Before I retired (and sometimes since) I have talked with students & ex-students about their careers & how they would like them to move in a different direction;
at the centre of most of their disquiet & aspiration for change(s) is a desire to be doing 'meaningful' work.
However, its not always clear (even to themselves) what that might actually mean. Here Caleb Althorpe (Trinity College) has a pretty good go at making sense of that desire.
Let's all talk about what our day is going to consist of today, or what it has already consisted of.
For me, I have a TON of work stuff along with three meetings today.
After that my wife will be taking me out to dinner for my birthday today. We'll be going to a place called Village Tavern that we've been to once that was really good.
If you want to move people to another operating system, then create the operating system so easy that even the dumbest person on the planet is able to use it.
Like me for example.
I have no single idea why my Linux systems on my desktop and laptop constantly commit suicide.
I treat my windows such as the Linux systems equally and I'm surprised that I barely never had to kill my windows Systems but my Linux machines die constantly. I can't work like that. #linux#windows#work#operatingsystem
#Marx#Marxism#Spinoza#Philosophy#WageSlavery#Work: "WILL LEWALLEN: You write that most resistance to work is often focused on the specific conditions of employment rather than the general conditions of wage labor. How could something like a four-day workweek help tackle these more universal conditions? And more broadly, what would the effect of a shorter working week be on the political imaginary?
JASON READ: That’s an important question. I think reducing work time would necessarily have the positive impact of creating new ways for people to think about their identities and place in the world other than through work. One of the things you have to take seriously about people’s investment in work, given that they are working so much, is that their free time is usually dedicated to what Marx calls the basic “animal functions” of sleeping, eating, etc. You create a sense in which people go to work because their friends are there; everything they understand about sociality comes from work. The more people work, the more they will begin to identify with work.
So reducing the working week or working days would free people from this cycle. If people have time to do something other than buy groceries and do their laundry just to return to work the next day, they can produce another sense of themselves outside the confines of work. Imagination functions like a wedge, a small point of entry for another way of thinking; if acted upon, it can then push for more. For example, the reduced workweek would give people more time to engage in politics, to demand less work still. One thing that limits political possibilities is work itself." https://jacobin.com/2024/04/marx-spinoza-four-day-workweek
If anyone is wondering, in the city where I work, why their UPS parcel has been delayed: the driver spent time talking to me, trying to think of a way to retain their driving license.
They'd be better off keeping their foot off the gas pedal, and planning a month's holiday pretty soon.
Four and a half hours at work, and just about to reach one hundred speeding tickets. Not that anyone cares about speed limits (clearly!) or this Kindergarten.
My office has snacks in our kitchen for folks here. It's a mix of stuff. There's chips, individually packed cookies, and an area with some hand fruit.
One odd-ball item is Fun Dip packs. They're always there, rarely taken. But, whatever.
Yesterday, I went to go snag a bag of chips to go with my sandwich at lunch. I saw two packs of Fun Dip had been left with the Lik-a-Stix removed and only the sugar powder remaining.
I see a lot of talk about "privilege" as if in disgust of those having "spare time" to help others. And I get it. Privilege is stacked in layers. From the low state of lying in a ditch dying, up and up, right to Mars where billionaires live.
Was I privileged when I quit job, started doing community work? Hell yes! Frugal lifestyle saw me some savings in the bank, most now gone.
From then on I was also sacrificing. Burning privilege at the altar of the Commons to shed my sins of individualism.
Do you know what the acronym AILDI stands for? It's the AI Labor Disclosure Initiative, which asks a simple question: What would happen if tech companies were legally required to report the number of human workers concealed behind their automated solutions? On April 23, 2024, I'll be addressing this topic at the ILO in Geneva.
OC Unpopular opinion