Except we're inherently idle creatures. So while you may be right in some silly marxian sense. 90% of us would do nothing until forced to due to biological needs.
There's a great bit in Johnstone's Impro where he has people paint simple pictures, and then shows them the work of others. The people exclaim at how bold, how creative the shown work is compared with theirs. The difference is that the old paintings are by kids, and the new ones are by adults. His point is that kids have a natural creativity that gets trained out of them over time. One can get that back. (In his case, he helps people get it back through improvisational theater classes. They work!)
90% of people have been forced to do things most of their lives. First through an industrial-age education system, then by employers running organizations designed to maximize compliance, not initiative, creativity, or agency. It's no wonder they have lost the joy of creation.
Tech for me was the ticket out of work like that. It took me years to work through my resentment. But now for me there's a joy in creation, a joy in service that doesn't match anything I can get with mere consumption-oriented entertainment. My nephew has been in a Montessori program since kindergarten, and he's far from inherently idle. He loves learning. He loves creation. We all do, deep down, if we're half encouraged in it.
People who've earned enough to never work again all seem to keep working, though. While the most idle people I've ever seen are those who seem to have no chance of financial independence.
I don't think people are idle or lazy naturally. I think they become idle or lazy because they learn that nothing they do matters.
Being able to choose the work you do matters, which is why people don't "do nothing."
If this were the case, I would expect to see a great many people who have enough money already such that they don't need to work anymore doing just that.
But that seems to be quite an unusual case. Certainly nothing like 90%. What I see around me appears to contradict the hypothesis. Not just "rich" people, either. In the UK, a few hundred thousand pounds in total would (going over the last couple of decades of returns on pretty dull investments, although over just the last decade significantly less would do the job too) pay rent and bills forever if all you didn't engage in expensive hobbies, and a lot of people have that kind of wealth but are still working jobs.
That might be true of the population in general, but I doubt it's true of the kind of person who hangs out on HN.
Even among the population in general, I don't think people enjoy being idle for long. We're curious creatures. We seek out novelty and challenges, and we don't like to feel useless.
>As far as his "conservative white male" discrimination claims, I've seen that too. My boss specifically requested candidates that are not middle-aged white males. But it's nowhere near the same level of discrimination that people of color or women have endured for decades. Perhaps the reason people don't feel sorry for conservative white males is that if they are rejected by one company they can keep trying and will find an "old school" company that will hire them. We have not had that luxury, for blacks and women it was 100 nos for every 1 yes. It's not that way for white guys, sorry.
Its not that way for white guys to receive hundreds of Nos?
That's probably a cultural thing. In some cultures, red is superior to green.
Really, it's not about them being better or worse than a user with more Karna. It's just a signal to everyone that this person might be advertising or AstroTurfing.
What?! I didn't know it indicates that the user is "untrusted", I'm from Sweden and my impression has been that the green users are super users of some kind.
