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Comment by wellthisisgreat | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately just loving what you do isn’t good enough for most people.

I’ve been lucky to meet people throughout my life who were motivated by that, not by money. Some where in creative professions, some not, some had big salaries, some not.

I guess automation and UBI could solve that replacing the proverbial janitors with robots. But then it may just incentivize more people to lay in bed and stare at the ceiling all day. Is it a bad thing? Is it a good thing? I do tend to believe most people will eventually fall into doing some kind of rewarding work-like activity if left to themselves completely and money was taken out of the equation. On the other hand relationships/ families may be a time-suck and many peopl etc would just “spend time with the kids” all days.

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> "I do tend to believe most people will eventually fall into doing some kind of rewarding work-like activity if left to themselves completely..."

The hikkikomori phenomenon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori) is still growing so there's little reason to believe that.

I'd support universal basic employment, even if it's for make-work tasks like keeping the street clean, but not UBI. There needs to be a tie between what one gives to society and what gets from society or inevitably there will be a breakdown of some sort.

isn't __hikkikomori__ more about feeling cornered by the society that gives you no chance whatsoever to do something you could remotely wanted with your life?

The point is, these people mostly spend decades sitting in rooms watching TV, playing video games or reading manga. Maybe it's a stereotype, but I've heard of only one Hikkikomori who chose to adopt a productive hobby (game dev) during all that time. The rest is just happy to waste it.

I think you and the original mentioner of "hikkikomori" might be missing the actual social causes of it, it's not purely a "got no work to do, gonna just lounge about eating noodles and watching anime all day". It happens in a very, very rigid/conservative society, almost as a rejection of it.

If it were purely lack of work -> become recluse, we'd see this with 100% of retirees everywhere, but we don't. I'm not saying it's 0%, but I've known plenty of retirees with hobbies and socialization.

Those are the things that don't cost money or relatively little money in societies where everything social costs money. Land and housing is super expensive for someone without a high paying job. In the US at least, anything social costs money. There is no public place where people can meet others. Public spaces are either dedicated to cars, office space, or retail. It seems different in europe with social public plazas, not sure about Japan. But people like to have some kind of say in the area around them, and improve their environment. Any city I've lived in has a city government where the most input you can have is 'feedback sessions' where only pre-approved questions can be asked. If you don't have land to yourself or assets or already have a strong social network, what work can you do where you feel like you are making progress and improving yourself or your community and not just contributing to someone else's profit? As someone in software, I feel like I had a path to obtaining some wealth, but I understand why people without it might just want to detach and from the 'real world' and spend time doing things that make them happy. You also have to consider that the 'work' that they are choosing not to do might be bad for their mental/physical health if it is depressing/stressful work that doesn't reward them.

I'm not saying this lifestyle is healthy, but I can see why some people want to opt out of a system that doesn't consider their desires or wellbeing.

Also, not everyone can be a software developer. Why do you consider being a game dev to be noble and productive, but playing games to be a drain on society?

UBI is basically job guarantee for people who have overinflated expectations of AI/automation, underinflated expectations of inflation and dont quite understand that people actually like jobs with dignity.

True make-work isnt giving anything to society.

In socialism you "go to work". In capitalism you "work".

In Poland we have a different name for that phenomenon 'pilnowanie domu' which translates to 'guarding the house / watching the house'. It does have a implication in the name, that those who are affected tend to do nothing productive or organized, they just sit and watch.

It's a sad reality for some people, I do know some people that are living this way.

Occasionally do noting is fine. I know a lot of people that don't know how to spend their time and constantly fill it with working. We call them workoholics.

On the flip side, if you enjoy something. The market will try to pay you as little as possible. See: teachers, musicians

Unions. Unions buy stock with dues. Union controls company. Replace "union" with another name and you have the only way forward.

If employees don’t own a meaningful part of the company today and pay 1-1.5% of their wages to a union, how will that give the union enough money to buy a controlling stake in the company?

Amazon’s market cap is ~$1.25T. Under the conservative (false) assumption that a union bidding for half the shares would not move the price at all, that union would have to spend ~$625B on those purchases, meaning total employee dues would be that much, implying a wage base (at 1% dues) of $62.5T, or more than 3 years of the entire US GDP.

Said differently: if employees could buy half their company for 1% (or even 10%) of their wages, there’d be no need for them to have a union negotiate their wages.

This isn't an argument against datavirtue's point: it's an argument that Amazon (and, by extension, the other major tech companies) are just too big for a healthy society and economy.

There's a common trap I've run into in my hobby of game development, that probably has a name that I don't know: trying to solve every problem with a single solution (and also its close cousin, rejecting a proposed improvement because it doesn't solve every problem). This is clearly also applicable to real life, with things like people complaining solar isn't viable at all because it can't provide for every bit of our energy needs on its own.

The idea datavirtue suggests is a good one. It just needs other things to be happening at the same time to support it—like strong antitrust action against the tech giants.

i wonder what percentage of shareholders vote and how many shares you need to practically influence a company direction.

Activist investors seem to be able to get results with 5-10% of shares. But there's probably more to it than that.

Kinda sounds like you're describing cooperatives.

I have no idea why that doesn't work in practice, apparently it's rare for it to work.

In abstract I like unions and unions have helped me out, if I had become a cop obviously I'd be part of the Union, and I suspect union negotiators were persecuted in Chile for very very good reason in the elite's view. Like those guys would actually negotiate hardcore, knew all the tricks, well-read, not intimidated by glances or ugly looks, knew what to charge...basically a union negotiator. Negreated the negreators, well and that's why they were persecuted. Strictly money in that case.

It's never spoken openly, nobody ever brings up union negotiators. Think hostage negotiator. And working in the interest of the company, don't want it going underwater so it can keep paying wages. And also making sure the business stays competitive, but actually. In one case in Uruguay there was a strike, sort of the workers took over the factory and started working again right away, cut the management out completely, kept it going fine, hostile takeover so to speak.

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