[TruthAndDare]

Whoa, there! You must be deliberately conflating different things. Social norms isn't important here. The reason we work, if you didn't know that, is that it is a way to provide for oneself, i.e. earning money to buy food, a house, clothes, treatments for illness etc.

It's up to you to get those things, or whatever things you crave. It's not like anything you originally owned has been taken away from you if you don't manage to do that.

[sevenless]

> Social norms isn't important here.

That is a huge generalization, which seems intuitively wrong: why have norms towards conforming if they aren't effective?

I'm talking about the fact that the unemployed will face drastically lower qualities of life, or even life threatening situations. That this is acceptable comes from government policies, which in turn come from social norms. It's seen as okay to harm the unemployed, deny them healthcare, or let them starve. They're lazy, and they should be punished.

I won't speak for others, like you're doing, but conforming socially is the primary reason I work. I've been unemployed before, and I lost social status from it. It was embarrassing to admit to it. It was like losing a central part of my identity.

Social norms are important, but often you won't notice till you deviate from them.

[TruthAndDare]

What I'm saying is that lack of food, lack of health care etc aren't means to get you to conform to a social norm. They are simply a consequence of that you're not providing for yourself.

[Chris2048]

The social norm is not to trade with anyone not following those norms. Try buying farm equipment without a bank account or credit rating. Try trading goods without a business etcetcetc

How exactly do you "provide for yourself". You can't just go out and stake a claim to land anymore. The mechanisms for "providing for yourself" are purposefully limited to those sectioned and allowed by social norms. If you want to split hairs other "providing for yourself" please tell me of ways to do this outside the system.