I wanna quibble with this just a little bit. People work. Left to their own devices, with their needs met, people will dedicate their energy toward generating value.
What no one wants to do is a job, which is an arrangement by which several of us have to do more in exchange for less so one of us can do nothing all day and then complain that "nobody wants to work anymore".
When people say "nobody wants to work", what they mean is nobody wants to work for them. People will work for themselves, for people they care about, or even humanity in general, but I think it's fair to say nobody ever wanted to work just to make money for someone else.
If left to my own devices, I'll generate art. I give it away and almost never sell it. A lot of it is bad art and has no value.
Nah dude, it is only "bad" and "has no value" in this capitalist economy. Keep making art, it is valuable.
Thanks! I've never let it bother me. I make funky stuff for my own amusement. I go by the horseshoe theory that priceless is the same as worthless on the 'value' scale. Maybe it's more like an ouroboros than a horseshoe? Anyway, I'm not afraid of making things for the "art bin", I make it to exercise the idea.
I love doing art for just for the sake of it
I love it when people describe things by their function to pull the rug out from under the label people who bastardize meaning!
Very well put.
I always like to say that I love my job, but I hate my boss and my stupid colleagues because they always seem to be getting in the way OF DOING MY FUCKING JOB. In 2023 it seems like work is more like a highschool popularity contest rather than about giving value to the company.
So in practice, I hate working. But it was never about the job. The narcissists are the ones ruining it.
Nice one.
Although honestly it's not true for me, I would need some activity, some learning to happen to be contempt. But that's me ^^
I've never understood this argument. "I couldn't not work because I'd be too bored/I need to feel useful/I need mental/physical enrichment, etc." You can be unemployed and still do things. You don't have to sit on your couch all day staring at the wall. You can take up hobbies, volunteer, travel, all without having to worry about a work schedule. I would retire in an instant if I had the opportunity.
Some people don't function well without hard boundaries or someone else holding them accountable. I don't get it myself but it seems to be pretty common. It includes the "I can't work from home because I'd just play Xbox all day" crowd.
After a while those people will also search for something more in life.
We shouldn't blame them for wanting a rest a couple of months after Capitalism forced them into servitude for so many years.
I agree wholeheartedly, and when we got locked down for COVID I learned how to play guitar and automate my house using a raspberry pi. It was a great time, and I look back on it fondly. I finally had time to pursue things that interested me, that I didn't have time for with work.
Nowadays I play guitar and tinker with home automation, and work as well, but back then I had the hours to put in to starting the hobbies.
I think you are right, but having a purpose to doing stuff (be it monetary or others) can help imo.
Also I don't sit on my couch all day, even if I'm working ^^
If you can't afford me at my worst, you can't afford me at my best.
If you can't afford me at my price, you can't afford me in the feels.
We have fed you all for a thousand years, for that was our doom you know
From the days where you chained us in your fields, to the strike of a week ago
Open source exists where often nobody gets payed
They still do it for a reason.
Sometimes that reason is just "I want it like that but it doesn't exist"
There are plenty of reasons to work for "free" in FOSS. Having contributed to a valued project looks great on a CV, and sometimes it's just for passion.
You know, I used to think that about myself. I've found that I actually enjoy intermittent periods of doing things that are valuable and could be construed as work, when I'm well-rested and the impacts of trauma are minimized. But the problem is that state so rarely exists in life for so many people because we are forced to do this shit day in and day out, and they call us lazy and entitled when we no longer have the capacity to handle it. I've been in a near-continuous state of burnout for so long that I cannot imagine myself happy even if I never had to work again. My anhedonia is so bad that when I get home from work, all I do is eat and sleep, even on the weekends. I put some shit on YouTube to pass the time and I can't even remember what it is I watched, it's more or less just a grey noise generator. Deep in the back of myself I remember a person who once enjoyed things and had goals and dreams, but about the same time I start feeling like that person again, I have to go back to work, and it starts all over. This is no way to live.