
Better technology means higher expectations, which creates more work - pseudolus
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/why-you-never-have-time/603937/
======
tomc1985
This is part of the reason I feel like I am turning into a luddite, as someone
who once considered himself a futurist and built most of his life around
computers and technology.

You have to work hard to find time to slack off -- everyone and everything
around me is always creating more _work_ to do. How does anyone like this? A
perfect life to me would be spent goofing off and working on art, but
achieving that and maintaining the expected level of success is in itself a
lot of work. Press articles always talk about how some new innovation is going
to make my life easier, but all I see is how it's going to create more
maintenance headaches for me (because I care about how it is going to work --
if you don't care maybe life actually is easier?) and how it is going to
create more data for someone else (who isn't me! wtf?!) to monetize. I would
happily roll back the last 10-to-20 years of technological innovation if it
meant I could make software that didn't shackle me with continuous maintenance
again, that I could happily disconnect from society at will again, and that
social objectives (like dating, or finding friends) reverted back to a model
of local scarcity of options rather than this model of app-driven stacked
ranking that enhances the top 10% while leaving everyone else fighting over
scraps.

The world would be a better place if so many of these innovators suddenly died
of a heart attack or something; because their model of innovation is almost
always figuring out how to take money away from incumbents who built a
working, _human-scale_ system that allowed for things like slack time and
local maximums, as opposed to this brave new world of globalizing everything
and forcing everyone into the top 1-10% (and making everyone not in that
bracket suffer)

~~~
zackmorris
I've reached the same conclusion. What we have the past 20 years is _phantom_
technology and _phantom_ wealth. So many tools to distract us and fill our
time, but shockingly few tools to liberate us from labor. Only a tiny handful
like rooftop solar panels, electric cars and Roombas have decreased our labor
measurably.

I'm going through a midlife crisis right now where I'm actively rejecting the
decisions I made since 2000. I had a falling out with professional programming
last year and am looking into the gig economy. I'm not going to buy new
anything if I can possibly avoid it. I'm trying to turn my attention from
external expectation to what I felt was my life purpose when I graduated
college in 1999.

Which will basically amount to finding a way to earn roughly $1000 per month
doing whatever it takes and then using the freed up time to work on
inventions. I'm hoping to resurrect my blog and write about progress or my
thoughts on tech rather than devolving into my usual diatribes about politics
and how the world has generally gone the wrong direction. My acquaintances are
concerned about me, and rightfully so, but I just don't care to live someone
else's life anymore.

I think you're right though, that when basic needs are met, most people want
to work on their calling whether it be art or recreation or simply being
human. Which looks a bit like how the aristocracy lived in the Gilded Age over
a century ago. There's no reason why we can't have that level of affluence
today for every single person by letting machines do the labor, or by taxing
profits on that labor and providing cash to all via UBI.

~~~
jfengel
I agree with you in a lot of ways, but keep an eye out on what "basic needs"
means. Those are poverty-line wages, which don't give you any provision for
becoming sick and little chance to save for retirement. Social Security might
still exist by the time you retire, but even if it does, it won't even match
that $1,000 per month (in whatever inflation-adjusted terms are available).

If you've spent the last two decades socking away some of that sweet, sweet
programmer cash, you may well have enough cushion to live the beach-
bum/starving-artist life you're talking about. That's great, and go for it.
But a lot of people trying to skate by with the minimum will discover that the
minimum isn't quite enough, and then they get caught up in a very bad vicious
cycle.

UBI is one plan which would alleviate a lot of that, and I'd be all in favor
of trying. Technology means there's so much to go around that not everybody
needs to spend a third of their waking life to get the basics. But until then,
people should be aware that they have needs outside of basic maintenance that
must be taken into account.

~~~
zackmorris
I see what you are saying, although I do want to mention that the $1000 per
month isn't permanent. I'm doing it more to point out the absurdity of living
in a society where it's easier to earn $100,000 per year than $12,000 per
year. That's self-evidently outrageous and IMHO unsustainable.

After doing this for a few months, I've reached the conclusion that the status
quo structures America this way so that we're all locked into the workaday
world rat race to bolster corporate profits. The penalties for working less
than 40 hours per week are so severe that it's effectively a dream now, out of
reach for most. The opportunity cost of that for American innovation is
incalculable. We might as well measure it in years instead of dollars. I've
lost 20, has anyone else succeeded as a sole proprietor or made a living from
patents?

I've already begun to notice the biases against the working poor interwoven
through our society. Overdraft fees are crippling, and groveling to get them
reversed is demoralizing (luckily my credit union is more understanding than
banks ever were). I've begun measuring everything in time again. Eating at a
restaurant costs 1-2 hours of income, rent costs at least 30 hours, veterinary
bills are out of the question, medical care is a fantasy, I'm at the mercy of
my vehicle holding up. I hardly thought about those things on salary, and I
grew detached from the chronic daily misery 100 million Americans face just to
survive.

Anyway, I want to document all of this as a roadmap for other entrepreneurs
that I never had. Reaching $2000 per month, with half coming from self-
employment, is the next milestone. Success for me will look like making
between $30k and $50k working 20 hours per week by a year or two from now. I
figure the odds of that are 90% against, but by working the gig economy, I
might be able to get that to 50/50.

~~~
jfengel
I hear ya. Being poor sucks harder than most HackerNews denizens realize, and
I'm frequently aggravated to read "just pull yourself up by your bootstraps"
talk from people who don't realize just how much easier life is without a huge
number of daily hassles. Being poor is literally very expensive.

Seeing past that realization is incredibly difficult, especially when one
isn't motivated to. If you find a way to help make that clearer to people,
good on ya.

------
dangus
The best summary of the article was in this passage:

> The history of American housework suggests that both sides have a point.
> Americans tend to use new productivity and technology to buy a better life
> rather than to enjoy more downtime in inferior conditions.

I think this goes along with an informal idea that downtime is both overrated
and possibly undesirable.

Often, the alternative to staying busy is boredom, and the completion of tasks
at home is gamified with satisfying results.

~~~
mojuba
To rephrase it, we always find ways to keep ourselves busy. Blacksmiths are
gone, now we have more lawyers and psychotherapists. A lot of manual work is
gone, but now we have a whole communications infrastructure that didn't exist
before, to build and mainatain instead. We constantly create new technologies
and new societal concepts, then we go on to complicate those things further,
and so on. After all, last resort there's always arts and creativity if you
have nothing else to do (or maybe if you always had the urge to be creative).
Create art and call it an occupation. The amount of music and films alone
being created today is unbelievable.

Not necessarily because we avoid boredom, it might as well be some kind of a
cultural pressure to _do something_ rather than nothing.

This is why I don't believe in "robots taking away our jobs" and leaving us
jobless. I'm not worrying for the humanity in this regard. We are a creative
type, we'll always find ways to complicate things and create more work for
ourselves :)

~~~
nickthemagicman
Robots and A.I. aren't taking all jobs. They're just taking PAID jobs.

------
smallcharleston
Many folks will acknowledge the secular or scientific benefits of e.g.
temperance with food or alcohol, or even restraint with sex. One thing I’ve
heard few outside of religious encourage is humility. Some people will just be
better than you at different things, have more stuff than you, be more
honored, etc. If you can’t deal with that situation without becoming emotional
and working 100 hours a week, you’ve got, on some level, a similar problem as
the guy who can’t see a cake without eating the whole thing, and becomes
overweight as a result.

------
dade_
I don't think this explains the last decade. There is also keeping up with the
Joneses, which I think social media has driven people into a rabid spending
rage that turns most into debt slaves. Stone kitchen counters and floors,
designer Italian faucets, brand name toilets are just the home renos. These
are so far beyond a typical home in the 90's, but you wouldn't want that
background in your Instagram or Pinterest.

~~~
chii
> social media has driven people into a rabid spending rage that turns most
> into debt slaves.

whatever happened to personal responsibility and accountability?!

~~~
everdrive
Moral blame doesn't do you much good when dealing with a population. If most
people in a population show poor judgement (let's say they are overweight)
your argument for moral blame might still be true, but does nothing to solve
the problem. Why does a population of people all make the same error? Well,
because people are only ever in partial control of their impulses. Some more
than others, but no one has total control.

~~~
WillDaSilva
Furthermore if a population shows poor judgement (or exhibits some other
negative trait) we should ask ourselves how we got to this point, and how it
can be corrected at a systemic level. Public education is a prime example of a
systemic solution to several widespread problems.

------
pif
> One of the truisms of modern life is that nobody has any time.

I don't agree. We have as much time as we ever did, but modern technology has
vastly improved the _value_ of our time.

In particular, we don't get bored as easily as we used to. As a consequence, a
lot of non-important tasks that used to offer sort of a refreshing break from
monotony look now as a hassle because we have funnier/worthier things to do.

~~~
scandox
> we don't get bored as easily as we used to

You mean we have more distractions. The experience of boredom is subjective.
We therefore require more distraction to remain non bored.

> funnier/worthier things to do

No we don't. The "things" have no intrinsic value. Our feelings about them
determine their funniness and their worthiness.

People used to listen to 2 hour church sermons and find them massively
uplifting, entertaining and emotionally charged.

When I was in college I used to sit chatting with a friend for 8 hours in a
cafe and I was never bored. No phones. No books. Not even a newspaper.

Few people could entertain themselves like that any more.

------
gdubs
Certainly inequality plays a much larger role in all of this than the article
acknowledges — particularly if you look at the plots of productivity vs income
inequality — eg, the amount of wealth held by the top earners vs everyone
else.

Sure, there’s a “Protestant Work Ethic” that still underpins a lot of consumer
behavior in America, amplified by a marginal theory of economics that says you
are what you earn — but most people can’t work less, even if they wanted to.

This became especially true after the 2008 financial collapse, wherein people
who managed to keep their jobs were expected to take on the responsibilities
of the people who were layed-off. And as the economy recovered, top earners
took a larger share, and the majority of workers continued to carry a heavier
load.

Contrast this with the 1950s where single earners could provide a relatively
comfortable middle class lifestyle. (Also, coincidentally, the generation that
dreamed-up a lot of the Jetsons-age inventions they imagined would provide a
life of leisure by century’s end.)

------
spicymaki
Sounds like there is a gap between what people actually want and what they say
they want. People claim they want leisure but instead they work themselves
into the ground. This is not the fault of technology.

With humans it is better to watch what they do, not what they say.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Or, they recognize that if they don't keep up on the treadmill, they will fall
further and further behind. If you don't spend enough to go to a good school,
then you might be stuck with friends who don't earn much too, and are less
valuable in your network. If you don't live in the burgeoning economic
regions, then you reduce your chances of advancement in the future, and
possibly put yourself at risk of losing income.

If you don't live in the better school districts, then your children will have
less chance of success. How much are you willing to stretch yourself to give
them as much of a leg up as possible?

This is the reality of a society that's had a widening wealth gap for decades
now, and it's becoming more and more visible. And since wealth compounds, it's
ever more important to not get left behind.

~~~
mattkrause
Health insurance too. Most people in the US are a handful of unlucky mutations
away from bankruptcy. Money may not buy happiness, but it certainly buys
hospital care.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Yes, I wouldn’t feel economically secure unless I had 2 years worth of family
out of pocket maximum saved up (somewhere between $10k and $30k depending how
generous one’s employer is), on top of other emergency funds. Which,
realistically, I know the middle 30% to 70% probably can’t afford since they
earn too much for government assistance and earn too little to save.

A baby on a gold level insurance plan in a high cost of living area recently
cost me $5.5k, but that’s only because everything went well and we’re lucky to
have a family oop max of $5.5k due to generosity of employer. If the oop max
was higher, it probably would have cost around $8k or so.

I can luckily comfortably afford it, but I have no idea how others with
household income in the $70k to $150k range can afford to budget for it. They
must be giving up niceties such as vacation funds or skimping on essential
savings, handicapping the growth of their retirement funds.

------
CalRobert
Good lord, not a single mention of fake scarcity????

We don't have time because we are bidding against each other for a small pool
of resources with respect to housing (and to a lesser extent, education and
healthcare).

The formula is pretty simple:

* Restrict the amount of housing near good jobs (thanks Nimybs!)

* Make large amounts of debt available to purchase said housing

* Watch as everyone soaks up the debt in the pursuit of housing!

If 10 households live in a town with 5 houses, those 5 houses go to the people
most willing to work themselves to the bone and take on a huge mortgage. The
other 5 are screwed (in reality they just have gigantic commutes, share a home
when they'd rather not, etc.)

Thanks to the large debt you took on, losing your income means losing the roof
over your (and far worse, your kids') heads. So you check Slack at 11 PM, stay
in the office until 8, go on pointless BS work trips that exist to serve the
boss' ego and get 16 hour days out of you, and generally structure your entire
life around income maximization so you can outbid your peers.

There is no reason you shouldn't be able to get a home for under 100k. Not a
fancy one, but a home. If you run out of land, demolish the parking garages
and put in more homes. If you run out of homes, demolish the townhouses and
put in apartment blocks. If you run out of homes, demolish the 4 story
apartments and put in 12 store ones. Also, let new cities grow instead of
strangling them with NIMBYs, parking minimums, and zoning restrictions.

The above is how I wound up trying really, really hard (and succeeding) to
find a dirt-cheap house I could own in cash - and it was only because no bank
would be crazy enough to lend on a thatched cottage (oh, we moved to Europe
too which helps with health care). Having no mortgage, and no rent, is AMAZING
for your personal agency. Taking 6 months off to write a novel, fart around,
whatever no longer is terrifying.

------
mfer
If you dig into contentment you find it's about being contented [1] which
is...

> feeling or showing satisfaction with one's possessions, status, or situation

How much if this is because so many lack contentment? Even when many people
here or who fell this are in the top 10 or 1% of the things compared to all
people through history.

How much of this is just a state of mind?

[1] [https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/contented](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/contented)

------
ummonk
The same thing happens with better languages, tooling, abstractions, and
libraries in software engineering. Programming never gets any easier because
the expectations of what we should be able to do (and how quickly) keep
rising.

~~~
zozbot234
IME, the expectations of what a competent programmer should be able to achieve
in any given amount of time and effort are not only _not_ growing, they're
actually sinking. Today attending a bootcamp is enough to be considered a
"programmer" \- the moral equivalent to "knowing HTML" in the 1990s. And the
languages, tooling, abstractions and libraries of today are often of far
_lower_ quality than even in the recent past.

------
k__
True.

We need to get our education on par with the technology.

People need to level up faster, there are new jobs that are yet to be
discovered. More taxes to be paid so the ones that aren't lucky don't have to
live at a bare minimum.

~~~
trevyn
Sarcasm never translates well to text.

~~~
WillDaSilva
Not sure why you would think that was sarcastic. Calls to improve education
and increase taxes are hardly uncommon.

~~~
k__
Also, I didn't call to increase taxes! I called to educate people better so
they get better paying jobs and in turn pay more taxes.

------
krupan
The fact is, doing good hard work feels good. Some people get addicted to that
and carry it too far.

Too much relaxing and doing nothing wears on you too.

The old saying, "too much of a good thing" can apply to both.

------
marmaduke
there are three bold theses in this article,

> Better technology means higher expectations—and higher expectations create
> more work.

> A lot of modern overwork is class and status maintenance—for this generation
> and the next.

> Technology only frees people from work if the boss—or the government, or the
> economic system—allows it.

It seems high expectations and class and status maintenance are just
capitalism masquerading as culture. In France, the slogan we hear is "Work
more to earn more," to which people reply in complaint, "I'm working more and
earning the same!" But why can't we do "work less, earn less and have more
time?"

------
walterkrankheit
This does kind of imply that technology is to blame. I get what his piece is
trying to say and it wraps it up quite well by the end, these are social
(American) norms that must be fought with. But technology isn't the culprit.
It's just also not to be expected to ultimately relieve the number of hours we
work.

------
dsalzman
PDF to the original Parkinson's law article in The Economist (1955)
[https://www.berglas.org/Articles/parkinsons_law.pdf](https://www.berglas.org/Articles/parkinsons_law.pdf)

------
sejtnjir
> the debate over labor and leisure is often fought between the Self-Helpers
> and the Socialists

I don't think those parties are they only ones who have something to say about
leisure. Some would argue work is virtuous and you don't need less of it.

------
dangerface
What a stupid article.

> Everybody is busy, burned out, swamped, overwhelmed.

Because money has been depreciating in value by 2-3% every year since the 70s
while wages have stayed the same and the value they produce has increased.

This is fairly simple maths, the rich are enslaving the working class with
debt through inflation.

Rather than face this cold reality some people would rather blame that new
fangled technology, "things where better when there was no technology and I
was a naive kid".

It's easy to blame technology as it gives you a simple solution to your
problems, get rid of it, but you can never get back your naivety and that
truth is much harder to accept.

Some other bad takes

> Better technology means higher expectations

Does it? based on what? I have higher expectations for a coffee made by a
hipster barista than a coffee machine.

> A lot of modern overwork is class and status maintenance > structural forces
> makes it so hard for Americans to find more time, even in an economy that is
> becoming ever more rich

The rich may becoming ever more rich, but the average American in the working
class is getting poorer.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/19/income-inequality-
continues-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/19/income-inequality-continues-to-
grow-in-the-united-states.html)

> Americans tend to use new productivity and technology to buy a better life
> rather than to enjoy more downtime in inferior conditions.

This may be true of some tech like phones and tv, tech focused on
entertainment, but most technology is focused on freeing up time and reducing
effort like lights, washing machines, dish washers, cookers, microwaves, cars,
power tools the list goes on you don't need me to list them as most people
take them for granted, I think the author is too.

~~~
mech1234
Real, inflation-adjusted wages have been growing.

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q)

If you think this federal reserve data is false, tell me more about why and
how.

~~~
marcosdumay
You will find plenty of people that do no accept the US inflation numbers, if
I understood it correctly, because it excludes mid-class expenses like housing
and education.

~~~
lazerpants
CPI includes both housing and education. If there's any argument to make it is
around how they are calculated and the degree to which they are weighted in
various inflation calculations.

~~~
willhslade
CPI doesn't include food or energy, I believe.

