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Comment by sevenless | Hacker News Reader

You aren't wrong. Most of us are stuck in conformist, drab and conservative societies, where we're forced to participate in the market economy. This is soul-crushing, and bad for nearly everyone, but especially those in poor countries.

I recommend:

1. Don't work hard. Try to reduce your productivity.

2. Don't work long hours. Reduce your working week to the minimum necessary. Most university graduates earn enough to live comfortably on 10 or 20 hours work per week.

3. Have less stuff. Go outside more, even if it's to play Pokemon Go.

4. Do things for other people.

5. Try to lead an innovative life. Don't wear a tie.

6. Seek to abolish the existing world order.

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This is one of those puzzling comments that I can't tell if tongue-in-cheek or actually serious.

I like it! Life's too serious and people need some chaotic ambiguity to spice it up.

> Don't work hard. Try to reduce your productivity.

Sounds good. Most people aren't as productive as they think they are, imho. I'd rather not buy into their facade and just be as productive as I need to be when I need to be!

> Don't work long hours. Reduce your working week to the minimum necessary. Most university graduates earn enough to live comfortably on 10 or 20 hours work per week.

Eh, I don't know where you live, but 10-20 hours of work would be a straight path to homelessness. Unless you mean actual hours of productive work (in a nominal 40 hour work week). Then it's a good target.

> Have less stuff. Go outside more, even if it's to play Pokemon Go.

Completely agree. Going outside in the summer and staying inside (a suburban home) has changed my life for the better more than any other single thing.

> Do things for other people.

Any suggestions? What do you think most people would like done for them?

> Seek to abolish the existing world order.

I think the world order is doing a pretty good job in that on its own.

> Seek to abolish the existing world order.

Seems like abolishing world orders takes a lot of work. At least more than ten hours per week.

You just have to abolish smarter, not harder.

10 hours a week would be fantastic. Or any non-zero amount of time. If everyone did this it would be a revolutionary force the likes of which have not been seen in decades.

I am not sure about the work less/work less hard comments. I get paid a decent, fair wage by my employer. I personally consider it "justice" if I do my best and give them my best. As a new father, I have to fight to work hard and also give my family time.

I abolished the world order- thermo-dynamics is gone- you are free, no need to eat the sun anymore and to fight your way up in the layer of sun-eating-refinement order.

If you want to abolish something, at least make a suggestion with what you want to replace it.

This is an odd thing to say in a place where disruption for disruption's sake is the order of business. No one wants to think about how their productivity-enhancing products destroy ways of life without offering a good replacement.

Odd in a good way. Yes, let's smash capitalism, but let's not replace it with a more oppressive system, as often happens in revolutions.

In addition to that I suggest abandoning the idea of trying to be somebody. More important than individuals are what they achieve when working together.

This belongs to point 4: "do things for other people". Doing things for others often works best when joining existing efforts. Many projects with a social agenda don't have enough funds or supporters, because they operate outside of the simple profit model.

Yes. Don't be "somebody"", just be yourself and work on improving a few skills plus get out of your comfort zone. Go to an acting class. Learn a new language. Go to a small, special cafe every day where the people after a while greet you like family. Read "a guide to the good life" and really reflect about it. Then read it again.

No. Work hard. On something that matters. The world needs a lot of help. If people with privilege use that privilege to slack off rather than give back, the world has no hope.

You will find a lot of meaning and joy in giving, in focusing on the well-being of others. Your own well-being will follow.

Yes to 3, 4 and 6! 5 Never hurts.

There is no point in burning out quickly. Burn sustainably.

> The world needs a lot of help.

With great power comes great responsibility.

There are many people even in developed countries[1] who need help of those who made it through.

[1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/12/24/how-bad-are-things/

Great points here. Counterpoints to consider:

1 & 2 are different for everyone. I get an energy boost from working a certain amount of really productive hours during the week. Be self-aware, meditate, and identify the symptoms leading up to burnout. Err on the side of caution when it comes to preventing exhaustion, but let yourself binge on productivity if you're excited about the work you're doing. After you're done with that project, if you have a chance, take some time off and do something completely different. Surround yourself with people, opportunities and environments that make you excited to take a break.

7. Cut social media out of your life.

I've never been happier and more clear-headed than I've been since I stopped using pretty much all social media (except Snapchat with close family).

By the way, we need more people working on #6.

Hacker news comments don't count.

Having an office job, eg. signing a work contract where you have to schow up every morning is not participating in the market economy but voluntary slavery. Don´t be a slave!

I live in Europe where self employement is not common but the most happiest friends of mine are all somehow self employed.

... that is not what slavery is

Employment contracts aside... Let's just ask ourselves, is having a job optional?

Of course it is optional, because no one is holding a gun to your head, right?

But "everybody knows" that 1. if you don't work, you'll sooner or later (perhaps sooner!) be homeless and 2. homelessness can lead to sudden, violent death.

Just because the trigger and the barrel are far apart doesn't mean it isn't a gun.

> Employment contracts aside... Let's just ask ourselves, is having a job optional?

The majority of people need to work if they want to survive, that's true. So "jobs" aren't voluntary. But "a job" is. You don't have to pick plants out in a field if you don't want to. If you don't like your position, or boss, or pay, you can quit and look for work elsewhere. Or even have multiple jobs!

A slave doesn't get to say "This other company is nicer and pays better, so I'm leaving here and going there instead." But you can.

Slaves don't get to pick where they sleep, either.

Thing is, neither do most people.

    SELECT TOP 1 job,residence
    FROM jobs JOIN residences
    WHERE jobs.pay > residences.rent
    ORDER BY jobs.pay DESC, residences.rent ASC

it's common to add some qualifications like...

    AND jobs.category NOT IN ('murder','prostitution')
    AND residences.crime_factor < 0.4

...etc.

But that doesn't change the fact that LOTS of people believe in their hearts that they have absolutely no choice but to continue doing exactly what they are doing.

I'd hazard the guess that almost all of us have actually removed WHERE predicates because during the initial searches (back in late childhood), zero rows were returned. Predicates like

    jobs.category = 'helping_people'

    residences.climate = 'tropical'

If you are thinking that it's just not possible for everyone to have their ideal job, fine. It's not. But stop for just a second and review that survival part...

Why exactly is it so hard to survive without a job, in 2016? I mean, physically. You need air and water and food and shelter. Those are listed in decreasing order of necessary frequency.

Seems to me that the problem is rent and the social framework that enforces eviction via violence--even if the space isn't otherwise being used.

I, for one, would not die without a job--not from starvation. But I would eventually be arrested, beat up, stripped of my possessions, etc, and that would eventually lead to death. The jobless don't die--they are killed.

Slavery.

In those terms, we are enslaved by the existence of personal property. Or maybe by the existence of society, in general. Society's requirements force you into a certain set of paths.

> Why exactly is it so hard to survive without a job, in 2016?

Why should it not be, for a sufficiently broad definition of "job"?

Because it seems that the "survival" part could - and should - be automated away in this day and age. Just like we try and do with all the other boring stuff we don't want to do over and over and over again.

Automation is an effort multiplier, but it's not a cure-all, and it's not free. Building and maintaining the system will ultimately take some sort of time, work, or money input from people. So, if someone isn't going to somehow contribute to the input, why should they benefit from the output? And if they are contributing somehow, then isn't that a job?

Give me that job, and I'll happily shut up!

I like how you're thinking.

    > [Suppose] we are enslaved by the
    > existence of personal property ...

Okay. All personal property, or would could this be narrowed down to real estate?

    > [Maybe we are enslaved] by the
    > existence of society, in general.

I hope not. I hope to isolate the problem down to something more specific, and file a bug report.

This topic is a hobby of mine.

Having the choice to choose which ruler you serve it's not what it seems to be. As Machiavelli wrote:

>> for men change their rulers willingly, hoping to better themselves [...] they are deceived, because they afterwards find by experience they have gone from bad to worse

Not being a slave means not having a ruler.

I, too, hate the endless mouse wheel of employment. However, having a job is a COMPLETELY OPTIONAL choice that one makes; nothing is stopping any of us from living on a deserted island without a job.

Having a job is the cost of living in society. It sucks and needs improvement, but it is not as bad as slavery where you have no choice and not much gain.

Don't you think the owner of this deserted island with enough resources to live on might at some point object to you being there and force you off his land?

There is no living outside of society, outside of private property and the rule of law. There is no real choice here.

Right. Those systems ate the world a long time ago.

This is sort of a proxy conversation about money. I'd like to point out that manufacturing your own money from scratch is a good way to get shot.

Yeah, I stopped calling it "slavery" because it tends to derail the discussion. However, if you say that slavery gives you "no choice and not much gain" then the jobs are mostly improvement in the second aspect - you still don't have a choice, but you get a bit more in return.

> Having a job is the cost of living in society.

In other words, we are born into debt and must work all our lives to pay off that debt. This is true in so many ways, and makes what we're talking about amount to at best a kind of bonded child labor.

You don't have to think of it as slavery, but it's very very far from COMPLETELY OPTIONAL. There is no deserted island to live on!! There are no guarantees of universal housing, or healthcare, or much else that is needed to survive. Until there are, working vs. not working can never be a real choice. The working class by definition must work in order to live.

One could potentially find an uninhabited island with soil and water among the islands in the world, like 1 out of the 5000 uninhabited ones in the Philippine archipelago. One could even hide out in a remote location on land in a random large country, like Russia.

It might take some work, but it seems possible to me.

Such a trip costs money. To secure the legal right to inhabit the island, to make the trip, and to bring enough supplies to survive.

A person either needs to use his parent's cash or to work for a number of years and save before leaving. The "choice" isn't available to him until that happens, so either his parents must work to purchase their child's freedom, or he must work to purchase it himself. In either case this is one of the very definitions of slavery.

I could write a long post about this but my thought process currently is that being born in society automatically includes the cost of the knowledge that gets transferred to you even without doing anything. Geting automatically registered in the system and being born in a hospital or a house with heating has an inherent cost like "society debt". I think its part of evolution and not linked to monetary systems, money is only a representation.

Everything is a gun then.

I ate a banana once. I will die some day. Bananas are guns.

By "slave" I mean somebody who is not free in the sense of:

>> A free man sells the results of his work. A free man cleans someone's house and bills him when the work is done. A free man drives passengers from the airport to their home and bills them when they get there. A free man creates a software module and bills the client when it's ready. A free man translates a document and bills per page. A free man cooks a cake and bills for it.

A free man sells results, not time.

Also, a free man takes care of the food and security on his or her own.

Is it more risky? Yes. Is it more stressful? Yes. But that's what freedom is about.

Source: http://www.yegor256.com/2015/07/21/hourly-pay-modern-slavery...

Signing a voluntary contract is the antithesis of slavery. It may be boring and soul-sucking labour that you do not enjoy, but it is no more slavery than signing a contract with a customer is. Your time and effort are your own, and the reward is rightfully yours.

He's taking a much broader view. You aren't forced into that job, but how are you going to survive if you don't do some form of work that's accepted by society as such?

If people own essentially all the livable land on the planet, then there isn't really a way to retreat from society to live on your own terms. The owner of the land will eventually stop you from using it. So in a sense, you're being forced to participate in a human society to some degree, and forced to provide benefit back to that society. Consequences for not doing so usually end up to be having some form of violence or another done to you.

It's not a voluntary contract if you have to sign that contract to survive. At least not "voluntary" in a sense that is meaningful to most people living today.

As opposed to my "voluntary" contributions and obligations to the state? In that case, it's all about a magical "social contract" that I never signed, and inherited from birth. From birth, let that sink in for a little bit. That is an order of magnitude more slave-like than a voluntary contract that I enter into as an adult.

But when it comes to an actual contract, willingly signed, then "oh but you have to sign to survive". Well yes, except I don't. I can go live in the middle of nowhere and live off the land. You try doing that with the anything state-related, and then tell me how voluntary it is.

</rant>

I don't know if I've ever seen #1 given as advice, at least around these parts... very contrarian! I like it.

I don't necessarily disagree, a balanced life is a good thing. But on the other hand it's just a slightly lesser conformist one. What you really want to do is to channel your energy and ambition in another direction. Unless you're rich you can't live on dreams. You have to pay your dues. But then instead of buying a house and waiting for that promotion you can do something different.

Point 6 seems to be in conflict with point 1. Changing the world order will require lots of work (or lots of thinking, which is also work).

I'm speaking of work we're forced to do within the market-liberal economy. You are not likely to get paid to overthrow it.

Not to be picky, but if you're trying to do (6), forget about trying to do (1) & (2)

Abolishing the world order seems unnecessary but the rest is reasonable advice :)

I think setting achievable goals to work towards also helps. Although I feel "stuck" at times as well.

You aren't forced to. You could always choose to be in poverty instead, if you don't care to do produce any wealth.

If I put a gun to your head, I'm not forcing you to do anything - you can always choose the bullet.

That market economy is running only on voluntary trade is one of the biggest and weirdest misconception that's being spread. Most of the transactions we make are ones we cannot reasonably choose not to make. We can at best choose the vendor we're dealing with.

I think those two things are different despite them both being coercive. Most civilizations have always frowned on the equivalent of holding a gun to someone's head, but not the idea that you need to work to survive.

But let's suppose that force is involved in a market economy. I would agree that it should be there. And its because I'm not from a wealthy background. I've worked with the people that would benefit from this kind of change, and a large majority of them would waste it.

Or these days the advice may be to ear a tie!

Since lots of tech-oriented companies have a very relaxed or non-existent clothing policy.

Anything to stand out.

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