[christoph123]

I don't know... I know a few people who inherited enough money to be idle and they don't seem particularly happy with their idleness. Could of course be the social pressure we live in, and that could change if we're all idle.

[tock]

It's conditioning. We cannot be happy idle because society deems idleness as bad. Just like people cannot be happy with a balding hairline because society has deemed it to be ugly. If the trend changes in a century and balding is suddenly hot then the same people would be happy.

[mr_toad]

It’s all about sex. Being idle typically means being poor. Try being in the dating market when you’re poor. Being bald means being middle aged which is also a big negative in the dating market.

The people who are lauding the virtues of being idle probably have money, and are of the age where they’re past measuring success by body count.

[achenet]

I have a few unemployed hipster friends who get laid a fair amount because their idleness enables them to go to hipster parties where they meet other idle hipsters to have sex with.

I'd argue that overall, having a job, unless it's a job that can easily get you laid (barman/barmaid, working in a shop, especially if you're a heterosexual male working in a clothes shop with an 80+% female clientele, music/artistic performance) is a net negative for your sex life. Working 60 hours/week in a tech company office, if you're a heterosexual male, is probably not as conductive to your sex life as being an unemployed bum who spends a couple of hours a day wandering the streets of a large city talking to strangers. Obviously, if you're a heterosexual female, being paid to be around a bunch of males in a tech office is probably going to massively help you get laid, but I think the key variable is just "number of potential partners encountered", not employment status.

[tock]

Yeah poor people don't have sex. Neither do middle aged people. Lmao.

[hackable_sand]

The ability to be at peace

Everyone struggles with it. Would be nice to have some societal hooks so that more people could be confidently serene

And then go about their day

[silversmith]

What do you mean by societal hooks?

The ability to be at peace, in my world view, stems first and foremost from the ability to be at peace with yourself. Being able to look in a mental mirror, and accepting the image staring back as yourself, warts and all. It's not exactly liking every last imperfection, rather not feeling guilty for not measuring up in all aspects to the ideals of a society or dreams of your younger self. Accepting that you are not the universal paragon and probably never will be, all the while not giving up on the idea of improving yourself.

Only when one can be locked in a room with oneself for a measure of time and not get in a fight, can we talk about being at peace with society and other external factors.

[jhoechtl]

As you mention Lafarge. I think his fallacy and other theorists of its time and school of thinking was mankinds natural sense of enough os enough.

Lafarge wont come true with the quite large inequality of wealth and mankinds appetite for disteactions and general fear of silence and deep contemplation.

In the case of Europe much of generated wealth is wandering abroud (China: goods, US: digital services) so wealth doesn't get enough redistributed but is created somewhere else.