berlinparisexpress

berlinparisexpress OP t1_jbpmvg4 wrote

Yeah, this was a weirdly pessimistic take.

Why would people do anything in their free time if that was true? Why do people volunteer to homeless shelters at night after a crushing work day?

Some people might want to drink and smoke all day, but I'm sure they're somehow already doing that. Harm reduction and prevention is the answer - not depriving society as a whole of positive social measures.

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berlinparisexpress OP t1_jbpls9x wrote

Just interested in everyone's thought on the topic.

I've been thinking about this on the way to work lately and I just don't think anyone hates working per se - they hate selling their time and obeying to arbitrary orders. Giving a hand to move a friend's home is often super fun and rewarding - why? It's shared work on a voluntary basis that feels super useful with a clear goal that is achievable by cooperation.

So yeah, I would definitely still work on a UBI, but I would definitely think about work differently, ands I think this is what universal income is all about. I might work more locally, take more risks or be more involved in causes I truly care about. I don't like feeling useless and I don't think most people would become lazy because they suddenly earn a guaranteed 700$ a month.

What are your thoughts on the matter? What would you do with a guaranteed income every month, no matter your situation?

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berlinparisexpress OP t1_jahsn2h wrote

I felt like posting and commenting on this because I work for a company of 300 people that has made the shift to the 4-day workweek (with no loss of pay) almost 4 years ago. As some people comment in the article linked, it was hard!

Not everyone was on the same page or communicating well. Some departments were just super disorganized and stressed. In the first few months people actually reported MORE stress and our sales results tanked. Some people also thought it was super unfair because some of my colleagues fully enjoyed the day off while others felt that they still had to catch up on their work because their results were time-dependent (eg: salespeople having a fixed number of calls to make every week).

However, after 6 months of adjustments it just started to work wonderfully for everyone. For instance, at the beginning anyone could pick any day but Monday but we now restrict it to Wednesday or Friday so that the teams work more easily together.

I haven't worked a single Friday in 4 years and could not go back to a 5DWW easily now and I don't think any of my colleagues would.

I think this is really interesting as a whole lot of people currently entering the job market are starting to doubt they'll ever retire, so if we can find ways of making work more sustainable during our careers we might achieve something even more interesting than "escape the rat race as early as possible" and start enjoying life at 70.

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berlinparisexpress OP t1_izdvpls wrote

>If we are worried about the environment shouldn't we be looking to economic models that don't rely on exponential growth and over-consumption.

I 100% agree with that and I think the main focus should be on sobriety, fast.

However, SOME tech will be needed, even in the context of a low-carbon sustainable society. How do we stay under the 2°C trajectory while maintaining a decent quality of life for everyone?

I'm no techno evangelist and I think there will be a LOT of bullshit to call out in climate tech, but some of it will be very welcome. For instance, having small, local, reliable and sustainable energy generation projects, or keeping our advances in medicine and agriculture while living with limited energy resources.

Definitely a lot to think about but I'd rather see brains working on that that developing the latest financial market algorithm for those sweets 0.00001 second automated transactions.

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berlinparisexpress OP t1_izdud4v wrote

As we read more everyday about tech company layoffs, the ongoing Twitter drama and the latest crypto crash, I find it interesting to see that $94 billion has been invested in climate tech since January 2021 with $34 more billion available to fund new climate companies.

I don't believe in techno-solutionnism and that climate tech is THE solution to fight climate change without changing anything to our current lifestlyes, however I am convinced at this stage that every bit will help and I am glad to see money invested in that sector while everything else seems to be crashing.

There might be some good opportunites for those of you from the tech sector looking for meaning at work! I don't see the climate tech sector going under anytime soon as long as climate change is an issue.

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berlinparisexpress OP t1_iwgjnnd wrote

DAOs (Decentralized Auotnomous Organizations) promise to make corporate companies run on a flat hierarchy using smart contracts with everyone holding one vote through a token, rather than having a centralized leadership take all decisions.

This completely new way to distribute labour among the workforce and take key corporate decisions seem to create new possibilities for a kind of "digital anarchism" - with flat management hardwired in the organization.

Even as Bitcoin and crypto in general keep tanking, we should not loose sight of some of the most interesting and promising usecases of blockchain and smart contracts.

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