Hacker News Reader

Comment by sn41 | Hacker News Reader

Society has always made sure that most people remain in the rat race.

During agrarian times, it was back-breaking work. During the industrial revolution, it was in sweat shops. Once office became computerised, it became office drudge work. Industrial revolution came with promises of leisure, but they did not materialise (see "In Praise of Idleness" by Bertrand Russell. [1])

Incomes of the majority, and the debt due to consumerist needs of the majority are kept in balance so that no one has leisure time to fulfil their true human potential, and you need to work 3 decades to subsist.

I somehow tend to think that the coming A. I. revolution, if it does come at all, will leave things as they are in a new form - the more things change, the more they remain the same.[2]

[1] http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Alphonse_Karr

View on HN

I find the conversation about leisure time throughout history to often be mis-characterized or missing valuable insights to support someone's perspective of "wanting more control of their time.

If were were to look at the working hours in a few European countries, it becomes clear that the weekly work hours has diminished from 65-70hrs in the 1870s, to 35-40hrs in 2000s [1]. This, coupled with technology solutions that helps decrease household shores, improves healthcare and decreases time to acquire consumer goods (The list goes on), it becomes clear that we live in unprecedented times in terms of leisure.

It is also interesting to see hunter-gatherer societies, which is estimated to have worked from 2.8 to 7.6 hours. Did the increase in leisure time lead to 'true human potential' for these societies? If not, what makes us believe that it will be different today? Is it possible that more leisure time will lead to more boredom, screen swipe, etc?

If we were to assume that [1] data will continue to move in the same direction, then we are likely to have further gains in 'leisure time' led by a new technological evolution.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours [2] Working Hours in Hunter-Gatherer and Other Premodern Societies - https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours#note-1

Or we could get free space and experiment on large scale of scarcity is eliminated or vastly reduced. AI won't provide it, of course, we need other technologies.

Yes, material prosperity will improve, no doubt. But I am doubtful about greater leisure.

Leisure is not the ultimate end. I'd personally prefer a society with some productive work instead, and for the disadvantaged, finding what they fit into.

I recommend reading "Accelerando" by Charles Stross which is very imaginative if not in-depth enough... Or potentially the "Culture" series. People there don't just laze forever.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com