quacked an hour ago

I often think about how much human labor there is available at any given moment, and how in any minute some percentage of "available labor" is bound up doing something.

Back in the day, with billions fewer people, you could still bind up some percentage of available labor making beautiful gates for the coronation, or staging mock battles for the king as he passed. Today, I guess people make marketing copy for cat food and run professional sports. And yet a great many of us are still alive, having continued to survive despite our countrymen spending all their available labor on frivolity.

What percentage of that "available labor" is really truly usefully bound up in making sure we don't all starve to death, get violently invaded, or die of exposure?

I wish I could see what kind of society would appear if that pool of "available labor" was turned toward purposes I personally consider worthy--caring for the weak, erecting and protecting great monuments and cities and wild areas, etc. Obviously this has been attempted before in various different regimes--merely having full dominion over all "available labor" and turning it toward "worthy purposes" does not automatically create a great nation, as the USSR and China found out--but it doesn't stop me from wondering, if Man wasn't so busy making gates for the king or increasing user conversion from 17.805% to 17.873%, what would that society look like?

  • FabHK a minute ago

    [delayed]

  • techdmn 21 minutes ago

    Speaking as a U.S. citizen, I think the problem should not be approached as "stop people from doing frivolous things", but rather "government should fund the commons". Of course this doesn't make government perfect, but generally it appears to be the most successful way to achieve things like caring for the elderly and disabled, building monuments, protecting wild areas, etc. Turns out we do all these things to some extent, just not as much as some (myself included) might like.

    Which is to say, a well run society should have room for BOTH frivolity AND supporting the general welfare of its people. Perhaps our current troubles are the result of many people thinking that supporting the general welfare IS frivolous.

  • spencerflem 9 minutes ago

    Something like 30% of our GDP is advertising - a pursuit I’d claim not just worthless but actively making everyone else’s life just a little worse.

    Sports are part of what makes life worth living though :)

  • card_zero an hour ago

    Nobody knows what percentage. Besides, people want more than to be fed, sheltered, and protected from violent attacks. Undoubtedly they are often wrong and want ridiculous pointless things, but nobody knows exactly which things are the wrong things. That's why we have a diverse society of idiots, all trying different things.

    What intrigues me is that all of it is considered "economic activity", and counts toward GDP and is considered beneficial, even flower arranging and witchcraft accessories and cloud-connected sneakers. Somehow that assessment ends up being correct, because nobody knows for sure which parts are bullshit.

    • quacked 37 minutes ago

      I agree, but surely with some strict definitions, you could get within 5%.

      I am intrigued by the same thing you are. How does it all count as economic activity? What percentage of the flower-arranging has to be done to ensure that the medicine-manufacturing can be done? It's such an endless chain--"I pay the credit card fee on my purchase of custom stationary to the credit card company and the credit card company rolls it up in its revenue projections and forecasts a more profitable Q3 so their stock price increases so the portfolio-holding lenders are more lenient with their loan terms so Pfizer takes out a larger loan to build a factory in Bangalore to run the manufacturing lines..."

      If the custom-stationary buying stops, so does the factory-loan lending... and vice versa.

      • card_zero 2 minutes ago

        I'm trying to imagine the chain in reverse order, and without reference to money but just to things people want. So Pfizer has this idea to organize people to make more medicines. But this is slightly risky, because it's not a shoe-in that people want more medicines. So they need permission, and lenders can grant that, but only if the lenders' other, um, projects have been successful recently, which equates to "consumer confidence", and that is due to millions of flower arrangers (or equivalently frivolous businesses) successfully pleasing flower-likers. It seems to amount to: if people are generally making one another happy in small silly ways, they have the courage and imagination necessary to try doing bigger stuff. If not, they're all like "I didn't even get to see any pretty flowers this week, I'm in survival mode now", which means they aren't throwing much permission to do stuff (money) around, and consequently there's no will to try anything, and that's a depression.

        I note that Pfizer's new factory is a venture, and although it's medical it's debatably not necessary for survival: it's not part of homeostasis.

  • moffkalast 34 minutes ago

    About 1% of people are involved in farming, add a few more percent for food distribution, building maintenance and water bottling and you have your rough answer. Pretty much all of us are doing frivolous nonsense in survival terms.

    • card_zero 19 minutes ago

      [Something about supply chains.] Who makes bottles? Do the farmers have plows, or just pointy sticks? I guess it could look like the neolithic, if you allow them pottery, and that's a kind of survival, but do you also want to protect them from invasion and diseases? How much survival is the aim? Wouldn't science, and innovation, and creativity, help improve survival? So ... imagination? Comic books? Pets? Poodle manicurists? But of course survival ceases to be the main goal by this point.

rsyring 2 hours ago

How to enter a city like a king?

Humbly, on a donkey. As one who comes to serve instead of one who comes to be served.

What a difference from what we can expect from our current leaders, kings or king wannabees alike.

  • bigstrat2003 2 hours ago

    Yeah but they killed that guy later in the week, so one can understand why other kings declined to follow his example.

    • bombcar an hour ago

      Has someone run the numbers on how likely you are to be murdered/killed in war/assassinated as a King, historically?

      • CGMthrowaway 34 minutes ago

        > a statistical study of the demise of 1,513 monarchs in 45 European monarchies over the period 600 to 1800. It reveals that almost a quarter (22 per cent) of all royal deaths were bloody - accidents, battle deaths and killings - and that 15 per cent of all deaths were outright murder.

        https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/killing-kings

      • ctrlp an hour ago

        For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground

        And tell sad stories of the death of kings;

        How some have been deposed; some slain in war,

        Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;

        Some poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d;

        All murder’d: for within the hollow crown

        That rounds the mortal temples of a king

        Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,

        Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,

        Allowing him a breath, a little scene,

        To monarchize, be fear’d and kill with looks,

        Infusing him with self and vain conceit,

        As if this flesh which walls about our life,

        Were brass impregnable, and humor’d thus

        Comes at the last and with a little pin

        Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!

        Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood

        With solemn reverence: throw away respect,

        Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,

        For you have but mistook me all this while:

        I live with bread like you, feel want,

        Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,

        How can you say to me, I am a king?

      • churchill an hour ago

        Can't say for all monarchs through human history (nor is it even possible to), but for the Roman emperors, 70% died violent deaths via assassination (actual and suspected), execution, suicide, or being KIA.

        You had some particularly colorful episodes like the year of the four emperors where Nero's regional governors revolted and he committed suicide. Galba, a general, was declared imperator by his troops, only to be overthrown and killed by the Praetorians 6 months later.

        Otho seized power, but died by suicide after he was defeated by Vitellius 3 months later.

        Vitellius was declared emperor by his troops after defeating Otho at Bedriacum; held onto power for 7-8 months before being defeated & executed by Vespasian at the 2nd battle of Bedriacum.

        Vespasian seized power and had himself proclaimed emperor by his legions, reigning for ~10 years.

    • xandrius 2 hours ago

      Which guy?

      • bombcar an hour ago

        It's a reference to Jesus entering Jerusalem (Palm Sunday).

      • waisbrot an hour ago

        OP was alluding to Jesus

      • helloworld4728 an hour ago

        Jesus and Omar bin Al Khattab entered Jerusalem like that.

deadbabe 41 minutes ago

Don’t enter a city like a king, enter a city like Prince Ali.

martythemaniak an hour ago

Quaint. The modern answer is "in a fighter jet, dumping tons of diahrea on your subjects."

tooheavy an hour ago

Does anyone know the literature on adding people or individuals to groups, even an individual to a city? And the implications or outcomes of adding individuals of differing characteristics, potential for power, wealth, success, status, displacement, influence, or any number of other qualities, etc. I suspect this highlights fundamental elements of our social nature, our culture and societies, their values and problems. Maybe certain of those with power and influence will never want an honest and revealing evaluation on the matter, especially on specific entities.

  • dragontamer an hour ago

    Well this particular instance is about succession, the new king entered the city after the previous monarch died. London needed a new king so everyone was triumphant and celebrated the new replacement.

    This isn't quite what you are talking about at all. The number of rich people in this example decreased on a country wide scale, but simultaneously the Nobility system was basically founded upon familial-wealth / dynasty wealth, rather than any individual having wealth. So in the old system the haves-families always had wealth and the have-nots always will not have wealth.

    • chuckadams 44 minutes ago

      > everyone was triumphant and celebrated the new replacement.

      Well, except for the bakers dozen who tried to blow him up, but that was a couple years later.