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IME a very quick way to turn something you enjoy into something you loathe.
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I’m a biologist working on increasing the accessibility of pharmaceuticals and it’s totally my dream job!
There are days that I’m not exactly happy to be at work, but I can’t imagine how selfish and lazy I would feel if I gave it all up pursue nothing other than my own comfort.
Why does someone have to be productive/profitable to not be selfish and lazy?
Because my “productivity” as you call it directly benefits the health and happiness of those around me. Likewise, it is impossible for you to eat modern food, live in a house, and go on the internet without directly benefiting from the labor of others.
I think it is, by definition, selfish to benefit from the labor of others without giving anything in return, if it’s at all possible for you to do so. You clearly have the mental and physical capacity to argue with internet strangers, and therefore you have the mental and physical capacity to carry out at least some labor.
I think our disagreement is that I feel work is not the same as labor.
I have been unemployed for about 4 years, as I took time off to raise my child. I am an active member of my community, I cook, I clean, I care for my daughter. I think labeling everyone who doesn’t have a job as selfish and lazy is propaganda. I feel I provide a bigger benefit to the world now than l did when I had a job that was ultimately worthless.
The luxury of having good and fulfilling work shouldn’t be limited to those who have professions and education allowing for that. I reject the assertion that work and self worth should be applied to every situation. I feel that attitude quickly leads to thoughts like “they just work retail, they aren’t really doing anything!”
I never said giving up a job to raise children is not labour, or that it doesn’t count as contributing to society. I was criticizing people who want to give up work to do nothing
Is there anyone who wants to nothing?
I think we are so entrenched in capatalism that not working feels like doing nothing.
I am guessing you are not very familiar with the antiwork community as a whole, but there are plenty of young people who truly no aspirations about contributing to society.
There’s a whole rabbithole to go down on that front. There’s also the term NEET which refers to (usually young) people who are “not in education, employment, or training.”
In other words, people who do not work or better themselves and survive using a combination of welfare and living with their parents or friends.
There’s also a lot to criticize about people who purposely under-employ themselves, like the antiwork moderator who lived with her parents, had no degrees or training, and aspired to be a dogwalker for 10-15 hours a week. She technically worked, but used others as a crutch to avoid doing anything more than the bare minimum.
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I think you might be misunderstanding me.
I provide no “labor” I am unemployed. I feel my actions are not selfish or lazy. I was hoping to help people separate work from worth by showing an obvious example of worthwhile non-work.
Capitalism teaches us that our worth is directly correlated with our income. It is very possible to not want to work and not be lazy or selfish. The prioritizarion of money and material goods over experiences, family and community are real issues with capatalism. Even people who have professions that provide benefits to humanity can easily equate someone’s moral character to their profession.
I think it’s possible, easier even, to bring good into the world without what capatalism considers work.
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I didn’t have what it took to be successful in college despite everyone constantly telling me I was smart enough. Now I’m a forklift driver at a plastic factory. Should I feel badly that I don’t contribute more to society? I kinda feel like I should after reading your comment.
Not at all! I think it’s enough for everyone to contribute according to their abilities. You’re making a living using your skills instead of mooching off of others, and that’s more than a lot of people can say.
I also believe that the vast majority of work benefits human society in some way or another, even if it’s sometimes harder to see. As long as there isn’t a scalable alternative to plastic, people need it to meet their daily needs and standards, and you contribute to that directly.
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Yep, it doesn’t matter what your job is, no matter how undesirable you think your job is, someone does it for fun. Someone also does your fun as their job.
A job is something you do that someone WITH MONEY wants done, ON THEIR TERMS.
there are rare, lucky, exceptions to this.
My exception is my job is with others that unionized. So even tho we are only doing something that many someones with lots and of money want done, we’re able to skim a good deal of money off of it.
Yeah we all do labour. Did you make yourself something to eat? That’s labour!
I don’t dream of labor, I dream of service to others that allows me to exist without monetary concern.
Don’t spread this anti-capitalist propaganda about mutual aid and being kind and stuff. What are you? Are you an anarcho-communist of some kind?
Supply Side Jesus would be so disappointed in me
I dream of jobs that exist in a non-scarcity post-economic society, because those are wholly voluntary and fulfilling jobs that benefit the worker and society. And because I want to be in Starfleet and rail Orion broads on Risa.
Scarcity is relative and therefore will always exist. The value of the resources that an average person expects from their economic output is ever-increasing.
The average person living in North America 1,000 years ago would have been most concerned with the scarcity of food resources. 100 years ago North America was less concerned about food scarcity than the prior example, but orders of magnitude more concerned with the scarcity of goods relating to higher level needs: nice clothing, tools, quality living spaces, etc. Today, concern about the latter is partially replaced by even higher level needs: entertainment, technology, education, and luxuries. *(see bottom of comment)
This evolution in scarcity has been a consistently positive trend since at least the European renaissance, but I would personally argue that it started just after the fall of Rome (the last significant “market crash” in advanced civilization). If that continues, people in another 1,000 years could be most concerned about the scarcity of space flight vehicles or quantum computers, for all I know.
*My point here isn’t that nobody in North America is unable to meet their basic needs, just that the average person’s perception of what is scarce has changed over time on a societal scale. People never stopped feeling scarcity because their expectations have changed along with the availability of goods. There is no reason to believe that people will stop expecting better goods as society advances further and further.
I would argue that scarcity is a collective decision. If you go on like this, new technologies will produce new needs. The advertisement industry doesn’t make anything but creating needs.
Still this isn’t true for every society. There are for example hunter gatherers who do stuff that might count as working for maybe 2-3 hours a day. The rest is chilling, gossip, music, dance and hanging out. Others have a very strict hierarchy and try hard to create and acquire and manage status symbols and other goods and even slaves.
If hunter gatherers can decide either way, so can we. We need to change the social and economic system so it’s not easy but neither is it impossible.
based and leftpilled
As a socialist, this nonstop socialist circle jerk is ruining Lemmy.
What about like astronaut?
