vladh-net-lmumqo.txt (16415B)
1 [1] 2 A logo showing a blue circle 3 Vlad-Stefan Harbuz 4 Menu 5 6 • [2]About 7 • [3]Music 8 • [4]Photos 9 • [5]Books 10 • [6]RSS 11 12 Philosophy 13 14 • [7]Resources: Philosophy of Work 15 • [8]Alternatives to Wage Labour 16 • [9]The Epistemic Implications of AI Assistants 17 • [10]Our Schools Should Teach Communication 18 • [11]Voting Regardless of Citizenship 19 • [12]Effective Apologies 20 21 Programming 22 23 • [13]The Caring Programmer's Manifesto 24 • [14]The Hare Programming Language 25 • [15]Hare Regex Implementation 26 • [16]Peony Game Engine 27 • [17]Skeletal Animation 28 • [18]clumsy computer 29 • [19]Submodule GB01 30 • [20]vegvisir 31 • [21]pstr 32 • [22]Dithering 33 34 Languages 35 36 • [23]Japanese Recommendations 37 • [24]German Noun Genders 38 39 Fun 40 41 • [25]Most Minimal UK Address 42 43 • [26]About 44 • [27]Music 45 • [28]Photos 46 • [29]Books 47 • [30]RSS 48 49 Philosophy 50 51 • [31]Resources: Philosophy of Work 52 • [32]Alternatives to Wage Labour 53 • [33]The Epistemic Implications of AI Assistants 54 • [34]Our Schools Should Teach Communication 55 • [35]Voting Regardless of Citizenship 56 • [36]Effective Apologies 57 58 Programming 59 60 • [37]The Caring Programmer's Manifesto 61 • [38]The Hare Programming Language 62 • [39]Hare Regex Implementation 63 • [40]Peony Game Engine 64 • [41]Skeletal Animation 65 • [42]clumsy computer 66 • [43]Submodule GB01 67 • [44]vegvisir 68 • [45]pstr 69 • [46]Dithering 70 71 Languages 72 73 • [47]Japanese Recommendations 74 • [48]German Noun Genders 75 76 Fun 77 78 • [49]Most Minimal UK Address 79 80 Resources on the Philosophy of Work 81 82 04 August 2022 83 84 Wage labour is when you get paid a salary by a company to do work, thereby 85 renting out your time. It’s not a good system because it forces employees to be 86 exploited by manager-owners. This exploitation can be financial, for example if 87 you get paid less than you produce, but it can also be something more than 88 that. One often ends up in a situation where one finds one’s work meaningless, 89 because one cannot connect to, own and direct one’s work in a hierarchical 90 managerial workplace. Additionally, because wage labour is by far the most 91 widespread method of organising work, one might feel powerless to attempt to 92 connect to their work without having someone else own and direct it. 93 94 Worse, even when one works 8 hours per day, the remaining hours are often 95 dedicated to recovering from work and restoring one’s energy so that one may be 96 productive on the next workday. All of these things come together to form 97 something called “alienation” — our work is important to us, and we should have 98 a positive connection to it, but we end up having a deficient and corrupted 99 connection to it, which is an injustice. 100 101 Some might say that this is unavoidable, but this is not true. In fact, the 102 very idea of this system being unavoidable is a result of a bad way of looking 103 at things called “reification”, which means taking something that us humans 104 have made up, such as our economic system, and saying that it is actually real 105 and inevitably has power over us. This is not the case because it is us who 106 structured society in this way, and we could have done it any other way. 107 108 Indeed, we know that it is possible to be creative without being oppressed. 109 Most people can contrast alienated wage labour (what some simply sweepingly 110 call “work”) with playful creation, where someone is compelled by passion and 111 interest to put a lot of effort into creating something. In fact, we know that, 112 ironically, we are usually more productive in this passionate state, than when 113 we are managed and disciplined into doing something we do not care about. 114 115 One might object that this view is naïve because it is not possible to simply 116 do what we’re passionate about — there are many jobs that must be done and that 117 are simply not fun. But the fact of the matter is that a very large amount of 118 today’s jobs are entirely pointless and unneccesary. Instead, they only exist 119 to provide a reason to perpetuate the status quo of wage labour. 120 121 Imagine someone doing a job we knew to be completely useless, and receiving a 122 salary for it every month. How would we respond to the proposal of paying this 123 person their salary, but allowing them to simply stop doing their work? Many 124 would react negatively and say that this person would be getting paid for 125 nothing. But is it not concerning that we would want someone to waste their 126 life away doing something which is never useful to anyone, just so that we can 127 feel that they have thereby somehow earned their right to exist? 128 129 Gradual change is possible, and a big part of this change is cultural. This 130 means first realising all the harmful things that gross inequality of income 131 and power does, then changing our values to say that everyone deserves to 132 direct their own life and earn a fair living. This does not necessarily mean 133 that everyone actually will be able to do these things, but the first step is 134 recognising the current state of affairs as unjustifiable. 135 136 Here are some beginner-friendly books and articles on this topic that I have 137 loved, and are both eloquent and fun to read. I have also included some quotes 138 that I feel explain these concepts well. 139 140 Introductory Essays and Books 141 142 [50] “In Praise of Idleness” Bertrand Russell [51] “Bullshit Jobs” David 143 Graeber [52] “The Tyranny of Merit” Michael J. Sandel [53] “The Abolition of 144 Work” Bob Black 145 146 The absolute best place to start is “In Praise of Idleness”, a short and very 147 accessible essay by Russell that explains some of the most basic problems with 148 our conception of work. “Bullshit Jobs” is a classic in which Graeber describes 149 how many of the jobs we are currently doing are simply not useful to anyone. In 150 “The Tyranny of Merit”, which I have found life-changing, Sandel describes how 151 our conceptions of “merit” do not align with reality, and that our blindness to 152 this affects our lives significantly. Lastly, “The Abolition of Work” is a 153 classic and emotionally powerful essay by Bob Black in which he very clearly 154 describes many of the problems with “work”, but this essay can also be too 155 polemical and antagonising. 156 157 More In-Depth Books 158 159 [54] “Another Now” Yanis Varoufakis [55] “Talking to my Daughter About the 160 Economy” Yanis Varoufakis 161 162 People often ask me what a system that abolishes wage labour and capitalism 163 would look like. In “Another Now”, former Greek finance minister Yanis 164 Varoufakis tells a fictional story that describes what such a parallel world 165 would look like, and he goes into significant economic detail. Similarly, 166 “Talking to my Daughter About the Economy” is an easy to read and light-hearted 167 description of today’s economy. 168 169 Philosophical Background 170 171 [56] “Alienation” Rahel Jaeggi [57] “Free Time” Theodor W. Adorno 172 173 Perhaps you have read the more accessible material above, but would like to get 174 more into the philosophical details. In “Alienation”, Rahel Jaeggi describes 175 the history of the concept of alienation, and describes a modern and analytic 176 way to look at it, which I find very useful. Her description really makes one 177 wonder about the aspects of alienation that transcend the financial, such as 178 its impact on our epistemic agency. Adorno’s “Free Time” is an amazingly 179 insightful look at how work has profound effects on us not only during our time 180 at the workplace, but also during our so-called “free time”, which the employer 181 nonetheless deeply affects and controls. 182 183 You can also read my somewhat amateurish essay, [58]“Alternatives to Wage 184 Labour”. 185 186 Explanatory quotes 187 188 Here are some quotes that I feel explain the ideas I have referenced above 189 quite well. I do not necessarily directly endorse all of these perspectives, 190 but rather find it useful to illustrate how philosophers describe these issues. 191 192 We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to 193 earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a 194 technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of 195 today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a 196 living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody 197 has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to 198 Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have 199 inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to 200 inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to 201 school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before 202 somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living. 203 204 — Buckminster Fuller 205 206 The ‘positive’ sense of the word ‘liberty’ derives from the wish on the 207 part of the individual to be his own master. I wish my life and decisions 208 to depend on myself, not on external forces of whatever kind. I wish to be 209 the instrument of my own, not of other men’s, acts of will. I wish to be a 210 subject, not an object; to be moved by reasons, by conscious purposes, 211 which are my own, not by causes which affect me, as it were, from outside. 212 I wish to be somebody, not nobody; a doer—deciding, not being decided for, 213 self-directed and not acted upon by external nature or by other men as if I 214 were a thing, or an animal, or a slave incapable of playing a human role, 215 that is, of conceiving goals and policies of my own and realizing them. (…) 216 I wish, above all, to be conscious of myself as a thinking, willing, active 217 being, bearing responsibility for my choices and able to explain them by 218 references to my own ideas and purposes. I feel free to the degree that I 219 believe this to be true, and enslaved to the degree that I am made to 220 realize that it is not. 221 222 — Isaiah Berlin 223 224 The fact that the vast majority of the population accepts, and is made to 225 accept, this society does not render it less irrational and less 226 reprehensible. 227 228 — Herbert Marcuse, “One-Dimensional Man”, p. xliv 229 230 The things of everyday life [must be] lifted out of the realm of the 231 self-evident. (…) That which is “natural” must assume the features of the 232 extraordinary. Only in this manner can the laws of cause and effect reveal 233 themselves. 234 235 — Bertolt Brecht, “Schriften zum Theater” (Berlin and Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 236 1957), p. 7, 9. 237 238 The Story of the Mathematician 239 240 This is a very short story used as an example by Rahel Jaeggi in “Alienation” 241 which I find a stunningly good illustration of the problems I refer to. 242 243 A young academic takes up his first position. At the same time he and his 244 girlfriend decide to marry. That makes sense “because of the taxes.” A 245 short time later his wife becomes pregnant. Since large apartments in the 246 city are expensive and hard to find, they decide to move to a suburb. After 247 all, life outside the city will be “better for the child.” The man, a 248 gifted mathematician, who until then has led a slightly chaotic life, 249 oscillating between too much night life and an obsessive immersion in work, 250 is now confronted with a completely new situation. All of a sudden, and 251 without him having really noticed it, his life is now, as it were, “on 252 track.” One thing seems to follow ineluctably from another. And in a 253 creeping, almost unnoticeable process his life acquires all the attributes 254 of a completely normal suburban existence. Would he, who earlier ate fast 255 food most of the time and relied on convenience stores for picking up milk 256 and toilet paper as the need arose, ever have thought that he would one day 257 drive every Saturday morning to the shopping mall to buy supplies for the 258 week and fill the freezer? Could he ever have imagined that he would hurry 259 home from work on Friday because the lawn needed to be mowed before the 260 barbecue? At first he and his wife hardly notice that their conversations 261 are increasingly limited to their child and the organization of household 262 chores. Sometimes, however, he is overcome by a feeling of unreality. 263 Something is wrong here. While many envy him for the beautiful suburban 264 house he lives in, he is not really at home in this situation. The life he 265 leads, which, as it seems to him, has so suddenly tightened around him—one 266 could almost say “rearranged” him—seems, in a strange way, not to be his 267 own life. Everything is as if it could not be any other way; everything 268 happens with a certain inevitability. And in spite of this—or perhaps 269 precisely because of it—it remains in a crucial respect alien to him. To 270 what extent is this life “not really” his own? To what extent is he, in 271 this life that he leads, alienated from himself? 272 273 Each individual aspect of his life (…) has not really been decided on. 274 Thus, his situation is in fact “out of control” in a certain sense, and (…) 275 it is a situation for which no one can genuinely be held responsible. This 276 does not merely mean that he has not acted, or has not availed himself of 277 his possibilities for acting, but that he has not even understood his 278 situation as one in which action is called for or possible; it does not 279 merely mean that he has not decided something for himself, or has not led 280 his life himself, but that he has been incapable of understanding or 281 regarding it as something he can or must lead. 282 283 — Rahel Jaeggi, “Alienation” 284 285 [59] XXIIVV webring © 2010 Vlad-Stefan Harbuz. Article text and media is [60] 286 CC-BY-SA 4.0 unless otherwise specified. All other rights reserved. 287 288 References: 289 290 [1] https://vladh.net/ 291 [2] https://vladh.net/about 292 [3] https://vladh.net/music 293 [4] https://vladh.net/photos 294 [5] https://vladh.net/books 295 [6] https://vladh.net/index.xml 296 [7] https://vladh.net/wage-labour-resources 297 [8] https://vladh.net/alternatives-to-wage-labour 298 [9] https://vladh.net/the-epistemic-implications-of-ai-assistants 299 [10] https://vladh.net/our-schools-should-teach-communication 300 [11] https://vladh.net/voting-regardless-of-citizenship 301 [12] https://vladh.net/apologies 302 [13] https://vladh.net/manifesto 303 [14] https://vladh.net/hare 304 [15] https://vladh.net/implementing-regular-expressions-in-hare 305 [16] https://vladh.net/peony 306 [17] https://vladh.net/game-engine-skeletal-animation 307 [18] https://vladh.net/clumsycomputer 308 [19] https://vladh.net/submodule 309 [20] https://vladh.net/vegvisir 310 [21] https://vladh.net/pstr 311 [22] https://vladh.net/dithering 312 [23] https://vladh.net/japanese-recommendations 313 [24] https://vladh.net/german-nouns 314 [25] https://vladh.net/most-minimal-uk-address 315 [26] https://vladh.net/about 316 [27] https://vladh.net/music 317 [28] https://vladh.net/photos 318 [29] https://vladh.net/books 319 [30] https://vladh.net/index.xml 320 [31] https://vladh.net/wage-labour-resources 321 [32] https://vladh.net/alternatives-to-wage-labour 322 [33] https://vladh.net/the-epistemic-implications-of-ai-assistants 323 [34] https://vladh.net/our-schools-should-teach-communication 324 [35] https://vladh.net/voting-regardless-of-citizenship 325 [36] https://vladh.net/apologies 326 [37] https://vladh.net/manifesto 327 [38] https://vladh.net/hare 328 [39] https://vladh.net/implementing-regular-expressions-in-hare 329 [40] https://vladh.net/peony 330 [41] https://vladh.net/game-engine-skeletal-animation 331 [42] https://vladh.net/clumsycomputer 332 [43] https://vladh.net/submodule 333 [44] https://vladh.net/vegvisir 334 [45] https://vladh.net/pstr 335 [46] https://vladh.net/dithering 336 [47] https://vladh.net/japanese-recommendations 337 [48] https://vladh.net/german-nouns 338 [49] https://vladh.net/most-minimal-uk-address 339 [50] https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/ 340 [51] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36531574-bullshit-jobs 341 [52] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50364458-the-tyranny-of-merit 342 [53] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-the-abolition-of-work 343 [54] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49098225-another-now 344 [55] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36490332-talking-to-my-daughter-about-the-economy 345 [56] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/19144936 346 [57] http://xenopraxis.net/readings/adorno_freetime.pdf 347 [58] https://vladh.net/alternatives-to-wage-labour 348 [59] https://webring.xxiivv.com/#vladh 349 [60] https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/