Being able to actually choose how your time is spent beyond picking between various jobs which all require you to live the same general sort of on-rails lifestyle could ideally mean a lot more autonomy than we’ve ever had, and there’s no reason I can see to think the result would have to be a bland culture of Wall-E style consumerist vacationers. Our imagination of leisure is defined by its nature as a brief reprieve from working life. Why should we be limited to that, if we had space to grow past it?