I’m not sure I agree, I do think that broadly positive things happen from more people using their time to do “more stuff”, in the most general sense - for me this is the nature of life being decidedly not zero-sum. An unavoidable consequence, part of the same fact, basically.
But adding all of the caveats I’d attach to that statement I just made, along with just my original acknowledgement that of course the worst among us will reap the (by far) largest share of rewards - I mean it would make for a comment too long to be worth reading, which I already struggle with because I crave accuracy of delivery.
With that said, you’re exactly right that the most vulnerable people and the least-training-required jobs make for exactly the disgusting combo of exploitability that we already see, and that are easiest to compel, on both counts. As to not make a euphemism of “compel”, I of course mean force, by causing suffering, of all the many available ways.
I’d go farther (though provisionally) and say that you pointing that out has all the familiar hallmarks of one of the many moments in my life when I have the good fortune to consider a POV in a way that causes me to go “hmm, yep, just found an old remnant of indoctrination in my head, that idea has gotta go”. So I’ll do some sincere thinking, and I appreciate you.
Add one more nuance to your analysis: extreme ineffectiveness of the wealth and well-being measurement. Owners of factories count money as the simplest method to evaluate the effectiveness. And, as any self-tuning system, where there is some “performance indicator”, all is tuning to increase the indicator value, not the value itself. So, as a result, we have factories producing an enormous amount of useless shit that is bought by customers only because all factories behave in this very way. All this leads to an excessive usage of resources and energy while providing very little to the well-being.
The lack of long-term analysis is to blame. Nobody cares what will be in 10 years.
Believe me, it’s already in my long list of caveats. Not to mention the environmental damage of it all (which I guess you probably meant too). And yep, the numbers are goosed anyway.
Ultimately the choosing of what to do and how is the central element of whether “doing more stuff” is good. Still, short term, I’d rather see more people in jobs and affording necessities and feeling some degree of agency. And to my original point, I do think it would make the owner class richer probably, not that it’s a goal of mine lol.
But yep, as Deceptichum pointed out, they could never stand the idea of leaving something deliberately unexploited, lest it be exploited by someone else. It’s basically their defining feature, this need to exploit and extract, first and most thoroughly among their hideous peers.
Anyway, cheers, getting off my gripe-horse for a while.
I’m not sure I agree, I do think that broadly positive things happen from more people using their time to do “more stuff”, in the most general sense - for me this is the nature of life being decidedly not zero-sum. An unavoidable consequence, part of the same fact, basically.
But adding all of the caveats I’d attach to that statement I just made, along with just my original acknowledgement that of course the worst among us will reap the (by far) largest share of rewards - I mean it would make for a comment too long to be worth reading, which I already struggle with because I crave accuracy of delivery.
With that said, you’re exactly right that the most vulnerable people and the least-training-required jobs make for exactly the disgusting combo of exploitability that we already see, and that are easiest to compel, on both counts. As to not make a euphemism of “compel”, I of course mean force, by causing suffering, of all the many available ways.
I’d go farther (though provisionally) and say that you pointing that out has all the familiar hallmarks of one of the many moments in my life when I have the good fortune to consider a POV in a way that causes me to go “hmm, yep, just found an old remnant of indoctrination in my head, that idea has gotta go”. So I’ll do some sincere thinking, and I appreciate you.
Add one more nuance to your analysis: extreme ineffectiveness of the wealth and well-being measurement. Owners of factories count money as the simplest method to evaluate the effectiveness. And, as any self-tuning system, where there is some “performance indicator”, all is tuning to increase the indicator value, not the value itself. So, as a result, we have factories producing an enormous amount of useless shit that is bought by customers only because all factories behave in this very way. All this leads to an excessive usage of resources and energy while providing very little to the well-being.
The lack of long-term analysis is to blame. Nobody cares what will be in 10 years.
Believe me, it’s already in my long list of caveats. Not to mention the environmental damage of it all (which I guess you probably meant too). And yep, the numbers are goosed anyway.
Ultimately the choosing of what to do and how is the central element of whether “doing more stuff” is good. Still, short term, I’d rather see more people in jobs and affording necessities and feeling some degree of agency. And to my original point, I do think it would make the owner class richer probably, not that it’s a goal of mine lol.
But yep, as Deceptichum pointed out, they could never stand the idea of leaving something deliberately unexploited, lest it be exploited by someone else. It’s basically their defining feature, this need to exploit and extract, first and most thoroughly among their hideous peers.
Anyway, cheers, getting off my gripe-horse for a while.