Does Development Mean More Work?
Think about it: Development gives us more equipment, comfort, and recreational options. But, to attain those things, we need to work more/harder. There’s no free lunch in life.
Don’t you think this a vicious cycle?
Is there a difference between development and non-development?
On an average, consider how much time our grandfathers and generations before them spent on work (as in making money). Wasn’t it lesser than the time spent by our fathers? Isn’t the amount of time our fathers worked, lesser than time spent by us (for office work) now? Work has invaded our nights and weekends, thanks to the ever pervasive technology, Internet, and work-from-home “options”.
So, doesn’t that mean whatever equipment we discover to reduce work (in one front) will result in increase of work (in another front), in order to be able to afford those equipment in the first place?
Even if we end up discovering robots that will do all the work we order it to do, we will still have to work much more in order to be able to afford robots in the first place, and also to be able to power them, maintain them, replace them with newer models, etc. So, the work that gets reduced on the home-front, increases on the office (money making) front.
Computers were supposed to simplify work, but our human greed has ensured that companies extract as much work as possible out of us, using the same computers, irrespective of where we are. Heck, there are Wi-Fi enabled buses operated by a few IT companies, which, you might be tempted to think will enable employees to check WhatsApp/Facebook status, but will actually be used for extracting work out of them even while they are traveling!!
If you look at the entire thing more carefully, the result might still be the same. Earlier, they didn’t work much and they didn’t have the many benefits of technology either. Now we work more, but we have the benefits offered by technology. In the future, we will have to work even more to get whatever technology might bring, then. Don’t you think we are moving towards an unsustainable lifestyle?
Does development come with strings attached? (read: more work?). Feel free to give your opinion in the comments.
Destination Infinity
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