Would You Work for No Pay If It Was Something You Enjoyed?

[Gokul43201]

But! The main beef I have with the converation in PWA is the idea that "people won't work if they don't have to..." The fact that no one out of 12 respondents *here* has chosen "none," is strong evidence that I was right - people work at things they enjoy ...

Correct !

...for the common good, out of basic human drives of decency etc.

Only correct if "etc" includes things like "out of a desire to live, and not atrophy". There's no evidence that all 12 respondents want to work "for the common good". Many have chosen to do things that simply give them pleasure.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Another thing to keep in mind is the particular crowd that's being polled here. I've met planty of people that would do nothing but play video games and the like all day if they could get away with it.
One of my good friends is in graduate school and really hasn't any plans to do anything with himself but to keep going to school. He makes really good money working as a teachers aid which usually doesn't take up much of his time and he mostly finds it annoying. He spends most of his time drinking, reading random essays on cognitive science, and playing on his computer.

 

[jimmie]

I would spend the first half of my life preparing for the second half of my life, where I created a needed product so unique and so successful that it would establish a new standard within its industry, and I would protect that product with intellectual property that guaranteed that product would dominate its industry for many, many, many years, and after individuals all over the globe understood that the product would dominate its industry for many, many, many years, I would leave my immediate family forever, give away all the wealth that I derived from that creation, and spend the final days of my life in solitude, for the non-guaranteed opportunity to teach you what is "right".

 

[loseyourname]

I would spend the first half of my life preparing for the second half of my life, where I created a needed product so unique and so successful that it would establish a new standard within its industry, and I would protect that product with intellectual property that guaranteed that product would dominate its industry for many, many, many years, and after individuals all over the globe understood that the product would dominate its industry for many, many, many years, I would leave my immediate family forever, give away all the wealth that I derived from that creation, and spend the final days of my life in solitude, for the non-guaranteed opportunity to teach you what is "right".

That doesn't make any sense given the context of our hypothetical situation here. In a world with no money, seemingly with no transactions of any kind, in which people's needs are simply provided for them, the very concepts of "wealth" and "products" and "intellectual property" are dubious at best. You're free to create whatever industry standard you wish, but you would derive no gain from it personally outside of satisfaction and the gains that it wrought for the entire community.

 

[Smurf]

not no transaction of any kind. Just no monetary transactions.

 

[Mk]

I would play music for free.

For "fun" is what I think you mean. For the enjoyment of yourself and others.

But I hope you wouldn't be a lazy ass playing music all day for free. Like that beggar down the street... Your real job would be programming OSs and hand-building Ferraris for the people that worked hard enough to get enough money, to buy them.

 

[Math Is Hard]

All I've ever wanted to do was to have a huge animal shelter. I wish I could find some way to do that and make a living at it, but that's tough. If I had all the money I needed, that's what I would do.

 

[Mk]

They were also maletheists. They believed their gods would love nothing better than to destroy them and made human sacrifices to appease them. I'm sure working hard for your community made it less likely that you'd get the sharp end of the dagger or be used as a guinea pig for cranial experiments.

Even today's Catholic religion seems to be the same idea to me. If you do certain designated things you spend all of eternity (well almost that long) in an unimaginably bad place. Since, the Church and/or local king could "interpret" the Bible really, however they wanted; they would decide what it says and what it doesn't, thereby controlling their people in yet another way.

i don't know where you got the message that they feared their gods - probably seeked to please them rather than fearing them. Although a couple of volcano eruptions would've made them more scared of the 'gods'

Well, you kind of want to be cool with an omnipotent being(s). I would say it was fearing and pleasing them at the same time.

Of course, maybe more towards fearing... they murdered unimaginable amounts of people annually, on top of those pyramids, ripping out their beating hearts. Some festivals, such as their spring festival (forgot the name), required children to be sacrificed.

I don't know what would drive a sane human to do and watch willingly those kinds of things. To please someone? Maybe out of fear that it would happen to you. I admit I'd rather have it happen to someone else than myself.

 

[russ_watters]

Anyway, the poll, pattylou, is poorly constructed. If you want to know if people would work if they did not have to (or if you didn't get paid), you should ask 'would you work if you did not have to?' or 'what would you do if you did not get paid to work?' in a straightforward yes-or-no way and provide yes or no answers. It appears that the question people are answering is 'if you did not get paid, but still had to work, what would you do?' and the conclusions you drew cannot be gathered from answering that question.

 

[Andy]

Hunting sounds good to me always enjoyed stalking lil rabbits as a kid with my grandads air rifle. Other would be playing soccer or spending more time playing my guitar and apart from that i would sit around watching MTV!

 

[Artman]

I've done a little of most items on the list and most of those without compensation in the form of pay, but not full time for extended periods.

In the poll I voted for "other." If my basic needs were to be met, I would do some form of art, music, drama or writing. The thing is, these arts are one of the first things to go if others are required to provide for the basic needs of the artists. They get directed as to what is and what is not worthy of state funded work.

 

[cronxeh]

Anyway, the poll, pattylou, is poorly constructed. If you want to know if people would work if they did not have to (or if you didn't get paid), you should ask 'would you work if you did not have to?' or 'what would you do if you did not get paid to work?' in a straightforward yes-or-no way and provide yes or no answers. It appears that the question people are answering is 'if you did not get paid, but still had to work, what would you do?' and the conclusions you drew cannot be gathered from answering that question.

I don't believe that is an option in Patty's view of a utopian society. Everyone has to work, its just a matter of working doing what makes you happy. Particularly some people find joy doing certain things, even be it gaming. I could find plenty of jobs for those computer types - running remote oil drilling bases, operating robots and equipment, scheduling tasks and monitoring levels, punching in and out on the system. So thus if something breaks down mechanically they can order the parts and then inspect the replacement process, but I'm sure as technology becomes more advanced those events would become more and more rare. Thus one guy would operate an entire nuclear power plant from his house and be responsible for it. Sounds far fetched? Well today it is, in future I don't see any other reasonable way - a team of engineers watching the console 24/7 is just plain stupid.

Now on the other hand the technology and automata should enable farming of dozens of acres by one person, and in the future I don't see a need for people to actually "drive" the cars, trucks and trains - it should be automated. The real question of course would be.. what the hell are we going to do with the 10+ billion people spawned by then? STOP HUMPING PEOPLE!

 

[Evo]

Anyway, the poll, pattylou, is poorly constructed. If you want to know if people would work if they did not have to (or if you didn't get paid), you should ask 'would you work if you did not have to?' or 'what would you do if you did not get paid to work?' in a straightforward yes-or-no way and provide yes or no answers. It appears that the question people are answering is 'if you did not get paid, but still had to work, what would you do?' and the conclusions you drew cannot be gathered from answering that question.

I thought pattylou was talking about volunteer work outside of my regular job. If what she meant was if I didn't have to work, all of my needs were cared for already, would I work for free anyway...NO, I might volunteer time to time.

 

[Astronuc]

If I didn't have to work - I would certainly still work - since I enjoy doing interesting and meaningful things.

I voted for:

farming (agriculture) - really an extension of the gardening I enjoy,
carpentry (construction) - I do that at home, and I like building things, particularly useful things,
education/child care - I like teaching, especially children,

other - I would like to be working on irrigation, agricultural, transportation and energy projects in Africa, South America and Asia, or wherever there is an opportunity to improve the quality of life for people.

 

[Bladibla]

Work in a orchestra

 

[russ_watters]

I thought pattylou was talking about volunteer work outside of my regular job. If what she meant was if I didn't have to work, all of my needs were cared for already, would I work for free anyway...NO, I might volunteer time to time.

I figured most people missed it (I hadn't considered that interpretation, though), but this poll is an offshoot of a conversation in the politics forum...

 

[pattylou]

All I've ever wanted to do was to have a huge animal shelter. I wish I could find some way to do that and make a living at it, but that's tough. If I had all the money I needed, that's what I would do.

I love your barbie borg.

 

[pattylou]

Anyway, the poll, pattylou, is poorly constructed. If you want to know if people would work if they did not have to (or if you didn't get paid), you should ask (a) 'would you work if you did not have to?' or (b) 'what would you do if you did not get paid to work?' in a straightforward yes-or-no way and provide yes or no answers. It appears that the question people are answering is (c) 'if you did not get paid, but still had to work, what would you do?' and the conclusions you drew cannot be gathered from answering that question.

(a) Obviously there is a need to work in any situation where people hope to live. We need to eat and have shelter. Question 'a' is senseless.

(b) There is no stratification of wealth in this scenario, and so your question 'b' is the same as my poll.

(c) I fail to understand how you cannot draw conclusions based on the way the question was framed.

I think you're wrong in your assessment of what people here thought they were answering, and whether conclusions can be drawn. I'll start a poll to see.

 

[pattylou]

I thought pattylou was talking about volunteer work outside of my regular job. If what she meant was if I didn't have to work, all of my needs were cared for already, would I work for free anyway...NO, I might volunteer time to time.

Volunteering *is* working for free. And your needs aren't provided, unless the community (of which you are a part) is able to provide them. Nowhere did I (or anyone) imply that needs are met without any input from individuals, Russ is mistaken if he is projecting that onto the question.

I also never stipulated how much time would need to be donated per person (I don't know what it would take in a well run money-less society).

 

[El Hombre Invisible]

I voted 'other'. I was thinking of some care-in-the-community type thing, helping former PF poll addicts get on with their lives. I may start as soon as I've finished my caption kick. I did think about working with children, but I think I'd get more done on my own.

I have never had MTV. Has anyone else never had MTV? Maybe I should start a thread. Should I start a thread? Is asking if you should start a thread off-topic? Don't tell me if it is.

 

[pattylou]

If by starting such a thread you are contributing to the welfare of the community, then in no way is asking such thing off topic on this thread.

 

[eax]

Theoreticaly its best for everyone to help and work together for free. In this case personaly I would work for free. but unfortunatly many people will abuse and take advantage of the system and thus resulting in corruption. In the system that we live in today (work for money) I do not want to work for free unless I'll be working with 2 or 3 other people who are also doing the deed for free.

We all know that how we work will never change. It will alway's be for money. Trying to convince someone else is useless and won't change anything. Makeing little changes approaching working for free is stupid because people will complain about child labour which will limit the activity so no sides may make a profit of money. Also these little changes will make it harder for the society to build itself since the societies sorrounding it rely on money.

 

[Danger]

I checked 'hunting'; although I don't do it for sport, I certainly would for food if necessary. Also 'teaching', although I'm with Moonbear on the babysitting issue. Also 'other', which would be my favourite activities of mechanical design/building/maintenance, flying, helping out with lab work or whatnot. And, of course, being SOS's love slave.

 

[SpaceTiger]

Realistically, I would probably do any of those things if those that I cared about needed me to. On the other hand, I'm not sure I would really enjoy doing any of them (except education), so I wouldn't be likely to devote my life to it.

I do believe that a certain amount of philanthropy is good for a society and I certainly don't think that every act of kindness encourages laziness, but there are always limits. Helping out in a nursing home or giving some occasional free tutoring (or posting on PF! ) can be very good. Giving money to every homeless person you pass on the street...probably not the best idea.

 

[Gokul43201]

Theoreticaly its best for everyone to help and work together for free.

What theory is this ?

 

[cronxeh]

What theory is this ?

Hypothetically?

 

[Math Is Hard]

I love your barbie borg.

thank you. It's my halloween costume.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I selected other.

I would volunteer my time 24/7 to the destruction of the society in which I lived.

 

[pattylou]

LOL. You're an angel, Jimmie.

 

[pi-r8]

You left a few options off the poll.

1) coal miner
2) fry cook
3) shoe shiner
4) Prison warden
5) person who cleans up vomit at disneyland
6) chimney sweep
7) garbage collector

How many of you would do THOSE jobs for free? There's a reason you have to pay people to do those jobs- they're HORRIBLE. But they're all very important jobs, so if you want a good society, someone has to do them. And if no one's willing to do them voluntarily for the good of others (and they shouldn't!) you're going to have to FORCE them to.

What a glorious society it'll be when we replace paid labor with slave labor.