> I don't believe in Universal Basic Income though, we live in a society and it is our duty to contribute to that society.
There are plenty of things people do that are valuable to society yet are not captured in the GDP, and are thus not highly valued by contemporary society. They range from visiting and looking after elder parents, playing with your children, writing poetry etc. Then there are undervalued activities which, due to being undervalued, are often rejected by people who would be good at them but can't afford a sacrifice (e.g. teaching, various kinds of social work, etc).
As the marginal cost of production asymptotes towards nil, peoples' sense of self worth from work (which is largely a modern belief anyway dating from the middle of the industrial revolution) can be sloughed off.
> I think the answer is that we need to move towards a shorter workday. Raise wages and shorten work hours.
I agree that we should do this urgently, but beware a belief in the "lump of labor fallacy".
Also, because people currently do develop a sense of self worth from their work, we should be investing heavily in helping people readjust to the loss of economic value in their work. For example governments offer retraining programs, but while a 20 year old coal miner may be able to find a job repairing trucks or writing reactive web apps, a 60 year old coal miner, who after two years of training becomes a 62 year old auto mechanic or web developer, will struggle to find employment. These people (both at 20 and 60) need assistance that also preserves their dignity.
I knew a guy who worked 6 months a year doing contract work and then spent the other 6 months on hobbies and personal projects.
I remember asking him if he gets bored during those 6 months not working and he said to me "I don't base my life enjoyment off of making someone else money". That advice has really stuck to me and its really cool to see the electronics projects he builds in those 6 months.
My father had a co-worker who did this. 8 months in the DC office doing construction cost management consulting, 4 months in Montana hunting (he was into falconry, archery, and conservation of all the natural resources needed to sustain his hobbies).
He also used to raise his birds in the office (when they were newly hatched) - that was pretty darn cool as a 1st grader.
I have done similar things and it generally isn't. Or it is getting very hard to make it so.
Western society has become much more hierarchical in recent years. It is harder and harder to find any "cracks in system" on a fundamental level. Even if you would consider leisure to be neutral, and not in need of meaning, most people aren't even starting from a neutral point. So if you do something else you end up being underprivileged rather than in leisure.
Not unlikely, which is why I wrote somewhat vaguely. Ironically I don't have time to read your resources at the moment. My point is that there just isn't that much room for other things these days. So many things, from a $5 coffee to housing, is based on the idea that everyone is working all the time. You can of course quit working, pay the same rent and lock yourself in a room trying to forget the outside world until you can't. But I am not sure that is a road to happiness either. I mean, many people can barely achieve "weekend glory" these days.
I think I get what you're saying, now. Sounds like more of a critique of North American/protestant work ethic coupled with our acclimating to convenience.
I think that's probably a whole other subject to be tackled.
Aristotle's core point above would be along the lines of:
Relaxation (in order to) -> Work (in order to) -> Leisure (the goal, for its own sake)
Leisure and relaxation being entirely different activities, or lack thereof.
Maybe think of leisure in this case being the activity of passion/deep interest or communal good or else that might not come in returns that pay for any other aspect of your life directly. Work being the activity (that you may well enjoy enough, or have interest in) that pays for everything and allows you time and/or resources for leisure. Relaxation is what helps you essentially stay sane and healthy in order to follow through with the rest.
So it seems like you aren't taking on peoples' ability for leisure, but NA society's values that prevent it [for most people].
Right. I am saying that if you take time off you end up being at odds with much of society. You realize that many things, even leisure activities, now only exists in relation to work. And after not working for a while few of these things are exciting anymore.
So I am not saying it isn't a good idea. Just that it is hard from a practical perspective. Which is why younger people who take sabbaticals often end up in e.g. Asia.
I don't think it needs to be that grand of a scale to fulfill the reasoning.
OP's example was a fellow taking time off and exercising his other interests in electronics by learning and experimenting.
Another example might be a hobby. A hobby is a great example of a leisure activity as its [usually] done completely for its own sake. For instance, a sheet metal worker who spends much of their time off work playing in an amateur cricket league [however unlikely and obscure an image that might be].
I don't think I understand, though, how you mean it puts anyone at odds with society. Could you elaborate?
To take the example at hand, for many young(ish) people taking time off work to learn electronics wouldn't necessary be a nice experience. Because their lives exist to a large extent in relation to work. They have moved to a new city, because of work. Where the live in a small apartment, to be close to work. They have friends, from work. And they have coffee on their way to work, to talk about work or even to do work.
They couldn't just take time off and have a similar life. By leaving work they would lose a lot of the connection to their de facto lives. It wouldn't be worth living in an expensive city, in a small apartment and have expensive coffee "just" to learn electronics. Increasingly the things in people's lives aren't "neutral". Their small apartments are made for going to work from, not necessarily for doing things in. But you can't necessarily move either without losing context.
On the other hand if you are already established. You have a house, a family, friends outside work and whatever else you need, it isn't necessarily that hard to go down in the basement and learn electronics instead of going to work for six months out of the year. Because your environment is "neutral" and exists whether you go to work short-term or not. A lot of people aren't really established like that though.
To me, your example sounds more like a lifestyle choice, my friend.
My advice to the person in question would be to pull your head out of work and sample a little more of that big city while you're paying so much to be there.
There's no reason why every moment of time that isn't paid for by work to be spent on work, outside of that being a choice (given our current example, which sounds like a well-enough-to-do tech worker).
Personally, I couldn't live that way, and I'm probably filling out a few of your checkboxes above. I like the people I work with, but I value [and fear] time too much to give it all into my job—be it tasks, networking, socializing, whatever.
The example you extended sounds more like a problem of agency than one of [a lack of] leisure.
> The example you extended sounds more like a problem of agency than one of [a lack of] leisure.
It is. But you can't just take time of work, not replace it with anything and expect to be able to have some sort of leisure. At least not in my experience. I don't live in a big city anymore, but that doesn't really fix things. The equation is as hard as in a city, just in a different way. That is why people like 'bunnie' who do electronics as a passion end up in Asia. There are just so much easier to live and so many more things to do. People who stay e.g. in the US end up moving around different small to medium size cities instead looking for something that makes sense.
I think you're misunderstanding what I've been saying about leisure, then. I've not suggested you take time off work, nor to fill your time with nothing.
Work is additive, "free" time is not subtractive.
I don't understand any else of what you're saying. Electronics is something you can do anywhere, and I'd argue there's a gaping need in much of the spaces in between towns and cities in North America...
I think you're just discussing personal preferences at the end there.
I guess it is hard to explain if you haven't experienced it.
It is just that doing electronics on the weekend when you are tired from work, you don't have enough time to finish even part of something, in a place where parts are expensive or you have to wait weeks for delivery isn't that enjoyable.
Doing electronics in a place where you don't have to worry about rent, you have plenty of time, there are plenty of other things to do, parts are cheap and there is a community is a totally different thing.
Far more people are going to enjoy the second scenario.
Here is an article about Shenzhen [0]. The middle part is about people doing electronics for fun. This is probably around a year before Scotty, in the article, started Strange Parts on youtube.
Does this guy have a family and kids? I worked with a guy who does a similar thing. In fact his contract just ended. The only reason he said he’s able to is because he’s older, single, and doesn’t have kids.
I have an old college classmate who does this with a twist: he has a number, and when he hits that number he stops for the rest of the year. Last time I spoke with him that was about six months.
It was just stuff like building power supplies and little Tesla coils. Every few weeks I'd get sent cool videos like a lightbulb being wirelessly lit up by the coil.
Seems like everyone "knows a guy" that does that but when I attempted the same thing it failed miserably. I took a paltry three months off and then every recruiter and hiring manager was immediately suspicious of me when I started going on interviews again. They all suspected I was in jail or something. Meanwhile, I literally just took three months to catch up on my life.
In my current role, I could probably work 3 days a week and meet my same obligations. Our scrum master could be fired and nobody would even notice.
There are plenty of things people do that are valuable to society yet are not captured in the GDP, and are thus not highly valued by contemporary society. They range from visiting and looking after elder parents, playing with your children, writing poetry etc. Then there are undervalued activities which, due to being undervalued, are often rejected by people who would be good at them but can't afford a sacrifice (e.g. teaching, various kinds of social work, etc).
As the marginal cost of production asymptotes towards nil, peoples' sense of self worth from work (which is largely a modern belief anyway dating from the middle of the industrial revolution) can be sloughed off.
> I think the answer is that we need to move towards a shorter workday. Raise wages and shorten work hours.
I agree that we should do this urgently, but beware a belief in the "lump of labor fallacy".
Also, because people currently do develop a sense of self worth from their work, we should be investing heavily in helping people readjust to the loss of economic value in their work. For example governments offer retraining programs, but while a 20 year old coal miner may be able to find a job repairing trucks or writing reactive web apps, a 60 year old coal miner, who after two years of training becomes a 62 year old auto mechanic or web developer, will struggle to find employment. These people (both at 20 and 60) need assistance that also preserves their dignity.