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> Union-shop steward, emerging from a meeting with management to face a group of workers: “Brothers, we’ve got it made. From now on, we will work only on Wednesdays.”
> Irritated voice from the crowd: “You mean EVERY Wednesday?”
I suspect it’s significantly older than that though.
> Henkin treats the seven-day week as a social and cultural institution, focusing primarily on the nineteenth-century United States. Unlike years, months, and days, which have astronomical foundations, the week is an entirely historical and social construct with no scientific basis. The study argues that the early American republic was an unusually week-oriented society, in part because American colonists abandoned most of the annual feast days common in Europe, leaving the weekly Sabbath as the primary calendrical anchor. The influence of Puritan settlers, who rejected the Church of England's abundance of saints' days as redolent of Catholicism, contributed to this dominical orientation. Through industrialization, urbanization, and mass education during the nineteenth century, weekly consciousness became increasingly entrenched in American life.
> He identifies several factors that strengthened Americans' associations between specific weekdays and particular activities. Weekly wage payments, which became more common during the antebellum period, tightened the relationship between money and time; workers paid on Saturdays often spent much of their earnings quickly, creating what one passage describes as a financial hourglass pattern across the week. Standardized housework routines assigned specific tasks to particular days, with Monday widely recognized as washing day. Common schools organized curricula around weekly schedules […]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Week:_A_History_of_the_Unn...
While Christianity's seven day period would make you think it was 'obvious', it tended to be broken up in more Catholic cultures (i.e., not Protestant, perhaps more Puritan), and so was a bit of a 'softer' delineation:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_day
In pre-industrial times a large portion of the population was agriculture, and you may go to church, but you still have to take care of animals and such even on the seventh day; it was only in a more 'mechanized culture' (e.g., with factories) that time itself could perhaps be treated more mechanically.
Also also:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven-day_week
I’m not talking about starting your own company get rich quick scheme or moving into the woods (unless..), but really, I don’t see many ways about it. You could move somewhere rural, lower expenses, but then you are socially isolated to an extent. So, move to where people are, oh but then the only way to support the lifestyle is a standard job with security. Having a family is a whole different requirement almost making it “irresponsible” to not have stable income, hence time restrictions. Then again there seem to be a small population of explorers who live radically different lives or simply try to enjoy their work or switch jobs. Really struggling with this question.
Leaving civilization is probably your only option. Other than joining a handful of remote tribes, or living as a recluse, I don't think there's anyway to completely shield oneself from the tyranny.
You might not escape but you can breathe better air if you try.
Do you need a big house, do you need a shiny new vehicle, do you need to eat at restaurants twice a week?
Life can be more your way if you have more money to make it your way.
I got more social interactions the first week I moved to my house built in the middle of nowhere eastern europe than in my 10 years in a western EU capital. Small communities are much more alive than gigantic ones. You do lose some convenience, but it's not as bad is it used to be, for exemple there is a 24/7 automated supermarket 10min from my middle of nowhere village, 5g everywhere, etc.
But the lifestyle is worth it.
My experience is that after a point it gets annoying, and then oppressive. The proximity in smaller communities can help when everything is right. Neighbours can check on you, bring your kids to school, this sort of things. But at some point personal issues arise, and then it’s impossible to get out of them. That’s how you end up with family feuds over centuries because at some point someone did not like someone else.
Also, it’s nice if you correspond to what the community expects. If you don’t and you don’t build your own niche very quickly you get typecast and then outcast. Humans can be vile and petty, even in small communities. It gets particularly hairy if your bully is somewhat popular locally. Ask me how I know.
Anyway, I much prefer larger communities. I can still make friends if I want to, and if we have a fight it’s not the end of the village.
It will creep slowly on you and before you realize you will be late to do the laundry or whatnot.
Having a schedule and making so many things predictable and optimizable is just too advantageous to just not do it.
Many do, but there are also many unique solutions. Work part time. Home office. Live rural, but close to a railwail station that brings you to the city quickly. Limit your expenses, check what you really need. Do freelancing, where you often can decide when you will do the work, ..
I will always gladly post this. Not because I think it's good advice or because I think Ran is a person to emulate, but because I think it encourages one to think differently about life, wants, needs, and responsibilities.
https://ranprieur.com/essays/dropout.html
But yes, being anti consumerist, even to a mild extent, is "radical". In particular, alas, to the vast vast vast majority of mates
It is impossible to explain this to HR team. Sic.
That phrasing sounds a bit strong for temporary symptom relief.
The one-day weekend is ancient.
It’s like we’re living on an entirely different planet than the people who existed prior to the industrial revolution
Bertrand Russell’s grandfather was alive during napoleon’s rule and he speaks about the difference between 1950 and 1900:
https://youtu.be/xL_sMXfzzyA
With the shift to AI, it could happen.
You'll work more and they'll pocket the difference, as it's been the case for every advances in the last 50 years.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQGj_oQ...
With AI agents, I work less, not more. The difference is it's off the books. On paper I seem to work the same but not in practice. I've gone from 40 hour work weeks to maybe 2 or 3 hours a day pushing some prompts. Someday, it might be 2 or 3 hours a week.
Nah, I'll keep my Friday's off.
The variability would be fun. Sometimes it would be a 5 day weekend even.
Once the "elite"realize that drones, AI, and total information awareness provide the tools for complete totalitarian rule, we will pray for 1984
The biggest changes came shortly after Henry Ford conceded the weekend when the ultra-wealthy wrecked the economy (ie the Great Depression) and FDR was elected and, despite being a capitalist, realized he needed to address the very real issues to stave off the perceived threat of Communism. That's where Social Security, the right to join a union and a bunch of other things came from. There was even an attempted coup by the wealthy to avoid all this (ie the Business Plot [1]).
After WW2, the US (in particular) saw this as an opportunity to claw back these concessions. The Soviet Union became the Great Enemy. Former Naxis were recruited to fight Communism, both inside and outside the US. NASA, the FBI, the CIA, NATO, etc all filled with former Nazis despite their "morale lapses" [2] under the Third Reich.
Domestically, we got the Red Scare and McCarthyism. This really went into overdrive in the 1980s when Baby Boomers, whose fears of crime were fuelled by intentional propaganda as well as CIA efforts such as the crack epidemic, voted for Reagan in record numbers. Reagan won 49 states in 1984 (all but Wyoming).
One of the things I respect about Mad Men is how it pointed to the rising cult around Ayn Rand in the 1960s [3]. The 1950s, that tends to be romanticizied by so many hyper-individualists and right-wingers, had a top marginal tax rate of 91% and the CEO to median pay gap hadn't exploded yet [4]. By the way, that idea that CEOs were underpaid came from the Patton studies at McKinsey in this time [5].
My point is that this hyper-individualism is entirely manufactured by decades of spending to undermine any form of collectivism. And as a privileged worker, you owe those less fortunate to you some form of solidarity.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
[2]: https://www.techdirt.com/2014/10/28/during-cold-war-cia-fbi-...
[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKX8C6qKuac
[4]: https://www.reddit.com/r/charts/comments/1na8fww/the_typical...
[5]: https://ritholtz.com/2013/08/is-mckinsey-to-blame-for-skyroc...
Also, in ancient Rome, coinage with Caesar's face on it was traded above its bullion value. They'd kill 1/10th of your population repeatedly until you agreed to this (such was the origins of the word "decimation"), and then they'd buy their dinner from you with caesar-face coin and move on to the next village tomorrow. Now that you have some caesar-face coin, you have some incentive to continue upholding its inflated value, and the tax collectors will show up later and re-apply threats of violence to ensure that you continue to do so. That sounds like fiat currency to me.
Also, the federal reserve was established in 1913.
Dude, I'm all for framing the status quo as mutable, but maybe do a bit of research.
Decimation has it's origin in a military punishment for insubordination or cowardice. Where did you get the fiat currency idea from?
It's not that they killed every tenth member of whatever village they were adding to the roman empire that day, but rather than they conscripted some of them as soldiers and then killed every tenth of those who didn't obey.
I think the currency point stands though: value the money our soldiers carry, tax collectors will be along for it shortly, welcome to the Roman Empire.
It is not that working 365 days is hard. It is the job in today's world are very different, Muti tasking, context switching and anything but simple even in the lowest rank.
This is mentally tiring and I have also wondered if it is a recent thing. My argument is that cutting cost over the past 20 - 30 years meant what used to be a 5 person's job is now a 1 to 2 person job.
An old farmer I know let me in on his trick: don't work so hard. He said young and inexperienced folks would work way too hard, ie put in too much effort, and get exhausted quickly. Instead lower the effort so it's sustainable. Move slower, don't lift near your max and so on.
The advent of factories with limitless and constant demand for labor is a new development of the industrial revolution.
That doesn't mean that there isn't any downtime though. Most activity would be confined to daylight hours if nothing else. You'd probably do less on rainy days, and avoid hard work during the peak heat hours in the summer.
Not sure what anyone else did.
And in Catholic cultures (historically):
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_day
The English word "holiday" comes from "holy day" after all.