[time_to_smile]

"Tech Bosses" are dictators and I'm always surprised that most people have absolutely zero intellectual challenge suspending the values of democracy for 8-12 hours a day.

Virtually all of the rights we learn about in grade school are suspended in the workplace. And while employees do have the ability to quit, they a.) still have to find some other dictator to work for and b.) are much more heavily impacted by a loss of income than the employer is the individual loss of skill.

So the dictators we work for day in and day out are aligned with other dictators. You aren't entitled to free speech in your office, so why would you expect to the people running your office to care about your free speech after hours?

edit: I'm still surprised that people are incapable of question the ideology that shapes your worldview. The very concept that "well you're working for someone else so the of course suspension of liberties is okay" is doctrine that you have been lead to believe since birth precisely because it benefits those people in power.

[skinkestek]

Working for money is doing something others want you to do in exchange for money.

In the west typically 2/3 of your day is free, as are weekends (and I see plenty of people commenting during work hours too).

I am a worker myself, but maybe because I have a past in actual physical labour I realize how much of a brat I have become now, being able to walk around, grab coffee, chat, stare mindlessly out the windows and browse HN while being paid handsomely to create software.

[JohnFen]

It's a normal human tendency to consider our own particular situation as representing the "average" or "normal". It's quite common for people who live privileged lives (such as most people here) to not recognize that they are living privileged lives.

It's very good to remember how lucky most of us are, and how unusual our circumstances are.

[skinkestek]

I think of it many times a year, how lucky I am to no longer need to showel manure or move wet grass using a pitchfork to earn a fraction of what I do today.

And even back then I was lucky.

[asdff]

There are pros and cons of course. I am noticing my health declining somewhat since working inside versus physically. I am not as strong especially in weird muscle groups. I am more sore, prone to injury, and inflexible. I don't get as much sun exposure. My eyesight is declining quite a lot since I am bad about getting up off my desk and staring at something far away a few times an hour. My hands and wrists are going from spending a lot of time typing. Maybe I am monetarily richer, but certainly not physically richer. Maybe mentally I am poorer too considering the stresses of work follow me home now versus staying at the job site.

It makes sense. We evolved to be laboring outside, staying in shape with physical work, keeping our bodies active, constantly moving, sleeping with the sun versus an alarm clock. Even elders in tribes that still practice traditional hunting are remarkably active compared to elders in the west. We didn't evolve to be troglodytes, unmoving in an artificial cave for 95% of the day, but ironically these are the types of work our society disproportionately rewards.

[yamazakiwi]

Last time I saw this mentioned on HN, someone had a mental breakdown and told people to stop bringing it up because they were tired of hearing "sob stories".

[JohnFen]

Strange that it would be interpreted that way. When I reflect on my good fortune, it's celebratory, not sad.

[asdff]

Is browsing hn so different than a clerk reading the paper or a book or chitchatting with a coworker during some down time in the 1940s? Probably not. Downtime is part of work unless you work by the piece. Even when I worked outside labor jobs, there was plenty of downtime e.g. waiting for the 1 skid steer to move some stuff before you could do anything else. That being said its not like 2/3 of your day are truly free, you are omitting the sleeping, the cooking, the eating, the washing the dishes, the commuting, etc, that quickly sucks up your time. I know someone who works 9am-7pm. Maybe 1-2 hours of their day are truly free during the week. Plus on the weekends thats when you typically play catchup, and do all the chores and errands you'd been neglecting during the week due to work.

[JohnFen]

> Virtually all of the rights we learn about in grade school are suspended in the workplace.

Virtually none of them are suspended in the workplace. When you're at work, though, you are on someone else's private property and so some of your rights are constrained (just as some of the rights of people visiting your home are constrained while they're there). This is because there are competing rights involved, and it's logically impossible for everyone to retain their full sets of rights in those circumstances.

But, as you say, if the restrictions on your freedom are more greater than you can tolerate, you can quit. If no workplace gives you the amount of latitude you need, then you can work for yourself.

But, at the core, we live in a society with other people, and that inherently comes with certain restraints on behavior.

[cscurmudgeon]

So true. I also remember how in school kids used to think all teachers were dictators and how kids think parents are dictators.

/s