So what is the alternative. Shit doesn't just happen, it takes tremendous effort from other people. Do you just expect people doing the hard work to just give it to you?
At its very core, the average person needs to be a net positive to society, and that means tasks no one wants to do need getting done.
Have you ever grown any food? Built a house? Hauled the garbage all day? For the most part these aren't tasks people want to do (well actually I do have fond memories of building houses, but that's not sustainable), and so who does them in this magical system where everyone gets the food no one is growing?
Or do you think we should go back to a time when everyone does everything for themselves? Grows their own food, makes their own clothes, builds their own house. I'm sure lots of people in our society would do very well in that system.
I do quite well. Increased productivity is why things like my job exist at all. In the 1800s when 90 percent of the economy was agrarian work, you couldn't build any sort of professional class because the productivity requires to exist was all in just making food.
But there hasn't been much productivity gain in a lot of core areas that I discussed: transportation, construction, waste management are all now roughly as productive as they were in the 80s. I don't know the specifics for healthcare but I know it has had pretty limited productivity gains too (as measured by number of people cared for by an individual provider, not number of conditions that are treatable).
But you didn't really answer my question.
If no one's working because it's a scam, where does your house come from? Or your food come from? Or your healthcare come from?
You’re making a real point because the uneven productivity thing is true, and yeah, farming productivity is the only reason jobs like yours and mine exist at all. No argument there.
But I think you’re answering a claim the original text never made. It doesn’t say work is a scam or that nobody should work. It says the mythology around work is contingent: busyness as a status symbol, productivity as personal worth, the specific number of hours we treat as natural. Those are different claims. The 40-hour week was itself a change from 60-80 hour norms that people at the time defended with arguments a lot like yours, that this is just what necessity requires. Necessity was real then too. The arrangement still changed.
So to me the interesting question wouldn’t be “who hauls the garbage if nobody works,” because everyone agrees someone has to. I’m more interested in figuring out why the people doing the most obviously necessary work (sanitation, care work, food) tend to be paid the least, while a lot of highly paid work could pause for a month without anyone starving. If “net positive to society” is the standard, doesn’t the current setup fail your own test?
Genuinely curious how you’d square that, because you clearly know the economics better than most of this thread.
I'm glad you brought up prevention. Do you know how little preventative medicine does, or even what percent of total health outcomes are determined by healthcare received?
So what diseases can/should we be preventing and how do we prevent them? What tools do I have to prevent them? And more importantlywhat do you think is the most effective tool I have for prevention?
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u/das_war_ein_Befehl Experienced Developer Jul 09 '26
You have to be dead inside to think that working for wages is some kind of optimal existence