“Work” can mean different things, and so also “work ethic”.
The way I use it, “work” is whatever you are serious (or at least want to be) about doing, whether it’s something that matters in the larger scheme of things or not, and whether or not it earns money. (But having to earn a living makes it a lot easier to be serious about it.)
“Leisure” is whatever you like doing but choose not to be serious about.
In that sense, I’m not much interested in leisure. Idling one’s days away on a tropical island is not my idea of fun, and I do not watch television. Valuing seriousness is what I would mean by “work ethic”. What one should be serious about is a separate ethical question.
When other people talk about “work”, they might mean service to others, and by “leisure” service to oneself. I score low on the “service to others” metric, but for EA people, that is their work ethic.
To others, “work” is earning a living, and “leisure” is whatever you do when you’re not doing that. The work ethic relative to that concept is that the pay you get for your work is a measure of the value you are creating for others. If you are idling then you are neglecting your duty to create value all the years that you can, for time is the most perishable of all commodities: a day unused is a day lost to our future light-cone for ever.
That is an interesting use of “work” and “leisure,” and one with which I was not familiar. I am very serious about my leisure (depending how you use serious… I love semantic arguments for fun but not everybody does so I’ll cut that here). The more frequent use I have heard is close to its etymology: what one is allowed to do, as opposed to what one has a duty to do. That is anecdotal to the people I know so may not be the standard. I am much more serious about what I am allowed to do, and what others are allowed to do, than even a self-created duty.
Very interesting and I’d be happy to continue, but to restate the original question with help from noticed ambiguity: is there a strong argument why spending 80000 hours in a job for jobs sake is ethically superior to selling enough time to meet ones need and using rest for ones own goals?
is there a strong argument why spending 80000 hours in a job for jobs sake is ethically superior to selling enough time to meet ones need and using rest for ones own goals?
To give a more direct answer, “a job for jobs sake” sounds like a lost purpose. In harder times, everyone had to work hard for as many years as they could, to support themselves, their household, and their community, and the community couldn’t afford many passengers. Having broken free of the Malthusian wolves, the pressure is off, but the attitudes remain: idleness is sinful.
And then again, from the transhumanist point of view, the pressure isn’t off at all, it’s been replaced by a different one. We now have the prospect of a whole universe to conquer. How many passengers can the human race afford in that enterprise, among those able to contribute to it?
is there a strong argument why spending 80000 hours in a job for jobs sake is ethically superior to selling enough time to meet ones need and using rest for ones own goals?
Meeting one’s needs is, by definition, necessary, and one’s goals are, by definition, what one pursues. Who doesn’t do that, beyond people incapable of supporting themselves and people drifting through life with no particular goals?
“Work” can mean different things, and so also “work ethic”.
The way I use it, “work” is whatever you are serious (or at least want to be) about doing, whether it’s something that matters in the larger scheme of things or not, and whether or not it earns money. (But having to earn a living makes it a lot easier to be serious about it.)
“Leisure” is whatever you like doing but choose not to be serious about.
In that sense, I’m not much interested in leisure. Idling one’s days away on a tropical island is not my idea of fun, and I do not watch television. Valuing seriousness is what I would mean by “work ethic”. What one should be serious about is a separate ethical question.
When other people talk about “work”, they might mean service to others, and by “leisure” service to oneself. I score low on the “service to others” metric, but for EA people, that is their work ethic.
To others, “work” is earning a living, and “leisure” is whatever you do when you’re not doing that. The work ethic relative to that concept is that the pay you get for your work is a measure of the value you are creating for others. If you are idling then you are neglecting your duty to create value all the years that you can, for time is the most perishable of all commodities: a day unused is a day lost to our future light-cone for ever.
That is an interesting use of “work” and “leisure,” and one with which I was not familiar. I am very serious about my leisure (depending how you use serious… I love semantic arguments for fun but not everybody does so I’ll cut that here). The more frequent use I have heard is close to its etymology: what one is allowed to do, as opposed to what one has a duty to do. That is anecdotal to the people I know so may not be the standard. I am much more serious about what I am allowed to do, and what others are allowed to do, than even a self-created duty.
Very interesting and I’d be happy to continue, but to restate the original question with help from noticed ambiguity: is there a strong argument why spending 80000 hours in a job for jobs sake is ethically superior to selling enough time to meet ones need and using rest for ones own goals?
To give a more direct answer, “a job for jobs sake” sounds like a lost purpose. In harder times, everyone had to work hard for as many years as they could, to support themselves, their household, and their community, and the community couldn’t afford many passengers. Having broken free of the Malthusian wolves, the pressure is off, but the attitudes remain: idleness is sinful.
And then again, from the transhumanist point of view, the pressure isn’t off at all, it’s been replaced by a different one. We now have the prospect of a whole universe to conquer. How many passengers can the human race afford in that enterprise, among those able to contribute to it?
Meeting one’s needs is, by definition, necessary, and one’s goals are, by definition, what one pursues. Who doesn’t do that, beyond people incapable of supporting themselves and people drifting through life with no particular goals?
Sure, that’s true for both. The former is just more constrained, and I was looking for an argument for a over b.
And thanks for defining; I had thought those definitions too obvious to bear mention. My bad.