Justifying fun

[garethom]

so apparently we all had the same exact dad.

the best argument i could come up with growing up was "where do you draw the line for doing things simply to do them? we're on a rock hurtling through space after all"

my dad's mentality is that if people stopped using facebook/twitter/worldofwarcraft , they would suddenly fill those holes with productive things. i would ask if the same were true for football games, playing solitaire, and watching Wheel of Fortune... again, where do you stop?
when does it suddenly become a utopia where everyone constantly works and is super beneficial to society every waking moment?

But what constitutes 'productive'? Everyone constantly working sounds more dystopian to me, like a slave culture. I think the ideal utopia to reach would be one where no one works, everything is automated and built by machines. People just relax all day with family and party, make music, paint pictures, invent cool shit for fun, just sit around and philosophise and think. Not enough people have time to do these things because everyone's all stressed out and trying to work to pay for shit they didn't really need anyway. I think it hinders humanity. Also I don't think your dad would like me.

WHO WUD FIX THE MACHINES THO?

[volcanogeorge]

LOL.

My dad occasionally just rips on night tracks, like he'll have a little read in secret, then come and speak to me and say, for example, "Have you heard Gasface's new tune? What about Sangman?" or whatever else I've recently wrote about and continue in that vein until I demand he leaves, with which he usually suggests I should try and interview Buster Bloodvessel.

i think we have the same dad

[herbs]

kids shouldn't be allowed. Go play kiss chase or summat. Fun, and your dad would be proud.

I'm sure he's just sick of his son knocking one out to fictional computer women.

[dubfordessert]

loving the communism in this thread. keep it up

[idontreallygiveashit]

so apparently we all had the same exact dad.

the best argument i could come up with growing up was "where do you draw the line for doing things simply to do them? we're on a rock hurtling through space after all"

my dad's mentality is that if people stopped using facebook/twitter/worldofwarcraft , they would suddenly fill those holes with productive things. i would ask if the same were true for football games, playing solitaire, and watching Wheel of Fortune... again, where do you stop?
when does it suddenly become a utopia where everyone constantly works and is super beneficial to society every waking moment?

But what constitutes 'productive'? Everyone constantly working sounds more dystopian to me, like a slave culture. I think the ideal utopia to reach would be one where no one works, everything is automated and built by machines. People just relax all day with family and party, make music, paint pictures, invent cool shit for fun, just sit around and philosophise and think. Not enough people have time to do these things because everyone's all stressed out and trying to work to pay for shit they didn't really need anyway. I think it hinders humanity. Also I don't think your dad would like me.

WHO WUD FIX THE MACHINES THO?

dood we build machines that like can fix themselves bro like there would be a robot caretaker who would fix the other robots but he would have his own caretaker and that would have its own caretaker until we get to the repeat automaton but if he broke then one of the surviving caretakers would fix him, and if all the machines break then i guess we could use some slaves brooo giving us plenty of time to sit around and philosophise and like being the ultimate humans, sitting and thinking all day and partying woo woo but then some more philosiphising about how great we are as humans no hinderance here doood 420 one love

[dubfordessert]

yeah i can imagine the maintence and development of machines would totally require 40 hour work weeks of every single able bodied adult human on the planet

totally

[dubfordessert]

btw if humanity had been liberated from "labour" per se then humans could participate *meaningfully* in collective decisions over how to direct, improve etc the productive apparatus and capacity. something denied almost everybody on the planet in our current subjection to said productive apparatus.

it's not just imaginative use of our intellects which is denied to us by capitalism but their practical engagement in autonomous decision making

[idontreallygiveashit]

It would require some people to work and that goes against the grand vision. Isn't growing food some sort of work? Will everyone be required to harvest their own materials and make their own clothes? Will everyone have to do their own so as to make society fair? All this work means we have less time to "just relax all day with family and party, make music, paint pictures, invent cool shit for fun, just sit around and philosophise and think" than we do now!

[idontreallygiveashit]

Are you lot 14 or something? That's not how the world will ever work.

[SCope13]

btw if humanity had been liberated from "labour" per se then humans could participate *meaningfully* in collective decisions over how to direct, improve etc the productive apparatus and capacity. something denied almost everybody on the planet in our current subjection to said productive apparatus.

it's not just imaginative use of our intellects which is denied to us by capitalism but their practical engagement in autonomous decision making

[mIrReN]

you wank for fun, it doesn't benefit you either but you do it anyway, go tell your dad this and if he doesn't understand he's a trannie.

[idontreallygiveashit]

btw if humanity had been liberated from "labour" per se then humans could participate *meaningfully* in collective decisions over how to direct, improve etc the productive apparatus and capacity. something denied almost everybody on the planet in our current subjection to said productive apparatus.

it's not just imaginative use of our intellects which is denied to us by capitalism but their practical engagement in autonomous decision making

go back to russia

[wormcode]

It would require some people to work and that goes against the grand vision. Isn't growing food some sort of work? Will everyone be required to harvest their own materials and make their own clothes? Will everyone have to do their own so as to make society fair? All this work means we have less time to "just relax all day with family and party, make music, paint pictures, invent cool shit for fun, just sit around and philosophise and think" than we do now!

Well I said ideal utopia. Like 'oh, wouldn't it be great...'.
But volunteers mostly. People will always want to work, and I'm all for that if someone wants to. People can volunteer 2 weeks a year to do what needs to be done, like sit around and press buttons or oversee activity so skynet doesn't become self aware. Or not. I know I would be down to help out. Machines are already building machines, not to mention making most of our products. People are already being phased out in many workplaces, but that is seen as a bad thing for some reason. I think it's a good thing. I haven't used an actual human cashier to buy stuff in like 5 years. There's just 1 person standing there in the store clicking on their phone while I do business with a robot. 50 years ago that alone would have blown people's minds. In another 50 years, who knows how further along that will have gone.

[SCope13]

btw if humanity had been liberated from "labour" per se then humans could participate *meaningfully* in collective decisions over how to direct, improve etc the productive apparatus and capacity. something denied almost everybody on the planet in our current subjection to said productive apparatus.

it's not just imaginative use of our intellects which is denied to us by capitalism but their practical engagement in autonomous decision making

go back to russia

>implying Russia had anything resembling communism

[wormcode]

Let us be thankful we have an occupation to fill. Work hard, increase production, prevent accidents and be happy.
Buy more. Buy more now. Buy. And be happy.

[tyger]

well, if you define communism as making capitalists quake in der boots (incorrectly, but that's all that matters about communism to some ppl), then russia had plenty to do with communism ...

robot cashiers should be good, yer ... the downside is that, in the current economic system, it tends to means fewer low paid jobs, more unemployment, higher government spending on benefits, higher profits for the employer - or alternatively, lower prices where there are robot cashiers and therefore inability of smaller shops (without robots) to compete, hence more dominance by bigger shops ... when it ought to mean: shorter working hours, or ppl doing other, more interesting work instead of working as cashiers, which would both raise economic production and give ppl more fulfilling jobs ... now, if you were optimistic, you might say the unemployment is the short term effect, but in the longer term it will lead to the more fulfulling jobs ...

[idontreallygiveashit]

go back to north korea

[twilight]

Lol read the first post then read the last post this thread went from video games to communism

[ehbes]

dont question

[wormcode]

Haha
Well I don't consider myself communist, I'm more into anarchism - specifically social anarchism, with some hints of syndicalism as I'm not against people's choice to work if they want (as in not just to pay off debt or increase GDP). I just think it would be best to work with and for the benefit of everyone as a whole. Again ideal utopias etc...
I think each ideology has its good features and we can learn and borrow from most of them, don't have to limit ourselves to just 1 ism.