The Most Important Part of FIRE

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Tekward

Recycles dryer sheets
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Controlling your schedule and making the most of time.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/why-dont-i-see-you-anymore/598336/

Our unpredictable and overburdened schedules are taking a dire toll on American society.

"It’s a cliché among political philosophers that if you want to create the conditions for tyranny, you sever the bonds of intimate relationships and local community. “Totalitarian movements are mass organizations of atomized, isolated individuals,” Hannah Arendt famously wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism. She focused on the role of terror in breaking down social and family ties in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under Stalin. But we don’t need a secret police to turn us into atomized, isolated souls. All it takes is for us to stand by while unbridled capitalism rips apart the temporal preserves that used to let us cultivate the seeds of civil society and nurture the sadly fragile shoots of affection, affinity, and solidarity."
 
Tekward said:
Controlling your schedule and making the most of time.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/why-dont-i-see-you-anymore/598336/

Our unpredictable and overburdened schedules are taking a dire toll on American society.

"It’s a cliché among political philosophers that if you want to create the conditions for tyranny, you sever the bonds of intimate relationships and local community. “Totalitarian movements are mass organizations of atomized, isolated individuals,” Hannah Arendt famously wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism. She focused on the role of terror in breaking down social and family ties in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under Stalin. But we don’t need a secret police to turn us into atomized, isolated souls. All it takes is for us to stand by while unbridled capitalism rips apart the temporal preserves that used to let us cultivate the seeds of civil society and nurture the sadly fragile shoots of affection, affinity, and solidarity."
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"unbridled capitalism" is all it took to lose me on this one.
 
"Why You Never See Your Friends Anymore"

If you never see your friends any more, you are doing it wrong.
 
^ it depends on what your definition of friends mean to you, in relation to your life. Old friends I don't seem to see or care to see them but new friends after retirement seem to be more fun to see now.
 
I appreciate the OP including a lengthy quote. It was long enough to know I needn’t bother with the link or article.
 
VanWinkle said:
"unbridled capitalism" is all it took to lose me on this one.
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I've seen people presumably on the other side of the political spectrum blame secularism. I've seen people of all political persuasions blame materialism.

They may disagree on the causes (and I'm not sure it really matters), but a lot of people feel that we're losing our connections, our communities, and are crying out into the void to get people to reconsider whether the latest iPhone or promotion is really worth the amount of time and work it takes to get it.

I'm not sure if that perception is accurate, since "the world is going to hell in a handbasket" claims have been made for centuries, if not millennia, but I do support getting people to sit back and think about whether their choices in life are actually making them happy, or if they're just doing what they've been convinced that they "have to".

It may be a feature of living in an overall wealthy society, that we have the luxury to stop and think about happiness. We've mostly taken care of the bottom layers of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, but given how rare that is in the broader scope of human history, we have very little practice with the upper layers, so we're using the "lower layer techniques" of more-more-more and it isn't appropriate.
 
cooch96 said:
I appreciate the OP including a lengthy quote. It was long enough to know I needn’t bother with the link or article.
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Too bad. It was interesting.
 
Thanks Gumby. I thought so also, and I am very pro-capitalist. But I am still learning.

I wonder how many of us have been subject to "on-demand scheduling."
 
Very interesting article. Thanks for posting.

Having relatives working in on demand type environments, I see the frustration of not being able to commit to outings, etc. more than 2 weeks in advance.
The year before I retired, upper management was beginning the "talk" of required Saturday and even later evening hours. Everyone was in an uproar, as we had already moved to 7:30am to 7pm M-F, and that was a scheduling nightmare for my job, (union environment with 40 hour workweek, making sure no one had OT due to budgetary requirements by mgt.!) Last I heard, weekend work still has NOT happened, they either needed to approve OT or hire more staff.
 
Tekward said:
... All it takes is for us to stand by while unbridled capitalism rips apart the temporal preserves that used to let us cultivate the seeds of civil society and nurture the sadly fragile shoots of affection, affinity, and solidarity."
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I'm not sure I understand. Would these be the "temporal preserves" that brought serfdom, slavery, sweat shops, child labor, and lethal working conditions?

I think the author is longing for a past that never existed except possibly for the highly privileged few like she and her fellow Yale graduates. Objectively speaking the trend for the working class has been better, better, better for centuries and capitalism has been a major cause of that.
 
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OldShooter said:
I'm not sure I understand. Would these be the "temporal preserves" that brought serfdom, slavery, sweat shops, child labor, and lethal working conditions?

I think the author is longing for a past that never existed except possibly for the highly privileged few like she and her fellow Yale graduates. Objectively speaking the trend for the working class has been better, better, better for centuries and capitalism has been a major cause if that.
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+1. I happen to like my capitalism very much unbridled. Just a dash of DOL, OSHA, EPA, etc, to keep people safe and shielded from employer abuse. There was damn little good in the good ol' days.
 
Red Badger said:
+1. I happen to like my capitalism very much unbridled. Just a dash of DOL, OSHA, EPA, etc, to keep people safe and shielded from employer abuse. There was damn little good in the good ol' days.
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Yes. I agree.

For those interested in this general subject, I just read "The Instant Economist" by Tim Taylor. His discussion of balancing capitalism with government regulation of excesses is excellent. The book is very readable and a good introduction or refresher on basic micro- and macro- economics. I recommend it.
 
Tekward said:
Controlling your schedule and making the most of time.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/why-dont-i-see-you-anymore/598336/

Our unpredictable and overburdened schedules are taking a dire toll on American society. <snip>
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Very interesting article; thank you for posting.

One of the books mentioned (On The Clock) looks interesting. I just put a hold on it at the library.

I have had the luxury of never having to work in a job with "on demand scheduling" but I know a number of people who do not have that luxury. It definitely can and sometimes does wreak havoc with family relationships, finances, and their health.
 
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I remember when nothing except emergency services and churches was open on Sundays. As a kid, I thought it was boring, but as an adult, I think it would help encourage some togetherness in communities. That said, I often go out to a restaurant, zoo, etc. on Sundays with my husband because that's the only day we have off together (I work Tues-Sat and he works Mon-Fri). So am I part of the problem or a symptom of it? Looking forward to seeing more of my husband in retirement!
 
I found it an interesting read, and far more broad ranging than the snippet (which seems to have stopped many from reading....?)

I had one of those unreliable schedules when first working, in the hotel/restaurant world. My schedule varied every week. I never had forced overtime, and I could ask for specific days off but rarely did. The mention of things like not being able to plan for a holiday or event, sure. When the holidays rolled around we were told we'd get only one of the following off, and to pick: thanksgiving, christmas eve/day, nye/d - only one.

When I first started at MC we had no ability to use vacation time for the first 3 months - and the shift we were hired for was Tues-Sat. One woman in my team was getting married, she was clearly told - yes, we'll make an exception for your wedding day, but nope, not the rehearsal the day before. We had "shift bids" every quarter. We'd put in our requests and hope for the best.
 
I went ahead and read it. In my initial read of the post, I did not connect the title with the first sentence and missed the point. The article was interesting and I think the point the OP was making, that your time flexibility in retirement is a huge benefit that you just don’t have in today’s work environment, is totally on point.
 
I thought it was a good article, but would have been better had the last paragraph been worded differently or even left out all together.

Other than a couple years part time as a teenager in fast food restaurants I never had to work unreliable or unpredictable schedules. In fact I was able to schedule my own hours to a certain extent for most of my working career.
 
VanWinkle said:
"unbridled capitalism" is all it took to lose me on this one.
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Too bad for you. It's the last paragraph of the article and there was a lot of highly relevant history, fact and interesting insight to learn about the world in which you exist in the other 95% of the article.
 
timemoveson said:
Too bad for you. It's the last paragraph of the article and there was a lot of highly relevant history, fact and interesting insight to learn about the world in which you exist in the other 95% of the article.
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I used the time at the golf course instead, so it was not a lack of interest, but a prioritizing of my time. I was happier hitting the ball than reading the article.

VW
 
timemoveson said:
Too bad for you. It's the last paragraph of the article and there was a lot of highly relevant history, fact and interesting insight to learn about the world in which you exist in the other 95% of the article.
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I understand that phrases like “unbridled capitalism” are triggers, and it is easy to get defensive to the point where one might think the author was Karl Marx. But we are not an either-or society, with either Gilded Age capitalism or extreme socialism (and I am thankful for that). And the truth, IMO, is that average people — the middle class, if you will — have less economic security than ever in the post-WW2 era. Employment is tenuous, the real wages and benefits are lower, we are becoming more of a “gig” economy, “just in time” economy that has wrung out all redundancy to become “lean and mean”. It is easy to dismiss it if one put in 30 years with Megacorp and now has secure health insurance and pension.

I think it is hard for someone who “came of age” more than 20-25 years ago to understand what it is like trying to get established today. Stuff many older folks took for granted — marriage, children, home ownership, and yes, retirement — were enabled by relatively secure income streams, certainly relative to today.
 
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ziggy29 said:
And the truth, IMO, is that average people — the middle class, if you will — have less economic security than ever in the post-WW2 era. Employment is tenuous, the real wages and benefits are lower, we are becoming more of a “gig” economy, “just in time” economy that has wrung out all redundancy to become “lean and mean”. It is easy to dismiss it if one put in 30 years with Megacorp and now has secure health insurance and pension.

I think it is hard for someone who “came of age” more than 20-25 years ago to understand what it is like trying to get established today. Stuff many older folks took for granted — marriage, children, home ownership, and yes, retirement — were enabled by relatively secure income streams, certainly relative to today.
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A lot of people on this site have benefited from long and stable careers with good benefits, but many of them (probably myself included) have also posted in the lengthy and long running "What did you buy from Amazon today" thread.
 
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