Your top 5 sci-fi movies (and why)

[Paul Farquhar]

Society doesn't let poor people have those things either. Do you think people work jobs because they want to work?

No, I think people work jobs because they need to work. Not for money, but to give them meaning. Without meaning, life is, quite literally, meaningless.

The only people in the world who are truly free are the idle rich.

The thing I've noticed about the rich is they are very rarely idle. If people stopped working as soon as they had enough stuff, there would be a lot more to go around. But that's not how people, when given freedom, behave. Instead they go on accumulating more and more, because that is what gives their existence meaning.

It applies to the more complex animals too. At the better zoos, the major animal welfare issue the keepers have to deal with is boredom. They will typically do this by providing enrichment - which basically means getting the animals to work for their food.

 

[môrgondír]

think most billionaire businessmen are either driven by some form of mania or addiction

It is a kind of unconscious self-defense mechanism.

The pursuit of greater wealth, power, or fame acts as a distraction, and a hedge against the fear of death. It's a bid for immortality.

 

[Autumnal]

Because also, if you want to become any kind of celebrity you have to sign the devil's book and give up first your integrity and then any trace of genuine creativity without mass market appeal; and also be sure never to say anything that either the left, the right, or overprotective parents of any description would find objectionable.

Over the decades, I’ve known several fairly successful folks - George R.R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, Harry Turtledove, Barbara Hambly, Dan Abnett, John Scalzi - for whom this doesn’t seem true at all. Just the opposite, in fact. Most of these owe some of their fame and success to being opinionated and backing that up with efforts at social change to match. Nor have any of them been pressured a lot to get bland and generic.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That interpretation makes Satan the saviour, god evil, and Heaven, just Hell from a different perspective.

Not like maltheism isn't a thing.

 

[Bohandas]

It applies to the more complex animals too. At the better zoos, the major animal welfare issue the keepers have to deal with is boredom

That's not a thing that having a job helps with.

No, I think people work jobs because they need to work. Not for money, but to give them meaning. Without meaning, life is, quite literally, meaningless.

Not once in my life has my job ever contributed to the accomplishmemt of anything that I care about (except in the roundabout way of providing money). It is, in fact, the chief impediment to doing anything I want to do, by being such a large and burdensome drain on my time. How the hell is anyone supposed to get meaning from that?

And even if you do something you like, how does it being a job help? How, for example, is being a starving artist who lives off of comissions going to beat being an independently wealthy person who has to time to draw what they want?

That goes dou le if its something you don't like. Is working 9 to 5 powerwashing filthy public restrooms gonna beat a life where you have enough money to spend all your time at home playing Powerwash Simulator

 

[Thomas Shey]

That's not a thing that having a job helps with.


Not once in my life has my job ever contributed to the accomplishmemt of anything that I care about (except in the roundabout way of providing money). It is, in fact, the chief impediment to doing anything I want to do, by being such a large and burdensome drain on my time. How the hell is anyone supposed to get meaning from that? And even of they could how would being beholden to it help?

That's largely because the majority of jobs the majority of humans do (at least in the modern world) have no intrinsic fulfillment for them; they're a way to keep a roof over the head and food on the table.

That doesn't say there aren't exceptions there--and there's matters of degree where there's some fulfillment over and above survival--but the other poster's premise that jobs are usually, let alone mostly psychologically fulfilling is pretty flawed from the get-go.

 

[payn]

That's not a thing that having a job helps with.

It can...

Not once in my life has my job ever contributed to the accomplishment of anything that I care about (except in the roundabout way of providing money). It is, in fact, the chief impediment to doing anything I want to do, by being such a large and burdensome drain on my time. How the hell is anyone supposed to get meaning from that? And even of they could how would being beholden to it help?

...but yeah often times it doesnt.

 

[Mannahnin]

Meaningful work absolutely adds to psychological fulfillment for many, if not most, people. Even less-meaningful work does for a lot of people (no guess here as to %), because being productive is a positive feeling, and for many people spending time with a cooperative team helps fulfill social needs and a desire to be recognized for their accomplishments. Of course, there are a lot of crappy jobs out there which don't serve these purposes, but some people still find meaning and satisfaction in jobs others would disdain. People are varied.

I tend to lean toward the position that if we were freed from the need to work purely to feed and house ourselves, that most people would still find some sort of work to occupy their time. But I expect that a lot bigger share of that work would be art, education, and caring for others.

 

[dragoner]

I tend to lean toward the position that if we were freed from the need to work purely to feed and house ourselves, that most people would still find some sort of work to occupy their time. But I expect that a lot bigger share of that work would be art, education, and caring for others.

It's one of the ideas I explore in my setting is that the future society is try to actively cultivate Einstein's as a wager that their productivity in that realm would far outweigh than if they had simply been limited to digging ditches.

 

[Bohandas]

Meaningful work absolutely adds to psychological fulfillment for many, if not most, people. Even less-meaningful work does for a lot of people (no guess here as to %), because being productive is a positive feeling, and for many people spending time with a cooperative team helps fulfill social needs and a desire to be recognized for their accomplishments. Of course, there are a lot of crappy jobs out there which don't serve these purposes, but some people still find meaning and satisfaction in jobs others would disdain. People are varied.

I tend to lean toward the position that if we were freed from the need to work purely to feed and house ourselves, that most people would still find some sort of work to occupy their time. But I expect that a lot bigger share of that work would be art, education, and caring for others.

This is an equivocation. The difference begween, for example, a starving artist who lives on comissions and an independently wealthy person who paints what they want on their own time, is like night and day