this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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I often daydream about how society would be if we were not forced by society to pigeon hole ourselves into a specialized career for maximizing the profits of capitalists, and sell most of our time for it.

The idea of creating an entire identity for you around your "career" and only specializing in one thing would be ridiculous in another universe. Humans have so much natural potential for breadth, but that is just not compatible with capitalism.

This is evident with how most people develop "hobbies" outside of work, like wood working, gardening, electronics, music, etc. This idea of separating "hobbies" and the thing we do most of our lives (work) is ridiculous.

Here's how my world could be different if I owned my time and dedicated it to the benefit of my own and my community instead of capitalists:

  • more reading, learning and excusing knowledge with others.
  • learn more handy work, like plumbing and wood working. I love customizing my own home!
  • more gardening
  • participate in the transportation system (picking up shifts to drive a bus for example)
  • become a tour guide for my city
  • cook and bake for my neighbors
  • academic research
  • open source software (and non-software) contributions
  • pick up shifts at a cafรฉ and make coffee, tea and smoothies for people
  • pick up shifts to clean up public spaces, such as parks or my own neighborhood
  • participate in more than one "professions". I studied one type of engineering but work in a completely different engineering. This already proves I can do both, so why not do both and others?

Humans do not like the same thing over and over every day. It's unnatural. But somehow we revolve our whole livelihood around if.

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[โ€“] Sterile_Technique 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Same thing I do now, but instead of full-time work / part-time student, I'd flip it to part-time work and full-time student.

I'm hanging on to the bottom step of the medical ladder - this field is fascinating as fuck, and even as just a tech I get a lot of satisfaction in my role (albeit minor relative to doctors or nurses) in helping others recover from whatever sickness/injury they present with.

Without the financial barriers and current need to work till exhaustion to afford rent, I'd be highly interested in going all the way to physician, but at the rate I'm able to actually afford the time and money to take classes, I'll be pushing 40 when I'm able to clear the hurdle from tech to nurse; and it already hurts to move half of my fucking joints, so once this nursing shit is finished, I don't see myself climbing any more ladders, literal or otherwise... at that point it'll just be the counting the days till retirement or planning out the most pleasurable way to commit suicide.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

If money weren't an object and I didn't have to worry about rent I would love to bury myself in math, chemistry, earth science, medical science, language, and systems development studies. Then I'd spend my free time sharing what I learned with others who want to learn, focusing on under represented. I'd also do more outdoor sports.

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Go hiking everyday

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What would allow that isn't communism, but a "post-scarcity" society, much like Star Trek TNG. A lot of what we take for granted can only happen thanks to the commercial logistics of fucktons of materials going around.

I'd devote more time into programming, performance optimization, processor architecture and computer graphics. These things are still "magic" to me and there aren't many resources, especially on the "bare metal" graphics part of most recent parts. Once I figured it out enough to feel confident in passing that knowledge around, I would do that in english and portuguese

One thing that I'm already doing thanks to my job giving me a decent salary for only 20h of work is my own game project. Something that I'll probably end up selling, but I'll probably be the first to release a pirate/free version of it, too.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I would spend my time the same way. Honing my specialization to increase benefit to society. I love software development!

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I'd love to spend more time planting trees. I volunteer to do it occasionally on weekends but I really love the process of going from sprout to seedling to planted. I just wish I could do more of it.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Imma be honest I have no idea. I might legit just sit here and be a leech on society playing video games and watching shows. But I'd like to imagine I would go back to school and try and do freelance repair/maintenance for various things. I just honestly don't know if I'd do enough to consider it a fair contribution to society.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Gymnastics, surfing, and study and write philosophical works. And maybe practice guitar.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

my world could be different if I owned my time

Self ownership is the basis of capitalism and you're already playing the game, you're just playing it bad.

if you're on hourly I want you to ask yourself if you would pay someone else what you earn at work to do whatever you just did in the last hour.
if not why not? did you explicitly set aside this time to be unproductive? do you think people doing better than you let themselves slide like that?

Humans do not like the same thing over and over every day

Speak for yourself, I love having a routine and getting in the zone. Autonomy and Mastery are worth more to me than money.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

What a nonsense reply. Describing any rest as "slipping".

The number one thing, by FAR, that earns money under capitalism is investment. Not work, not skill, not merit. Just having money to invest and shave off your share of someone else's work.

The "people doing better" actually rest far more than your average worker. They just have money, so they get to make more money even while they are "unproductive".

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[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I would make video games. I'd even do some adult ones, since I've noticed the existing ones aren't super great.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd be that guy that makes all those useless inventions, except they'd be incredibly useful to me and like 2 other people.

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