I recommend people watch Japan A story of love and hate (
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x56bwzc) which, aside from being a great look at Japan, epitomizes the absurdity of exchanging our time for a salary that increasingly fails to cover the cost to live and leaves us without free time. 30,000 Japanese kill themselves each year due to work related stress.
Great quote from the doc:
Naoki:"You (the West) game me this f*cking Capitalist system 100 years ago..."
Cameramen: "And now you're rich"
Naoki: "Is this rich...is this a good system?"
I hope - and expect - that one day offices are viewed in the same way we view the factories of the early industrial age: prisons of drudgery and misery.
I'm not naive, civilization and its innumerable benefits (like actually being able to live past 65) has a cost. But the notion that sitting in traffic each morning to reach a room where one stares into a screen for 9 hours - every day, for 40 odd years - is desirable is the greatest con capitalism has ever pulled.
Great quote from the doc:
Naoki:"You (the West) game me this f*cking Capitalist system 100 years ago..."
Cameramen: "And now you're rich"
Naoki: "Is this rich...is this a good system?"
I hope - and expect - that one day offices are viewed in the same way we view the factories of the early industrial age: prisons of drudgery and misery.
I'm not naive, civilization and its innumerable benefits (like actually being able to live past 65) has a cost. But the notion that sitting in traffic each morning to reach a room where one stares into a screen for 9 hours - every day, for 40 odd years - is desirable is the greatest con capitalism has ever pulled.