On 12/15/2012 05:04 AM, seekliberation wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu <noozguru@...> wrote: > >> Try expanding your mind a little more and visualize what the US would be >> like if folks worked less and lead a simpler life. First off we already >> have the advantage of cheap technology which trumps the problems you >> mention with the middle east. We have toilet paper. We have medical >> knowledge and with technology we can give people a lot more medical care >> without having to use expensive doctors so much. We have police, we >> have fire department we have paramedics. They even might enjoy a 10 >> hour work week too. Stretch your imagination more. We only have 40 >> hour work weeks because the industrial age tycoons wanted wage slaves. >> And at that it took unions to reduce the hours though hogs wanted and >> keep them from using children too. Contrary to popular belief, work is >> NOT the purpose of life. >> >> We need a leaner cleaner world not the clutter materialistic one which >> only benefits the few rich who scam the populace by selling them >> needless things. Celebrate December 22nd the way it was meant to be >> celebrated with global change. Throw the rich bums out! > you're right, work isn't the purpose of life. However, there are a lot of > developments we have that we take for granted that will never be sustained in > 10 hours a week. For example, we would never become educated with 10 hours > worth of work per week, nor would our schools even be able to be built or > teachers get our papers graded, or cafeterias be stocked and food prepped & > cooked. Space shuttles wouldn't launch, brain surgeons in the E-room > wouldn't be available as often as needed, bridges wouldn't get built, cars > wouldn't get manufactured, air conditioners wouldn't get repaired in a timely > manner, and the list goes on and on and on. Now if you pulled the number 10 > out of a hat without any serious thought....no argument then. I do think > work weeks could be reduced a little bit. However, I remember before Steve > Jobs passed away he was talking about how tirelessly he and his crew worked > to develop a lot of his products....I guarantee you he was well over 40 hours > per week in his progress. Even MMY had a lot of people working overnight > tirelessly while translating the Bhagavad Gita. Hard work is not exactly a > foreign concept even to people who tend towards liberal thinking. > > Regarding the technology that you say is now easily available and > cheap....yeah, it's cheap, but it still has to be manufactured and shipped > from factory to outlet stores by people. Truck drivers have to drive about > 10 hours just in a day for us to get what we expect and demand as consumers. > > My opinion about 40 hour work weeks is if that's too much, I don't know what > anyone else can expect. I guarantee you every generation previous to the > industrial revolution spent over 40 hours a week managing their lives. Only > difference is their effort was not necessarily working for someone. More > likely chopping wood, keeping the house in order, hunting, foraging, etc... > > Another good example is the simple purchase of a car. When you buy a car, > it's not just a transaction between you and the salesman. First, someone has > to locate where the raw materials are for the car (some form of a research > and survey team). Then a company has to go mine those materials (miners, > contractors). Then those materials have to be shipped to a warehouse (truck > drivers, pilots, more contractors). Then those materials have to be formed > into car parts (manufacturing plants). Then those parts have to be delivered > to a place that forms the cars (more truck drivers and pilots). Then those > parts are finally formed into a car (GM, FORD, Chevy auto factories). Then > the vehicles have to be transported to a dealership (more truck drivers). > Then there's the dealership - Owner, salesman, janitors, mechanics, > receptionist, secretaries, auto parts clerk, managers. So for you and I to > drive the cars we drive, hundreds of people have to be employed....and when > there are so many people buying cars, 10 hours a week just isn't going to cut > it. The same goes with everything we buy. Extracting materials from the > earth, transportation, logistical planning, manufacturing, sales and > marketing, these are all required. Not just for complex machinery, but even > a small toy you buy at the dollar store for one buck, and other things that > are basic necessities such as the food stocked in our grocery stores and > produce sections. A farmer will never produce the amount of food we need in > 10, 20, or even 30 hours a week. Maybe as we evolve more we'll have robots > to do all this, and the we can drastically cut our hours. > > Don't get me wrong in all this though. Although I make a rather decent > living, I could make it off of $20k a year if I had to, and I wouldn't be > struggling (just more selective on where I live). But given this day in age > with retirement and the fact kids are growing less able to take care of > elderly, i'm not counting on anyone taking care of me....so I work a bit > extra while i'm young enough not to be stressed over it. Not for > materialistic obsession, just simply because I don't expect another person > (or people) to figure it out for me. > > seekliberation
Two hours a day times five equals 10 hours a week. Actually the figure I've heard is that there is only enough work for 1/3 of the work force which would be more like 13.3 hours a week. That's a figure that Dimitri Orlov who emigrated from Russia as a kid who writes and lectures about the fall of the Soviet Union versus the fall of the US. I think it is in his video and I want to find his sources which is probably an "inconvenient" government report. Of course I worked in the tech industry and companies turned into monasteries. The badge of honor was to work long hours. But HP back in the early 1990s determined that working any more than 50 hours a week was counter productive. I used that rule which was not popular with my younger reports who wanted to earn their "badge of honor" since they would be connected with one of our "famous" products. After I left one had a stroke and another who was a former TM'er and actually from Fairfield became an alcoholic. Even when I worked there we had some "badge of honor" people had nervous breakdowns. Hence preventing overwork was a good idea. Also understand the people who work on software are "exempts" and not hourly workers. Exempt means salaried and you get paid the same whether you work 4 hours a week or 80. I had a former Microsoft employee who was a developer rep for Apple tell me when he worked at Microsoft as a programmer he would often work around the clock and get his portion of a project done in two days. It was okay for him to take the rest of the week off as long as he was on call. Some of the heroic efforts of these companies are a little overblown. My boss warned me too that someone who puts in long hours may doing so because they aren't that good. Google is also a monastery where kids hope to become famous. I call their approach the "200 monkey" method of developing software but some of their shit looks like they only got 199 monkeys of a project. Now Ray Kurzweil just joined so they'll really get fucked up. He will probably be the oldest hire they have too. :-D Understand that my vision of the future requires a rescale of the economy. That's easier to do if it collapses first. This is one thing that MMY may indeed got right in that capitalism is unsustainable which is something Nabby likes to remind folks here about. But it wouldn't take enlightenment to see that.
