[smif]

The overwhelming majority of people work because they realistically have no choice but to work.

There is no amount of neoliberal salad dressing that you can douse that with to make it more palatable to anyone.

Doing shit because you have no choice but to do it sucks, period.

[Beached]

I'd argue that the overwhelming amount of people would choose to work on something, even if they didn't have to. they would choose the arts, or work on inventing some new thing they want, etc. most people work stupid jobs because they can't afford there risk of doing what they actually want

[philipov]

Yes, what you're describing isn't Work. We may have been conditioned to use the same word for both things, as you did, to make it appear they are the same thing, but they're very different.

[raincom]

Exactly, it is a fallacy of equivocation: use the same word in different senses.

[birdyrooster]

Eh, you have to work for yourself too. It comes down to who are you working for... who's "will" are you sustaining? This is about willpower and using it for your own ends instead of others whether that is work or some other activity.

[BobbyJo]

What would the difference be?

[Sohcahtoa82]

I know this is Hacker News, and so someone "working on something" on their own is typically interpreted to mean "building a startup", which I would still call "work" in the more classic meaning of employment, but "work" doesn't have to mean that.

A friend of mine retired early and spends a lot of time in his workshop building fun things for himself. That is work, but it's not "work" in the way people think of the term.

One project I want to do some time is design and 3D print a model roller coaster, including building a train to travel over it. That's work, but it's not employment.

[slothtrop]

I think this reflects your social bubble. I seriously doubt "most people" are interested laboring as artisans hours every day. Left to their devices without the need to work, they would just consume.

> most people work stupid jobs because they can't afford there risk of doing what they actually want

Again this projects some kind of strong desire for a specialized low-demand sort of work on the greater population. This is a fantasy.

Work is a vector for people to contribute to society and participate in it, allows them to find validation, to compete (if they so choose). Whether a job is "stupid" is a rationalization that betrays the fact that there is demand for it. At best, it can be unenjoyable, but most people don't "hate" their job. Arguably people have stronger feelings about commute time, which is a greater reflection of faults in city planning.

[pmoriarty]

"the overwhelming amount of people would choose to work on something, even if they didn't have to. they would choose the arts, or work on inventing some new thing they want, etc."

I used to believe that when I was young, and that's pretty much the argument I made to my dad, who responded that most people would rather stay home, drink beer, have sex, and watch tv.

As I've grown older, I've come over to my dad's side, as I learned that most people don't have a creative bone in their body, have no desire to be productive in any way, and would rather spend their time entertaining themselves and consuming above almost anything else.

At least that's the case in much of the US, which is heading relentlessly towards the world predicted by the movie Idiocracy. Maybe in some other countries it's better.

[avgcorrection]

Then you’ve become the jaded HN poster stereotype. Congrats?

Plenty of people dream of doing these sinful, consumerist—not manly, Hacker News-productive—things because they are the rewind from work pasttimes; they’re the off-time-from-work things that many people just plain need in order to be able to must the energy for another workday. But the fallacy here is to assume that a reality without work is the same. It clearly isn’t though if these things are used to recuperate from work. What if there was no work to recuperate from? I don’t know if they would do manly HN things like implement yet another JS framework, but they would probably do other things than whatever they do in order to recreate themselves right now.

[imtringued]

I mean I would be that guy too if I had unpredictable commitments that override my creative aspirations and spend 10 to 12 hours a day just working.

[marcosdumay]

I do believe that healthy people need to feel useful. But notice that for that to mean they want to work, you need people to be healthy (and addiction is are really troublesome thing here) and that feeling useful is strongly correlated with whatever "work" is.

But anyway, that is not relevant in the world we have today. Today people are required to work, no other option is given, and if this doesn't satisfy their need of feeling useful, they are just forced to go without and face the desperation that deprivation from a basic need leads to.

Just this revolt of people against pointless job is evidence enough that if people could choose, they would do something different from "work" as we have today. You can argue this is a good thing, but you can't argue it's business as usual.

[tmn]

I appreciate your optimism, but I think such pursuits would be the exception. There are too many cheap dopamine consumption options available.

[avgcorrection]

Yes, I guess people would do something rather than nothing.

What a vacuous side-point to make.

[ghaff]

That's probably a very rose-colored view of how most people would choose to pass their time if all their needs and wants were provided for them.

[BobbyJo]

> Doing shit because you have no choice but to do it sucks, period.

Isn't life composed almost entirely of this? Cooking, eating, sleeping, using the toilet, taking care of love ones... If every responsibility you have in life is automatically absolutely horrible by nature of being a responsibility, why live?

[pm215]

The items in your list are largely ones which evolution has tied into feeling naturally good to most people, because it helps that we have an incentive to do them. (Cooking less so, but it is at least clearly and directly tied to the pleasant outcome of eating.) The sort of tasks we must to at work are usually not those which we're adapted to find innately enjoyable, and the link between them and outcomes we do want is often indirect enough that we know it only intellectually.

Secondly, the typical natural pace for the items on your list has peaks and troughs, natural downtime. Many jobs demand full effort for extended periods with not much downtime either on a daily cycle or a longer yearly one. That too we are not very well adapted for, I think.

[BobbyJo]

> The sort of tasks we must to at work are usually not those which we're adapted to find innately enjoyable, and the link between them and outcomes we do want is often indirect enough that we know it only intellectually.

So you agree that needing to do something doesn't automatically make it unenjoyable then?

> Secondly, the typical natural pace for the items on your list has peaks and troughs, natural downtime. Many jobs demand full effort for extended periods with not much downtime either on a daily cycle or a longer yearly one. That too we are not very well adapted for, I think.

I didn't say all jobs were fun. Most aren't, but not because they need doing. Needing to be done has almost nothing to do with how horrible a job is.

[Aerbil313]

> So you agree that needing to do something doesn't automatically make it unenjoyable then?

I’m not GP, but I’d say the things we need to do not being enjoyable is a deficiency and problem of the technological system, and not necessarily a solvable one. In a pre-tech world (e.g. 15th century), our needs were directly tied to our happiness due to biological reward circuits.

Ted Kaczynski argues about this point extensively in his books, I recommend esp. Technological Slavery, available free online.

[keybored]

> If every responsibility you have in life is automatically absolutely horrible by nature of being a responsibility, why live?

Life isn’t worth living, if that’s what you are asking. But there could be reasons to, you know, not intentionally die. Maybe you’re a Catholic for example. Or maybe you just have small children.

[avgcorrection]

I don’t think “why live” is a valid refutal.

Just because life is bad in absolute terms (?) doesn’t mean that it would not be better without having to work in the modern sense of the word.

[BobbyJo]

> I don’t think “why live” is a valid refutal.

Why not? If your argument relies on life being a near uniformly horrible experience, yet you choose to live, aren't you in essence invalidating your own argument?

> Just because life is bad in absolute terms (?) doesn’t mean that it would not be better without having to work in the modern sense of the word.

This isn't a point I tried to make. My point was invalidating the premise that anything that needs doing is automatically bad. That's entirely separate from the idea that more free time might be enjoyable.

[avgcorrection]

> This isn't a point I tried to make. My point was invalidating the premise that anything that needs doing is automatically bad. That's entirely separate from the idea that more free time might be enjoyable.

So you’re being “Socratic”, to put it politely.

[BobbyJo]

Thread parent posited an axiom. I'm just interested how far people are willing to carry it before they admit it isn't viable.

"Work sucks" is great as a relatively common shared experience. It is not, however, a great presumption to carry around as if it's a natural law.

[avgcorrection]

> Thread parent posited an axiom. I'm just interested how far people are willing to carry it before they admit it isn't viable.

Viable. Thinking that most things in life (that you have to do) sucks is perfectly viable. Plenty of people could be of that opinion.

> "Work sucks" is great as a relatively common shared experience. It is not, however, a great presumption to carry around as if it's a natural law.

The great danger of proposing that something universally sucks is that the chronically happy will get upset. Maybe even unhappy.

[wizardforhire]

Life is what gets in the way of living.