Job Satisfaction

[Pæs]

We sit in fifteen rows of ten on twelve floors, typing in unison. We are hit by the force of those typing above us and pass it on to those below as the building jumps with every keystroke. We tap out the quick march of a nearing army. People walking past our building unconsciously meet our rhythm and change their course to come in and apply for work.

With the completion of every page, we print and our printing is transferred to trolleys by casual staff who are never seen at the water cooler because they follow their trolleys into the incinerator. We turn time into smoke, here. We take the excess UNLIMITED DATA and we turn it into heat and light and a dense, dark fog that sits near the ground and hides us from one another.

We turn time into wages into food into keystrokes. And keystrokes, we turn into electricity to power the pumps beneath the building which turn water into sludge and the harbour into ink. We turn the ink into printing into smoke.

And at the end of the day, we look upon all of these things and know that we have a purpose. And we turn fulfilment into a good night's sleep so we're ready for tomorrow so The Office remains productive.

[Elder Iptuous]

that was beautiful

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

I think you're freaky and I like you a lot.

[Patron Saint]

Is there anything objectively wrong with being a cog in a machine?

I think this touches on the old free will vs determinism bit.  There's also that bit about needing to make rent and not everyone is capable of living the dream and having a fulfilling life.  Some sheep are conditioned and to try to remove them from that has it's own peril.

I was working at a college for a time where I had a coworker who was a janitor.  He could have gone to college there for free but he didn't.  He was in his fifties but looked around 70.  He lived with his mom in her trailer, had kids he didn't support and drank a rack of milwaukee's beast every night with the same people he partied with since high school that lived in his park.

I remember thinking it was sad.   One day there was a time where he started some anti-gay crap rooted in religious matters.  Not being gay but not liking homophobia I challenged his beliefs with some logical analysis.  Not too terribly surprisingly he tried to hit me and got fired.  I specifically didn't push for him to get fired and even opposed it mildly but there was a policy so it was pretty much a done deal.

Trying to open his eyes cost him the only thing he had going for him, a decent job.  Not a good job, but probably the best one he'd ever get.  He didn't deserve the job, nor did he earn in particular, but I think it's worth mentioning not everyone is capable of the proverbial "wake up" posed in the BIP stuff, and to some, such information can prove detrimental.  Anecdotal yes, but I think his scenario is hardly unique.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Is there anything objectively wrong with being a cog in a machine?

Aside from the fact that there's no such thing as "objectively wrong", then it depends if the machine is good or not. The machine is the cog, just as the cog is the machine. If it's a machine, fuelled by the screams of puppies, whose sole purpose is to turn awesome into rivers of shit then I'd say yes - destroy the cogs, destroy the machine

Coincidentally - this is why I don't believe in objective wrongness - if I did I'd be forced to try and destroy pretty much everybody 

[Patron Saint]

Is there anything objectively wrong with being a cog in a machine?

Aside from the fact that there's no such thing as "objectively wrong", then it depends if the machine is good or not. The machine is the cog, just as the cog is the machine. If it's a machine, fuelled by the screams of puppies, whose sole purpose is to turn awesome into rivers of shit then I'd say yes - destroy the cogs, destroy the machine

Coincidentally - this is why I don't believe in objective wrongness - if I did I'd be forced to try and destroy pretty much everybody 

A fair answer... but who gets to be the arbiter of acceptable puppy to shit river ratio, and who watches the watchers?  And them?

By the logic you are presenting it seems to lend itself to might makes right and he with the biggest guns wins which is fair enough, but easily swings out of control.

There's nothing wrong with fascism on paper, it's just that it tends to suck in practice given a long enough time line.

While I don't disagree, I think it's important to remember there are times when societal norms make sense, and other times where what is the societal norm is horribly corrupt and inefficient.

The argument winner here is clearly wisdom in practice... but what wisdom should we subscribe to?

While there is no "objective wrong" we can assume that in most cases things like pedophilia and cannibalism are generally bad social practice, presuming we aren't assclowns.  If that's the case, then that means there is a lot of grey area, pretty much most all of it is grey, and that means evil-good is more of a sliding scale that is prone to being horribly inefficient.  While we can create a line in the sand for better or worse, would you not agree that this means that by creating "acceptable levels of evil" we are not engineering the paradigm itself, deciding by gunpoint which machines will live and die? 

And if the new line in the sand becomes a machine... who is to end the machine when it crosses the threshold?

To me the checks and balances in the universe question still returns to the determinism/free will thing.  Thoughts?

[P3nT4gR4m]

A fair answer... but who gets to be the arbiter of acceptable puppy to shit river ratio, and who watches the watchers?  And them?

It's worse than that. Other than a very few cases such as the pedophilia and cannibalism you mentioned. There's next to no consensus on anything. If right/wrong is democratic then being things like gay or black or muslim is neither right or wrong but a kind of eigenstate which collapses differently depending who you ask and when.

The logic I'm presenting doesn't strike me as logical in the slightest but it is how it works. Which leads me to think the whole system is fucked beyond repair with even more fucked built in should we attempt it.

Best bet strikes me as the unicorn-tastic benevolent dictator scenario which (although it's a zillion to one shot) is still infinitely more likely to happen than the current clusterfuck ever producing fruit.

Face it - the human race is a complete fucking disaster. If you can see the funny side of that, you win.

[Pæs]

A job is a job is a job. Times are tough all over.

In the brief and rare moments when my eyes leave the screen I've seen the workers in the building across the street feeding themselves into sausage casings. Then the blinds fell shut and my attention snapped back to the task at hand.

Times are tough all over.

At day's end, when our digital clocks all audibly hit 5, the floor tilts and our office chairs carry us, in rows, merrily out the open windows. Our fingers still type hopelessly at the air as we disappear under a river of endless traffic.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

A job is a job is a job. Times are tough all over.

In the brief and rare moments when my eyes leave the screen I've seen the workers in the building across the street feeding themselves into sausage casings. Then the blinds fell shut and my attention snapped back to the task at hand.

Times are tough all over.

At day's end, when our digital clocks all audibly hit 5, the floor tilts and our office chairs carry us, in rows, merrily out the open windows. Our fingers still type hopelessly at the air as we disappear under a river of endless traffic.

I know how you feel.  We just pulled another miracle out of our ass here in the maintenance department, and at the same time fucked up a different piece of equipment.  Conservation of Disaster, we call it, and we try not to look at people when they crack.  I remember when Harry cracked.  He was working along, and suddenly started howling about how none of this shit MEANT anything, and how he always wanted to be a sculptor, to create a little beauty in a world full of rust.

We had to let Harry go, of course.  Artists are, as Plato said, nothing but trouble.

[Pæs]

UNLIMITED DATA mirrors ENDLESS TRAFFIC mirrors neural pathways forged by tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap...
And sometimes BAD SIGNAL gets in there and you 404, or take the wrong turn off or you tap tap tap tap tap tap tap CRASH.

We don't get many people cracking. There's a system, you see.

Everyone types in unison. Deviations from the rule are easily managed.

If you type faster than everyone else, you get promoted. You get promoted until you're on a floor where everyone is typing at the same speed. And then you type that fast until 5pm when the building sends you home.

If you type slower than everyone else, the keys lock onto your fingers and you wake up long enough to struggle. And you struggle until your fingers break and then what good are you for typing? So you load up a trolley with printing and carry it into the incinerator.

Nothing gets wasted round here. Times are tough all over.

We're not cogs in a machine. We're consumables.

[LMNO]

It sounds like we need to play another game of Spiders.