
Time to rethink the meaning of work? - Calcite
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/04/why-its-time-to-rethink-the-meaning-of-work
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jimmy1
Yes I agree. Stop trying to find meaning in your job. Value the important
things in life -- your family, your loved ones, your community, and your
contributions to society outside of work. So many of my millennial coworkers
are just obsessed with finding meaning at work because it's very obvious to me
they are failing to find meaning outside of work: meaningful relationships,
friendships, deep connections with their parents, etc. If you don't attend all
the work happy hours and mingles and events, you are seen as an outsider. It's
a sad state of affairs.

> I believe in a future where the value of your work is not determined by the
> size of your paycheck, but by the amount of happiness you spread and the
> amount of meaning you give.

Yeah I believe in paradise and utopia as well. Unfortunately, for the
unforeseeable future, people who create value will be the ones getting paid.

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why5s
I don't think that there's anything wrong with wanting to find meaning in your
job.

 _The time has come to stop sidestepping the debate and home in on the real
issue: what would our economy look like if we were to radically redefine the
meaning of “work”? I firmly believe that a universal basic income is the most
effective answer to the dilemma of advancing robotization. Not because robots
will take over all the purposeful jobs, but because a basic income would give
everybody the chance to do work that is meaningful._

~~~
jimmy1
You are probably right to an extent. I should probably phrase my comment
highlighting more the unhealthy manner of the concept, and there certainly is
a balance to strike somewhere. Some jobs are inherently meaningful, but I
believe those are rare. For the vast majority, it is imperative that people
have support systems outside of work. Then your "crappy" job doesn't seem so
crappy, because you are given money to then go spend on your loved ones doing
things you like to do together.

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lootsauce
I used to be very excited about Universal Basic Income. Then I thought about
what might actually happen. UBI will cause dramatic price inflation in
response to everyone knowing that everyone is getting x amount of money. This
will quickly neutralize the intended effect of UBI. It might sound great to
get 10,20,40k automatically for everyone but this will have an immediate
inflationary effect especially on rents and housing. Price controls would need
to be enacted. This situation is untenable, either inflation or the effects of
a race to prevent inflation will counter-act the intended effects of UBI. UBI
is an illusion that we need to move past. You have to actually identify the
why and how of the massive inequality we see in society to do something about
it. UBI does not answer why or how inequality happens and is no solution to
it.

~~~
jlarsen
If you want to get excited about UBI again , consider the opposite action:

Take the US, and instead of giving everyone in the country 10,000 USD/year in
UBI, take 10,000 USD away: add a new 10,000 USD/year flat tax.

Do you still think all prices will re-stabilize, and everyone will end up
_exactly_ the same as before? Or, isn't likely that taking 10,000 away from a
poor man will hurt more than taking 10,000 away from a rich man?

So, intuitively, wouldn't giving every person in the US 10,000 USD help the
poor more than the rich? Where's the evidence to suggest all of that money
would immediately be swallowed up by cost inflation?

Of course, the effect in reality will be a little more complex, and hard to
measure, but I'd argue that intuition suggests UBI, by nature, _has_ to help
fight inequality, just like free education, free healthcare, nationalized
insurance, and any other progressive services that give equal benefits to all
citizens. The question isn't if we should try it, but how much should we give.

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DougN7
Except this has already happened. The poor today have $10K more than they did
50-100 years ago. I don’t think inequality has improved. And prices have all
gone up.

Until we have unlimited resources, resources will, by definition, be limited,
and they’ll be distributed by some form of money/credits/whatever.

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hprotagonist
_Such a concept practically does away with the very basis of the ancient
differentiation of people into classes according to the kind of work done.
This does not mean that, from the objective point of view, human work cannot
and must not be rated and qualified in any way.

It only means that the primary basis of the value of work __is man himself,
who is its subject__. This leads immediately to a very important conclusion of
an ethical nature: however true it may be that man is destined for work and
called to it, __in the first place work is "for man" and not man "for work"__.

Through this conclusion one rightly comes to recognize the pre-eminence of the
subjective meaning of work over the objective one. Given this way of
understanding things, and presupposing that different sorts of work that
people do can have greater or lesser objective value, let us try nevertheless
to show that __each sort is judged above all by the measure of the dignity of
the subject of work, that is to say the person, the individual who carries it
out.__

On the other hand: independently of the work that every man does, and
presupposing that this work constitutes a purpose—at times a very demanding
one—of his activity, this purpose does not possess a definitive meaning in
itself. In fact, in the final analysis it is always man who is the purpose of
the work, whatever work it is that is done by man—even if the common scale of
values rates it as the merest "service", as the most monotonous even the most
alienating work._

Laborem exercens, 1982

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xstartup
UBI isn't possible without strict price controls which goes against the spirit
of capitalism.

~~~
WalterSear
1\. No, price controls aren't necessary.

2\. Yes, that's just one of the other good things about it.

