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WARNING, THIS IS SO LONG I DIDN'T BOTHER TO READ IT OVER BEFORE POSTING IT

I recently engaged in a mostly one-sided discussion with a friend on some very fundamental questions that I feel we face as a race. The subject was brought about by my deduction that despite the fact that my friend seems to be deriving some sense of "self-worth" from working 60 hour weeks he does not seem to be happy. This lead to an interesting angle of thought that I feel it would be fun to have y'all tear to shreds.

One stands to reason, based on studies of our history and some assumption I can assume we can make, that cavemen had unpleasant lives if you compare them to our modern society.

There are two approaches that I can readily conceive to deal with this presumption.

First, No one was happy in the caveman days, people are happier now than we ever were then. The problem we would see with this is that there are a number of very depressed people around who cannot be explained away by traumatic experiences or faulty brain chemistry.

Second, as life has become easier we have become less happy because we derive less meaning from our lives... this would imply that people living in abject poverty are happier then me... and that rather then helping the poor we should take vows of poverty ourselves and live like the Mennonites/Hutterites/Amish.

The third, and less obvious possibility I see is that, while people can draw meaning and self-worth from accomplishment, it is not inextricably linked to happiness. This is evident in the fact that if you give a person the right kind of drugs his brain will trick him into thinking that he's happy and by the observed result that people tend to be happy when spending time doing things they enjoy while they tend to be unhappy spending time doing things they do not enjoy.

Regardless of your conclusion on the matter the whole point of my post has yet to be made. Namely, why the heck are we still working?

One can safely assume that, for all intents and purposes, cavemen worked an awful lot, when we were living from kill/gather to mouth I would assume you could say everyone was "On Call" 24/7.

Since that time, thanks to things like society (I don't need to defend myself 24/7 because someone else protects me when I'm sleeping) and technology (moving goods takes minutes or days instead of weeks and months or computers eliminating the need for people to know how to use slide-rules or abacuses) and economy (currency allows production of resources by those who can do so most efficiently and trade allows these goods to make their way to those who need them) among other advances, one would assume that the amount of work that people need to do should have been dramatically reduced.

Now, it's true that I don't know anyone who works more than 16 hours a day, and the system is skewed by the existence of people who ÔÇ£donÔÇÖt workÔÇØ because they are too rich to, and those who ÔÇ£donÔÇÖt workÔÇØ for reasons like being unable for reasons physical or mental or simply unemployed. Also, one must take into account ÔÇ£workÔÇØ like raising oneÔÇÖs children for which there is really no way to reduce.

All that said, it seems to me that we are all doing a lot more work than we should reasonably expect based on the level of advancement our species has reached. On a case by case basis I concede that I work because I need money to feed my family but there seems to me to be some fundamental flaw in the way our society has organized itself for this to be a necessity.

All that said, letÔÇÖs imagine a world where work in not necessary for any practical purpose. Robots do all the manual labour, computers have replaced accountants and lawyers and (through some miracle) we all trust these computers and robots to act in our best interest and in fact they are doing so. Even creative effort has been made more efficient as the minds of creative people can communicate perfectly their ideas in a way that can be enjoyed by everyone with no more than a couple hours of imagining.

Okay, now, in this ÔÇ£UtopiaÔÇØ there would be no reason for people to ÔÇ£workÔÇØ at something they did not want to ÔÇ£workÔÇØ at. Now, granted, there are those who would suggest that human nature would cause many people to become lazy and complacent in these situations, but as mentioned earlier, this doesnÔÇÖt matter because people donÔÇÖt need to actually work. Now aside from the small chance that people will have children and then let them be raised by robots which we can discount if we assume that AI is goof enough that it would be an effective substitute to real parenting, we have a world without work.

The question is, would anyone be able to be happy (without the assistance of self-delusion about the self-worth they derive from unnecessary labour like farming without the help of robots and without the help of mind altering drugs)?

My view is that we would be capable of being happy, and as such there follows that there must be some way for us to improve the system such that I donÔÇÖt have to spend 8 hours a day waiting for phone to ring without my family ending up on the street starving and cold or for that matter lacking a nice television and video game system and good pizza for dinner a few nights a week.

SinbadEV wrote:The question is, would anyone be able to be happy (without the assistance of self-delusion about the self-worth they derive from unnecessary labour like farming without the help of robots and without the help of mind altering drugs)?

People who work hard by farming could experience a natural high in much the same way that professional athletes do and feel as though they are connected to the earth. If that makes them happy, I don't see anything wrong with it.

I could reply to this with a novel if I had the time so I'll try and keep this simple.

In relation to the first part of your post, I would vouch for the second approach if I had to vote for one, but I wouldn't completely agree with it. I've always found people worse off than the West are usually have happier lives, despite being so much more worse off in terms of possessions, wealth, choices and other such luxuries. If you put it in comparison from our perspective, you would obviously wonder why people are happier in those poverty stricken lands because you yourself would give an arm and a leg to keep your current life in comparison to their's.

You've firstly got to take into account the fact that those worse off, know very little about what kind of lives those better off than them actually live. I've thought about this concept since I was a lot younger, probably about 10 or 11. If you take a king, and put him in a peasant's shoes for a day, he will be more unhappy than Christian Bale having his lights trashed. This is because, in comparison, a peasant's life would be poles apart from a king's. Vice Versa, you put a peasant in a king's position, and they will never want to return to their old life, because again, they know what they're missing. This also leads to gratification of your current life. If you lead a middle/upper class life like everybody in this community, chances are, you take most the things in your life for granted. Happiness can be caused by regaining something you've lost, be it a family member, expensive possession, job or even deeper things such as self-worth. Of course, all these things cause happiness when you have them to begin with, but the scale of happiness is of a different sort as you cannot appreciate it as much as you would if you lost it.

Back to the third world. Despite disease, famine, natural disaster and wars being a common thing in a lot of less economically developed countries, you could argue that happiness is stronger in those countries compared to more economically developer countries. Personally, I believe this is the case, not primarily because of the way LEDC's are more happy, but because of the way MEDCs are less happy. Because the west have more (possessions, security, wealth etc), they is more to lose. If you have 10 coins, and you lose one, you'll be more unhappy than a man that only ever has 5 coins. This could be because of the way the mind thinks when it comes to losing something. Do you blame a loss upon yourself? Do you feel the loss could have been prevented? Do you not care why you lost something, but just that you lost it and that you could have prevented it? I'm not sure what the main cause of unhappiness is when something is lost but I do know that losing something can cause unhappiness, even when you may still be leagues above everybody else in terms of what you have lost.

I've kind of derailed into a ramble a bit so I'll try to keep on track. Work. I believe working is a vital part of a human's life, regardless of whether the work is enjoyable or not. I don't believe it is vital because of the state of the world or the economy, but because of the way humans are. Humans like to have some kind of purpose, specifically, self-purpose, a reason to do what they do. If there's a company that has no sole purpose, that just keeps all the money it earns or invests it or whatever, people will be a lot less likely to work for them, or if they do work for them, would be a lot less happy. This is because people like to know why they are doing something, regardless of what they get out of it. They like to know what their efforts actually achieve.

Lets divide purpose into three levels, the first being no purpose, second as purpose for others and thirdly, self-purpose. Lets also say, there's three companies, A, B and C. Company A has no-purpose at all when it comes to jobs, people also don't enjoy their jobs here. Company B has a purpose but nobody enjoys the work it offers. Finally, Company C has a purpose and enjoyable work. Company A pays high wages, B and C pay the same average wage. People who worked at A would be the unhappiest because they don't see any point in them working there and they don't enjoy the work either, even though they get paid substantial amounts. People who worked at Company B would be happier than those at A despite not getting paid nearly as much, simply because they know why they're doing something and they don't feel as if their efforts are for nothing. Concluding, people who worked at Company C are obviously the happiest because they have self-worth, worth to others and they enjoy their work.

Sorry if you got confused in that mashup I threw together. Anyway, I don't feel work is directly linked to happiness, but it's just something that has to be done anyway. The majority of people who retire would usually prefer to be back at work rather than sitting around watching telly and not doing an awful lot, despite the fact they're doing what they've always done after a long day's work to relax and make themselves happy. This again links back to my first point. Things are a lot more appreciated when taken in small amounts every so often. This is because it makes such a nice change to whatever you spend the majority of your time doing, in this case, it was working. That is why when you reverse the situation, sitting around at home all day eventually gets repetitive, tiresome and boring, so you want to get a taste of work back, simply because it is a change.

Another example, take chocolate. It's great when you get "surprise chocolate" every now and then, because it tastes nicer than what you eat the majority of the time (Lets say salad and healthy things ). However, if you switched the situation and ate chocolate all your life, you would find yourself begging for a salad every now and then. Regardless of happiness by comparison, the regular human being wants, if not needs change every so often.

All this aside, what I think links in more adequately with happiness would be things such as life goals, reason for living, social life, health, upbringing and freedom but we'll save that for another day

many people enjoy and derive their identity and life pleasures from their work.. rather than it being 'work' in the sense you call it. if you are doing a massively shitty job like answering phonecalls I am not suprised you wish you could cease working, but I personally would find unemployment terrible... I would have too much time on my hands, and stop appreciating what time I have.

People are stupid and society is built around a common sense model that is too simplistic and therefore not very effective at accomplishing it's goal of creating worthwhile live for the citizens that live within it. It's also so established it's nearly impossible to unravel. pretty much we've built a boat out of band aides and fixing the root of the problem would be like trying to remove them without getting wet.

Jazcash wrote:In relation to the first part of your post, I would vouch for the second approach if I had to vote for one, but I wouldn't completely agree with it. I've always found people worse off than the West are usually have happier lives, despite being so much more worse off in terms of possessions, wealth, choices and other such luxuries. If you put it in comparison from our perspective, you would obviously wonder why people are happier in those poverty stricken lands because you yourself would give an arm and a leg to keep your current life in comparison to their's.

You've firstly got to take into account the fact that those worse off, know very little about what kind of lives those better off than them actually live. I've thought about this concept since I was a lot younger, probably about 10 or 11. If you take a king, and put him in a peasant's shoes for a day, he will be more unhappy than Christian Bale having his lights trashed. This is because, in comparison, a peasant's life would be poles apart from a king's. Vice Versa, you put a peasant in a king's position, and they will never want to return to their old life, because again, they know what they're missing. This also leads to gratification of your current life. If you lead a middle/upper class life like everybody in this community, chances are, you take most the things in your life for granted. Happiness can be caused by regaining something you've lost, be it a family member, expensive possession, job or even deeper things such as self-worth. Of course, all these things cause happiness when you have them to begin with, but the scale of happiness is of a different sort as you cannot appreciate it as much as you would if you lost it.

There are many examples of people who were fabulously wealthy who gave all their possessions away to work for charity and only through that they found something they would call happiness.

Additionally: How would we explain people who leave their comfortable air conditioned homes full of TV's and entertainment to go put a tent up in the woods and get bitten by bugs for weeks on end under your model?

I think happiness has more to do with what you view as valuable in your life as opposed to some absolute quality of value. Loss is not universally a prophesier of unhappiness. I know in my own life I've had things that others might love that I was happy to lose, and others that I was unhappy to gain.

I don't entirely disagree, I'm just saying, the formula isn't that simple.

Pretty much what I was expecting to hear after the first paragraph - you really do hate working don't you, sinbad? Come to think of it, pretty much every post of significant girth you have made in the last two years has been related to avoiding work, ranging from "I am unmotivated, not lazy" to "how do I implement this game idea without actually learning how to program"...




...

SwiftSpear wrote:

Jazcash wrote:In relation to the first part of your post, I would vouch for the second approach if I had to vote for one, but I wouldn't completely agree with it. I've always found people worse off than the West are usually have happier lives, despite being so much more worse off in terms of possessions, wealth, choices and other such luxuries. If you put it in comparison from our perspective, you would obviously wonder why people are happier in those poverty stricken lands because you yourself would give an arm and a leg to keep your current life in comparison to their's.

You've firstly got to take into account the fact that those worse off, know very little about what kind of lives those better off than them actually live. I've thought about this concept since I was a lot younger, probably about 10 or 11. If you take a king, and put him in a peasant's shoes for a day, he will be more unhappy than Christian Bale having his lights trashed. This is because, in comparison, a peasant's life would be poles apart from a king's. Vice Versa, you put a peasant in a king's position, and they will never want to return to their old life, because again, they know what they're missing. This also leads to gratification of your current life. If you lead a middle/upper class life like everybody in this community, chances are, you take most the things in your life for granted. Happiness can be caused by regaining something you've lost, be it a family member, expensive possession, job or even deeper things such as self-worth. Of course, all these things cause happiness when you have them to begin with, but the scale of happiness is of a different sort as you cannot appreciate it as much as you would if you lost it.

There are many examples of people who were fabulously wealthy who gave all their possessions away to work for charity and only through that they found something they would call happiness.

Additionally: How would we explain people who leave their comfortable air conditioned homes full of TV's and entertainment to go put a tent up in the woods and get bitten by bugs for weeks on end under your model?

I think happiness has more to do with what you view as valuable in your life as opposed to some absolute quality of value. Loss is not universally a prophesier of unhappiness. I know in my own life I've had things that others might love that I was happy to lose, and others that I was unhappy to gain.

I don't entirely disagree, I'm just saying, the formula isn't that simple.

Yeah I suppose there is a lot more to it, although, happiness itself means different things to different people. Some people would call themselves happy if they had lots of money, some would call themselves happy if they had nothing. That's why I think it depends a lot on the type of person in question, which is why it's hard to come up with a solid definition of how to achieve happiness. But yes, thinking about it now, there's a lot more to it that I left out in my post.

I think work and happiness are relative concepts.
If your situation, abilities, or ideas change, so does the essence of what you see as happiness, or work for that matter.
i.e.

and also

Confucius wrote:Ability will never catch up with the demand for it.

If one is not that existentialistic, then it is probable more a difference between what you must do, and what you are allowed to do.

Confucius wrote: Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

Perhaps he should take a deeper look at how we are actually motivated, and adjust his lifestyle accordingly:
YouTube-The surprising truth about what motivates us

FireStorm_ wrote:

Confucius wrote: Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

This is why people have hobbies - something other people would consider a job, yet they do without a consideration of profit and the like. Humans do actually enjoy working - it's the type of work that the person enjoys doing that matters.

HeavyLancer wrote:Perhaps he should take a deeper look at how we are actually motivated, and adjust his lifestyle accordingly:
YouTube-The surprising truth about what motivates us

FireStorm_ wrote:

Confucius wrote: Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

This is why people have hobbies - something other people would consider a job, yet they do without a consideration of profit and the like. Humans do actually enjoy working - it's the type of work that the person enjoys doing that matters.

I've seen that video and many others like it before, and they are indeed, interesting. But this is a whole other kettle of fish. Motivational studies are usually related to working and what drives people. This can be linked to happiness but is not a primary relation.

Been thinking about this stuff (as mentioned, evening shift leaves a lot of time for thinking). First IÔÇÖm going to try very hard to not defend myself personally, but I must address it a little bit. I recently read a definition for the whole ÔÇ£Work doing something you loveÔÇØ thing. Essentially the idea was that you should enjoy the majority of the tasks you do as part of your job at least as much as the things you do when you are bored to keep busy. So, if you like reading science fiction literature in your spare time, you should enjoy the majority of your work day at least as much as you enjoy reading. I now have a job that is relatively close to this and am content to continue it. That said, for the last 6 hours of the evening shifts I have to do every second week I donÔÇÖt enjoy being at work nearly as much I enjoy reading... fortunately I can use this time to write up poorly organized philosophical diatribes which I enjoy doing almost as much as reading.

So, back to the point. The first thing that I believe ÔÇ£workÔÇØ contributes to is to indirectly feed physiological needs. The joke goes that people will drive to the gym to run on a treadmill. Essentially, a healthy human needs some mental stimulation, some physical exertion and some social interaction to be healthy and happy. For most people many of these needs are met by their job/workplace so one can see how the association between work and happiness has been formed.

Given this assessment one could imagine a world where no-one ÔÇ£workedÔÇØ but they remained active (mentally, socially and physically)... would people be happy if the only ÔÇ£goalÔÇØ they were achieving was keeping themselves healthy?

first
How would this goal be defined? That is very tricky if not impossible. I can imagine a society where people no longer had to worry about their physical well-being (plenty of food, no conflict, 'forces of nature' under control) but its an extremely speculative imagination.

secondly
I can't imagine people knowing everything there is to know, nor can i imagine people not having some sort of desire to explore the unknown somehow.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
-Dorothy Parker
(or Ellen Parr. undetermined)

to conclude, i guess i'm saying:
'forces of nature' alone are enough to deal with to keep people busy. I think we are a long way from your 'goal.'

furthermore I suspect your goal is impossible because people will risk their health out of curiosity.

I was lazy and were able to only skim your text but please excuse me if im speaking out of context or misunderstood the argument.

SinbadEV wrote:
One stands to reason, based on studies of our history and some assumption I can assume we can make, that cavemen had unpleasant lives if you compare them to our modern society.

There are two approaches that I can readily conceive to deal with this presumption.

First, No one was happy in the caveman days, people are happier now than we ever were then. The problem we would see with this is that there are a number of very depressed people around who cannot be explained away by traumatic experiences or faulty brain chemistry.

I dont know where you draw these presumptions, but they seem obviously biased. This presumption of poor living conditions of cavemen, struggling for their lives, living miserably in scarcity, I hear awful lot when comparing societies of past and present. It seems that it is almost taken as self-evident. I find it dubious to take such false premise to be part of your deduction, if some sort of deduction from this matter can be done in the first place.

Just to add, I find it even more difficult to evaluate the happiness-factor, that is subjective matter, and thus, difficult concept to handle in the first place.

Anyway, several studies has suggested for quite long time that the traditional hypothesis of poor cavemen is merely a one theory, a postulation, that derives from neolithic mans disposition to assumpt that the economics is oneway road, and that in the end of this road is his economic model, the highest peak of the evolution.

Let the Marshall Sahlins to speak now:

"Hunter-gatherers consume less energy per capita per year than any other group of human beings. Yet when you come to examine it the original affluent society was none other than the hunter's - in which all the people's material wants were easily satisfied. To accept that hunters are affluent is therefore to recognise that the present human condition of man slaving to bridge the gap between his unlimited wants and his insufficient means is a tragedy of modern times. [...]"

"[....] A good case can be made that hunters and gatherers work less than we do; and, rather than a continuous travail, the food quest is intermittent, leisure abundant, and there is a greater amount of sleep in the daytime per capita per year than in any other condition of society.

The most obvious, immediate conclusion is that the people do not work hard. The average length of time per person per day put into the appropriation and preparation of food was four or five hours. Moreover, they do not work continuously. The subsistence quest was highly intermittent. It would stop for the time being when the people had procured enough for the time being. which left them plenty of time to spare. [...]"

" [...] In the non subsistence sphere, the people's wants are generally easily satisfied. Such "material plenty" depends partly upon the simplicity of technology and democracy of pro perty. Products are homespun: of stone, bone, wood, skin-materials such as "lay in abundance around them". As a rule, neither extraction of the raw material nor its working up take strenuous effort. Access to natural resources is typically direct- "free for anyone to take"- even as possession of the necessary tools is general and knowledge of the required skills common. The division of labour is likewise simple, predominantly a division of labour by sex. Add in the liberal customs of sharing, for which hunters are properly famous, and all the people can usually participate in the going prosperity, such as it is. "

http://www.primitivism.com/original-affluent.htm

SirArtturi wrote:I was lazy and were able to only skim your text but please excuse me if im speaking out of context or misunderstood the argument.

SinbadEV wrote:
One stands to reason, based on studies of our history and some assumption I can assume we can make, that cavemen had unpleasant lives if you compare them to our modern society.

There are two approaches that I can readily conceive to deal with this presumption.

First, No one was happy in the caveman days, people are happier now than we ever were then. The problem we would see with this is that there are a number of very depressed people around who cannot be explained away by traumatic experiences or faulty brain chemistry.

...

I would like to thank you for that wonderful angle, I had kinda a haze of this notion (as you can probably see from my hedged wording) but had not found a way to articulate it.

The essence of my question remains however.

Given that perspective on "Hunter Gatherer Affluence" I would still think, at some point, we could make our way back to that level of affluence through advances in technology and political sciences... or whatever we want to call them.

The one problem, as has been hinted at ironically, is that we have essentially screwed ourselves over by allowing our population to exceed the "natural" level that earth can sustain. There is really no way to go back to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle for the majority of the earth's population.

What I really want to know though, outside of all this great discussion on motivation etc. is why "advances" like computers and free-market economies and democracy have not improved the human condition... the concept of the affluent caveman begs this question further... why have these "advances" made the situation "worse"?

I concur that someone needs to run the bureaucracy that makes the whole system work and that an awful lot of the problem comes down to greed... but is there no way that we could get things done more efficiently? Or are we all working to support the invention of new problems (for example, we invented the problem of not having the best TV/Computer).

why "advances" like computers and free-market economies and democracy have not improved the human condition

they only improve "local" situations and often only temporary while "global" stuff gets worse.

Minor rant ahoy!

Information and communication networks are the tools of the global hegemony which exploits "workers" in order to exacerbate the continually growing wealth gap between rich and poor.

Things get "worse" because we live in effectively a feudal economy, and nobody challenges the uber-rich overlords who dictate our working and recreational lives.

You slave away for 20 years in the average job, and you will not come close to the annual earnings of one of the top 5% (im presuming "average job" = untrained work in western europe/america). These people then go on to invest, and the rich-poor gap is compounded.

Add to that taxation with very marginal representation (lolol con-libs/bullshit election promises/any 2 party system) and one can't help feeling like you could easily slave away for your whole life, working much harder than people who earn much more, and earning substantially less, with much less of a say in how society is governed.

Look at the pathetic banking reforms that were marginally squeezed through government, with a delayed implementation, and an inadequate scope at that.

I could go on and on: If you are really interested, from an academic standpoint, I would *really* suggest familiarising yourself with the concept of "anomie" proposed by Sartre, reading John Stuart Mill's interpretation of how we can integrate with a society (and the implicit limitations upon freedom therein), and probably a healthy dose of Marx.

TL;DR: We are exploited peons, unless one confronts directly the systems which produce this situation: "stfu hypocrite". As a result of consciously considering a truly secular existence, one is very likely to encounter "anomie" (anguish, abandonment, despair). If one does move to try and challenge the current social political and economic dynamics, they are likely to rapidly encounter the insurmountable brick wall of their compatriot's apathy, greed and laziness. We are in this mess because people are lazy greedy peons, as they have been trained to be by the society that nourished them. Marx said, to my recurring amusement: "you will never have a revolution on a full stomach".

It cannot really be that bad, or people would move to change it, that is, if they honestly believed that they could...

I don't want to be patronising, but Sinbad your walloftext smacks of needing to read some Marx

P.S. Before some flag waving republican calls me Commie, I'm not.

Happyness... Media has manipulated people to believe happyness is something you must have, like iphone etc. It's some sort of illness in these days, probably caused by these epic superstars lifestyle we read from the news every day and thus we start dreaming about being millionaires because our lives arent that epic as theirs. Some people live their whole life for dreaming that, some day, they are famous and rich, and thus, lives depressive life to the end of their lives... Some people just become lazy and stop working because they feel its pointless when they can never be superstar millionaires. Either get it all or nothing.

And, work is not supposed to be an enjoyment, dont think its some sort of amusement park you go every day to be happy because your life sucks at home, or because your friend lied to you that he is happy at his workplace. If you stop thinking for a while about the word of Happyness, then, you have a chance to be happy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1RQmnSJoRg

pintle wrote:I don't want to be patronising, but Sinbad your walloftext smacks of needing to read some Marx
P.S. Before some flag waving republican calls me Commie, I'm not.

Yeah, I have been reading a lot of stuff written by economists and sociologists recently... might pick up some of the other side... also, I've heard it said that Marx wasn't a Marxist... you don't have to be a commie to see the logic in a bottom heavy society leading to revolution... heck, I staged a revolution at camp one year... protip for camp chancellors: don't let the kids realize they have power over you thanks to superior numbers... it's just a good thing I relinquished the power I had gained at the end of the "game"

the gov't is keeping us down! rise to the barricades and fight back evil enslaving welfare of our new society! let's return back to the glorious hunter gathering society to make us happy once again!