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Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Sun May 12, 2019 12:13 pm
by Stahlmann
jacob wrote:
Tue Jun 16, 2015 9:56 pm
Point being ... most do it, because it has worked for most that way for more generations(*) than most can remember.

(*) Four to be exact.
do you mean fruits of Industrial Revolution?
this is not political post btw :lol:
you simply say that before IR people had to be more self reliant? at least I think so.

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 1:59 am
by Optimal_Solution
@Stahlmann

4 generations brings us back to about WWII. The industrial revolution was long before WWII.

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 7:13 am
by The Old Man
Optimal_Solution wrote:
Mon May 13, 2019 1:59 am
@Stahlmann

4 generations brings us back to about WWII. The industrial revolution was long before WWII.
Well this makes me feel old. A generation is about 25-35 years, so four generations would be 100-140 years. This would work out to be 1880-1920. The industrial revolution began later in the USA relative to Europe or especially Great Britain. 1880 would be the approximate start point in the USA.

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 8:42 am
by Optimal_Solution
Maybe I misunderstood Jacob. I assumed he meant generations in the sense of "Fourth Turning theory" where a generation is about 20 years.

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Mon May 13, 2019 9:13 am
by Campitor
Some People do the 9 to 5 because they live pretty interesting lives outside of work so their occupation is only a small portion of what they do. I used to work in a place where the person working the "boring" 9 to 5 for at least 20 years was doing it because he would save his money, take 1 year off, and then do things like motorcycling through China.

But you also need to bring a little perspective into your world view in regards to evolutionary behavioral psychology. For most of human existence, people lived pretty regular lives: sleep, eat, sex, hunt, avoid death - rinse and repeat. What type of evolutionary success would there be without those humans who were capable of enduring a cycle of monotony? The success of our progenitors depended on the consistent execution of vital behaviors and routines.

Obviously we wouldn't be where we are without the dreamers, inventors, and explorers but these are the 20% within the Pareto distribution of human behavior and talent. I've quoted this on other posts but it's worth repeating. The quote is a bit out of context but that is the beauty of digging past the surface of things to find deeper meaning.

Don’t demand to know “why such things exist.” Anyone who understands the world will laugh at you, just as a carpenter would if you seemed shocked at finding sawdust in his workshop, or a shoemaker at scraps of leather left over from work. - Marcus Aurelius

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 4:26 pm
by BWND
I think Campitor raises an interesting angle. Who knows what these people actually do outside of work. Perhaps they lurk on here? Perhaps they are on the way out? They might be FI and enjoy being a librarian...

On the other hand, Gervais Principle likely holds true for a lot of people still in Plato's cave.

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 6:48 am
by 7Wannabe5
Campitor wrote:But you also need to bring a little perspective into your world view in regards to evolutionary behavioral psychology. For most of human existence, people lived pretty regular lives: sleep, eat, sex, hunt, avoid death - rinse and repeat. What type of evolutionary success would there be without those humans who were capable of enduring a cycle of monotony? The success of our progenitors depended on the consistent execution of vital behaviors and routines.
I think you have it backwards. Hunting and/or gathering while simultaneously being on the lookout for predatory or poisonous species and other tribes of humans is almost by definition the opposite of routine monotony. In fact, almost every activity we engage in to entertain ourselves (other than variations on the themes of sex and gossip) when not immersed in dull routine is meant to mimic these behaviors in order to get the same squirt of intermittent reward happy brain juice reinforcement.

If you don't believe me then simply assign yourself the exercise of spending the morning on a scavenger walk. Exit your front door and walk for approximately 3 hours with the goal of bringing back at least 10 items of value (inclusive of pieces of useful information gleaned through communication with other humans encountered) or 3 lbs. of any kind of food. This is a highly inefficient towards cash accrual activity if you compare it to working on $50/hr contract for 1.5 hours followed by an hour at the gym, and a half-hour restaurant lunch, but it will usually ping all the right buttons.

Actually, since the biggest expense on anyone's budget is usually shelter (deed, taxes, etc.) , the real reason most of us agree to engage in boring labor for so many of our hours is that it saves us the trouble of the constant fights for territory and resources that would likely result at such high human population density otherwise.

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 9:33 am
by daylen
Taleb: "Karl Marx, a visionary, figured out that you can control a slave much better by convincing him he is an employee."

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 1:51 pm
by thrifty++
Some people are happy with their life at work and see no reason to change. I am very happy in the work that I do and have great co-workers. I could definitely see the appeal in doing the same job at the same place for a very long time. I wont because I am an A type optimiser and will constantly be striving to achieve new goals. Whereas I think some of my c-workers are not. And I think sometimes maybe I would be happier if I was more like them, happy go lucky, And not experiencing the latest frustration over something I want to achieve which hasn't gone perfectly to plan.

Good jobs can provide a sense of meaning and purpose and social network. When I have been working remotely with clients and return to the office I actually really enjoy coming back in and grabbing a coffee and sitting down to chat with some co workers in the morning. I can see the appeal of what you mention. Its simply different life choices and there is nothing wrong with that.

I think it is a different thing though if you are in a job you really dislike but you are sticking it out. That would be truly awful can cant be good for your health. I guess that is where ERE can act to insulate you from that as you can easily extract yourself from that situation.

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 1:57 pm
by Jean
We inventéd agriculture because we were too cowardly for War.

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 5:32 pm
by Bankai
War with whom exactly? There were only a few million people on the planet at the dawn of agriculture.

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 5:39 pm
by Jean
Higher population density commands a choice between more active work on the local environment, or war with other humans to drive them away. Agriculture was progressively invented were population density was higher.

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 5:52 pm
by Campitor
7Wannabe5 wrote:
Thu May 16, 2019 6:48 am
I think you have it backwards. Hunting and/or gathering while simultaneously being on the lookout for predatory or poisonous species and other tribes of humans is almost by definition the opposite of routine monotony. In fact, almost every activity we engage in to entertain ourselves (other than variations on the themes of sex and gossip) when not immersed in dull routine is meant to mimic these behaviors in order to get the same squirt of intermittent reward happy brain juice reinforcement.
Hunting in prehistoric times, like anything else, was subject to hedonic adaption. I imagine it was 99% boredom and 1% heart pounding action. There's a reason why humans are among the mammalian elites of long distance running - our prey was faster but we had more endurance - we had the non-stop task of running and running and running to get some meat. I imagine this became a teeth grinding exercise in frustration, especially when most species are migratory and constantly being pushed on by the other super predators we had to compete with.

Chasing down prey rain or shine, snow or sleet, wasn't fun nor was it "yippee ki yay" until the actual point of getting the atlatl primed for a shot. Imagine having to do this days on end. We had to be primed for repetition and boredom otherwise we wouldn't have made it out of the stone age. And watching your friend Uk-Uk and Unk-Unk being eaten by a super predator while they were trying to sneak up on prey probably made hunting a big suck and a mini exercise in Russian Roulette. I imagine a species that endured all this would find a 9 to 5 pretty good in comparison and very bearable.

And our physiology also is optimized for fat retention, caloric efficiency, and slowed metabolism during scarcity - indicators that we evolved in sparse conditions. I highly doubt that life was a carnival of wonder and fascination for most of humanity during our ascendancy.

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 5:55 pm
by Bankai
@jean
Are we not still unsure why exactly agriculture started? Once it stated though, it snowballed and causation mainly worked the other way - its progressive adoption increases population density hence forcing remaining hunter gatherers to adopt it as well or be defeated by numerically superior farmers.

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 6:01 pm
by daylen
This thread is becoming a personality battle in disguise. :lol:

The details of prehistory(all history?) are controversial at best (inconclusive at worst?). Some say war was common, and others say war was rare. Some say hunter-gatherers were conscientious hunters, and others say we were opportunistic gatherers.

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 6:16 pm
by Campitor
daylen wrote:
Thu May 16, 2019 6:01 pm
The details of prehistory(all history?) are controversial at best (inconclusive at worst?). Some say war was common, and others say war was rare. Some say hunter-gatherers were conscientious hunters, and others say we were opportunistic gatherers.
Either conditions would have made humans super adaptable to the 9 to 5 grind. Fighting off Mongolian hordes at the great wall, sitting in front of the cave while praying to the great animal spirits and hoping you survive winter or famine, or sitting in an office - which one would be easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy to humans? How would the former help us endure the latter?

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 6:22 pm
by Jean
We can know by observing "uncivilized" people. The lower the human density in regard to the ressource density, the purer they are in regards to restrain from agriculture.
If you refuse to be a barbarian, you become a slave. To free yourself, you need to become a barbarian.
Barbarians always win until they fall for the appeal of easy food. (I know this sentence is empty, it only resonates)
Agriculture starts because people choose to increase the edible production of a forest, instead of kicking their ennemies out. Last stage is a desert, and before this, a monocrop.
We should be ashamed of our own weakness. I am ashamed.

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 7:11 pm
by daylen
Campitor wrote:
Thu May 16, 2019 5:52 pm
We had to be primed for repetition and boredom otherwise we wouldn't have made it out of the stone age.
Boredom counteracts repetition, and it appears to be non-uniformly distributed (power law?). Some people want to do what everyone else is not. Replace "humans" with "enough humans", then we can agree that usually a enough humans are plugged into the matrix [of era X] to keep it running. :)

@Jean Humans also have a bit of lobster DNA in them and try hard not to fight (I mean really fight). This is also why young men like to demonstrate their athletic prowess and establish pecking order (related to serotonin).

I doubt agriculture was developed for a particular "reason". More likely that a select few eased into it without much planning at all, and the rest is natural selection.

I often wonder how much of history is determined by black swans and why schizophrenia appears to be a rare but persistent adaptation.

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 10:17 pm
by Campitor
daylen wrote:
Thu May 16, 2019 7:11 pm
Boredom counteracts repetition, and it appears to be non-uniformly distributed (power law?).
In ancient history, when day to day survival depended on executing a particular pattern consistently (hunting, forced migration to follow herd animals and plants in bloom, etc) boredom would be irrelevant and pattern execution prioritized as an essential survival mechanism. Hunt, sex, move, repeat. Doesn't matter if you hated hunting, moving, or got bored having sex with the miniscule pool of partners available in ancient history - you stopped any of those behaviors and your gene pool died out.

Humans are excellent at recognizing basic patterns and executing them, something that is distributed throughout the animal kingdom. All animals execute patterns repetitively, and when they evolve into larger colonies, the patterns and behavioral repetitions are increased in frequency and expressed in higher percentages by its members; the patterns also become more complex. Working 9 to 5 is the normal distribution pattern for humans because for thousands of years we've been working 9 to 5, or whenever the sun rised or set, repeating the same behaviors over and over. It wasn't till we hit a critical milestone of abundance that humans could specialize and experiment with activities and inventions that had no immediate and direct survival benefit for the individual but in the end provided a net advantage to the group.

And it's no coincidence that behavioral and cognitive outliers were able to work obsessively on inventions that paved the way to our present level of technology and knowledge - we have evolved to trudge through hard tasks for a reward. In light of all this, it seems silly to even ask how people can grind out a 9 to 5 gig as if we're not designed to do so. Look at THF - he hates the 9 to 5 but yet he's doing the 9 to 5. And I bet he'll be doing the 9 to 5 for some time. Even if he quits the 9 to 5, I can guarantee you that he will be repeating a different pattern - the difference is that he will be a prisoner in a cage of his own design. If THF was in the 20% of the pareto distribution, he wouldn't be here asking this question - he would be executing a paradigm shift in his own life.

Look at Elon Musk - that guy is grinding harder than any of us. He may love what he's doing, but he's still grinding. And I'm pretty sure that a large part of that grind is boring and not fun. But yet he can do it because he is wired like the rest of us - he just executes on a larger scale.

Re: How do most people do this whole compulsory 9-5 thing for 40+ years?

Posted: Thu May 16, 2019 10:34 pm
by daylen
I do not see how this question can be resolved without a precise definition of "routine" (unlikely). Maybe we fool ourselves into thinking we have a routine with hyper-sensitive pattern recognition. Feels like two sides of the same coin.