barnaclejive

This is one of the few non-self-focused views I have seen posted on this thread.

So many other people are jumping to discuss the topic in terms of other people like themselves or better off.

The "machine" is very much way more than superficial stuff.

Some gears in the machine are being set aside as non-functional, but the machine is so large that it still keeps "working" without those gears, and ignores the potential net-win if we cared enough to get them back in play.

It is like paying down technical debt. Sure, you can run your system as-is and pay the bills, but ideally you'd optimize for memory and CPU and pay less in the long-run. It is a hard problem to take on as we all know given other priorities and the perceived low cost of doing nothing about it right now.

Those gears are not RAM or CPU though, they are your fellow humans, and we need to act as such. I am sickened by by some of the comments here boiling this all down to an out-of-touch algorithmic and/or privileged viewpoint.

Mandelmus

blah blah blah. Stop. Think like a human capable of empathy and less like an algorithm for once. Society is not as simple as the hardest problem you have or will ever have to think about. And guess what, you would not pass that interview.

He obviously doesn't. He is leaning hard on his highly questionable algorithmic narrative and has no actual clue on how real life works for many people or any exposure to it off his keyboard.

It is sad for everyone really knowing these people exist.

Mandelmus that is a lot of meaningless words to avoid the recognition that there are systematic objectives in play to repress others. "collective design" is stupid fancy term and you will look dumb saying that in person to anyone in real life.

You could not miss the point harder.

You are in bubble if you think people are working harder just to feel more productive.

> Just like the rest of us

? who exactly do you only include in your sense of "us"?

Yep.. this article is trope trope trope city, don't bother.

OP seems to like his downvote privilege more than owning up to his ignorance.

^ this

> It's pretty easy to survive - even if you're homeless

Stop typing. Stop now.

> Millionaires don't need to work, yet still do, so looking at them provides a unique view into the human condition.

Does it tho?, "lets look harder at why the millionaires work.. that seems like a good starting point." /s

The article seems to answer the question right up front.

> as we’ve gotten richer and built more technology, we’ve developed a machine not for ending our wants, not for fulfilling them, but for generating new ones, new needs, new desires, new forms of status competition.

> You can’t solve the problem of scarcity with our current system because our current system is designed to generate endlessly the feeling of more scarcity within us. It needs that. And so we keep working harder and harder and feeling like we have less and less, even amidst quite a bit of plenty, at least, for many of us.

This is mostly a rant on the style of article title and intro. The content may be interesting, but I seriously doubt it.

It starts off with:

> Hunter-gatherers worked 15-hour weeks. Why don’t we?

Uh, well, for starters, 15 hours is apparently what it took to survive and live a comparatively successful lifestyle back then, a lifestyle that really only involved SURVIVING to see the next day.

Dial that up to what it takes to live a comparatively successful lifestyle now and you know the reasons, article done.

The whole "15 hours" thing is misleading considering that in the modern world where we're not all on the same playing field anymore (for a lot of disturbing underlying reasons) and just fighting for survival is no longer the common experience or goal, and again, lots of easy reasons.

I did not read this whole thing but the premise and title seems to ignore so many obvious reasons out of the gate that it didn't seem worth it. Maybe they got down stating some obvious reasons, but I may never know... starting off with a click-bait title and intro lost my interest asap.

If you want to comment "but hey, you never said what those easy reasons are!! provide links!!" then you are probably part of the problem.

I think it depends a lot on what they put in the "____" for:

> or if you've been spending more time doing ___

Was ____ "watching Netflix", or was ____ "helping person X who is doing more interesting work and whom you are not being paid to help/work with."