Opinion | The Tyranny of Convenience (Published 2018)

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Remote Work (After 5 Years of Experience)

Learning about working from home and location independent lifestyle was a true pivotal moment for me. Before that, I didn’t think much about the concept of “freedom at work” or anything like that. And even though the concept was a bit far-fetched for me at the time, I realized that it surely was something that I would… Read More »The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Remote Work (After 5 Years of Experience)

Freedom Now | Polity: Vol 52, No 3

Left-wing politics is resurgent. Self-proclaimed socialists are unexpectedly popular. Proposals like universal health care are a commonplace of Democratic campaigns. But there is not yet a clear, unifying idea behind this political shift. We propose that that idea is freedom. While the left once understood freedom as emancipation from the economy, the right spent the twentieth century neutralizing and appropriating the idea of freedom by reinventing the economy as the true site of freedom. To reclaim freedom as a value of the left, we have to begin with the daily experience of most people: the unfreedom of the workplace. The authoritarian organization of work is not just an offense against freedom; it also helps us understand how freedom requires emancipation both from the economy and within the economy, and why that emancipation requires mass struggle.

Brett Scott (@brettscott)

Despite all the rhetoric about automation supposedly making our lives easier, the true story being told by Big Tech is that our lives are better when speeded up You are supposed to be in an ever-accelerating race, packing more units of experience into the same unit of time, a phenomenon that requires a contraction of patience and a blurring of experience as everything quickens In the end, this is what ‘convenience’ actually is. It’s a state of being in which you become disassociated and disengaged from the texture of the world around you. You pass through it dreamlike, and suddenly wake up decades years later as an elderly person on your deathbed, thinking “WTF happened”, as then the memory slips away

The solution to (nearly) everything: working less | Rutger Bregman

Excessive work and pressure are status symbols. But overtime is deadly. If we worked less we’d make fewer errors, address inequality and have a better life

Seven Takeaways on Convenience and News - Nieman Reports

In “Against Convenience,” Nieman Fellow Gabe Bullard delves into modern media consumption habits

It's the 21st century – why are we working so much? | Owen Hatherley

Owen Hatherley: The right calls for hard work, the left for more jobs. The dream of mechanisation leading to shorter working hours seems forgotten

Weaving freedom

On joy and heavy responsibility

On liberty

Introductory -- Of the liberty of thought and discussion -- Of individuality, as one of the elements of well-being -- Of the limits to the authority of society over the individual -- Applications; Book, leather; Explanatory note by H.E. Barker attached; 18

The Case for Lowering Your Expectations

It may be the key to happiness and sustainable performance

The Anti-Social Century

Americans are now spending more time alone than ever. It’s changing our personalities, our politics, and even our relationship to reality.

Getting Ahead By Being Inefficient

Inefficient does not mean ineffective, and it is certainly not the same as lazy. You get things done – just not in the most effective way possible. You’re a bit sloppy, and use more energy. But don’t feel bad about it. There is real value in not being the best.

Satisficing and the Use of Keyboard Shortcuts: Being Good Enough Is Enough?

Keyboard shortcuts are generally accepted as the most efficient method for issuing commands, but previous research has suggested that many people do not use them. In this study we investigate the use of keyboard shortcuts further and explore reasons why they are underutilized by users. In Experiment 1, we establish two baseline findings: (1) people infrequently use keyboard shortcuts and (2) lack of knowledge of keyboard shortcuts cannot fully account for the low frequency of use. In Experiments 2 and 3, we furthermore establish that (3) even when put under time pressure users often fail to select those methods they themselves believe to be fastest and (4) the frequency of use of keyboard shortcuts can be increased by a tool that assists users learning keyboard shortcuts. We discuss how the theoretical notion of ‘satisficing’, adopted from economic and cognitive theory, can explain our results.

The Human Condition: Second Edition

A classic work of political thought, more relevant today than ever The twenty-first century has seen a resurgence of interest in the political thinker Hannah Arendt, “the theorist of beginnings,” whose work probes the logics underlying unexpected transformations—from totalitarianism to revolution. A work of striking originality, The Human Condition is in many respects more relevant now than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the perspective of the actions of which it is capable. The problems Arendt identified then—diminishing human agency and political freedom, the paradox that as human powers increase through technological and humanistic inquiry, we are less equipped to control the consequences of our actions—continue to confront us today. This new edition, published to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of its original publication, contains Margaret Canovan’s 1998 introduction and a new foreword by Danielle Allen. A classic in political and social theory, The Human Condition is a work that has proved both timeless and perpetually timely.

The Inner Life of Liberalism - Aaron Ross Powell’s Blog

The practices that make your life better are the same ones that sustain a free society. It's time liberalism took that seriously.

Anarchy and modern convenience

A major part of anarchy and socialism is the concept of anti-work. An obsession with work is a colonial, patriarchal, and capitalist construct. As such, the anti-work movement—a focus on working less overall and sharing labor more equally—is an important part of decolonization, feminism, and anti-capitalism. A common criticism of this is that reducing the amount everyone works to something like 20 hours a week instead of 40+ means we would have to give up a lot of conveniences.