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Comment by d1sxeyes | Hacker News Reader

Well, I agree we can do better, especially in terms of the fairness of distribution of wealth, but frankly yes, to take part in a society, you either need to 'pay the entrance fee' or have it waived for you.

We generally 'waive' the fee for children, the elderly, and the disabled, but ultimately, right at the very sharp end, some folks HAVE to work so the others have food. So those of us who are not growing food need to produce something of value to trade in order to get food.

The solution we have today (we all contribute our labour in exchange for tokens which can be used to buy food and other things) is significantly better than how it was a couple of hundred years ago (slaves do the work).

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But why should I have to pay the entrance fee and why should I have to work? Unless you believe axiomatically that everyone "should" work there is no rational reason why everyone should work. Hunter gatherers didn't work. They hunted, gathered food, took care of the children and whatnot but they decidedly did not work. But now, thousands of years later, we're devoting most of waking hours to work. That's not progress. And all for no good reason. All those developers optimizing ctr rates for ads or building casino sites for gambling addicts, are not adding anything of value to society. They are making it worse. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much pointless work out there that is just work for work's own sake.

I think you’re completely wrong about progress. We can travel in less than 24 hours to pretty much anywhere on the planet. We can put telescopes in space. We can speak to each other even when we’re in different cities. None of this would be possible if no-one worked.

Either we all go back to being hunter gatherers, or we exploit the poor to do our fair share of the work that needs to be done for us to live the lifestyles we want to lead. You don’t want to work? Fine. But then you are not entitled to other people’s work product either.

No computer, no electricity, no plants you don’t grow yourself, no meat you haven’t personally slaughtered.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think we could be doing better. But the problem starts with consumerism and same-day shipping and buy-now, pay-later, and LaCroix, not with work.

If we could reduce consumerism, we could for sure reduce our working hours significantly.

Well, I think technological progress is driven by human ingenuity and not work.

I don't think work should be the entrance fee to society. You're saying that if I don't work then bad things should happen to me. I should starve (since I can't hunt nor grow vegetables) and I should not have a computer or even electricity. I.e. I should be punished. I don't see how that improves my life or society.

I think these ideas rub you the wrong way because your identity is tied to your work. If people see work as a problem rather than a solution then your status would evaporate. The guy working part-time as a dog walker and sleeps through most of it would be on an equal footing to you who work XX hours per week and earns $YYYk dollars per year.

> You're saying that if I don't work then bad things should happen to me.

No, you’re saying ‘I should be allowed to opt out of work while others labour in fields and cobalt mines and cocoa plantations’. If you can’t hunt or grow vegetables, you should perform some other task that society thinks is valuable, and share your part of collective responsibility that way.

Exploitation is already a big enough issue without us making it worse. Brave New World describes very well exactly what would happen - we would end up with worker castes and ruler castes. I see the work already moving in this direction and it is sad.

I have absolutely no problems with people choosing to work fewer hours or in less lucrative professions, provided they are not expecting society to pick up their slack.

Don’t forget that for every farmer in the fields, you also need some sort of supply chain and distribution network, you need people to build the trucks and drive them, you need people to gather the resources needed to build trucks, you need the folks drilling for oil and those working at the oil refineries, as well as the ships that bring the oil to where it’s needed (as well as folks gathering the resources and turning them into ship parts etc.)

We can afford this now because everyone who buys a vegetable in a shop pays a tiny fraction of all these costs. If nobody had to pay for vegetables any more, it’s not just the farmer who is working ‘for free’.

This is just one small product, and the simplest example I could think of. I would imagine that computers and the internet would have significantly more people who would need to work for free in order for you to have a computer.

> No, you’re saying ‘I should be allowed to opt out of work while others labour in fields and cobalt mines and cocoa plantations’.

I didn't write anything even resembling that. If that is your interpretation then continuing the discussion with you is meaningless.

OK, happy to strike that line and we can stop putting words in each other’s mouths.

What’s your opinion about the rest of my argument?

Well, I think that your argument is inconsistent. First you say that I won't be punished for not working. Then you say that I should starve if I don't work. But you still insist that working is optional! Clearly, people should be forced to work according to you. How is this materially different from slavery?

And the work you think I should do should be valuable. Who decides what work is valuable? What makes money? If so, can I be a drug dealer? That makes a lot of money. If I can't, then you must admit that what makes money is not a good indicator of what actually are useful services to soceity.

You claim that my existence causes "slack" that has to be picked up. I disagree both with the notion that human existence causes slack and that work somehow causes "slack" to be picked up. As said, I could be selling drugs and thus having enough money to buy food and pay rent. But that's not picking up "slack".

You seem to be unable to see the big picture. The costs of work and the work-centric lifestyle are massive. People spend significant portions of their lives doing things they'd rather not do and to boot, the associated consumption patterns are changing the world's climate forever. You say that benefits outweigh all that because otherwise society wouldn't function. But you have no proof at all.

> First you say that I won't be punished for not working. Then you say that I should starve if I don't work. But you still insist that working is optional! Clearly, people should be forced to work according to you.

So I did not say any of those things (except that work is optional).

I don’t have a Ferrari, but the fact I don’t have something is not a punishment unless it’s freely given to everyone else (eg: liberty, oxygen, etc.).

You don’t have to starve if you don’t work. You are welcome to grow your own food, fish and hunt, and sustain yourself without working. However, if you want other people to do those things for you, you need to give them something in return.

Your drug dealer example is a good one because it highlights a problem with using the market to determine value. Ultimately, consumers determine the value of product or service, and as a drug dealer you may make a lot of money because consumers are willing to pay for the drugs you sell. I completely agree that value and societal net benefits are not always linked, and this is a flaw in the current system. But I have not seen a better model yet.

Your existence in and of itself does not cause slack. Your inability or unwillingness to sustain yourself does.

I think accusing me of being unable to see the big picture is a bit rude and unnecessary. I see a very different big picture to the one you seem to see though.

> People spend significant portions of their lives doing things they'd rather not do and to boot, the associated consumption patterns are changing the world's climate forever.

I completely agree, and have mentioned several times that I think consumerism is a major problem, and by reducing consumerism on an individual level, many people could reduce their own working hours. On a societal level, we would see major environmental benefits.

> You say that benefits outweigh all that because otherwise society wouldn't function. But you have no proof at all.

I shouldn’t need to prove a position that I’m not arguing. I am arguing that society currently works this way, and you are saying we should change it for this model where you don’t have to work, without any evidence that it would be successful. Where’s your proof? The fact that some people like to spend their free time saving lives or writing code?

But you cannot with a straight face claim that work is optional if not working leads to starvation and eventually death. The difference between a ferrari and existence is that that the latter is a right. Every human has the right to exist but none has the right to own a ferrari. It's notable that the punishment you think is suitable for non-workers (e.g. death) is usually reserved for the most heinous of crimes. The conclusion is that you and the rest of society deem non-working a worse crime than, say, assault which only nets you a few years in prison.

> You don’t have to starve if you don’t work. You are welcome to grow your own food, fish and hunt, and sustain yourself without working.

You are repeating arguments I have already addressed.

A better model than equating money with value is workfree societies driven by voluntarism. I have given you many examples of those, so you cannot claim that you haven't seen better models. Indeed, there is ample evidence to suggest that the current model is not the best we can do but you seem unable to consider that evidence.

> Where’s your proof? The fact that some people like to spend their free time saving lives or writing code?

Yes? That those communities exist within a work-centric society strongly suggests that work is not required for humans to do useful tasks.

> But you cannot with a straight face claim that work is optional if not working leads to starvation and eventually death.

Again, you may choose to farm, hunt etc. for yourself, and choosing not to work would not therefore result in starvation.

> It's notable that the punishment you think is suitable for non-workers

You keep trying to frame my words in this way. I don’t think that anyone deserves a punishment.

> You are repeating arguments I have already addressed.

I haven’t seen anywhere you have addressed this point short of bluntly insisting that you should not have to, and others should do this for you.

> I have given you many examples of those, so you cannot claim that you haven't seen better models.

No, you have mentioned a couple of hobbies with no direct impact on the day-to-day life of most of society. No mention of why people would volunteer to become farmers, hunters, sewage workers, coal miners, refuse collectors, etc.

> Indeed, there is ample evidence to suggest that the current model is not the best we can do but you seem unable to consider that evidence.

I have repeatedly acknowledged problems in the current model. However, evidence of problems with the current model is not evidence of the absence of problems in a different one. At this point I’m starting to feel like you are being deliberately obtuse.

If you do not work society takes away your ability to acquire food and housing. This is, indeed, a punishment. That is a physical punishment in the exact same sense as being imprisoned is. There is also a psychological punishment due to the ostracization people suffer. The latter may for many be a more severe punishment than the former. Regardless, there is a severe punishment.

You keep bringing up "you can farm and hunt" as a cop-out to imply that work is optional. In most countries there is no wilderness with game to hunt in, nor is there unused agricultural land to establish farms on.

> I haven’t seen anywhere you have addressed this point short of bluntly insisting that you should not have to, and others should do this for you.

I addressed this point in these comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30107745 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30101084 And again, if you can't keep from making this personal this discussion ends (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30112316).

> > I have given you many examples of those, so you cannot claim that you haven't seen better models.

> No, you have mentioned a couple of hobbies with no direct impact on the day-to-day life of most of society. No mention of why people would volunteer to become farmers, hunters, sewage workers, coal miners, refuse collectors, etc.

That's untrue. I have given you plenty of examples of tasks critical to society that people have executed voluntarily. Attempting to satisfy your demand for examples for every "unpleasant" task you can come up with would be a waste of my time and would not convince you either way.

Let's put it this way. What would it take to convince you that a workfree society is possible? What evidence do you need? If you can't formulate that, then perhaps it is because you don't want to be convinced?

It feels as though accusing me of making personal attacks is just a way for you to try to get out of the corner you’ve backed yourself into. The comment history is public, anyone can read back and see who started making assumptions about the other first.

> You keep bringing up "you can farm and hunt" as a cop-out to imply that work is optional. In most countries there is no wilderness with game to hunt in, nor is there unused agricultural land to establish farms on.

This is a fair point, and I’ll concede on that.

> Let's put it this way. What would it take to convince you that a workfree society is possible? What evidence do you need? If you can't formulate that, then perhaps it is because you don't want to be convinced?

What would it take to convince you you that you can survive on water and light alone? What evidence do you need? If you can't formulate that, then perhaps it is because you don't want to be convinced?

In all seriousness though, I believe that workfree (per your definition of work) societies can (and do) exist, but they cannot work on a macro scale. I believe this because in ‘workfree’ societies, members are assigned roles and complete tasks still, the only difference is that there’s no exchange of money.

This works because individuals are able to independently verify whether everyone in the community is pulling their weight. Without every individual being able to do that to every other individual, then you either a) simply have to trust people, which has historically tended to result in a few taking advantage of the many, or b) come up with some way of attesting work has been done, which is just another name for money.

By your definition any society which uses money cannot be a workfree society.

> It feels as though accusing me of making personal attacks is just a way for you to try to get out of the corner you’ve backed yourself into

What corner? I'm spending my free time teaching you about work philosophies you haven't heard of. The personal attacks you keep repeating is that I'm arguing that others should work for me and that I shouldn't have to work. If you believe that is the point of my argument then I'm wasting my time.

> This is a fair point, and I’ll concede on that.

Even if wilderness and unused farmland existed in abundance taking advantage of it requires you to disconnect from society. It is not feasible to live that way.

> In all seriousness though, I believe that workfree (per your definition of work) societies can (and do) exist, but they cannot work on a macro scale.

Societies in general do not exist on macro scales. Nations are not societies, they are abstractions whose purpose is to organize work. Of course I can't tell how the world would look like if work became voluntary. I doubt global cooperation would be harder than it is today.

> This works because individuals are able to independently verify whether everyone in the community is pulling their weight.

You are still unable to see that the point of work freedom is that executing useful tasks is not "pulling weight" or "picking up slack" (an expression you used before). If you enjoy what you are doing what difference does it make whether someone is pulling weight or not?

> By your definition any society which uses money cannot be a workfree society.

Yes, kind of. If the distribution of money is uneven society is probably not workfree.

> The personal attacks you keep repeating is that I'm arguing that others should work for me and that I shouldn't have to work

This is not a personal attack. It's literally what you have said. The following are direct quotes: "why should I have to work?"[0]. "we would then ask farmers to give us food in exchange for nothing at all? Sure."[1]

If you don't believe that the things you say are the points of your argument, then I agree one or both of us are wasting our time.

> Even if wilderness and unused farmland existed in abundance taking advantage of it requires you to disconnect from society. It is not feasible to live that way. > Societies in general do not exist on macro scales.

I don't understand. If you're saying there's no such thing as society on a macro scale, then what 'society' are you disconnecting from? Why would you not be able to have a society in the wilderness or on the farmland?

> If you enjoy what you are doing what difference does it make whether someone is pulling weight or not?

Absolutely not! Right up until you expect things which are the products of someone else's labour to be provided for you.

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30102349 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30128236

I think what most people are saying is that if you're not working to feed yourself, then someone else is. And further, it's not fair to ask society to pick up the slack for people who could contribute, but choose not to.

In other words: by saying you shouldn't starve for refusing to work, aren't you also saying that someone else should grow your food for you for free?

My job is completely detached from the processes and people that ensure there is food on my table. There is no slack to pick up because there is no contribution. Most software developers are in the exact same position. There is no "contributing" in programming casino sites, optimizing trading algorithms to make fat cats richer, or developing aaa games. Society would be better off if we didn't work.

I would counter by saying that entertainment is actually valuable. Gambling and playing games are things that people choose to spend their time and money doing because they are fun. (Obviously taking advantages of addiction is immoral, but that’s a whole other bag of worms).

As for optimizing trading algos, the counter is that making markets more efficient is also valuable to society at large, and that is what most quants would say they are doing.

As you pointed out in some other comments, there are certainly issues with the current system. Though, I don’t think the conclusion is for people to stop working entirely. If that were the case all of these “useless” jobs would go away and we would then ask farmers to give us food in exchange for nothing at all?

I think what might be better is offering more incentives for people to work in industries that make a real positive impact on the world. And in lieu of that, people who feel they aren’t contributing in a meaningful way can try to seek out more meaningful work. And we as a society should support *that*.

Your counter-argument to my examples of worthless work is "well, actually, that work is valuable!" The reason why you use this argument is because we are so conditioned to believe that money is the same thing as value. Thus, by definition, every work is valuable because someone pays.

Try and think of it from a utilitarian perspective. Is some aaa game creating or destroying more happiness? Is it a net positive for society? For some games perhaps the answer is yes, for others it is no. Children getting obese from sedentary lifestyle and not socialising with friends is certainly a large cost.

> If that were the case all of these “useless” jobs would go away and we would then ask farmers to give us food in exchange for nothing at all?

Sure.

Well, yes, people find the work in your examples valuable. I can say that for sure because they are willing to spend their money on it.

> Sure.

Ha, then the farmers would say "no" and you'd starve to death?

Programming casino sites has value because people choose to spend the money that they earn gambling.

Society decides which tasks have value and which don’t by whether consumers spend money on the work product produced by those tasks.

Now, society’s way of working this out isn’t perfect, but how else should we determine which jobs are adding value and which are not?

I reject the idea that money determines what has worth. Because believing so leads to absurd conclusions. Like dealing drugs being more valuable than taking care of sick people, or pills against male pattern baldness being more valuable than aids medicines for sub-Saharan Africans, or Jeff Bezos being a million times more valuable than me. In fact, the very idea that money is what decides worth is what got us into this mess in the first place.

You ask how we should decide what jobs has "value" and which hasn't. Well, if it isn't obvious that a job has "value" then perhaps it has no value?

Obvious to whom, and how do you define ‘value’?

I’m not being difficult here, these are tough questions.

Allowing the market to decide value is the option we currently have, and seems to be the fairest so far.

I am sure that it is not optimal, and it has flaws, but no one has yet convinced me that there is a better model.

Workless societies depend on voluntarism so there is no need to precisely define value. For instance, who decided that creating Linux was valuable use of Linus Torvalds time? In situations where you really have to define value, democratic votes is fairer than "letting the market" (i.e rich people) decide.

> Workless societies depend on voluntarism

This presents a workless society as a real thing, rather than a hypothetical. I might be wrong, but I’m not aware of any workless society (apart from hunter gatherer tribes and history). If you have examples of a society that functions fully without work, then please share, I’d be interested to see how you solve volunteering for unpleasant or undesirable tasks that no-one wants.

They have existed on small scales. Everything from hippie communies to Christian monasteries to Israeli kibbutzim. The reason tasks are undesirable is because the tasks are detached from people's lives. Raising kids is certainly "objectively" undesirable, yet people do it for free and at great costs. Why? Because it's meaningful.

Kibbutzim is an interesting one. My uncle lived on one for a while, he definitely describes them ‘working’ alongside each other.

Work is a severely overloaded word. I'm using the Marxist definition which I described in another comment.

That's not true.

You might have invented electricity or the computer through ingenuity, but who is going to build the infrastructure that supports it? Who is going to build the poles in your suburb to get the electricity to you? Who is going to build the telecommunications infrastructure and maintain it such that if it breaks there is someone there to fix it?

How come volunteer fire departments exist?

Because most of them enjoy doing it and their community directly benefits from the work.

Not all pay for work is monetary, but firefighting is still work.

And I just realized - maybe you hate your job. If that’s the case, go find something else you enjoy that happens to pay the bills. Life is too short to be spending your working hours hating life, and if you’re on this site you can probably find some sort of job (or start a business) that you enjoy and others find valuable.

Volunteer firefighting is not work. See my work definition here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30127704 No, I actually enjoy my work, as I wrote in my first comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30099687

I think most volunteer fire fighters have other jobs.

https://www.quora.com/I-dont-understand-volunteer-firefighte...

That doesn't answer my question, does it?

In the most literal sense no, but I think it does address your point.

Honestly it’s an odd example to pick because there are paid firefighters too - why would you need to pay firefighters if enough people are willing to do it for free?

"How come volunteer fire departments exist?" is a rethorical quesiton. Whether volunteer firefighters have other jobs is beside the point. Clearly, useful tasks can be executed without a work context.

The reason you need to pay firefighters is because society is work-centric.

As a rhetorical question, I don’t think it achieves the goal you intend it to.

The reason you need to pay firefighters is because a few people might give some of their time, but a fire department needs to operate 24x7.

When you can’t find enough volunteers in your society, how do you solve the problem of buildings burning down at a time no-one chooses to volunteer?

I think people would volunteer. Main reason not many volunteer is because they are busy with work. In a workfree society people would have much more free time to spend than they have now.

I’m glad you think that. Would you volunteer? I don’t think I would. Especially late nights and weekends.

I’d rather do something more fun if I can pick and choose. Maybe race car driver? Or chocolate taster?

Yes, I would. It would be a fun way to meet new friends.

How come paid fire fighters exist then, if others are willing to do it for free?

"But why should I have to pay the entrance fee and why should I have to work?" You don't have to, nobody is forcing you to work. If you want to dumpster dive and live on the streets you never have to work. Plenty of people live like this. You choose to work because it's the easiest way for you to support the lifestyle you want to live. What you're really asking is "why won't society give me nice things while I do nothing" and the reason is because you're not that special. If everyone thought like this then we would all end up worse off.

You claim that work is optional because you can choose not to work and become a homeless bum? That to me seems like a facetious argument.

The only time global CO2 emissions significantly decreased was when people stopped working due to the Covid pandemic. Thus, I think the evidence is against your claim that we would all be worse off.

If you're a homeless bum you'll have all the free time in the world to draw and make music and read and hang out with friends. That's what you want, right? You sound pretty classist asserting the life of a bohemian is beneath you. Sounds like you do really want nice things. Well, everyone wants nice things. That's why we came up with a fair system to allocate nice things to people who pay for nice things. If nobody works, nobody has nice things.

Ok boomer. :)

I'm not even 30, born to poor immigrants who didn't graduate from school, and I own my own property that I paid for with my hard work >;)

Because society isn't a free resource, it requires time and effort (i.e. work) to create and maintain, and that work can either be distributed across its members, or it can be done entirely by some and others simply mooch off of their work. If you feel like work is disproportionately done by some and not others, or that some work creates no value, that's a valid argument and worth exploring. But the idea that people should just be free to consume societal benefits without contributing to those benefits is obviously flawed. It assumes you should be free to personally consume, but others will be required to work to provide you with the goods and services you are consuming, meaning the ability to opt out of work isn't available to all. At that point it becomes clear that people with this particular anti-work view don't actually have issues with the current capitalist system in which some coerce others to labor and exploit the benefits, they simply have an issue that they aren't in the position to do the exploiting.

Perhaps that kind of utopia becomes more feasible when we become a society in which everything is completely automated, but we aren't anywhere close to that, so in the meantime, everybody should be expected to contribute.

Workfree societies have existed so it is incorrect to claim that work is required for society to exist. For example, the free software community exists and is workfree. However, it seems you and many others are incapable to rationally reason about these issues since you implied that "people with this particular anti-work view" (i.e. me) just wants to be the ones doing the exploiting. It's plain as day that a massive number of jobs are not necessary. The conclusion should be that people shouldn't be coerced to do them.

If the jobs are truly unnecessary, the company and society will stop paying for them.

If no one will do that work at a wage that the market will bear, then that job goes away.

And from other comments it appears you only believe work happens when there is An exchange of money. Raising a kid is the hardest job and work that I’ve ever done. I don’t get paid money for that…

Volunteers still “work”. The fact that they are volunteering shows they could be paid for their time and effort, but instead are doing it for free. But it’s not like they weren’t adding value as soon as the exchange of money is removed.

> If the jobs are truly unnecessary, the company and society will stop paying for them.

This is a circular argument, isn't it? Why is the work necessary? Because society pays for it. Why does society pay for it? Because the work is necessary.

I reject it. Money != value.

> Raising a kid is the hardest job and work that I’ve ever done. I don’t get paid money for that…

That's a good example of a task that is valuable (in the real sense) but not work (since it is voluntary). Here is how I define "work": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30127704

The free software community is not ‘work free’.

Many free software developers work for organisations who have chosen to share their work freely because their revenue stream comes from support or hosting.

There are free software projects where hobbyists build things to scratch a personal itch, but most of these people are contributing their free time and have another job.

You keep repeating the point that ‘a massive number of jobs are not necessary’. Can you define what is ‘necessary work’ and how society can determine a priori what that work might be?

Yes, free software is workfree as tasks are executed without there being monetary gain. Time is not traded for money. Read my other comments in this thread for examples on (worse than) useless jobs.

> Time is not traded for money.

I dispute that. Many contributors to free software are doing so in exchange for money, either directly by being paid by their employer or allowing ‘sponsored features’, or indirectly by soliciting donations or through monetising their software through support contracts etc.

I agree there are hobbyists who do give their time without expecting any financial return, but the free software community does include a significant proportion of people who are paid directly or indirectly for the time they spend on any particular project.

> I dispute that. Many contributors to free software are doing so in exchange for money, either directly by being paid by their employer or allowing ‘sponsored features’, or indirectly by soliciting donations or through monetising their software through support contracts etc.

Sure, in the same way that an Amnesty volunteer could be an undercover CIA agent paid by the government. That, however, is not the community's main mode of operation.

It’s impossible to tell for sure, but it looks like approximately half of open source contributions take place during working hours, and workdays have twice as many contributions as weekends, so I would say that yes, it is at least one main mode of operation.

You mention Linus Torvalds in another comment, but did you know he has been paid to work on Linux since around 1997?

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/for-50-percent-of-devel...

Such stats are notoriously noisy. Ohloh only analyzes the most popular free software projects so there is a long, long tail of projects that is unaccounted for in the statistics. Furthermore, even if most commits are submitted during office hours (in what timezone?) how can we know that they are paid specifically for contributing? E.g. could be some bored developers commit to their own personal project.

Regardless, the amount of companies involved in free software could be evidence of the superiority of voluntarism over "workism" for complex human systems.

I agree it’s noisy, just offering it as some evidence.

I think the statistic that half as many commits are on weekend days is particularly interesting, because people who are really doing it for free would likely contribute MORE outside their working hours.

Do you have anything more concrete?

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