[anm89]

What a load of shit. All the more clear as I'm traveling in a 3rd world country where people actually have to deal with difficult working conditions. I see people in their mid 70's doing long days of physical labor on a farm for dollars a day. Ask them how barbaric the 9-5 desk job is.

As the other commenter mentioned, hyperbole like this only ever damages a cause.

I think there are probably better ways to do work and as we move towards the connected future I think many of them will increase in popularity, but that's due to an increase in options from our already very open ended lives, not some struggle against imagined barbarity.

[jackhack]

a load of shit, indeed! This degree of hipster self-pity is intolerable. I couldn't make it more than half-way through the stupid article.

"Barbaric." I wonder if he realizes how insulting and patronizing that is. I wish he could have met my grandfather, who worked his life in a coal mine literally scratching out a living six long days a week before dying of lung cancer in the 1950s.

A man who lived in a company house, was paid in script, money that could only be used at the company store to buy good at inflated prices. A man who was shot at with cannon and rifle by the us government for daring to challenge this status quo and try to form a union (see "WV mine wars" for details).

Vacations? Unthinkable. Benefits? no. A paycheck that was just enough to stay alive until the next one came along? yes.

The idea of fulfillment from one's work was probably not even a concept to daydream about. Leisure time didn't exist. It was called "resting" and it's what you did when not working.

He would have seen the cushy desk job of the average HN reader as paradise itself, the "stress" of meetings or deadlines as literally laughable compared to the very real stresses and dangers he "enjoyed" : mine collapse, poisoning by noxious gases, explosions, fire, or cancer.

Load of shit. That's the perfect description.

[unprepare]

Ahh yes, the always tired retort of "people in the past/in a different place have it worse, so you have no right to complain"

totally legitimate argument, im sure your grandfather fought hard for there to never be better working conditions for his grandchildren, and would hate that working conditions have gotten better and continue to improve.

have you ever complained that something tastes bad? dont forget theres starving children in africa, so you aren't allowed to complain about your food tasting bad, because someone has it worse, right?

Have you ever been thirsty and asked someone for water? that gall on you! people die everyday from dehydration, you being thirsty is just hipster self pity, you aren't going to die, so you aren't thirsty

see also:

>Fallacy of relative privation ("not as bad as") – dismissing an argument or complaint due to the existence of more important problems in the world, regardless of whether those problems bear relevance to the initial argument.

[majewsky]

Not every opposing argument is a fallacy. I observe the grandparents [1] as trying to put things in perspective, which is a very reasonable followup on a decidedly opinionated original article.

[1] Grandparents as in comment hierarchy, not as in coal miners.

[unprepare]

i never said every opposing argument is a fallacy, but this one definitely is.

what our grandparents experienced is irrelevant to discussions on how working conditions should continue to improve.

Would you have told the men starting the UAW that they should stop because their grandparents had to work longer hours and that they have no right to complain? Thats idiotic, its fallacious, and its not even an opposing argument, its an attempt to stop a conversation.

[mantas]

No need for 3rd world country. Quite a few people (mostly older, but not only) in my whereabouts see stable 9-5 job as freedom and strive for it.

[falcolas]

And yet, there could be more. So many 9-5 jobs have little or no meaning, yet we insist they are filled to provide people with "purpose" or to justify their continued existence.

Looking into the future and seeing 9-5 as "a step in the right direction, but far from the last step" is not inconceivable.

We look upon slave and child labor as barbaric, whereas not even 200 years ago it was the accepted norm. What prevents that from changing in the next 100-200 years?

[mantas]

Job meaningfulness is not related wether it's 9-5 or not. And some jobs, wether we like it or not, have to be done at specific predefined time. There're no jobs that have to be done by slaves or children though.