Comparing Your Markings To Zlatko's

[countblastula]

Click to view

Ned Sykes from Preoccupied Pipers edited that together from hours of tedious iPhone & digital camera video that we took in England back in May. Amazing skills that guy has. I had to watch it several times to pick out all the little subliminal details.

And here's the latest Single-Of-The-Month:

Comments

[clyde_park]

At one point we reached the acceptable and useful point of technological advancement. Things were almost perfect. But like everything else we went too far. All these "advancements" in technology have created the illusion that we can be more effcient and work less because the technology is so much quicker and easier than the old ways of doing things...but

[countblastula]

Wow, can you imagine how much work you couldn't gotten done in the hour that it took you to think of this giant comment?

[countblastula]

Could've, rather.

Part two

[clyde_park]

We also have to work more hours and work harder to pay for all the stuff we didn't have to pay for 20 years ago. Our iPads, iPhones, iPods, laptops, Kindles, Wi-Fi, Cell Phone service, daily $5 coffee (used to just pour it from the pot of free coffee at work), $2 bottles of water (used to use the water cooler), Netflix subscriptions, Flickr subscriptions, On Demand Movie Rentals, Mobile Movie Rentals, iTunes, Amazon.com, sattellite radio, and satellite tv, HD Cable TV, RedBox(TV used to be four or five free channels). You know; all the technology we use to keep life "simple" and "easier." I looked at my console in my van the other day and realzied that 20 years ago I might have had a radio with a cassette deck and five or six cassettes with me. Today? I had my car radio, satellite radio, my iPod, my personal cellphone/mp3/internet/PDA, CD player, and my work issued direct connect phone. And i use them all over and over all day long

Re: Part two

[countblastula]

I still drink the free coffee & water at work, never pay for any cable or movies (my Netflix subscription was a birthday present), still have a cassette player in my car & our utility bill is rarely over $40 a month. Aside from computer usage, I'm pretty Amish. I use a clothesline, don't drive a car to work, have chickens & food plants in my yard, prefer to buy only used clothes with no labels or logos, fix things when they're broken, sew, cook, & sometimes I grow a beard. The way I see it, hard work can be fun & fulfilling if it's done directly in the service of obtaining food, shelter, or other survival necessities. When it involves being away from home for 8 hours every day to make money for someone else, it's kind of a drag.

[halphasian]

This is an interesting perspective. The thing is, I think we do have the resources and the ability to let robots and computers do most of the work and have humans work George Jetsonesque 10-hour weeks, and everyone could still have enough to eat and comfortable places to live and a little bit of entertainment.

The problem is that all this new work-saving technology funnels more of the wealth to the owners of capital - the "corporations" - and away from the workers. In a socialist paradise (note: such a thing is impossible), everyone could share the fruits of machine-automated labor equally, work just a little bit, and live comfortably. But everyone always wants to have MORE. If you're a company owner and you buy new machines that reduce human labor by 50%, are you going to keep paying your human laborers the same salary to do 50% less work? Probably not. So you downsize, or look for new things for them to do. And then you make more money for yourself.

Workers, at least in America, also have the sense that they shouldn't get paid for

[countblastula]

>Wow, that sounds like I'm arguing for communism. But I know communism never work. People are naturally far too selfish.

Seems to work for you. When's the last time you had a job in a non-communist country?

Anyway, I wasn't looking at it from a realistic economist perspective, but from an anthropological one. For millions of years, humans have always been driven towards thinking up ways to avoid work, and we've pretty much figured it out. Yet in 2011 all anyone can talk about is "jobs" and "work". (I guess it's easy for me to say though, I haven't had to look for a job in a long time. )

[halphasian]

If you consider Canada to be communist (socialist), then it's been... 11 years? Wow.

But I do agree with your point. The point of "progress" should be to make things easier and more comfortable for humans, so they can enjoy the same quality of life without working so hard. I don't think there is anything inherently noble about "having a job."

And not having a job (and needing money) sucks.

[clyde_park]

Working in theory is noble in that you are being self-reliant. Say on a farm for instance. Unfortunately most of the work we do is not self-reliant. Most of my money goes to other people who "take care" of me.

Garbage, sewer, water, electricity, fuel, food, clothing, auto repair/upkeep; almost ALL of this is provided by someone else that we have to pay to receive. We are consumers. We don't really produce anything we need ourselves. We grow a few vegetable plants and perhaps have a wood stove to heat our home that we cut our own wood for. Other than that we rely on someone else. Combine this with taxes, the amazingly high cost of housing, etc and work isn't done for the sake of nobility, but just to survive.

The system is designed to keep the money you earn flowing out to someone else. That's why no matter how much you "progress" with technology it doesn't really make things easier for you, because you probably use the technology to largely benefit someone else.

[countblastula]

Looks like I"m not the only one on this bandwagon:

http://www.alternet.org/story/152383/are_jobs_on_their_way_to_becoming_obsolete_and_is_that_a_good_thing?page=entire