[nntwozz]

Aldous Huxley imagined in the '20s we would automate most things and work less in the future. Today we work more than ever together with increased automation, and women work as well instad of being home to take care of the household.

On paper it looks like progress, but I'm not so sure about the quality of life.

[myprotegeai]

It's not progress. Every organization has "load bearing" employees that do the brunt of the real work, and everyone else just creates a cloud of confusion about what they actually do and why it's important. Most people are doing fake work. But unfortunately "fake work" jobs are the only way to fight back about the ever-optimizing, ever-extracting process of the free market. My job is needed because fuck you, I'm not going to be homeless. It's all a big game.

And with women, employers still haven't figured out how to afford women time for traditional responsibilities, like caring for their children, while still providing them with "equitable" workplace opportunities, while not being unfair to everyone else. Likely because it's just not possible. If I don't have kids and grind harder than women who take time to raise kids, why should we have equal opportunities? Makes you wonder if traditional gender roles were onto something. Yes we can do the same things, but no it is not wise to do so on a societal level.

[voxl]

It's all well and good to pretend that this is the case, but it isn't. Most jobs involve some obvious measure of progress. Especially under the umbrella of "service." Women disproportionately choose these jobs: nurses, servers, etc. Women are more educated, hell the last time I went to the doctor there was a resident, a nurse, and a doctor, all three where women.

There could be some jobs where it's hard to measure progress, like quality assurance, but these jobs have been looked at with ire by management for so long it's an old wives tale at this point.

What is likely more true, is that productivity varies between employees somewhat, and perhaps there are 2x employees. But, measuring relative productivity is much, much harder.

[myprotegeai]

As someone who has done fake work knowingly, what do you say to me? That I was actually providing real progress, just that it was difficult to measure, and I am fooling myself? No, it was fake work, and I've seen many peers do the same over the years.

[voxl]

I would say your experience is your own but I am unable to judge the "usefulness" of it without specifics, and that is a subjective thing. What you might have decided is useless I might decide otherwise. What can be said for sure is the person paying you either thought it was useful or didn't care

[yunwal]

> didn't care

ding ding. Managers are paid roughly based on the number of employees they manage, so they will hire as many people as possible.

[nxobject]

You’ve slipped from “equitable opportunities” to “equal opportunities” - they aren’t the same thing, and we run the risk of setting up a strawman if we’re doing so.

No one who’s advocating for employees with children with benefits like subsidized childcare, flexible schedules for driving children to and from things, etc., is suggesting that everyone should somehow get “equal opportunities”, or is proposing an actual concrete definition of how that would work. (Would you require that all promotions be internally posted and limit the amount of opportunities people can apply to? No one would call that equitable - that would disadvantage people with, say, racist bosses wanting to switch orgs.)

[matrix87]

> If I don't have kids and grind harder than women who take time to raise kids, why should we have equal opportunities?

they're not comparing vs people who are grinding. I think they just want some guarantee that they won't be discriminated against because of maternity leave. And that they'll have some kind of on-ramp for getting back into the workforce

Which is entirely doable and reasonable, just a question of whether corporations are held accountable here or not

[0xcafefood]

Maybe all the gains went to the top? Quality of life for the ultra-high net worth set has never been better.

[jandrese]

I'm not sure I'd say the QoL for the ultra-rich has been improved that much. They have a lot more money, but end up spending it mostly on updated versions of the same stuff rich people have always spent money on. There is a serious diminishing returns on how much money can improve your Quality of Life. It can even become a burden as a level of extreme wealth can start to become its own obligation.

[znpy]

> I'm not sure I'd say the QoL for the ultra-rich has been improved that much.

It has. What you’re missing is that everybody on this forum is part of the top one percent: it all depends on the scale.

On a global scale, if you live in the west, most likely you’re in the top 1%.

[AnimalMuppet]

> What you’re missing is that everybody on this forum is part of the top one percent

Hardly. People here have a higher-than-one-percent chance of being in the top 1%, but it's a long way from "everyone here".

> On a global scale, if you live in the west, most likely you’re in the top 1%.

Obviously wrong. The global population is 8 billion; the US plus the EU is about 700 million.

[thusky]

And you have a not insignificant number of 1%ers in Saudi Arabia and China, and scattered around the rest of the world as well. Wasn't the CEO of Alibaba the richest person in the world for a minute circa 2020?

[nosianu]

That's it's not about how much money they use for their lifestyles, it's about how much of the economy you control. The more, the more interesting projects you can do - see Elon Musk. Of course he could live just as well with a fraction of what he owns now, but his control over so much is what allows him to do "cool stuff".

Being ultra-rich is more about controlling society's destiny, not about how one lives.

Whether that's hood or bad is hard to say without checking what a specific person does with all that control, and what would the others do if the control was not so centralized in so few.

[jandrese]

Shame that "cool stuff" is almost always "buy media outlets to propagandize against taxes" and "buy politicians to lower my taxes". `

[nosianu]

At least part of it is that we put the gains into increased complexity.

For example, it used to be that you had a printed schedule on each tram, train and bus stop, changed twice a year (summer/winter schedules).

Now we have electronic displays that display the time until the next tram or bus arrives in minutes.

Just imagine the gigantic difference in infrastructure to support either of those options. My dad (East Germany, 1970s/80s) used to hand-write train schedules for one or two stations twice a year - and that was all. Now you need an entire server infrastructure, massive electronics, daily maintenance, software, etc. etc.

Of course we gain something, but I think the difference in effort far outstrips the gains. Especially when trams and busses are mostly on time.

We have also massively increased our human and business networks, both global and local. Speed and throughput requirements are up for almost everything, from just-in-time deliveries to communication.

It seems either us humans ourselves, or our systems, immediately swallow all gains and put them back into increased complexity of the system(s).

Related, this study headline from a few years ago: "Humans solve problems by adding complexity, even when it’s against our best interests" -- https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/04/16/bias-prob...

I venture to guess that, in addition to most people's fascination with some form of "progress", another part of that is our capitalist financial and work system: Everybody has to do something that makes money. You just can't simplify away your own job. Well you can, but you would be stupid to do so. Competition is supposed to be the counter-force, but that does not seem to work all that well overall.

[listenallyall]

Few people want to sit idle and just do nothing. We have, in fact, automated almost everything. Dishwashers, laundry machines, Amazon delivering to your door. People have a natural instinct to fill in the gaps and so they take on more activities, responsibilities, and work.

[consteval]

The lie of our society is that the alternative to work is to "sit idle".

That's more time with your family, your friends, your loved ones. More time smiling, more time laughing, more time being creative. This is the "good" time - the part of life you actually care about. The parts of life you will remember when you're close to death. You won't remember meetings, or a commute, or even a project you did really good on at work.

[listenallyall]

Not a lie at all. Plenty of people remember, and are proud of, their professional achievements.

Time with friends and family is important, sure, but everyone reaches a point of diminsihing returns. There's a reason most parents eventually want their kids out of the house. Or why Thanksgiving is only once a year.

[consteval]

Personally, I think being proud of your professional achievements, unless they're extraordinarily impressive, is pathetic. I can guarantee you, nobody else in your life shares that pride. Being proud for the money you earn is another thing all together, people do appreciate that.

> There's a reason most parents eventually want their kids out of the house. Or why Thanksgiving is only once a year.

Right, because people hate their lives and hate their families because they got married without putting much thought into it for financial incentives and then built a life with the intention of ignoring it as much as possible just to satisfy some perspective of white picket life and numbing heteronormativity.

I know many people - both men and women - who don't even like their partners. Forget about love. And they still committed to marrying them and settling down and then they like to work. Not because the work is good, but because it means they get away from their family.

Also, most adults eventually have no friends because nobody likes them, and they waste all their time on work. And, somehow, we're just supposed to be okay with the idea that nobody likes you and nobody is your friend. I mean, if you wanted to, could you even make a friend in the next year? For most, the answer is no.

We, as a whole, have destroyed any sense of community for the promise of a nuclear family and stable job. The end result is people being sad enough to pat themselves on the back for sending an email and hiding in a "man cave" to avoid the reality of having to make small talk with the person closest to them in their life.

Sorry, maybe this is harsh, but it's what I've observed. I mean just ask an older person what the best time of their life was. Most of the time they say college or high school. Sure, being young has something to do with it, but that's not it. Having friends, laughing a lot, doing activities, having a community... these are the parts that make life worth living. My father could recount countless stories from when he was in college, decades and decades ago. He couldn't tell you what the name of the dude hired 2 years ago at work.

[tmn]

Agree. In my observation people have a natural tendency to float towards a self determined 'busy'. Which is generally not that busy. As in there is a plenty of time to watch shows, indulge in frivolous pet household projects, go to wine tastings, etc. Note that some of these indulgences are what leads to the self determined 'busy'. But the point is they are discretionary.

[JackSlateur]

Yes

Pascal, in his "Pensées" book, wrote about this: humans keep getting busy, because otherwise they would understand how pointless their existence and suffering and reality is.

And so, in order to avoid the inner void that lurk behind everyone's mind, we run, we act, we play and we do thing, because even the useless is better than the nothing.

[nntwozz]

Is there a direct quote of this? I find it amazing.

[kyleee]

“Self-determined busy” otherwise known as a sustainable level of busy, if we’re steel manning. AKA on a PIP if you are an Amazon manager.

[uhtred]

If I didn't have to work I wouldn't sit idly and do nothing. I'd create things, have hobbies etc. Maybe do some volunteering.

[znpy]

> Amazon delivering to your door.

Uhhh last time i checked amazon truck drivers were still humans, and drone delivery is still a catchy marketing stunt at least for now.

[listenallyall]

From the customer's point of view, yes, it's automated. The task of shopping is mostly eliminated. Instead of spending all afternoon at the mall, a customer can purchase everything they need in a few minutes without ever leaving the house.

Sorry you need things to be explained to you in such great detail.

[znpy]

I’m sorry you don’t consider truck drivers as human beings.

But you only care that stuff is automated from your point of view, right? Other can sweat, suffer and keep slaving away, as long as you don’t have to lift a finger, right?

Yes the customer can click a button and have stuff delivered within minutes… as long as someone else is doing the delivery.

Your lack of empathy really shows the sadness of your soul, and the short sightedness of your mind.

You can be sorry for me if you want, but I pity you.

[jsvlrtmred]

https://ourworldindata.org/working-more-than-ever

[JackSlateur]

The main point here lies in the definition of "work". I do not think we work a lot, these days. If anything and from what I see on IT, work is really scarse.

What has increased a lot is the time spent "on duty" (on the office or whatever).

This is not work per-se. But this is time retrieved from your life. This is not progress.

[a4000]

There's different types of work, the on duty time you describe is what I would call being paid to be available to work during certain hours. My work is like this, I do 9-5 or similar hours, any jobs come into during that time, I work on them as needed. Some days are quiet, some very busy, work is somewhat elastic while time and hourly rate is fixed.

This applies to a lot of jobs these days, even from something like retail or hospitality worker or at the more extreme end you have the likes of an on call engineer or firefighter, mostly being paid to be ready to respond to the need to work, but not being guaranteed that it will happen. This type of work doesn't really respond to more hours being more productive. It may to a certain extent that if the shop is open long maybe more customers will come in but it's not guaranteed and there may be diminishing returns as you are paying employees for their time so you need to be making or saving more money having them available to work.

Most people still conceptualise work as something more like factory work or mining or labouring even something like legal work to some extent, where you have a set amount of output each hour and so more working hours should mean more production output to a certain extent. In this case work, hourly rate and time is fairly fixed and not that elastic.

Then there the type of job where the work is fixed, but the time and hourly rate can be very elastic, this is more contractor, startup, even parts of the military, where you need to complete a task or objective maybe to a deadline but the the time or cost can vary significantly depending on what's important. This is more the business owner, sole contractor or equity earning employee where they can potentially get a bigger payout by putting in more effort or else working more efficiently.

[edanm]

> Today we work more than ever together with increased automation,

I don't think we work "more than ever", not at all.

This is something that's really hard to quantify, but even harder to get an idea about "anecdotally" (cause what're you comparing to, when you were working 100 years ago?). What makes you think it's true?