A gem from Paul Milne! How basically worthwhile and "real" do you think your job is?

DIVISION OF LABOR

From Paul Milne:

"For the most part, in the past, if you did not work, you did not eat and therefore, survive. Much of what is 'called' work today, is not. All manner of frivolous occupation is passed off as 'work'. They are not employed in ANY occupation that is directly involved in the things of living. Digging up bones in South Africa is not work. Slapping labels on raspberry mineral water in bottles with hand-pleasing shapes is not work. Playing basketball for the NBA is not work. Starring in a movie is not work. Slathering cream cheese on a six-dollar bagel is not work.

"Only a very tiny percent of our population is involved in the actual work of living, that is, the ESSENTIAL component of agriculture. In 1820, more than 70% of the labor force worked on the farm. By 1900 fewer than 40% were engaged in agriculture. Half a century ago...more than half the population had shifted from the production of goods to the production of services.

"It was the destabilization of the depression that utterly changed the landscape to an interest to ensure the 'consumption' of goods as opposed to a concern for their production. This is the only reason that alleged 'growth' has been so important to what passes for modern 'economics'. Today, over 70% of the population is involved in the production of 'services'. Less than 30% is involved in the production of goods and less than 3% are involved in agriculture.

"When times get really bad, we will have no use whatsoever for the 'services'. There are countless millions and millions and millions of people, in this country alone, who do no essential work of any kind at all. They are employed in the 'services'. When the technology fails and people have to resort to actual work, they will find they are skill-less. Intuitively, you understand this. Many pollyannas have even come out and said that the third-world countries will be less affected by the consequences of Y2K. Why? Because they have a much higher proportion of people who actually do work.

"When the companies begin to go belly-up, millions will be displaced. They will find that for every available 'real' job there will be hundreds of takers. People who have skills like plumbing, welding, carpentry will have a high demand for their services while the frivolous 'laborers' like advertising executives, tax lawyers, movie moguls, employees of Disneyland and Sea World, antique store owners and interior decorators, personal shoppers, fashion models, party planners and data entry operators will be shit out of luck. Multiple millions will find themselves 'unemployed' as if they were 'really' employed in the first place in anything other than the production of 'whatever' for mere growth-oriented consumption; production for consumption's sake alone, not because any of it is integral to or necessary for living."

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-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), January 05, 1999

Answers

Ever been in a Third World country? Lots of people make their living by "not working" if the definition of work is that narrow. They cook at the marketplace, sell candy, matches, shoelaces, shoeshines, carry people's groceries for them, cast 'spells', make moonshine, run brothels, raise coca (as in cocaine- in large portions of the Andes, that is the only cash crop, and usually grown more than food), weave, make toys and jewelry, give tattoos, take dictation.....and on and on

-- Maria (encelia@mailexcite.com), January 05, 1999.

You have to understand the mindset of Paul Milne and his agenda to make any real sense of what he says. To Paul, Road Warrior sustenance living is good. Progress is bad. Societies where 90% of people are farmers are good. Progressive societies are bad. He offers much criticism of what is wrong, but few solutions. As a matter of fact, his only solution is to bug out to escape the chaos he seems to so religiously hang on to. Even though, during the worst depression, unemployment was only about 25%, he fantasizes about 97% unemployment where only a few farmers and plumbers will succeed.

Paul Milne would try to tell us all what is integral or necessary for living. In his little world, if we all lived on farms in grass huts, that would be a good thing.

Paul, and others in his ilk, love to exaggerate and create chaos. It's hard to believe, as serious as Y2K is, that the actions of fanatics could cause more problems than the actual problems that will arise from bad code itself. However, sad as it may seem, millions of freaked out paranoids scurrying the back woods with their rifles and anti-everything agendas could prove to be more disruptive than the problem itself.

Y2K has become a cult of its' own in some circles, not the least with the Paul Milnes of the world. Y2K is no longer a problem to be handled with them, but rather a pawn in their quest for the destruction of the fractional reserve banking system and western society in general. Everything is evil it seems except their narrow worldview. They thrive on forums like this, where they can be worshipped by their equally depressed manic-disciples.

-- Fred (ffurlong@safb.mil), January 05, 1999.

Whoa, I don't know where you came from Fred, but you sure hit the nail on the head.

-- General Pollyanna (general@pollyanna.us), January 05, 1999.

I actually agree with Fred, to some extent. He's got a good point.

-- Leo (lchampion@ozemail.com.au), January 05, 1999.

To his credit, Paul Milne makes some good very points and comes up with stuff few of us would even consider, but in fact, ARE worth consideration. The developed world largely IS configured as he describes, and, come hard times, many will suffer, depending upon how hard those times become. People's complacent assumptions will turn on them. To some, the hyperbole masks the message, to Paul the hyperbole IS the message.

On the other hand, Paul's delivery could use some work. You can gain someone's attention by tossing acid in their face, but you won't get much of an appeciative response, even if the acid helped them to duck an oncoming bullet.

The narrow view of things expressed, in this case "work", simply paints one as stupid, argumentative, and/or extreme. And we've seen enough of Paul's "work" to know he's not stupid.

So what's he about? Paul obviously wants a reaction and goes to extremes to get it, even at the expense of losing an audience. Why does he want a reaction? My best guess is he's trying to wake people up -- people that, to his taste, are far too complacent. Once that's accomplished, maybe the remnants of the message might sink in.

-- Nathan (nospam@all.com), January 05, 1999.

You have to understand the mindset of Paul Milne and his agenda to make any real sense of what he says.

Yes, you do. My mindset on this issue is that God ordained that man would earn his living by the sweat of his brow. That means actual work.

To Paul, Road Warrior sustenance living is good. Progress is bad. Societies where 90% of people are farmers are good.

Yes, that is exactly what is good, because it is whta was ordained by God. But man and apparently you, in your omnipotence say that what God has said is good is not good.

God Ordained that man live by the sweat of his brow in order to eat his bread. Man, knowing Oh so much better than God has circumveted that and has called it being 'progressive'.

Progressive societies are bad.

Always the things that go against what God has ordained are called 'progressive". God is a just a stick in the mud that does not like 'progressive" things.

He offers much criticism of what is wrong, but few solutions.

One solution would be for folks like you to dry up and blow away.

As a matter of fact, his only solution is to bug out to escape the chaos he seems to so religiously hang on to.

Perish the thought that those who still remember God are doing wrong.

Even though, during the worst depression, unemployment was only about 25%, he fantasizes about 97% unemployment where only a few farmers and plumbers will succeed.

No, it was less than 15%, but if you knew the facts then you would not be spouiting off like an idiot as usual.

And when Y2K hits you will find an ocean of unemployed. Do you want to know why little Freddy is so upset about that. Ask him what he does for a living . LOL LOL LOL LOL

Paul Milne would try to tell us all what is integral or necessary for living. In his little world, if we all lived on farms in grass huts, that would be a good thing.

Yes, that would be a very very good thing. The fact that you don't UNDERSTAND why, is only a function of your ignorance.

Paul, and others in his ilk, love to exaggerate and create chaos.

The principle way that those of 'my ilk' do this is to write anything at all and it is transmogrified by people like this goon, Fred.

It's hard to believe, as serious as Y2K is, that the actions of fanatics could cause more problems than the actual problems that will arise from bad code itself.

Yes the actions of people like you who have not prepared, the fanatics of inactivity WILL indeed cause the greatest problems.

However, sad as it may seem, millions of freaked out paranoids scurrying the back woods with their rifles and anti-everything agendas could prove to be more disruptive than the problem itself.

Really? How so? If I am on my farm, minding my own busines, raising my own family, having supplied myself so as to be no burden on any one else in society .... how is that creating ANY kind of disruption at all, you flaming damn asshole?

Is that 'fraked out? Or is that calm cool collected and well prepared?

Y2K has become a cult of its' own in some circles, not the least with the Paul Milnes of the world. Y2K is no longer a problem to be handled with them, but rather a pawn in their quest for the destruction of the fractional reserve banking system and western society in general.

ROTFLAMO Today I will conquer my ten acres in Cody virginia tommorrow THE WORLD BWAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHA!

The first accusation of any moron against that which hoes not like is that it is a cult. If he doesn't like asparagus the vendor of those stalks is a satanic pusher of hollandaise sauce.

Fred you are such an asshole that it is not even funny. You are a paranoid maniac.

Everything is evil it seems except their narrow worldview.

The last resort of the idoloters and the God haters is that those who still love God are haters of society with a narrow world view.

They thrive on forums like this, where they can be worshipped by their equally depressed manic-disciples.

Freddy, you are not going to be around much longer. Say good bye to all your friends.

-- Paul Milne (fedinfo@halifax.com), January 05, 1999.

Actually, General, Fred apparently comes from Schriever AFB, home of the 50th Ops Group (among others.)

So, Fred, you involved with Y2K work there? Maybe Milstar or Navstar? Be good to hear how the Air Force is doing in your neck of the woods.

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), January 05, 1999.

Leska, by Paul's definition, both your job in hospice care and mine in a Sleep Disorders Clinic are not-work. The reason for the division of labour was to get more accomplished, whether that 'more' is worthwhile or not is a matter of priorities. There are few on this forum who believe that our priorities are going to be unchanged as we enter the next century. While I disagree with Paul's definition of work, he does make a good point about the availability of many jobs if TEOTWAWKI comes as expected. While I feel that improving the quality and quantity of peoples' lives is worthwhile, it is all too likely that immediate survival will become a greater focus than longer term survival, or quality of survival.

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), January 05, 1999.

Humm. Unless it's body sweat, it's not work.

Most of us focusing on Y2K have brain sweat. Does that count?

Over the millennia, it appears that a goodly number of people, found ways to adapt to changing times and situations. I suspect they'll manage it again. Better prepared this time around. With more lessons learned, or not.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), January 05, 1999.

Since I am the person who extracted Milne's words from c.s.-y2k and incorporated them into the current issue of The Contrarian's View, I hope you will all click through the link and read my opinion on the subject, which includes some rather depressing math.

Because Paul Milne is so plain-spoken and has a knack for getting right to the point, I frequently quote him, even though I don't always agree with his point of view. Or perhaps, more accurately, I should say I find it very difficult to cut through the obfuscation and lack of news on Y2K progress to be able to project just how much remediation will be accomplished and whether it will be sufficient for an outcome other than TEOTWAWKI as he expects.

This Milne passage is posted on Gary North's website, and this has resulted in a lot more traffic than usual to the main web server, which is only a poor (Y2K-compliant) 486 PC running the Xitami server software, and it freezes frequently under the heavy load. If you can't get through, try the backup copy at nick.assumption.edu, or the mirror site, www.fiendbear.com.

-- Nick Chase (nick15@eve.assumption.edu), January 05, 1999.

Substitute "the party" for "God" in Milne's social vision, and you pretty much have a replay of Pol Pot. Only agarian "work" is acceptable.

-RC

-- runway cat (runway_cat@hotmail.com), January 05, 1999.

Nick Chase,

Love your site!

The only issue I have with your latest Contrarian View is what appears to be an assumption based on the Jones' "completion" metrics. 85% Y2k complete for an enterprise means 15% failures, but not necessarily 15% critical failures. And, not incidentally, I found the Capers Jones study to be among the few truly quantitative, rational assessments concerning Y2k, to date.

If the "right" 85% is fixed, the remaining stuff may or may not be all that problematic. So, extrapolation of these numbers into usable failure rates is a bit dubious, if not premature. One would hope that a given company would be able to skew their efforts into concentrating on those modules that are, in fact, critical to their survival, producing much better remediation accuracy.

Unfortunately, for many latent remediation efforts, we have already seen the status degenerating from fixing "all" the systems to fixing the "mission-critical" systems. So, depending on how "mission-critical" mission critical is within these enterprises, a 15% failure rate might, indeed, equate with 15% critical failures. I'm just not so sure that, at this time, that conclusion can be applied across ALL enterprises.

Nathan

-- Nathan (nospam@all.com), January 05, 1999.

Nathan,

The math is rather simplistic, in that it assumes equally-probable failures for equally-important components. Of course, real life is not so obliging, and I made the point primarily to demostrate that the odds for failure of the whole are greater (much greater, for many systems) than of any individual component. As for "mission-critical", if the components are mission-critical, then the organization will go belly-up; if they're not mission-critical, then there will be overall failure but the organization will (presumably) survive. None of this addresses whether manual work-arounds are feasible (though if they are, I would assume a component failure is then not "mission- critical", by definition).

I used Capers Jones' 85% figure (for the U.S.) as an approximation, because it's the only quantitative estimate I've seen. Even so, C-J's estimates are based on figures self-reported by the cooperating companies - no verification - and I, personally, have doubts the "fix rate" will be that high.

At any rate, if Y2K repairs are going along swimmingly, by mid-1999 we should be seeing thousands of Y2K warranties being issued weekly, or at least thousands of "we're done!" press releases. If they're not forthcoming, then you will know we're in deep doo-doo.

-- Nick Chase (nick15@eve.assumption.edu), January 05, 1999.

Nick wrote: At any rate, if Y2K repairs are going along swimmingly, by mid-1999 we should be seeing thousands of Y2K warranties being issued weekly,

This seems unrealistic to me. Why do people keep insisting on guarantees like that ? Current software is not "warranted" for anything. There will always be bugs in software, how and why should anybody warrant it ? However, just because it isn't warranted doesn't mean it cannot limp over the finish line, as our current crippled-but-functioning software demonstrates daily.

-RC

-- runway cat (runway_cat@hotmail.com), January 05, 1999.

Here is food for thought, written circa 1925:

But there is another strong objection which I, one of the laziest of
all the children of Adam, have against the Leisure State.  Those who
think it could be done argue that a vast machinery using electricity,
water-power, petrol, and so on, might reduce the work imposed on each
of us to a minimum. It might, but it would also reduce our control to
a minimum. We should ourselves become parts of a machine, even if the
machine only used those parts once a week.  The machine would be our
master; for the machine would produce our food, and most of us could
have no notion of how it was really being produced.  A free man would
rather be a peasant rising at dawn to put more work on his own field.

The full treatise is at:

The Ideal of a Leisure State

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), January 05, 1999.

Warranties will be issued because the lawyers and accountants AND CUSTOMERS will be demanding them. Otherwise, the companies will have to issue Y2K-non-compliance warnings, or they will be sued when their systems fail. Schools of lawyer sharks are out there, circling for the kill.

-- Nick Chase (nick15@eve.assumption.edu), January 05, 1999.

Besides which, software packages sold to large companies ARE warranteed as SERVICEABLE (-2) and ABLE TO PERFORM TO THE BID SPECS.

You WILL see the Y2K warantees issued. CR

errr- at least all the ones WE bought were.

-- Chuck, night driver (rienzoo@en.com), January 05, 1999.

Runway Cat: Re: replacing "God" with "The Party" = Pol Pot worker's paradise (except for the 2 million starved or executed workers , I suppose) all I can say is, in my best Sam Kinison voice: "Gooood answer. I like the way you think. Have to keep my eye on you." from "Back to School" with, of course, Rodney Dangerfield

-- YourFullName (email@ddress.com), January 05, 1999.