From Nations to Corporations

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
While I do believe in our ability to define a progressive rapport with capitalism, I am more or less at a loss regarding how to deal with the incumbent 1%ers who would prove obstinate to such progress. My working, fetal tactic is just to gain financial literacy, and to learn to express such excellence in those terms.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed

An internal survey from Goldman Sachs about working conditions of analysts, who claim poor mental health as a result of 100+ hour weeks. It does make me consider the degree to which good mental health of employees is genuinely in the interest of employers.

I think ideally it is, but perhaps there are sometimes costs associated with improving mental health that may not be offset by the additional value added by healthy employees, or perhaps the company isn't financially poised for such psychological investment.

That said, I do think that someone who is passionate about what they do, and healthy while doing it, can bring a lot more value than if that someone wasn't passionate and/or healthy.

This seems to be a critical point, whether or not employee health and fulfillment can be capitalized upon. It could be a major facet of a more liberal/green/conscientious capitalism.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
If you like what you do, or you believe it is having a net-positive impact on the world, bringing the world closer to your ideal one inch at a time, etc.

Just heard the term "passion economy" referring to people who are able to monetize their passions enough to make a living, specifically about content providers on YouTube and the like.

Granted these are self-employed people, unless you can qualify YouTube or whatever platform as an employer-adjacent entity, but self-employment doesn't seem like a pre-requisite for passionate work.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
I've had a job that I found fun, working with people I enjoyed being around, but I haven't had a job that I felt passionate about.
 

luka

Well-known member
99.9% of people hate their jobs and hate the people they work for. thats the definition of capitalism
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
It seems like most of the work people find conducive to their passion is creative work, work that somehow involves creation. But hey maybe there are some people out there who are passionate about executing motor activities, or they find a certain zen there, etc.
 

luka

Well-known member
the other 0.1% have a something called false consciousness. that means they hate their jobs too but they just dont know it.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
99.9% of people hate their jobs and hate the people they work for. thats the definition of capitalism
Which seems suboptimal from both a capitalist and an anti-capitalist perspective. I think certain trends, such as the technology platforms that allow people to monetize their passions as a side-gig and perhaps eventually as a sustainable self-employment, are worth fostering in that respect.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
The central problem, provided one is able to secure any job to begin with, seems to be how alienating the majority of jobs can be. Not sensing or getting to appreciate the value of one's labor, alienation, a sort of marxian component that I am grafting into a capitalist hypothesis.

All I;m saying is that this seems suboptimal even from a capitalist perspective, seeing as people seem to be more productive when they are in good mental health and/or they enjoy what they are doing.

There just seem to be hurdles remaining in terms of logistics, financially viable business practices, costs that improving technology continues to render slightly less expensive and thus more systematically viable.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
A vast cybernetic frenzy that needs to be nudged here and there to incrementally destabilize vicious cycles and incrementally stabilize virtuous ones.
 

luka

Well-known member
most jobs are shit and also pointless some jobs arent pointless but are still shit
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
The efficacy of which effort, as I mentioned elsewhere, is dependent on the quality and quantity of data, and the vision of the system designer. There was a panel of social scientists who talked about "policy-based evidence" as an inversion of the apparently more common term "evidence-based policy".

Policy-based evidence would be data that is articulated/visualized in such a way as to cater to the particular needs to policy-makers, rather than just presenting them with general-purpose data.

That said, at least in the U.S., I'm not under the impression that either the data or the vision is sufficient, but I am under the impression that they are both improving.
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
the idea of doing the same thing five days a week, from morning till evening for more than 50 years is already depressing enough, regardless of what the job entails.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
most jobs are shit and also pointless some jobs arent pointless but are still shit
The system, from what I gather, is still financially dominated by people who have little to no regard for everyone else. Single-bottom line, suboptimal and unsustainable capitalism. Nowhere near what capitalism can, and likely will, be.

I choose to believe, even if we are presently disproportionately influenced by single-bottom line businesspeople, that the value of mental health and passionate work will be realized, if even just in terms of the single-bottom line. That said, I have a wealth of concrete detail [*left] to fill in here, but that will come.

edit: bracketed text
 
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Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
the idea of doing the same thing five days a week, from morning till evening for more than 50 years is already depressing enough, regardless of what the job entails.
Perhaps its only viable under certain economic conditions, but if there is a market for some kind of content you are interested in, provided you have a computer, there are avenues for monetizing work you like doing. Independent scholarship, short films, music, etc.

That said, it does seem like we are only just getting into this territory. Not sure what kind of precedents there are.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
There are some models for this, such as podcasts, that only require a relatively small base of dedicated patrons, rather than the millions of views YouTube would likely require for monetization. Don't know the numbers there, though.
 
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