They don't understand. We built these machines so that we can work more.

This is what I mention when I'm covertly pushing "radical" ideas such as 4 day work weeks. We have all of these technological advancements - Why can't the workers see some of those benefits instead of them being funneled to the top in the form of extra profits?

The machine must be fed.
The goal was never leisure. The goal was always profit. And so we feed the profit machine, and when we run out of resources, we'll start throwing in sacrifices.
Because the machine must be fed.
- If chatGPT was marketed towards workers filing reports for idiot bosses that won’t know the difference it would have been made illegal within the month
- Who, funnily enough, seem able to take a day off whenever they like.
Stop pushing the idea of four day work weeks. Begin promoting the idea of three day weekends.
I bet you'll start getting different responses.
- Fuck that. 4 day weekends.
- Honestly I just like the idea of it because if someone decides they really want to grind for a bit they can now take up a second up to full time job without worrying about most of the shit employers will give you for that.
  What I think should be the standard is a "full time" job being 18 hours in a week of work time, including commuting, with any time above every additional multiple of 18 immediately paying out as 2.5x the pay that's been earned so far. Doesn't just give people their free time back in spades, it also significantly discourages extorting workers for overtime instead of staffing adequately because now it's literally more expensive to pay out any overtime at all than it would have been to just hire the additional worker at equal pay, and that effect ramps up exponentially too, by the time you're at the soul grind of a 40 hour week you've already tapped your employer so hard it would have been cheaper to hire 5 additional workers than it was to make you work that 40 hour week.
- My organisation does 4 day work weeks. But we chain our staff so only some of us have a 3 day weekend. My day off is usually either Tuesday or Wednesday (by choice, I could take Monday if I wanted).
  It works for me because I have a normal weekend with my friends and family to do weekend stuff, and then my day off doesn't really feel like a true weekend so I use it to catch up on errands, housework, medical appointments, etc. Meaning unlike most of my peers who have to do it all on the weekend, my real weekend is pure fun. I don't do any serious housework on my weekend, I have a weekday where I work on myself and my home.
You should focus more on the orgies and figs.
- Going to take this into account... I may have been approaching this the wrong way
Try 30 hour week. It's superior to 4 "days" of random length. I had a couple of Philippines based contractors on my team who had 4 day weeks, but they still needed to work 40 hours
We almost had a 4 day work week implemented at my job, but some Big Brain said "NO! We need to be shipping 5 days a week!"
90% of the time we don't ship things out on Friday...

Because the Greeks you hear about were the aristocracy. You don't hear how some estimates of the population breakdown were more than 80%-90% slaves.

Just like how you hear of the 300 Spartans, but not the several thousand Thebians, most of whom were slaves, who also defended the pass.

The machines were to replace the slaves.
- You mean to become the slaves. Viva la Robo-lution!
Not to mention all the thespians
- I think he meant Thesbians
cough helots cough

To be fair 1/3 of women don't die in childbirth, 1/2 of children don't die before they are ten, we have weed and booze they could never have dreamed of, freaken chocolate and aspirin, and you are highly unlikely to become a sex slave. It was paradise for a very small fraction of the population and rape/slavery/castration for the rest.

Still I could go for an orgy and some figs if anyone is in the mood.

But I'm still castrated and want to be a sex slave uwu
Still I could go for an orgy and some figs if anyone is in the mood.
Yeah, I'm down too.
weed
Weed is better today, but you wouldn't get arrested for it back then
chocolate
Ah yes, the industry that depends on child labor, human trafficking, and slavery...
aspirin
Chew willow bark
It was paradise for a very small fraction of the population and rape/slavery/castration for the rest.
Yeah, today you don't buy agrarian slaves, instead you just magically get cheap bananas, chocolate, oil, lithium, etc.
Out of sight, out of mind?

The Ancient Greeks weren't actively trying to turn the strawberries in your fridge into a SaaS subscription.

I am from now on referring to local produce clubs as "Strawberries As A Service". Thank you.
This actually points to the root of the problem. You couldn't do that kind of retail subscription nonsense in ancient times because the bookkeeping, identity management, and fraud prevention would have been a nightmare. Since we found out how to automate all of those problems away, here we are.
- Sort of, my point is really that there are new kinds of work that were not really conceivable at the time, most of which has no direct influence on whether you're fed, clothed, housed, and healthy. (Indirectly is another matter, North Korean's wisest minds centrally decide what really matters and look where that gets them... Not a 3 day work week)
Shit should be free, or cheaper at least, if you're poor, trying to draw blood from a stone is how the poor stay poor and the elite fall to pieces and lose their entire hierarchy

…and then ordering their slaves to bring them another flask of wine

Wait, weren't machines supposed to be our slaves?
- That's actually exactly why it took the Romans so long to technologically advance. "The slaves do the job well enough".
  The idea of water powered mills and general aqueducts were mind-blowing to them and took a while to catch on. It seemed utterly unfathomable when everyone relied so much on slaves
Dionysius liked your comment
- So you're saying we should have maenads chase them down in a forest, rip them apart by hand, and eat then?

And still half of us can't even afford figs

*probably way more than half
And there are five of us who can afford figs for everyone forever, but decided to use that money to lure underaged teens for orgy outside in some secluded islands.
- Sounds like a good bargain for figs! Where?

When I went freelance, it was hard not having a boss at first, now I'm totally into it. It took around a year for me to get everything to where I felt good about it. I think a lot of people don't realize that the uncomfortable feeling of not having a boss usually doesn't last forever. The people who liked working from home probably get it. We are taught to have bosses from a very early age.

Not having a more senior person to go to when you get stuck could be a problem.
- I always have Mr. Stackoverflow as my senior person.
  That is, until he slaps me in the face and tells me my questions are always repeated.
Also was a freelancer. I felt like I had more bosses. Instead of one person to keep happy it was an entire client staff to keep happy. I gave it up for a lot of reasons and went back to corporate.

I mean the rich people are eating figs, on their yachts, on their way to their winter home, to go skiing with their family.

Yeah..

But what about the orgies?
- Just like any other party, host it yourself
Or eating figs on their private plane on the way to an island for....an orgy ....

welcome to crapitalism

I mean, precisely because of that people indeed now do have fig orgies outside. Just don't count workers as people.

Fig newtons however
- Get your fig-newton-eatin-on.
Figs are way better than apples which are very popular for some reason. They're at least as tasty as a banana. I actually think the average fig is better than the average strawberry. Too many big bland strawberries.
Fresh figs are the okay-est.
Dried and preserved figs? Now we're talkin'.

capitalism, my comrade.

Tbh sounds like an improvement compared to their slave system
- It is but it still sucks.

WE BUILT THIS CITY

WE BUILT THIS CITY ON GRIM AND TOLL.

To be fair it’s like 30 degrees outside so the orgy might need to be postponed

That's what bath houses are for!
It's just a bit warm, have the orgy in the shade
- Set up a couple misters and fans and you're golden
- Interesting that you can interpret "30 degrees" in either C or F, and either way you wouldn't want to have an orgy outside.
What better way to warm up than being under a mass of sweaty, writhing bodies?
- Depending where you are 30 is either really cold or really hot.
Well its a bit warm but it should be fine.

They also had slaves to do the manual work 😬

I use.my machine that can do the work of 100 people to make shitty jokes online.

Okay I like my work, can I just do that instead of orgies?

What work do you do that's better than orgies?
- It’s nothing special I am just a nerd
- Do I get to select the people I'm orgying with or is it like dating where I'm mostly limited to options I don't find physically attractive?

... To be completely completely fair, the Greeks with power treated a substantial amount of their population as machines, forcing them to perform labor and submit themselves sexually to them, and presided over a system that might have actually viewed the eventual goal of society to be elevating the people of my City to not lives of indolent leisure & carnal pleasure through subjugating countless others...

I don't think the people can sustain it

If we weren't working what would we be doing

Having orgies outside and eating figs
- it says it right up there
- Booorrrrriiinnngg
Seriously? Art, fishing, playing cards with friends, travelling the world, visiting galleries and museums
Though there's a little truth in the saying idle hands are the devil's tools. There would be more vandalism too.

Meh. Figs are just digested wasps anyway

okay, but the orgy is still fine, isn't it?
- Orgies are just digested sea cucumbers anyway.
I remember hearing about a parasitic wasp in a fig but is it all figs? I like fig but I don't often buy it, this information inventivises me not to buy fig...
- To my understanding, they don't all contain wasps, and even the types that do have the wasp thing, any trace of a wasp will be long destroyed before the fruit is ready anyway
- FWIK it's all figs.
  For a relatively simple explanation. There is a male fig, which only produces pollen. This is what the female fig wasp wants to find to lay her eggs in. Now if the wasp were to enter a female fig by mistake, the pollen covering it since hatching would pollinate the fig, and the enzyme which the fig produces would kill and break down the wasp before it could lay any eggs. After which the broken down wasp would get completely absorbed to provide nutrients as the fig grows and matures.
  It's similar to how a plant's roots absorb compost, just without the help of bacteria to break things down
- Wait until you hear about sugar, and bread. And you think being processed will help? That's where the mammals start to come in.

Hey some of us still find time for orgies.. some of us are paid to do so. And figs are always delicious.