Are We Working Ourselves to Death?

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Are we optimizing ourselves to death?
These days, being productive is seemingly a social virtue of the highest order. From apps, to books, to podcasts, there’s a constantly growing industry of resources aimed to help us hustle our way to being the best version of ourselves. But is this emphasis on productivity more harmful than it is human? Let’s find out in this Wisecrack Edition on Productivity: Are We Working Ourselves to Death?
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aimlessness, Tom Lutz, 2021
Counterproductive: Time Management in the Knowledge Economy, Melissa Gregg, 2018
The End of Burnout: Why Work Drains Us and How to Build Better Lives, Jonathan Malesic, 2022
Histories of Productivity: Genealogical Perspectives on the Body and Modern Economy, Edited By Peter-Paul Bänziger, Mischa Suter, 2017
Idleness: A Philosophical Essay, Brian O'Connor, 2018
In Praise of Slow, Carl Honoré, 2004
Labour of Laziness in Twentieth-Century American Literature, Zuzanna Ladyga, 2019
Lillian Gilbreth: Redefining Domesticity, Julie Des Jardins, 2012
The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries, Kathi Weeks, 2011
Productivity Machines: German Appropriations of American Technology from Mass Production to Computer Automation, Corinna Schlombs, 2019
Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power, Byung-Chul Han, 2000
The Pursuit of Laziness, Pierre Saint-Amand, 2011
The Quantified Self, Deborah Lupton, 2016
The Quantified Self in Precarity: Work, Technology and What Counts, Phoebe V. Moore, 2017
The Refusal of Work: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Work Paperback, David Frayne, 2015
The Right to Be Lazy, Paul Lafargue, 1883
Self-Help, Inc., Micki McGee, 2005
Why Work?: Arguments for the Leisure Society, Freedom Press, 2018
Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley, Carolyn Chen, 2022
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=== Watch More Episodes! ===
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Written by Amanda Scherker
Hosted by Michael Burns
Directed by Evan Yee
Edited by Mark Potts
Motion Graphics by Benji Dunaief
Original Illustrations by JR Fleming
Produced by Olivia Redden and Griffin Davis
Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound
#Productivity #RiseAndGrind #Wisecrack
© 2022 Wisecrack / Omnia Media, Inc. / Enthusiast Gaming

[@raymondtrabulsy7294]

I worked a company that worshipped the "get it done" culture. They micro managed us by the minute; would write us up for not answering emails within an hour of receipt; had me working 7 days a week at all hours. In two years, I aged a decade, lost weight, and developed a limp. When I left that company, it felt like a new lease on life.

[@NeverWolf]

it should be a crime to enslave people.

[@MrBazBake]

We didn't sign up for this, and the mass exodus from jobs and WFH revolution have proved exactly what workers actually want. Corporations and increasing monopolies demand greater productivity so they can steal more of it from us per hour. It was never about what we were giving them, it has ALWAYS been about what they're stealing from us.

[@TheDopestOfShit]

Glad you got out homie!

[@JohnnyVee007]

7 days a week?? eeesh

[@kalstonii]

Sounds like you worked at a car dealership

[@Rampala]

I mean, the American media literally invented the term "quiet quitting" to describe workers who aren't doing MORE than what's in their job description. Europeans would laugh their asses off at that BS, likely while on paid vacation.

[@milling321]

This xD I’m European and I approve this message.

[@WedrawYT]

Sadly this kind of shit is spreading a lot in europe, specially for younger people

[@WishStone]

Na. A lot of us Europeans are socialist (not communist, but the thing were we wanna look out for one another); and what I feel is sadness and hurt for Americans. Everything is so transactional. Healthcare? Only if you work! Worker's assistance? Well, a little bit, but then you're better okay with running 3 dead-end low-wage jobs! UGH, it makes me so mad, because the 35 work week works fine in Europe and we're not running ruin by giving workers 6 weeks of vacation a year.

[@RobinKerkhof]

I agree with Wishstone Dragon. As European I don't think it is funny that an ordinary American worker has to work two jobs just to pay the bills. There are many funny things about Americans (mainly there ignorance about how the world works outside the USA), but the terrible social injustice in your country is not funny at all. I feel mainly sadness when I think of the abuse of the American worker. So dark. Looking at the USA also makes me afraid because neoliberalism has gained a strong foothold with our own political elite. It is not so bad as in the USA but unfortunately we are moving in the same direction. What kind of world will my children inherit?

[@jessikapiche6097]

One thing that really pmo, is the fact that if my boss worked 60 hours a week, i am suppose to 'stay after work' too. I don't care you do 60 hours a week to keep things together, it is not 'my business', nor 'my problem'. Work 40, and LEAVE. Your boss will then have no choice but to look up and ask more money for help. The real problem these days is that most managers are afraid to ask the higher rank about money to hire people. So they use all kind of tactics to make you feel guilty about doing 'only your hours'. In the end people do way too many hours... At my job, people do an average of 50 hours a week now... crazy fools.

[@pizzahuthonoka]

You know it's an issue when overtime is expected and setting clear boundaries with your boss is 'revolutionary' and 'quiet quitting.'

[@arthas640]

i always hated all the complaints about "quiet quitting" since that can be a legitimate problem for employers but its getting drowned out by tons of other employers who just label anything as "quiet quitting". Last company I worked for had a problem with that just due to the area and industry being flooded mainly with recently moved out of state people with zero ties to the area, people would "quit" by simply not showing up for work one day or even by just abandoning their work vehicle on the side of a road since they simply didnt give a shit about pissing anyone off since they could just move again if they ruined their reputation. Got to be a serious headache since in construction trainees are required by law to have a licensed journeyman working with them so if the journeyman doesnt show up that means the apprentice has no one to work with which means that the journeyman just made it so that either the apprentice cant work for a couple weeks while we found a replacement or it meant the apprentice was getting fired. Used to drive me insane since part of my job was scheduling, and it wasnt like the guys were being underpaid since we paid around 10-20% above the average and treated them pretty well (guys could get time off pretty much whenever they wanted if they asked ahead of time, flexible scheduling, company cellphone with unlimited data and minutes, and they could often take the company vehicles home with them and just bring them back on weekends if they wanted). 99% of the problems could have been solved if the employee had called and given 2 weeks notice or even said "this is my last week". Now though there are tons of employers offering wages that arent living wages, retarded work schedules, and poor conditions and act like its the employees fault no one will work for them. Some of these jobs are laughable, I know 1 company that cant stay staffed because some of the positions have you work for 3-4 hours, you're off for 2 or 3 hours, then you come back to work for 4 hours so you have to get up early, get home late, and have a random hole in the middle of the day where you end up spending around half and hour or more just driving from work to home and back again.

[@ab-hx8qe]

@@arthas640 this! The only reason bosses are expecting overtime is because there are so many people “quiet quitting” aka, doing the bare minimum and expecting to get a raise. When 50% of your coworkers are useless then the other 50% has to pick up the slack.

[@jsrodman]

no. people doing the minimum aren't screwing the workers who pick up the slack. the workers picking up the slack are screwing themselves. look at where the profit in your company goes. it's not to the workers. if more workers put in a reasonable level of effort for their tiny compensation, things would end up changing. companies might have to find ways to motivate workers instead of capitalizing on fear.

[@arthas640]

@@jsrodman I agree with you partially. In some jobs like construction for example there can be strict deadlines so if you've got 2 guys each supposed to be doing half the work but the first guy only does half his share than the other guy needs to pick up the slack. I used to work in construction estimating as part of a group bidding on larger projects, if someone didnt do their share and if someone else didnt pick up the slack it meant the company not getting enough work which meant downsizing by either firing the under performer or the whole team. A better approach is to make it clear not just to the immediate superior but with more senior people as well that expectations are too high and sticking to doing a reasonable amount of work for what you're paid. You shouldnt be expected to kill yourself for peanuts and week after week of overtime leads to burnout sooner or later, and with being underpaid that means sooner. "quiet quitting" has no real single definition, some people use it to mean "slacking off" or "working just slow enough not to get fired" and some people just realize its hard to replace them due to the low pay and lack of workers so they do as little as possible and try not to rock the boat so they can be lazy. Without making it clear to management that they have too high of expectations, too low of pay for the work, and/or are understaffed then they wont realize the extent of the problem since often decision makers are rather insulated from the common man in many companies. You definitely need workers to be as united as possible though. A few people slacking off screws over everyone and the workers need to communicate with one another and coordinate. Think of it like a protest or picket: if a few people sit outside the factory without signs it just means the workers inside need to work harder to cover for them, if the few workers have signs it sends a minor message to management, but if everyone sits outside with signs at once it sends a clear message.

[@danielmartz4769]

@@jsrodman this is it right here. I have no clue why people think that when workers slow down and just do the job they’ve been hired to do that’s a bad thing. It’s a good thing. For everyone. I’ve also never understood why companies fire new people over and over rather than training them. It’s wild to me what upper management executives expect.

[@Cuban20]

Yes it is. It's gotten to the point that I have seen people write articles in favor of indentured servitude in the modern day. And yesterday an article on yahoo saying older people are being forced to retire later in life as a "good thing". Not only is it killing us, it's killing any notion of democracy, hope, and even the environment.

[@israelmaldonado2928]

democracy is overrated

[@Cuban20]

@@israelmaldonado2928 Bot accounts that don't have followers but come onto videos like this to spread idiotic opinions are overrated.

[@israelmaldonado2928]

@@Cuban20 who the hell uses youtube for followers 🤡🤡🤡

[@mmmuuuuuuuuiiiiiiiiirrrrr]

@@Cuban20 Who has FOLLOWERS on KZbin??? lol. I'm not a bot. I comment on a lot of videos. But I have no content or anything, so why would I have followers? I'm not saying HE'S not a bot. I'm just asking, am I assumed to be one just because I'm only a KZbin video WATCHER, not a video MAKER, and I don't have any followers?

[@jess_o]

@@israelmaldonado2928 average gorden p bederson fanboy

[@teamhammerbros8466]

productivity went up, the same time university prices climb. productivty went up, when the housing market skyrocketed. this system is insane. productivity went up, but all the benefits go to the .1%. and everything else crumbles as inequality ensues.

[@olivernicholds]

Really well put👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[@BogdanSorlea]

homesteading is the key. we should all be doing it more

[@BearToeWasTaken]

Certainly killing me. Feels like I'm working 24/7, not living my life. Just working on the next thing and then the next thing and then the next thing

[@nitrosherbert888]

If you lived in Japan?You'd be dead.😈😈😈😈

[@nitrosherbert888]

If you lived in Japan?You'd be dead.😈😈😈😈

[@snarf0596]

I was like this before the pandemic. I'm salary and use to stay late, come in on weekends to help out and do other things. We got no raise during the pandemic and worked the whole time. Not even extra vacation just a thank you lunch one time. Said no more i do the bare minimum and when they complain I let them know hire more people if we get behind.

[@vojislavl6665]

For me it's always remembering shit, not to forget stuff, do it efficiently, make the client happy, rinse and repeat. I've been getting burnt out lately from this.

[@xaviveras9752]

I recently finished reading “The Burnout Society” and this video really provides a historical background on how we got here. One quote from the book that really stuck with me, and goes with one of the last mentions, was: “The complaint of the depressive individual, ‘Nothing is possible’, can only occur in a society that thinks, ‘Nothing is impossible’…Depression is the sickness of a society that suffers from excessive positivity. It reflects a humanity waging war on itself”

[@Nomanomayæy]

depression is not just people being sad because they dont work enough though, its brains not working properly in actual physical terms. shouldnt get confused.

[@xSwordLilyx]

Thank you for the quote

[@keitomineproductions4133]

@@Nomanomayæy happiness wasn't mentioned here. It was positivity. Which is very valid. Nihilism can probably cause depression among other things and isms

[@ibis0921]

@@Nomanomayæy this isn’t necessarily true. Depression is a description of symptoms and not a description of the cause of symptoms. Depression can be physiologically based but it can also be psychologically (cognitively, emotionally, behaviorally) based. The source of the symptoms can be complex and layered and can come from multiple sources at the same time. So while you could be right, in most practical circumstances it is rarely that simple.

[@MrMarinus18]

But with the massive size of todays economies and the productivity numbers we should stop vilifying laziness entirely. People should be as lazy as they feel like and only work when they want to. Modern technology makes that easily enough.

[@KingUnKaged]

I have 2 jobs and am nowhere close to being able to afford a house, a retirement, or to raise a child. And that's to say nothing of the 'nice to haves' like a nice vacation, a car made in the same decade that I intend to drive it, or being able to take care of the people I care about if something were to happen to them. Obsessing over productivity is killing my life, but if I'm not more productive, I will have no life to live.

[@christiandauz3742]

Could just kill Republikkkans and take their ill-gotten wealth

[@Darkloid21]

At that point can you really call it living?

[@christiandauz3742]

@@Darkloid21 Isaac Asimov would be disappointed with Amerika I wish Scandinavia builds the first space colony

[@KimJungGooner]

@@christiandauz3742 Yessss. Swedes in Space, bby. :3

[@doctordetroit4339]

Keep voting for freebies and open borders, the democraps will save you.

[@scottpeterson7500]

Maximize profits for the Capitalists while making sure that employees never have the time or energy to agitate for a better deal for themselves 🤔

[@johnrivera1053]

I started growing grey hairs in my twenties and started developing aches in my joints that never go away. By 27 I already felt twice my age and had multiple health problems just popping up. It wasn't just me either everyone I work with is constantly miserable, fatigued, and in pain.

[@kev3d]

Did you think you are supposed to feel 19 forever? And here's some advice: EXERCISE.

[@johnrivera1053]

@@kev3d Dude, I spend hours every day pushing, lifting and carrying stuff in 90+ degree weather, I exercise plenty that's the problem. In a lot of these jobs you are forced to work to the point of breaking. My old man slipped a disk, my best friend has been fighting for disability for years now after getting so injured that he can barely walk. Feeling 19 forever no, but feeling 60 at early 30s...why would that be normal.

[@redfullmoon]

@@kev3d are you ducking stupid? OSHA exists for a reason.

[@717UT]

Construction? Yeah I'm right there with you.

[@kev3d]

@@johnrivera1053 "Normal"? In a state of nature most people died in their 30s. And I'm sorry you are unhealthy but that often has much more to do with genetics than work. Casual athletes who play for fun frequently get injured too.

[@MrGksarathy]

As someone who has struggled with lifelong ADHD only to get diagnosed very recently, the emphasis on productivity and time as currency really contributed to my deteriorating self-esteem, self-love and self-confidence during college and the lockdown. It was especially hard not understanding why I could never live up to society's, or my parents', lofty standards for productivity, and shedding as much of that mentality as possible really helped me reach an awakening about who I wanted to be and what kind of world I wanted to live in. Now I'm trying to thread the needle of dealing with my executive function issues while not falling into the productivity trap.

[@eileene.5870]

I always assumed that people always feel unproductive because instead of our jobs being a physical thing (I plowed THAT field, or I painted THAT boat), our job is all esoteric or intangible (I entered numbers into a spreadsheet, or I returned phone calls/emails), so there's nothing really accomplished that can be pointed to as the good use of our time. My dad used to drive around town and look at the houses he built whenever he felt like his life was meaningless. Tangible results are satisfying in a way organizing your inbox just isn't. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[@EnchanterBitter]

My dad does that too!! He always points them out to me with so much pride. I’m envious of his accomplishments and fulfillment he has in life…I never have time after my office job I want to help him in the garden and be more self sufficient in this society and stop buying POISONED FOOD!!! But they make sure we have no time for that…it’s depressing

[@grantr2279]

Also- when you are plowing a field it's either done or not. When you are doing a presentation it always needs to be tweaked, or a spreadsheet needs to be updated and the work never feels "done".

[@GOOBANGI]

I have a physical job and I still feel unproductive and unmotivated

[@hayyoraeyo662]

Had to take a month off work for health issues associated with high levels of stress (I'm a nurse)... After that time off, I decided to cut back on hours & only work to live. I actually enjoy nursing again, & my quality of life has improved amazingly. Not everyone has this option, though... sigh..

[@jessikapiche6097]

i did the same years ago. But now they are using the tactics of shaming the one who work 'only' 40 hours, threat of outsourcing, guilt about not doing like others do, etc... i am sick of it.

[@UOweMe]

@@jessikapiche6097 You could try talking to the other nurses and requesting changes as a unified group. They can't play you off each other if you are on the same page

[@banquetoftheleviathan1404]

I have to “call out sick” when really i just know I don’t need the money. But they insist i get 40 hours even when aint shit to do and i can be cleaning. I feel good for cleaning, drafting is so goddamn easy that i feel nothing. They expect shit to take me two days and then get annoyed when i ask for work to do. If im just gonna be sitting here watching youtube then that makes me feel bad

[@thadiusbarnelsnatch3665]

I think there’s a difference between being productive for yourself and being productive for others gain. If all your time is being spent accomplishing tasks to make someone else rich instead of accomplishing things you want to accomplish then it’s probably killing you. But if your being productive doing things like helping your elderly grandmother get chores done around the house or writing that book you’ve always wanted to write or finishing reading the books on your shelf I would say that’s good productivity.

[@sinnsage]

or when, like me, you own/run a business that consists of you as the only employee, and it’s entirely up to you how hard and often you want to work but if you choose not to then your income declines. so i do it in bursts and take as much time as i can for myself.

[@thadiusbarnelsnatch3665]

@@sinnsage I feel like this is a personal example

[@taijanroychiu3883]

Oikonomia is the household maintenance in old Greek

[@petraw9792]

When you put pressure on yourself and feel guilty when you don't reach a quota it's still toxic.

[@thadiusbarnelsnatch3665]

@@petraw9792 true but I feel like if you’re trying to strive to meet your own goals and accomplish your own tasks that pressure and the desire to do better is more positive than running yourself into the ground for the sake of someone else’s bottom line

[@synthdriver8817]

The world has literally gone insane. I had a sneaking suspicion we were overly increasing productivity to the point of needless oblivion.

[@banquetoftheleviathan1404]

We need to make infinite cookies tho

[@kylecaldwell6864]

I just clocked into a job I hate. The timing is impeccable

[@anthonyparast7550]

I appreciate the honesty of this post.

[@amk4956]

I’m a farmer, my job can be very stressful but it is not one of massive repetition and a slow mindnumbing grind into oblivion… It’s actually quite rewarding and satisfying to see the fruits of your labor payoff… I’m curious if this has been giving me a psychological reprieve that so many of the millennial generation does not have in the day to day grind of the modern economy.

[@crickiet]

I think it does. I think problem solving helps with personal growth as you learn something new from solving problems and self gratification as you accomplished solving real problems. Learning and accomplishment probably benefit people psychologically. Where as those who have highly repetitious work don’t get the same psychological benefits you’re receiving from your work. Cheers!

[@BogdanSorlea]

I really think homesteading can save us.

[@barknkenan7939]

most probably it does since you're not alienated from your labour and output from your work. It is more clear when you compare your job with a knowledge worker who works from home for brand management company and let's say your job is to copyedit shits like mails and briefs for hours and days. At the end you don't even have an idea who is doing what and what this company for. It seems like this copyeditor is just being productive for the sake of being productive (in other words for their company's profit).

[@sayuas4293]

At least you produce something that is real and that people actually need, unlike the vast majority of the economy.

[@mickeyg7219]

This is my dream, I don't need a full farm, just a decently-sized garden would be great. But it's costly to buy even a entry-level home, let a lone one with enough garden to feed yourself. That's why I advocated people that have a child to never sell their only home, especially if it's a home that has enough land space to be self-sufficient.

[@rickgrivera]

Wisecrack has always been fun and smart, but I gotta say, really into the Proletariat Comrade Wisecrack we've been seeing in recent months and years. As the great philosopher Rom, Son of Keldar and Ishka once said, "Workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!"

[@sumitrana2420]

That sounds straight out of a fantasy book. If it is, which one?

[@rickgrivera]

@@sumitrana2420 It's from an episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9 where Rom the Ferengi leads the staff of his brother Quark's bar to go on strike and form a union.

[@rickgrivera]

@@sumitrana2420 Oh, and, I mean, also Karl Marx I guess?

[@Dungeonus]

Fuck productivity but also fuck communism.

[@LuisSierra42]

That's right comrade

[@lilacsandobsidian]

I’m autistic so I struggle to put words to all the concepts and images and short film clips in my head that make up my thought processes and memory into words that most people could understand. Thanks for doing the work, so I have somewhere to direct ppl when I want to try to explain this

[@Caboose44567]

Same here, this really helps explains some of my dissonance with the current work order in a succint and agreeable way.

[@xSwordLilyx]

Thank you for sharing, I think this must be why my bf loves memes He has always faced people who do not accept or respect him at work 🙁

[@moshyura]

This might be the greatest video essay I've ever seen on this channel. There was so much here I'm gonna have to watch this at least twice

[@megafiremario12volt]

I second this.

[@zaczane]

More like 5 times, shit man, this rocked me to my core. This explains so much to fill in the picture of why working adults act and talk the way they do in America.

[@ourcollectivewisdom8769]

I’ve spent 20 years in a career that taught me everything can be systematized and managed through effective and intuitive practices. I f’n hate what I do and I think it’s one of those BS jobs. I want out.

[@zaczane]

@@ourcollectivewisdom8769 don’t jump out too quick though. Make a smart and calculated decision. Otherwise any financial gain you accrued through your time suffering at your BS job could have been wasted.

[@SapioiT]

I really like the term "toxic productivity", because it gets the point across of what the real problem is. Also, with more free time, the culture can be improved, instead of merely job productivity, which would lead to productivity gains though increasing people's concentration and happiness levels while working, even if they work less, by making the work they do have a more significant and positive impact on the whole work chain which results in goods and services which offer better returns on investments.

[@jamesdragonforce]

Also known as hustle culture. We can certainly thank the Protestant work ethic dogma for a lot of that.

[@BlackDoomsOpinion]

What an underrated comment.

[@LinkEX]

Wasn't it Finland where the workers did a four day work week, and productivity increased despite them working 20% less? I've also heard other cases in which it didn't help. And yet again cases of 5x6h work days that also improved performance. Conversely, in certain job areas, productivity stayed above the same above 40 hours, and even decreased at a certain point. If anyone knows a website where these observations are collected and compared, let me know.

[@Nerdsammich]

@@LinkEX On the other hand, what do we need to increase productivity for? We don't need more stuff. The rich, contrary to what they might think, don't need more money. If anything, we need to slow production of almost everything way down. We have entire landfills full of new, never-used products. We grow enough food for ten billion people, only to throw half of it away. It's time to start producing only what we need.

[@LinkEX]

@@Nerdsammich Oh, I think even the rich know that they don't _need_ more money. This is all about status games at that point. If they would be as hellbent on ethics as they are now on status games, we definitely wouldn't have to worry about productivity. Nonetheless, efficiency is part of productivity, and trying to improve on that will arguably always be part of our DNA.

[@jamjox9922]

Every company I worked for had points that could have been more productive easily. Every company I worked for, I refused to show them how easy that change could be. Because every company I worked for wanted me, as a worker, to sacrifice my entire life for their profits. And they never shared the profits, even though I've always been a top performer (I'm competitive by nature). So, yeah, I'm all for degrowth and slowing down. Productivity killed my father.

[@WikiSorcerer]

"People just don't want to work anymore" said the trustfund boomer as he plays golf during office hours.

[@MrCOLBSTAH]

The crazy part to me is that a lot of us have literally no choice in this. Without things like universal basic income and just money in general, we have to work in order to live or survive. We can't have time to ourselves to practice our art and our hobbies or just even work on being better people. We have to focus entirely on armenial production jobs that we see like a tenth of a percent of the profit from. Also that some rich guy can just line his pockets with more money. I haven't understood why people haven't realized this stuff yet. Like why is this even an argument?

[@applewitheveryone]

The video addresses some of the reasons why a lot of people haven't realized any of this yet. 1) People are too busy working and trying to be productive to have time for such thoughts, 2) people are pit against each other in the current system such that class consciousness, let alone collective action, is a remote prospect for the everyday worker, and 3) as you've already alluded to - people have no choice but to participate in this time consuming and soul crushing rat race, or else they risk losing their source of income to secure their basic needs. And even if people have some intuitive sense that something is wrong, the general obsession with work productivity just leads to less introspection about what exactly is problematic, because doing so would be "unproductive". A vicious cycle that feeds itself, really.

[@BillLaBrie]

Ubi will cause even more massive inflation.

[@BonzerMrT]

@@BillLaBrie only because we don’t check those who raise prices. There needs to be some type of over sight there. Just cause people have more money, companies shouldn’t be jumping on that to start sapping all that money. It then becomes worthless. No one is making “more” money if “inflation” is constantly changing

[@BillLaBrie]

@@BonzerMrT lookup how price controls worked for the Nixon administration sometime.

[@kev3d]

"Without things like universal basic income and just money in general, we have to work in order to live or survive." As opposed to what? Having someone ELSE work so you can sit on your ass all day? Do you want someone to chew your food for you too because it's too much work? "We can't have time to ourselves to practice our art and our hobbies or just even work on being better people. " You sit around and watch youtube. Don't pretend like you don't have free time to do whatever the hell your talents allow.

[@welshzecorgi7903]

Doesn't really seem like self-improvement if it's forced upon you by someone else and someone else also benefits from it.

[@Abyzz_Knight]

It's because it's really about tricking people to squeeze as much work out of them as possible without increasing their pay

[@RonDonProductions]

My job unleashed a new "productivity scorecard" oh boy lmao

[@banquetoftheleviathan1404]

I had a therapist make me get a job when i was in high school… the problem was i was too content. Oh how horrible

[@Abyzz_Knight]

@@banquetoftheleviathan1404 OP is making a point about the idea of "self-improvement" being used to exploit workers. That's not saying that anyone telling you to get a job is evil.

[@banquetoftheleviathan1404]

Well my point is it wasn’t about self improvement it was about other people trying to make me more useful to others. Just cuz I didn’t work for her doesnt mean she didn’t contribute to the issue of over-productivity. Also the fact that she was being paid by my parents to try to make me do something. Def people lying and saying it’s about my self improvement when its just to make their own lives easier.

[@defenderbyname3484]

I am actually listening to this on an active assembly line... It's trippy

[@kengardens]

This video helped me to articulate the problems I’ve been having with productivity. I’ve heard the sermon of time management all my life. I remember talking to my ex pastor about struggling with my studies because of my mental health and he said, “The problem is that you don’t have time management. You walk into your day without a plan for how you’re going to use your time.” I remember feeling so much worse. I was barely staying afloat and now I was expected to optimize every hour of the day.

[@comedyman4896]

I needed a video like this. I've been in a good mood lately, and there's nothing like an exploration of the origins of our modern day culture to remind me that everything we do, we do because some rich guy figured out how to trick people into believing things that would make him even richer.

[@tetsubo57]

I work in manufacturing, a factory. I have to make a certain rate per two hour quarter. Those rates go up over time. It's slowly grinding us to dust.

[@jonathanbowers8964]

Do you get paid anymore for working faster? If not, it is time to unionize and stop wage theft.

[@TheJacklwilliams]

Or I’ll add, train yourself into a career, that makes more money and allows you to rise above. There’s many ways to go with that. Many.

[@tetsubo57]

@@TheJacklwilliams In two days I'll be fifty-eight. I have no desire nor strength to change careers. Staying sane is my full-time job. I work to pay bills. 'Hustle' is not the answer. The death of capitalism is the answer.

[@chrisp.lettuce8900]

How on earth do they expect you to manufacture a whole factory in two hours?

[@TheJacklwilliams]

@@tetsubo57 I feel you. I’m 57 in a couple weeks. No more is needed. May you make it through and get to a place where you don’t have to do that anymore. Re the “death of capitalism” my only problem is, there isn’t an ism currently to take it’s place. None of the others work either because those at the top, exploit the bottom… What’s needed, is a new ism. It would be cool to be a part of something new but I fear, you and I will be no longer, if/when that happens…

[@BGP369]

It is liberating when you finally realize all the hustle and pressure is mostly self-inflicted and is almost always for the benefit of the company owners or directors/shareholders. Work for your pay and nothing else. Use that time to transition to doing what you actually want to do.

[@xkm1948]

Do you think you can include more Eastern philosophical ideas when discussing specific matters? Curious to see how different cultural background plays into these. Thanks!

[@moshyura]

great idea

[@ajmosutra7667]

East has no philosophy in itself, only wisdom thoughts.... The "west" is what interpreted the eastern tradition inna way that west was able to categorize

[@MrMarinus18]

Actually on this thing both western and eastern cultures actually arrived at the exact same solution. Having an idle minute before every meal to wash away the stress of the day and having a idle hour every week to contemplate everything that had happened to you in some kind of communal building. Rather that thing is an eastern temple or a western church. It has been scientifically proven as well that taking idle time several times a day, even if for only 10 seconds can massively improve your own mental health.

[@benjaminRhodesLEGO]

wdym of course it is? how is there a single person on this planet who hasn't realized yet that our insatiable drive towards more productivity and efficiency hasnt made our lives a living hell and is in the process of destroying everything we'v ever held dear?

[@Abyzz_Knight]

Sadly there's people thatbhave deluded themselves into believing Capitalism is the perfect system. They refuse to acknowledge any flaws in the system and instead blame it on individuals.

[@shotazi]

Stopping time tracking in my third year of PhD was the most liberating "productivity tip" I discovered after reading tons of productivity literature:))

[@skolljumper]

I remember listening to the Happiness Lab talk about adopting the mindset of an enslaved man in antiquity as a way to cope with modern life. Yes, I love feeling owned and without autonomy, that's the real secret of happiness /s

[@pennywaldrip3774]

This is so well planned, put together and well communicated. Good work, love it.

[@alanhilder1883]

Your pay is tied to your productivity... Shame that productivity has "skyrocketed" while the pay side has "flatlined".

[@DavesChaoticBrain]

5:20 - It comes from a desperation to not die! To keep getting that paycheck. It comes from having employers who are psychotic and demand you produce as much as possible for every nickel they pay you. The fear of losing hat income when we're not prepared makes us become psychotic about constantly being working in order to keep our employers happy.

[@kingartifex]

The thing is, there is no choice, there is no fighting back, you either stay on pace with their demands, however crazy, or they will just lose you and get someone willing to accept their terms. Simple.

[@kev3d]

Or start your own business like millions have before. Some of them, many, have become quite successful.

[@kingartifex]

@@kev3d not simple. Running a business is crazy difficult and there is no guarantee it will succeed...

[@kev3d]

@@kingartifex Gee, no kidding. But that kinda flies in the face of "there is no choice" doesn't it?

[@kingartifex]

@@kev3d it's basically Hobson's choice, ie. no choice at all

[@kev3d]

@@kingartifex Keep making excuses, see how far in life that gets you.

[@ricardoroxas7690]

My friend told me that now that virtual meetings are more common, simple things like walking to a conference room or another building for a meeting with clients where she could take some time to be social with workmates are gone.

[@ahmaditani8168]

This video was eye-opening. I've personally been fixated on work myself until I burnt myself out and passed through a long period of the exact opposite. I used to blame myself for that, but lookingback, I may have done the right thing. Now I'm kinda back at it, in fact, I have my sacred "work after work" that involves spiritual and creative projects.But here is where I think the video leaves us off with loose ends: how do we tell healthy discipline and determination apart from self-indulgent self-optimization? I think one good solution is touched upon briefly in the video: being counter productive. I try to do this by improvising either writing or music(i.e. with creative activities). Another toolI found useful(which I picked up from Buddhism, Islam, and Plato) is paying attention to intentions behind actions: I am working because I am scared of losing the job? Or do I genuinely think this is worth doing? Thanks a lot for thia video!

[@MrMarinus18]

The thing is we are kind of become anti-Christian. All of these problems are things Christianity already has solutions for. For non-self indulgent optimization do charity work. It has no benefit to yourself but to others and so the motivation to work harder than needed is greatly reduced as you are doing it for the sake of another. Also prayer is pretty much just the Christian word for meditation.

[@dudecool7915]

If you've ever worked at a warehouse for a large company, the words "productivity" should already strike dread in your heart

[@ladystoneheart8155]

But “safety first” am I right?

[@ghintz2156]

I took a vacation day to do my job from home without distractions. A lot of teachers have to do this just to keep up with all the non-teaching parts of the job.

[@violin245]

Yes I did this any times as a teacher when I got behind. Not because I wasn't working insane hours already but because I needed anything to get ahead of the mountains of work pulled pn each day. Let after a decade to be programmer. couldn't be happier

[@ghintz2156]

@@violin245 oh I'm looking for an escape... I'm tired of martyring myself to this field.

[@MiyamotoMusakaki]

Stop groming kids

[@ajmosutra7667]

Horrible. My mom is a teacher, and has always complained about overworking and had gotten sick more because of overworking and ačsp needing to pay for supplies

[@kev3d]

Teachers get the summer off, teach from a book with all the answers in it, and have unpaid teacher's aids. Not to mention most teachers get a pension AND social security upon retirement.

[@CuevaCuev1]

"yeah we need to slow down and think about how a culture of productivity is affecting our psyche," I say to myself as I watch this video at 1.5 speed so I can get to the next video on my queue while I work on a Sunday.

[@MegaKootz]

Its called economic slavery. You see slavery did not die, and our society did not stop using it. Slavery just redefined itself to include EVERYONE who is poor enough to be exploited.

[@RossyManjaro]

This video was fantastic! Everyone should start having conversations around these topics. This world needs changing.

[@Erik-pu4mj]

The stress of higher education--the expectation of it--is already more than I can handle. And it only promises higher stress for high-paying jobs, clinging onto the hope that a higher paying job can keep us from future financial trouble and misery. But I'm already miserable. I don't look forward to the future, I merely try to protect myself from it. Is that just the world we live in, or is there some option where I don't kill myself with stress?

[@phantomasuras]

Man this talks to me a lot, thanks for sharing, at least for me my goal is to study something I really like and to be able to work in that field one day, hopefully I can get there. Will that make me happy? I don't know but at least I know I would have achieved something. I guess I will need a new goal after that, but in the meantime that keeps me from being totally miserable.

[@ben5056]

I think the issue with college is that there is almost no separation between workplace and home. It can create situations when you feel like you are not working enough. It's also an issue for the many people that worked from home these past years.

[@ben5056]

The best thing we can do to improve our productivity is to not have kids. My little ones are constantly reminding me that work is secondary. Thanks to them for keeping me sane and underproductive :D

[@2beJT]

1/2 of the gains of productivity should be shared with the working class. Livable wages with time off to raise families are more possible than ever for all of us.

[@jessikapiche6097]

But it is not happening. What we see is a shortage of labor which, instead of making salary rise, involve shady tactics to make people 'more productive' and 'do more hours'... which is hard to resist. They employ guilt, fear of being replace by 'another company', 'outsourcing', etc...

[@kev3d]

Does that mean the "working class" should also share 1/2 of the risk?

[@seanbrazell7095]

When an art becomes a science in the workplace, be somewhere else just as fast as you can.

[@mushroomlena]

This video is so incredibly well put together and researched. And it absolutely blew my freaking mind. Thank you for laying out how we got to this work-obsessed culture so comprehensively. I feel like I finally have some clarity on why all the toil and productivity I feel possessed to accomplish in the end still gives me no meaning or fulfillment. I need everyone to watch this video.

[@andyp315]

Unnervingly accurate Coming from low level hospitality/retail environment, time served = de facto in charge/responsible for things that are missed, not completed or not running quick enough/standard, when collogues, same level and pay as me are - being human / still in training / unwell-off sick etc etc... I am literally having mental breakdowns rushing multiple full jobs simultaneously trying to pick everything up. Video puts it perfectly I have become my own prison guard... guarding myself to fulfil the company's delirious staffing expectations... I got myself well simp'd tbh Side hustle, Deliveroo is downright Zen in comparison lol

[@brendanressler4359]

Do a video on selling fake titles like a Scottish lord or other scams like selling stars. You could also talk about the ethics of taking a KZbin sponsorship for it. I personally think established titles is OK because it seems more about donating money for preservation than it is about actually obtaining a title

[@PhantomPhoton]

"Do they plant trees? No. They’re in Hong Kong and have no boots on the ground. They do claim, however, to plant a tree for every order received. So how do they justify this claim? By partnering with other tree planting projects - One Tree Planted and Trees For The Future. Both One Tree Planted and Trees For The Future are genuine projects and we’d encourage anyone to support those superb organisations directly….. but neither organisation plants trees in Scotland so just take the Established Titles claim to be interested in preserving and protecting woodland in Scotland with a pinch of salt."

[@TheAbaker87]

Yeah, that particular sponsor seemed kind of scummy for a KZbin Channel with a large focus on moral philosophy.

[@nishidohellhillsruler6731]

I just remembered a particular George W. Bush moment. He was at this event when a lady who was with him at the stage told him: "Mister president, I have four jobs", and immediately he looked at the audience and with great pride he said "Only in America!", it made me feel a rush of horror. "Of course it's only in America, mofo! Mostly everywhere else in the world people only need to have one job!", I yelled at the Tv. Dude, there's this delusional Neo-liberal and Conservative value of working hard as a great thing; which is funny, because it's mostly professed by people who doesn't really do any work.

[@SayOye11]

The Capitalists aka neo-liberals, always took advantage of religion, more especific Protestants, but also catholics.

[@nishidohellhillsruler6731]

@@SayOye11 Yes, absolutely. And with reason the Catholics would do that, being the core of their ecclesiastic leadership pro-monarchic. So of course they would promote the idea of "working yourself to death" as a virtue, since it meant people would do so in favor of the nobility, and the Church.

[@nathaniellindner313]

@@nishidohellhillsruler6731 While the comment you responded to has vanished into KZbin ether, it should be pointed out that the Catholic Church's hierarchy is more complex than a monarchy with the Pope at the top - while the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, is considered the chief doctrinal authority within the Church, he is of course elected by the College of Cardinals and has real limitation to his authority over his constituent bishops and other Catholic organs. The question of Papal authority over decentralized authority within the Catholic Church continues to this day, with various dispersed authorities within the current Church having issue with the amount of direct control over lower authorities Pope Francis has exerted in order to push through a series of reforms. Another issue - people didn't work themselves to death in (I'm presuming the Middle Ages). The ugly truth is that we work almost twice as much as the vast majority of people did during that time period. A lot of this stems from there being a lot more celebrated public holidays, and also because there just is so much farming you can do on a plot of land before there's nothing more that really needs to be done, especially before plowing and after harvest.

[@nishidohellhillsruler6731]

@@nathaniellindner313 dude, I have a live to live.

[@EinsamPibroch278]

The thing is we need to work, because we need money to eat, pay for medicine, and live. Otherwise, I'm all for this Degrowth Movement - we don't need all the money, just enough. We have all the resources we could ever require to sustain ourselves, so why the price gouging and overwork?

[@Yamartim]

For rich people to exploit us for more money

[@MrBazBake]

Because the people at the top pay you less than you make for them with your labor and they are never satisfied. This will only change when the people who do the work decide how much work needs to be done.

[@MrMarinus18]

I think they are deliberately avoiding any church talk but it kind of is important. All this stuff of self-betterment is from the church. Christianity is all about bettering yourself and your behavior by virtues and by avoiding sinful behavior. However when Christianity collapsed we applied that mentality to productivity.

[@vinnyfromvenus8188]

capitalist realism in a single comment

[@kev3d]

"Degrowth Movement" What did you type your comment on? A smartphone carved from soapstone and driftwood?

[@FizzleFX]

Takes me another 2 weeks to finish this video, watching it in efficient 2 minute chunk's! This method also helps waiting for new episodes on Netflix! It's the best!!

[@duke1252]

I don't think productivity is killing us, overbearing work goals, toxic work environment, and setting people to impossibly high standers that are almost machine like is what's killing us.

[@juliegolick]

To this day, it pisses me off that when society as a whole was given the choice between "more productivity" and "more time", society (read: the capitalist owner class) chose the former. I could be having a 15-hour workweek now and totally happy, but instead I'm stuck in a society that is entirely structured around full-time work. (Seriously: I tried to downgrade my job to part-time at one point, and was told by HR that our insurance benefits were structured around a 40-hour week, so I couldn't.)

[@kev3d]

So start your own business, become one of the "capitalist class", and work 15 hours a week and see how well it goes. It's just that simple, right?

[@jaggedistvan2477]

It is so funny to go back and see these old videos still peddeling the scam of established titles. wisecrack, ypu are one of many youtubers to fall for this. good times.

[@zeon_zaku]

Yes, and it is related to the infinite growth model, that capitalists love. They want us to behave like robots. And I hypothesize this, because this robotic behavior more neatly fits their growth models.

[@crumpbarker]

I think it is!! Can't wait to see the full video and make more sense, I have my backgrounds and biases as someone who is tasked with managing productivity in the construction and built asset industries...

[@henrikejekel2247]

I read somewhere that rest is actually pretty important for productivity, especially if you have a job that requires creativity. By having time to relax and do other things than work, you become actually more productive than when you would just push yourselve to work in that time.

[@bort6459]

I think it comes down to living a life you enjoy. Happiness is fleeting, and anything you love will have ebbs and flows of sadness, anger etcetera. If a productive life is the one you want to live, live it, but productivity bereft of tangible personal gain is how the gods punished Sisyphus. If your life mirrors a unique hell of mythic proportions, the time might come to evaluate how you take your enjoyment.

[@Gfish17]

Work is killing us. All I do is work. I have no life. Except for 2days a week.

[@moshyura]

I think the characterization of productivity as something exclusive to the paradigm of employment is dangerous, as well as viewing both it and enjoyment as mutually exclusive entities. I think we all need purpose, and being productive in working on behalf of it is important, and not always enjoyable. We should instead reclaim "productivity" from the neoliberal paradigm of value and optimize our engagement with the landscape selfishly, beginning with the questions: "What is this work doing for me? How does it serve my best interests?" Maybe if we can't find a good enough answer, that's exactly the sort of work we should run away from.

[@Maxx__________]

@@moshyura Even in the paradigm of employment "productivity" is oversimplified. Some take it to mean output, while others input, but the term is used interchangeably. Putting in maximum effort while putting broken glass in your shoes doesn't mean the output will match. Nor does high output require a high amount of input from skilled laborers.

[@theintrovertedaspie9095]

@@Gfish17 But I suppose on your days off you still do a bunch of everyday tasks like grocery shopping, and going to the bank and stuff. When you do actually have free time all you probably wanna do is sleep and rest JUST so your prepared to go back to work the next day and do it all over again. Sad.

[@Gfish17]

@@theintrovertedaspie9095 that's life. Like it or not.

[@Cc07]

This could be my fave video on YT? I’ve learned so much and degrowth sounds like what has been in the back of my mind forever. It’s unreal whenever I learn about the psychological tricks of gov that we all adopt and I’m almost never surprised anymore. I remember my mom talking to me about how psychology and marketing go hand in hand.. it started there and then she educated me about how most of TV is faked even when we think it’s not.. and now as I try to organize stressful times via productivity routines.. this was suggested to me and sounds absolutely amazing. I’m still gonna have to organize but now I realize how important downtime is and just realistically setting goals that aren’t overly and stupidly too ambitious or even putting myself through extremes just to get something done. I know it’s toxic but now I realize it’s alot to do with an ingrained mindset.. 🙏ty so much and esp a source list!! I’m excited to read some of these😊

[@MrMarinus18]

I think degrowth is important spiritually more so than as a policy. It is needed to break the hold of perpetual growth on society.

[@PhantomPhoton]

You get that the whole "buy Scottish land and become a Laird or Lady" thing is a scam and always has been a scam right? Owning a piece of Scotland does not grant you any title or rights, and these people and their ilk have been selling worthless land in Scotland on this basis for decades. The "certificate" they provide carries all the legal weight that a drawing by my 11-year-old niece does...

[@PhantomPhoton]

In regard to Established Titles (aka Northern Titles; aka Esteemed Titles; aka Historic Titles)... "Do they plant trees? No. They’re in Hong Kong and have no boots on the ground. They do claim, however, to plant a tree for every order received. So how do they justify this claim? By partnering with other tree planting projects - One Tree Planted and Trees For The Future. Both One Tree Planted and Trees For The Future are genuine projects and we’d encourage anyone to support those superb organisations directly….. but neither organisation plants trees in Scotland so just take the Established Titles claim to be interested in preserving and protecting woodland in Scotland with a pinch of salt."

[@CerridwenAwen]

Thank you so much for this. You’ve taken thoughts that any reflective person comes to the epiphany of, and have produced a far larger sense of realization on this idea. As much as I’d love to detail every way that I resonate and recognize your ideas, but I’m not in the point in my life that I need to seem extremely intelligent lol. Thank you for this. It has reignited a small anarchist fire inside my spirit that makes me ok for not buying into such self-oppressing actions 💚. You guys are amazing

[@pinpanar9]

LIVE YOUR LIVES! fuck productivity!

[@danbauer3669]

The greed of the owner class knows no bounds. They do not care about the negative effect on the working class, only their profits. They don't need to beat you anymore, they just threaten to fire you. The "efficiency" of capitalism is exclusively under the category of "maximizing profits." Capitalism IS the national religion. It isn't about what's good for society or the environment or working people's lives. Wealth for the wealthy, poverty for everyone else.

[@genevievec8476]

I quit my job on the spot 1 month ago. Long physically demanding 14-16hr days, impossible goals, reprimanding for not reaching those impossible goals, and little sleep for years did me in. I have to change my career bcuz it is the same across the board. Sadly my field has more jobs than people, the employers work you into the ground, and burn you out

[@ScoliosisKing22]

Michael is an S tier KZbin host, so yes the comments were right

[@DerAstrophysikerr]

25:20: This point. This... gap between what I expect of myself and what I can do, or what's realistic to do, or - luckily, in my case - even what my colleagues expect me to do. This gap literally made me go to therapy, because I just could not do... things, anything, anymore. It is so weird; I do not want excessive wealth, just a secure standard that is reasonable within planetary boundaries. I want to pursue my hobbies instead of working 40h/w for a company. I am in favour of redistribution of societal and economic power in favour of the disadvantages. I despise the self-optimisation culture and everything it embodies, yet, in spite of all these things, I have for a long time at least subconciously participated in it. These influences are so hard to get rid of, but it is necessary for a truly enjoyable life.

[@kev3d]

" I am in favour of redistribution of societal and economic power in favour of the disadvantages." Yeah that worked out so well in the USSR, China, North Korea, and Cambodia.

[@alaenamcdonald1877]

Can’t tell you how much I appreciate your work on this. This is something any and everyone, especially those in skilled craftsmanship, need to see.

[@moshyura]

Watching this while unemployed really didn't feel like a good idea loooooooool

[@jullietmburu9672]

wow.. you've mentioned so Many books. My reading list has grown exponentially... gonna be a busy 2 months!! thank you for the great content.

[@Fenrisson]

We MUST slow down the wheel of production. Almost to a HALT. We have to take it easier, time is the most valuable thing someone has. Time is not money, time is LIFE.

[@kev3d]

And when production of food, clothing, energy, and goods distribution slows "almost to a halt", how do you plan to address starvation?

[@Astrothunder_]

@@kev3d billions of pounds of food are thrown away every year. Who knows how many clothes just sit on racks for weeks months, maybe even an entire year. Not to mention you don’t HAVE to constantly be buying new clothes. And energy? America doesn’t even produce energy, we get it from other countries which is an entirely different problem. The starvation that would occur would be in the countries already starving due to economic reasons. It would not be because farmers aren’t killing enough chickens or milking enough cows.

[@kev3d]

@@Astrothunder_ "The starvation that would occur would be in the countries already starving due to economic reasons" And what do you think happens to those economies when things are slowed "almost to a halt"? The world is much more than the comparatively well-off Europe, U.S., and Canada.

[@michaelhgravesjr9608]

This is the best example I have ever seen for the "all things in moderation" argument. Obviously productivity is a good thing... as long as it is treated as a means towards enriching our lives spiritually and materially, and the lives of those around us, rather than as an end in itself. The moment we begin producing for the sole sake of production, we're screwed.

[@charleslee3676]

The more we are forced to work the less we think about our lot in life.

[@Levittchen4G]

Devon Price- Laziness does not exist is a book that has a lot of citations and is academically sound but also a very entertaining read. I'd recommend it to everyone who worked before, especially americans.

[@realchipman]

I did like the book Atomic Habits quite a bit. It helped me make habits for thing that were not necessarily productive in the economic sense, but spiritually fulfilling too. A couple examples just being running, regular church attendance, abstention from poor habits, etc.

[@odallard]

Yeah - I love Wisecrack, but they got this book wrong. It’s really about establishing habits as support systems for both work and personal life. Habits proceduralize knowledge so you can carry them out without extra cognitive load or having to push through with “willpower,” whatever that really means. Beyond productivity, it’s about removing the things that get in the way of doings things effectively to begin with - if anything, the book is aligned with what the video says: Get it right. And also, help yourself get it right.

[@MrMarinus18]

The thing is that all this reminds me of the standard spiritual reset that we had up until a few decades ago: Every day before dinner you pray and recenter yourself. Getting work out of your mind and focusing on family. That might seem minor but it's actually one of the most important things. To take a small moment to recenter yourself and just relax when switching from one mindset to another. It also provides a moment of spiritual clarity, even if that moment is brief the fact that it repeats every day makes it matter a lot.

[@realchipman]

​@@MrMarinus18 Couldn't agree more.

[@MrMarinus18]

@@realchipman I was also hinted that you should seek out these moments whenever you can. Even just a moment of peace and reflection of 30 seconds can do a lot for your mental health. Praying though is just a very handy way to do this. Most prayers are the exact length they need to be, likely by 'natural' selection over the centuries. The standard prayer to god over dinner is about the exact same time you need for the recenter. It has also been proven that the daily prayer before dinner improves family cohesion. Praying together is one of the most powerful bonding tools available. It actually also makes the food itself taste better. It doesn't magically change the food itself of course. But it adds a moment of anticipation where you can see the food, smell the food and maybe even feel the warmth of the food.

[@Snair1591]

What a brilliant video! Cleared a lot of things for me, added clarity to a lot of thoughts which i had. Also, this video came out a few months earlier to the new-age AI tools. The impact of these tools and their expectations on the productivity would've made this video timeless.

[@raviamodernepic]

Straight up Severance 👏🏾👏🏾 good, productive video

[@jofaj]

Finally a pretty close hitting video ^^ i am watching it, as it came on randomly, while feeling lazy in my tent, after working a 2 week wine harvest... and feeling obligated - and avoidant - to look for the next job immediately...

[@edsflowrider6872]

I took today off. I feel pretty good about it. My goal is to retire at 35. When I run out of money, die. Simple plan but I think it’ll work out well.

[@Bonanzaking]

It’s doable. Not easy but doable. 8 years of stashing away what I could on a janitors salary into bitcoin has me on track to retire in another 3 years or so at age 33. Plan to buy a house and avoid a 30 year ball and chain of a mortgage.

[@Rampala]

Meanwhile... "I bet I can pay off my student loans by 40..!"

[@edsflowrider6872]

@@Bonanzaking buying a house was definitely the best financial choice I’ve made but I also got super lucky to get it right before everything flew up in price.

[@Bonanzaking]

@@edsflowrider6872 the price of houses shooting up in value is why i threw my lot in with bitcoin. I remembered the early days when it was 2$ a piece and used it to buy drugs on the silk road back in 2011. Next time i saw it was years later at 100$. Used a bit of critical thinking and made my bets. No regrets. I have enough to jump on a house but seems like its best to find a wife first before picking out a house.

[@edsflowrider6872]

@@Bonanzaking I’m too ugly for that last one but I wish you luck

[@patrickstar5136]

I used to work in a lab where we would run tests on different products as part of quality control. The entire company was always flooded with work and it wasn't that unusual to hear of people having 1000+ hours overtime. When one of my collegues back then got pregnant and we literally begged Management to do something to reduce the number of tests we had to do until our collegue returned their only answer was "throughput reduction is not the goal". About 25% of the total company and 100% of my department quit over the following 2 months. And because those were high skilled jobs and noone left has the time or knowledge of teach new people the company has been struggeling HARD ever since, and I gotta admit it's real fun to watch the dumpster fire from the distance.

[@duncangamble3428]

i would love to see a video on how the school system feeds this neoliberal self-oppression

[@TheJacklwilliams]

Got my sub. Relevant and SPOT ON. I’ve lived both sides of the coin. I’m currently in a cycle pushing to go independent/freelance. Which I did at one point in my life and should’ve stayed there. The insanity in the factories and the office is, a losing game. Life, is about more than being a super productive entity to the matrix. Balance, is not something one ever achieves, sometimes we work more, sometimes play more. The important part, is to SEEK BALANCE and make adjustments as necessary. A rich personal life with meaningful relationships paired with a career that allows you to strive, thrive and “kill it” is what provides what we seek. Sure, being productive and profitable, should be everyones goal, but not at the cost of your sanity or health/well being.

[@MrMarinus18]

I also think it's the cause of many of the completely morally bankrupt behaviors. It's because the working culture has become so extreme that many feel it's utterly impossible and pointless to try anymore. And since society has labelled them as outcasts and failures they just choose to accept and revel in it cause meeting the standards just feels impossible. The thing is "good enough" has a name: Mediocrity. Settling for good enough means settling for mediocrity. But I also think the productivity mindset goes further in that we always feel we have to be "doing something". Chat with our friends, play a difficult game, watch some show, learn some new skill, engage in some hobby. However if you think about it almost every successful society has implemented a form of ritual idleness. Rather that be Christians praying together in a church, monks meditating peacefully or Chinese venerating their ancestors. All of them are ritualistic moments of idleness and self-centering. Moments where we do absolutely nothing but just take in our enviroment and relax. Because in those moments quietness and inner peace matter so much you also see very strict rules on behavior like in a church.

[@MrMarinus18]

I also think the idol culture is also partially to blame. People only see that top 1% and so won't settle for mediocrity anymore. That just making enough to support your family and getting your enjoyment from your community and the church is not good enough. There is also a lot of looking down on the ones who actually do find a balance. Who go to furry conventions sometimes and have an online presence and several patreon accounts but also have a 30 hour job. But really the balance is the same one most people had for pretty much all of history. But celebrity culture just pushes it in your face so hard people can't help but feel like they are not good enough and that their job, while it brings in enough for them and their wife and kids to live on is not good enough. I always hated celebrities and I never got the appeal especially not of movie stars. Yeah I enjoy their movies but so what?

[@Luminous13]

I have had my own share of shit to talk about wisecrack, about it being blindly reproducing neoliberal ideology but now I have to swallow my pride and give you guys credit. It's not easy to attack the (almost) religious beliefs around productivity which plays such an integral role on the way our society and workplaces function. Really well made and informed video! It would be amazing if you did a similar video to explore the psychological side of it. I mean the whole "positivity" "self help" culture that is working complementary with the obsession with productivity into making us subjects of achievement.

[@cheriann6461]

Nicholas Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (the Atlantic, 2008) includes discussion of Taylor. Part of his larger argument concerns the internet's emphasis on 'efficiency,' and what it may be doing to our brains. Great read.

[@devanwetenkamp4781]

Otoboke Beaver is a Punk band out of Japan here is a translation of a song about this topic 6 Day Working Week Is a Pain 6 day working week is a pain A pain, a pain 6 day working week is a pain A pain, a pain 6 days a week at the desk It's a pain, a pain Overwhelming tasks I want to go back my home. A 6 day working week's no good, no good An old man worried about piled up housework 6 day working week is a pain A pain, a pain 6 days a week at TESCO! I want to go to LONDON Resentment at the service area Anyway, let's go on a trip, a trip I won't be able to get up, get up tomorrow I probably won't be able to get up Working 13 days in a row; kill myself Working 14 days in a row; kill myself Working 18 days in a row; kill my cell Working 21 days in a row; kill myself Queen-bee, senior citizen, chief retainer, overwork! Stress, stress The stress's horrible It ends with cleaning It ends with cooking and laundry It ends with a fight My holiday ends 6 days a week's no good, no good 6 days a week's no good, impossible 6 days a week's no good, no good Senility is best, senility is Stress, stress I'll go to the office tomorrow I'll definitely get up I'll punch in and my soul's in industrial waste Thank you so much as always! Thank you so much as always! Thank you so much as always! I'm a failure!

[@devanwetenkamp4781]

They have a fast aggressive female punk sound with quick tempo shifts, some fun pop rock riffs and gratuitous gang vocals. And they are the first punk band I really enjoyed.

[@joshwood9164]

@@devanwetenkamp4781 time to rock thanks for the suggestion

[@markarts404]

Hi Michael (and Wisecrack team!) I just wanted to say that I really appreciated this video. I come from academia (currently looking to find Ph.D funding for a bioengineering idea I have!) and this video put into words a huge anxiety which has been lingering in my brain for years. The self surveillance culture and constant push for more productivity is awful in academia where I went to uni - with no limit to lab hours and the impetus to do literature research at home instead of at the lab, pretty much everyone I knew was working 9am-9pm and even weekends to try and push their projects onward. It made all those productivity gurus seem like they must be onto something, and yet all they ever did was make me feel like I was inadequate because I didn't work as much as my peers. It was crazy, one of my friends at the time was calling herself lazy and stupid despite doing quite literally 8am-11pm each day in the lab in the weeks before our deadline - all because she had difficulty sitting down and doing the write-up. I have lots of ambitions to try and grow my bioengineering idea into a company one day in the distant future - I think that the world has a lot that it could gain from carbon negative plant lampposts! - but have had lots of anxieties over it because I've never felt as insanely productive as others manage to be. And how could I ever be an entrepreneur if I'm not milking every hour of my day? So this video was exactly what I needed. In any case, it's going to really help me in my next therapy session as a springboard, at the very least. One day when I'm not working a minimum wage job I'll definitely considering paying for channel membership!! Thanks again :)

[@christophermiller2075]

Great job 👏 Y’all definitely worked hard enough on it 👍

[@chrisjfox8715]

Beautiful analogy making the connection between hustle culture and religion, as well as the role that advancements of the clock played in all of this

[@phillipbell4394]

In order for me to get through both college and a job, I am essentially doing is that I am working irrelevant hours. A lot of my work is intellectual (coding and data analytics) so I am just kind of never not working. I mean sometimes the work is so entreched I literally dream about it. There is no not working for me. And of course because I am student and university employee, I can only put up to 20 hours a week.

[@DepressedHandsomeSpaceCop]

Anybody with a job throughout university (I worked 30 hours a week through most of my programs) is basically being trained to be an unthinking productivity machine. You are trained to accept such a crushing burden. Ten years later, I've permanently burned myself out from overwork.

[@Void7.4.14]

I love being productive, most people tend to. There's a lot of research surrounding the positive relationship with task completion, imaginative labor, art, gamifying unpleasant but necessary labor, etc, and it's fairly straightforward. As is the data we have on worker autonomy, workplace democracy, worker self-management, shorter vs longer work days and weeks, more vs fewer breaks and vacations, etc, less is more pretty much across the board and owners and unelected bureaucracy is entirely unnecessary. It's not a matter of laboring, creating, building, etc, it's a matter of WORK being soul-sucking cause it lacks meaning for most people. Even the few lucky ones who have jobs that they generally enjoy or find meaningful increasingly find it devalued over time, with the excessive bureaucracy, redundant and out of touch management, unnecessary stresses, bad schedules/too many hours, poor pay, etc, something David Graeber's "BS Jobs" work touches on where those who have necessary, meaningful, and/or fulfilling jobs are often subject to the worst compensation. We create more than we need only to waste half or more of what's produced, most work doesn't need doing at all, most of the market is unnecessary, redundant labor is the rule, corporate bureaucracy is a must to maintain status of those higher up, we don't need to work jobs to enrich others doing unnecessary things when we can labor for self and community for what we need and truly desire 🏴

[@lauraelenaraceu3502]

I feel a bit crushed, people keep diagnosing the problem and that is getting worse yet I feel like nothing is changing. Moreover, I feel ashamed that I am not doing enough to change the system. I guess they got me where they want me, in a doom spiral 😅

[@dpg227]

On thing that was not mentioned but had a huge impact on imposing scheduling and regimentation on an industrializing society was the railroad.

[@siegebug]

capitalism. it won’t change unless people start value living more than cash

[@Lucas-sc6lr]

All these circling around and not talking about the core of all issues.

[@torbjornlekberg7756]

This video should be shared everywhere.

[@Residentevilfan1989]

Productivity culture sounds alot like capitaliam, endless stuff with finite resources, and work to live live to work, scary.

[@T_Dot94]

I think I've clicked on almost every single wisecrack video on the channel. This is definitely one of the best ones they have ever made.

[@andythedishwasher1117]

Is there actually precedent for nominal lairds and ladies to accumulate their holdings into usable plots of actual Scottish land? That sounds like a fascinating endeavor.