Hacker News Reader

Comment by Ancapistani | Hacker News Reader

> "We need work" is a social fact, nothing more, and it's only true as much as it's believed to be true.

Having gone through a handful of periods of a few months where I wasn’t working and was also not engaged in an existential struggle for survival, I have to disagree here.

Personally, I know that I need a focus for my intellectual life. It needn’t be employment, but “work” is a fair way to describe it. I can spend two or three weeks idling most of the time, but after that I need something to direct my energy and concentration toward. I need a goal that stretches my abilities, or I find myself constantly battling a depressive spiral.

View on HN

> Personally, I know that I need a focus for my intellectual life.

Would your abilities feel stretched by being a cashier? How about a janitor? Waiter?

These jobs are what "work" actually is for most people. I think most people could go without doing those things.

Intellectual stimulation, or goals that stretch one's abilities, don't have to come from work (and for most people those things and "work" are hardly related at all). Therefore, saying we (as humans) "need" work is generally incorrect (at least for the reasons you stated) since most people don't even get what you say we "need" from work anyway.

I just went into the hardware store last week. The cashier at the store was talking to someone he knew. He actually took the job there because he had retired, and had nothing to do. So he works there for 20/hrs a week. So for him, he needed work.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all... but I do that kind of interesting. I like to think that if I had unlimited free time, there's no way I'd ever be bored, I have so many things that I love doing... No way I'd give up 20 hours of my week just to go work as a cashier when I don't need to.

That said... things might change when I get older.

I mean... I think there's a couple things here...

First, as I said in my comment, the man in your example is likely not working in order to "stretch [his] abilities" as was the context of my comment...

Second, I'm not sure that doing something out of boredom is equivalent to a "need," regardless of how one might describe it.

Third, it seems to me that many people's only source of purpose is work (partially because they must work exhaustively to survive), so, when the need or ability to work is removed, they have nothing else; the idea that "work" is either a necessity or a noble pursuit in of itself only serves to reinforce this outlook and the resulting behavior (i.e. deriving all purpose from work).

I don't want to push too hard, but it should be somewhat self-evident who might benefit from a culture that perpetuates a myth of work as necessity.

> he had retired, and had nothing to do.

Or: having a public-facing job is something to do that also served as a social outlet for him (especially if it's related to his hobbies) that was free (how many social activities (the kind where you meet people, not the kind where you spend time with folks you already know) are free these days?).

Every time I go to a nursery I think about how much fun it would be to "work" there, if I didn't have to consider the pay, because I love plants and talking about plants and making chit-chat with strangers.

> Intellectual stimulation, or goals that stretch one's abilities, don't have to come from work

Just different definitions of "work". I think the sense meant by those saying people "need work" is "meaningful toil". Something that requires focused effort, and done for some tangible purpose.

So cashier, janitor, waiter would fit that broad definition, even though they are not a focus of intellectual life. But there can be other types of work that also fulfill intellectual needs, that might be more fulfilling for many (most? all?) people.

> Just different definitions of "work".

I'm going to disagree on this simplification. There is a common definition of work, e.g. the definition used in the context of work/life balance (i.e. the context of the original article), that is widely used; redefining it to be as broad as you've described is detrimental to the conversation.

> Something that requires focused effort, and done for some tangible purpose.

Essentially everything can be made to fit this definition, making it, I think, not very useful.

>I think the sense meant by those saying people "need work" is "meaningful toil".

The author literally said "We need food. We need shelter." right after saying we need work.

I meaningfully toiled over a 3D print of a twisted hexagonal mesh over a tube around a 5,4 torus knot yesterday. Guess how much it helped me pay rent.

Thank you for laying this out. Exploring these are the ideas I had in mind when exploring the work-survival substitution. If I may also point out, the conceptualization of work is self-reinforcing too. Jobs are defined from the assumption of the work-fact. This in turn transforms peoples' subjective experience of work into definitions of work as an objective reality.

>Intellectual stimulation, or goals that stretch one's abilities, don't have to come from work

Your reply is entirely reasonable but it seems the gp already covered what you wrote and anticipated it in his disclaimer: ">It needn’t be employment,[...]"

He just happened to use the imprecise label "work" -- which is so tainted and overloaded that one can't re-use that word to also describe "non-employment intellectual activity" because it inadvertently tricks people into talking past each other.

(E.g. Notice that you used "work" as synonym for "employment" but the gp did not.)

You're right. This is clear had I actually noted that disclaimer, and was simply an oversight on my part.

With that in mind, I'll just agree with your analysis, redefining "work" to include "non-employment" is detrimental to the conversation. When people discuss work/life balance (i.e. in the original article), they are (almost universally) not talking about balancing intellectually stimulating hobbies and the rest of life. We are, from the onset, talking about jobs, i.e. employment.

Additionally, I think my original comment is still useful when discussing the more common definition of work.

That's not work, that's life. The opposite of working is not idling, it is spending your time in activities that realize your self without being constrained by the survival struggle.

I think his point (and the broader point being assumed by the author) was that "spending your time in activities that realize your self" does, in fact, feel a lot like work.

And that's true for a limited subset of people lucky to work in a field where the two aspects overlap.

I still don't think you understand.

If your passion is painting, and its something you would do for free, then fulfilling your artistic potential is still work. It still requires hours upon hours of deliberate practice. The great masters would spend years working on a single painting. You don't think there would be times when they just didn't feel like making progress? Where they wanted to just take the day off and hang out at a bar with their friends?

Part of the human condition is struggle, imo. That's what I think the OP is getting at when he says that human beings need work. Maybe not a 9-5, but we all need something worth staving off instant gratification for.

Semantics.

Some people still consider tasks they enjoy doing a form of "work". Work doesn't have to be compensated activities engaged in out of a desperate need to provide basic necessities.

Just different people using the same word to mean different things.

I recommend Factorio and Shenzhen IO as alternative forms of self employment. And it’s true self employment, in that you’ll need to pay yourself too.

That's too vague and inaccurate to be meaningful.

What people need is to be able to channel their energy into something productive, whether it be learning, hobbies, helping others in a meaningful way, or maybe some sort of self-improvement in terms of health.

I suppose you could put all of that under the vague umbrella of "work", but for the purpose of having a conversation that's not arguing about semantics, work is what most people do to generate an income to support their life goals and activities.

> Having gone through a handful of periods of a few months where I wasn’t working and was also not engaged in an existential struggle for survival, I have to disagree here.

I've also gone through a few such periods, in between jobs. Best time of my life. Even though I didn't accomplish a whole lot during it that you could put on paper and call work. Learned a few things, improved friendships, and did a little room remodel.

> Personally, I know that I need a focus for my intellectual life. It needn’t be employment, but “work” is a fair way to describe it.

"It is difficult for a man who always has a full stomach to put his mind to some use. Are there not players of liubo and go? Even playing these games is better than being idle." -- Confucious

I agree with this, but “work” is an utterly terrible word to use to describe it.

>Personally, I know that I need a focus for my intellectual life. It needn’t be employment, but “work” is a fair way to describe it.

Alas, alas, work has been co-opted to mean employment in most people's minds.

There's learning, there's helping, there's contributing, there are a million things that aren't idling and require effort, but net you with no money.

So they don't count as "work".

> Having gone through a handful of periods of a few months where I wasn’t working and was also not engaged in an existential struggle for survival, I have to disagree here.

Sure but that is taking a short break from your job/career. Its not like leaving school and never working.

Could you accept "We need projects" as a revision?

> I need a focus for my intellectual life. It needn’t be employment, but “work” is a fair way to describe it.

Intellectual life and work are completely orthogonal.

People have been taught to confuse them because it benefits the ruling class.

LOL, so many downvotes...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com