I read this and say that it sounds fair, but I remind myself that it all hinges on compensation and freedom. I am not comfortable with the notion that they are all equally trapped in their burdens.

CEO and The World Changing Content Delivery Guy can always apply to be the sanitation worker, every day until they land that job, in order to rid themselves of the nagging feeling that they could be consuming more content.

Trash Guy might be able to pursue his dream, hanging off the outside of a truck at 4am, of becoming a World Changing Content Access Guy but only if he has the funds and time to do so.

I fall into this trap myself, wondering if I should have just delivered packages for a living, but I forget that lower wages never decrease stress, and very rarely buys freedom.

Good points except I’m not sure about lower wages not decreasing stress. Not in and of themselves. But typically I’ve been happier and lower paid jobs. I’m a highly responsible person, so project work stresses me more than it probably should. I preferred to do a job and just come home like most human beings do. Unless I am the boss collecting all the money, I don’t really see the advantage to project work with long projected schedules and all of the stress that comes with that if you’re a relatively low paid software developer.

The best situation is to get a government job that’s well paid, what usually with a pension, good benefits and healthcare. Even if that is picking up trash. It’s pretty tough to beat. It may not be completely fulfilling but the grass is always greener on the other side and being under stress is healthier than being overstressed.

The CEO only needs to do this for a year or two to have enough resources to become financially independent, that's the difference with the other characters in this story. Everyone else is working as part of lifestyle. And that's what's troubling so many people, the lifestyle around obligation blows.

There is so much ill and wrong in this.. true this is how it is in a lot of places, but accepting and sating

> That is how society works

is just resignation and ignorance (and sad to read) that it could, can and actually is different somewhere else ;p

like an inverse? where the trash guy controls people and has an 8 figure salary, but the ceo working 4am to 7pm gets paid peanuts?

yes in ways, there’s been findings on (post agriculture, much larger than dunbar number) societies in which such hierarchical roles were purely seasonal with roles useful practically or ritualistically becoming devalued off season and tyranny-level powers flipped somewhat in favor of the other side, or even ones which have police forces that are simultaneously clowns and thus kept from overstepping their status with their power (I can elaborate more on details on this one if I look up the citations again from Wengrow’s Dawn of Everything)

There are probably "CEOs" of three person startups who work those hours, but a fortune 500 type CEO works those hours it's because they want to.

There arent really any down sides to being at the top of the capital hierarchy aside from guilt perhaps.

>fortune 500 type CEO works those hours it's because they want to.

I think the parent post was more a statement about the human condition than economic equality.

There are a lot of successful workaholics that are unhappy. On paper they have the economic ability to change their situation, but reality has more barriers.

Humans of all types are capable of depression, confusion, delusion, and disappointment.

Bob Iger did 6.30 AM to 4.30 PM as Disney CEO. And then another 8-10 PM. He says it gives him plenty of family and solitude time, but it makes me wonder what hours all the other CEOs do, especially the ambitious ones who neglect family.

it’s performative in many cases to set standards for workers who have less innate reason (no meaningful stake, stolen wages) to overwork

That’s interesting but I would say that being at the top of the capital hierarchy has no connection with loss of personal time. There’s plenty of people at the top of the capital hierarchy that don’t do anything at all. Or very little. I doubt Paris Hilton is up at 6 AM. Unless it’s to get hammered by some dude that she met at the bar.

I think linking capital to work as a correlation is pretty dangerous. That conversation will only lead to people realizing that they’re not paid according to the value they produce.

They’ll learn that they’re paid according to their ability to demand it. Soon after that, you have unrest. You have workers demanding unionization. Which is the correct answer.

There’s a heavy capitalism realist veil over most of the other comments in this thread. And this does come down mostly to control over one’s own time (you can see it even with the most workaholic CEOs, who on whim can veer off to fancies unrelated to their CEO role or for their personal benefit with ease when they have any need or want to)

This has heavy implications. For example, with the ability for the working class to protest anything; rich business owners are the only ones who can take days off for that without collapsing through meager safety nets

Agreed. I'm essentially out on the streets in a few months if I don't maintain in income. And that's a lot easier done with accumulated capital than it is by labor. Of course we could just chop the legs off many contrived industries like finance, and stop bilking everyone with usury, if we just realized the authority to mint money is the peoples to begin with. We could get loans from our own government. That would stop a lot of implicit or soft abuse.

One commenter said the trash man wants more money, but instead enjoys his weekends. I can't agree. He should be paid more. The books should be open, either through union power or worker's cooperative power. Taking out the trash is a valuable service, if no one does it, it's a pretty big deal very fast. That requires a form of solidarity between workers to exercise that power, but it's all about the trash man's ability to demand it. Employment is predatory if you examine the nature of the employer-employee relationship, and the goal is achieved because people are desperate. Including me, and I'm in software.

Your point about money buying back your time is an important one, because that's your freedom of choice. Freedom of choice does involve Pepsi vs Coke, but it more importantly involves how you spend a very short and finite life.

Simply put, my country (the US), needs more unions. It won't be perfect, no human endeavor ever is, but it will be better.

The downside would be worse if he had 8 children as a poor person. His parenting is due to his character not his wealth.

Can we not try and better society? It hasn’t always been this way.

That's why UBI was proposed.

Otherwise there's blocks of tribalism. Some workplaces are tribalistic - they actually do care for you like family once you get past the initiation rites. Most of it is replaced with faux tribalism though, to squeeze more out of some other party.

the refreshing and recent research from graeber/wengrow showed in detail how we don’t need to collapse back down to small tribal groups to support a healthy society (healthier in terms of freedoms I mentioned) at scale. their work should expand our imagination for future society by looking at what we were able to already demonstrate under similar in useful ways conditions in our past (post agriculture, in large society above dunbar number bs)

Why be sarcastic like this? This don't add nothing to the conversation here.