
The Ecological Limits of Work [pdf] - kawera
http://autonomy.work/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/The-Ecological-Limits-of-Work-final.pdf
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jefflombardjr
The same author that wrote "Debt: The First 5000 years" has a brilliant book
called "Bullshit Jobs". After reading, it's hard to not frame any labor
discussion from the book's perspective.

There are two thoughts that came to me while reading this article that I think
were a result of reading Bullshit jobs:

1\. Not all labor is productive labor. We should be focusing on efficiency. By
reducing hours I think this will cut down on the amount of 'unproductive'
work.

2\. A cultural change is needed, why do we automatically associate time with
productivity?

~~~
asark
I finally read that book a few weeks ago, and one idea Graeber raises in it is
something that'd been bugging me for a while: it seems like adding computers
to a large proportion of activities and processes makes them _less_ efficient,
and increases the load of bullshit jobs to deal with making everything
compatible with computer monitoring and computer-"aided" business processes,
for gains that may be illusory and which surely do not make up for all the
added layers (and cost) of bullshit.

The stuff about the rise of the influence of finance folks and practices on
(previously) traditional management staff was interesting, too. I'm not sure
his timeline works out, as I'm aware of (fictional) books that treated of
precisely this sort of thing (bullshit office jobs, in particular) as an
entrenched phenomenon at least as far back as 1961, but I think both ideas are
getting at _something_ worth further examination.

~~~
specialist
_" adding computers to a large proportion of activities and processes makes
them less efficient"_

Young technophilic me didn't distinguish between _digitization_ and
_automation_. I've since seen this mistake over and over.

Automation is the removal of judgement. Automate before you digitize.

Older technoskeptic me now assumes that whenever a big bang project fails (eg
new payroll system for big org), it's because they tried to faithfully
reimplement some legacy "processes" dependent on humans, in the form of social
cognition and tribal knowledge, sometimes also called "culture".

Also, automate after you digitize. In fact, redesign and reengineer to support
automation.

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jaden
As a kid, one of the biggest benefits of technology I heard was freeing up our
time from mundane labor. But with our phones making us available almost 24/7
it seems the joke is on us.

A three hour work day is something I could get behind 100%.

~~~
onemoresoop
To me 3 hours isnt enough, i need at least an hour to warm up before jumping
into the zone. Im thinking what would work out for me: 4 hour work days with
the ability to squeeze 2 days in one and being able to do 2.5 days of 8 hours
a week, no more no less. I’d be as productive as I am now, maybe even more.
During the time off I’d still have work ideas popping up in my mind while
doing things like being with family, playing with my kid, etc.. Currently
thats what i do in terms of productivity but the dead time is spent sitting in
a chair in an office 1.5 hour away from home.

~~~
mrmonkeyman
6-8h a day is fine by me, just not 5 days a week and/or on a rigid schedule.

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esotericn
How does a three-hour work day make sense for anyone who isn't wealthy?

In a lot of the world we have what are, in the short term at least, zero sum
games.

An example would be housing in a place like SF or London (and seemingly
creeping down the scale as time goes on).

If Person A works three hours a day, Person B is going to work six and end up
with twice as much as you. If they can't do it at one job, they'll take two.

Low paid individuals already do this, they'll have multiple jobs because they
don't get enough hours at any of them.

In the current situation - A will be living in student-like conditions, or
homeless, and the B that works six hours will have a flat or house to
themselves.

Forecast that out a few years or decades and A is in poverty whilst B has
established wealth via savings and investments.

It feels like one of those ideas that would work if there were less scarcity
in the environment.

~~~
ben_w
I imagine that if we all worked 3-hour-days the price of housing would
massively reduce, as rent and purchase prices can only be what the market can
pay, and that goes for the land they’re built on too. I doubt this would be a
perfect 1-to-1 match to income changes, even if it happened in every country
at the same time.

~~~
CalRobert
We have a housing cartel ensuring the supply of homes remains lower than
demand in areas with decent jobs. So the person who wants to work a 3 hour day
can't compete with the person who says "well, I'm willing to work a 5 hour day
to afford a home, at least for now".

Of course, in reality it often comes down to the person who wants to work a 40
hour week competing with the workaholic who works all weekend on a regular
basis.

Similarly, a lot of couples might prefer to have one partner stay at home and
do childcare, but this is impossible (except for the rich) with a housing
shortage, because homes will always go to the wealthiest (usually those
willing to be two income full-time households).

Once you have 100 households seeking 101 homes instead of 90 homes (etc.) it
_does_ become possible. When you're competing with "I'd like a bigger home"
vs. "I need any home at all" it gets easier.

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mwilcox
This makes no sense. Moving emphasis from Production (work) to Consumption
(leisure) increases carbon usage, and halts progress towards more sustainable
technologies and conservative behaviours. Climate progress takes effort not
entertainment.

~~~
mrec
Why does leisure have to mean consumption? And isn't consumption necessarily
limited to the amount produced?

I wasn't particularly impressed by TFA, but I don't understand this criticism
of it.

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mwilcox
Well, you still need to consume, eat, house yourself etc. Any situation where
you're not paying for that without a productive output is one where you're
increasing the ratio of consumption to production. Of course not all work is
productive, but solving inefficiencies is _work_ not leisure

~~~
qplex
Most work isn't aimed at making technological progress towards a more
ecological or otherwise better future.

Most work is also not aimed at food production or housing anymore because of
technology.

~~~
mrec
A large proportion of work is aimed at housing, but for entirely the wrong
reasons. Housing costs in first world countries these days generally expand to
consume available income, via land price inflation. Actual build cost -
"production" \- is a minor piece of the pie.

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ncg1622
"I would thus argue that the climate crisis calls for (...) us to adapt Paul
Lafargue’s phrase, the ‘necessity to be lazy’"

I didn't know it, but my laziness has been saving the world from global
warming.

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perfunctory
As a personal anecdote, I've been working between 4 and 2 days a week for more
then 5 years already. I am never going back to 5 days. Never.

~~~
dominotw
did you have to take pay cut?

~~~
perfunctory
Yes, but I guess the cut is not linear.

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Nasrudith
I wonder about how distribution would play a role in yields vs pollution -
especially when accounting for training costs and logistics.

Would it be more efficient to have one person working 80 hours a week and
thirty nine unemployed or 80 working half an hour a week or anywhere in
between? Of course this is a very multivariable problem and that is ignoring
the many sociological issues that would occur with such a system.

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fooblitzky
If you're lucky enough to be earning a decent amount, you can simulate this
(kinda) for yourself. Following the Mr Money Mustache approach, save a good
portion of all your income (>50%), invest it, and work towards an early
retirement. Instead of a work week that's 1/4 the hours of everyone else,
you'll have a career that's 1/4 the years of everyone else.

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perfunctory
> As early as the 1880s, Paul Lafargue, a son-in-law of Karl Marx, put forth
> the demand for a three-hour work day...

If three-hour work day seemed feasible back then it must be even more so
today.

I think shorter working time is one of the most overlooked solutions to the
climate catastrophe. And before you object by bringing up adverse economic
effects, please consider that introducing 40-hour workweek did not collapse
the economy.

"For example, in the U.S in the late 19th century it was estimated that the
average work week was over 60 hours per week..."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time)

~~~
asark
I think three eights or four sixes (24 worked hours a week, either way) is a
good goal to aim for, since it's the tipping point at which something other
than paid work might dominate one's waking hours, while still leaving time for
other normal activities and necessities.

~~~
thrower123
I would rather work less longer days than more shorter days, under any scheme.
Maybe in a world where I was working fully remote, it wouldn't matter, but the
overhead of getting ready, commuting, and getting wound down again is a
constant that doesn't vary significantly whether I work 12 hours or one.

