[Music]
what do you do it’s a harmless enough
question it’s one we face all the time I
hate it I hate it largely because I have
no idea of what I’m doing but what
didn’t eat are any of us doing the theme
today is momentum and I’d like to start
off by acknowledging that momentum
sounds like a great thing but it isn’t
inherently so is after all possible to
achieve a great momentum as you sprint
face-first into a brick wall
so what are we using our collective
momentum in a dove
well one mammatus thing is that we’re
working more than ever we were also
working harder than ever we’re 60% more
productive than we were just three
decades ago so we’ve amassed a great
amount of wealth which is a great
benefit but there’s an equivalent cost
and what I want today is for all of us
to reflect upon whether we think that
that benefit is indeed worthy of the
cost and I don’t come to this by being
some high altruist reflecting on the
glory of our species I come to it
because I’m around during the day and I
am bored dead bored there’s no one
around I could walk my dog within the
shadow of this nation’s Parliament
without encountering a single soul
typically the only people you find out
in the day are women with babies where
are all the men is there a war on
critically why wasn’t I invited even
then the women you do find are typically
clad in active we’re jogging the pram
maybe got a podcast in the ear and it
looks very much to me like everyone’s
trying to eat every inch of value out of
every minute of their precious maternity
leave why should this be the case well
it could be that we’re working harder
than ever because we love our jobs more
than ever
I’m not convinced that that is the truth
and I think one clue is in the language
that we use we talk about
I hate Monday we start our week with a
ashen-faced I hate Monday then we grip
our way white-knuckle over hump day on
our way
hallelujah thank God it’s Friday thank
God but we invented the days of the week
if they’re not serving us surely we can
reinvent them they’re not a law of
nature after all and why why should this
be the case well we also talked about
taking a Mental Health Day it’s a
familiar one you say you want to take a
mental health day your friend will often
look upon you sympathetically yes it’s
so important you must take care of your
mental health as though we tacitly
understand even worse except that good
mental health is somehow fundamentally
incompatible with our daily lives we
talk about a getaway oh I love nothing
more than just to be able to jump on a
plane roll out on a beach and just get
away from it all it all being what
exactly our entire lives the aggregate
of every decision we’ve ever made
everything we’ve built that’s what we
want to get away from madness the unions
of old fought for eight eight eight
eight hours of work eight hours of
leisure and eight hours of rest but it
seems to me to be a bit of an unfair
trade because not all hours are created
equal we spend the best eight hours at
work then the sixteen that remain to us
here are largely spent in a frozen
hellscape
it’s all very reminiscent of beyond the
wall in that show that everybody’s
watching except we’re not out there
beyond the wall because we get home
we’re so tired we pour ourselves into a
glass of wine because we need to relax
why because we’re drinking coffee all
day and of course it’s incomplete
idleness that we’ve been doing this so
we then go to the gym burn out something
and by the time we get home we’ve only
got a couple hours to just bliss out and
watch that show that everybody’s been
watching and I think it’s telling that
the dominant art of our time Game of
Thrones is one that feeds us on a diet
of hyper-stylized sex violence and human
conflict things that are tellingly
absent from our daily lives and I think
that we’re consuming more about
identities because we have less and less
time which brings to mind another term
retail therapy we’re working harder and
harder try to toil endlessly with a
fearful eye on an insatiable future and
it may feel like it’s always been thus
but it actually hasn’t it’s relatively
recent for our species this phenomena
and more and more thinkers identify one
turning point as responsible which is
incredibly one of our greatest
achievements settled agriculture because
once we settled down and we could
accumulate wealth on this spot well
there was always something more to do
always more work to do always some some
soldiers to send out and accrue more
wealth to defend our something to do
constantly busy in fact Jared Diamond
described settled agriculture as a
catastrophe from which our species has
never recovered strong words from a very
clever man how might this catastrophe
cast a shadow into our own life well for
mine I believe that it’s in this
artificial time deficit that we all
experience many bizarre here will be
familiar with Jevons paradox Jevons
paradox posits that the more efficiently
we’re able to use a resource
the quicker we are to deplete it so if
you think of something like petrol
our cars are maybe twice as efficient as
a generation ago that doesn’t mean we
use half as much petrol we’re using more
oil than ever I think that this
intellectual toolkit can be applied to
time in our lives we’re never been more
able to access information contact
friends be productive and yet we seem to
feel shorter and shorter on time it’s
not just in phenomena such as our
increasing work hours it’s also present
in things like a reduction in
volunteering rates which are down
significantly even just from five years
ago
we are a status motivated hierarchical
species and I believe that the answer to
that question what do you do the noun
that we give in response is so powerful
that it can guide our entire lives in
directions in which we may were
otherwise not wish to have gone take for
example someone who identifies as a
creative now they may not relish drawing
up steel production reports for a
company all day as long as I can go home
with wouldn’t rimmed glasses and outfit
from Gorman and the title of graphic
designer suddenly its are much easier
cross to bear
similarly if you reflect on someone who
spent years studying ecology well they
may be outright conflicted when it’s
their job to produce the report that
green lights the bulldozer that clears
yet another swamp and pushes yet another
set of species closer to extinction but
this dissonance is far easier to pave if
they’ve got a card in their pocket that
says environmental consultant it’s in
the name it must be environmental this
phenomenon is never more telling for me
than when we look at our school levers
the decision kids make when they’re
leaving schools very indicative
theoretically if you’re the top
achieving student you get the best
grades you should be able to choose from
the entire pantheon of human activity
whatever you desire should be able to be
yours how sadly telling it is that our
top school leaders instill instead
choose from a very narrow bandwidth of
the courses for which their grade
qualifies them not being one who wants
to waste their score you can see that
there’ll be those in your own lives it’s
not yourself who is pursued a perhaps
prestigious discipline such as law
without any primary interest in it
and this decision that we make is an
under stress ill-informed
seventeen-year-old can inform our whole
lives because of our inability to
navigate and I like natural cognitive
resistance to sunk costs you could see
how like well I got the grade I should
do the course well I got the course I
should do the job
oh well I’ve been here for ten years I
worked very hard to be where I am I
should continue doing listen to the best
that I can perhaps never taking a
gateway to reflect that you may have
been happier the whole time just
learning to plant a garden or sail ships
and of course the inverse is true
depending on your social expectations
and isn’t that ultimately what all this
toil is for the pursuit of some nebulous
concept of happiness
well increasingly the more we understand
about happiness the less it seems to
resemble how we structured our modern
work lives is it any wonder then that we
are wading through a mental health
crisis many things are innate to
everyday species experience until recent
history are removed from us for example
exercising through nature hanging out
with friends spending all day in your
closest moments with your dear family
pursuing exciting sexual encounters
mastering a skill these things are
increasingly divorced from if not
explicitly forbidden from our daily
working lives I’m not saying that the
work that we do is useless obviously a
huge amount of it is obviously a huge
amount of it is incredibly vital i’m
just asking us to reflect upon whether
we think the role of work in our society
and how we’re doing it is designed to
benefit us or if the benefits that we do
get are commensurate with the cost of
we’re paying and perhaps you can conduct
a little experiment in your own life
maybe go down to a three-day week six
hour a day come hang out with me in the
sun and buy tickets to my shows at night
thank you
you
you
what do you do it’s a harmless enough
question it’s one we face all the time I
hate it I hate it largely because I have
no idea of what I’m doing but what
didn’t eat are any of us doing the theme
today is momentum and I’d like to start
off by acknowledging that momentum
sounds like a great thing but it isn’t
inherently so is after all possible to
achieve a great momentum as you sprint
face-first into a brick wall
so what are we using our collective
momentum in a dove
well one mammatus thing is that we’re
working more than ever we were also
working harder than ever we’re 60% more
productive than we were just three
decades ago so we’ve amassed a great
amount of wealth which is a great
benefit but there’s an equivalent cost
and what I want today is for all of us
to reflect upon whether we think that
that benefit is indeed worthy of the
cost and I don’t come to this by being
some high altruist reflecting on the
glory of our species I come to it
because I’m around during the day and I
am bored dead bored there’s no one
around I could walk my dog within the
shadow of this nation’s Parliament
without encountering a single soul
typically the only people you find out
in the day are women with babies where
are all the men is there a war on
critically why wasn’t I invited even
then the women you do find are typically
clad in active we’re jogging the pram
maybe got a podcast in the ear and it
looks very much to me like everyone’s
trying to eat every inch of value out of
every minute of their precious maternity
leave why should this be the case well
it could be that we’re working harder
than ever because we love our jobs more
than ever
I’m not convinced that that is the truth
and I think one clue is in the language
that we use we talk about
I hate Monday we start our week with a
ashen-faced I hate Monday then we grip
our way white-knuckle over hump day on
our way
hallelujah thank God it’s Friday thank
God but we invented the days of the week
if they’re not serving us surely we can
reinvent them they’re not a law of
nature after all and why why should this
be the case well we also talked about
taking a Mental Health Day it’s a
familiar one you say you want to take a
mental health day your friend will often
look upon you sympathetically yes it’s
so important you must take care of your
mental health as though we tacitly
understand even worse except that good
mental health is somehow fundamentally
incompatible with our daily lives we
talk about a getaway oh I love nothing
more than just to be able to jump on a
plane roll out on a beach and just get
away from it all it all being what
exactly our entire lives the aggregate
of every decision we’ve ever made
everything we’ve built that’s what we
want to get away from madness the unions
of old fought for eight eight eight
eight hours of work eight hours of
leisure and eight hours of rest but it
seems to me to be a bit of an unfair
trade because not all hours are created
equal we spend the best eight hours at
work then the sixteen that remain to us
here are largely spent in a frozen
hellscape
it’s all very reminiscent of beyond the
wall in that show that everybody’s
watching except we’re not out there
beyond the wall because we get home
we’re so tired we pour ourselves into a
glass of wine because we need to relax
why because we’re drinking coffee all
day and of course it’s incomplete
idleness that we’ve been doing this so
we then go to the gym burn out something
and by the time we get home we’ve only
got a couple hours to just bliss out and
watch that show that everybody’s been
watching and I think it’s telling that
the dominant art of our time Game of
Thrones is one that feeds us on a diet
of hyper-stylized sex violence and human
conflict things that are tellingly
absent from our daily lives and I think
that we’re consuming more about
identities because we have less and less
time which brings to mind another term
retail therapy we’re working harder and
harder try to toil endlessly with a
fearful eye on an insatiable future and
it may feel like it’s always been thus
but it actually hasn’t it’s relatively
recent for our species this phenomena
and more and more thinkers identify one
turning point as responsible which is
incredibly one of our greatest
achievements settled agriculture because
once we settled down and we could
accumulate wealth on this spot well
there was always something more to do
always more work to do always some some
soldiers to send out and accrue more
wealth to defend our something to do
constantly busy in fact Jared Diamond
described settled agriculture as a
catastrophe from which our species has
never recovered strong words from a very
clever man how might this catastrophe
cast a shadow into our own life well for
mine I believe that it’s in this
artificial time deficit that we all
experience many bizarre here will be
familiar with Jevons paradox Jevons
paradox posits that the more efficiently
we’re able to use a resource
the quicker we are to deplete it so if
you think of something like petrol
our cars are maybe twice as efficient as
a generation ago that doesn’t mean we
use half as much petrol we’re using more
oil than ever I think that this
intellectual toolkit can be applied to
time in our lives we’re never been more
able to access information contact
friends be productive and yet we seem to
feel shorter and shorter on time it’s
not just in phenomena such as our
increasing work hours it’s also present
in things like a reduction in
volunteering rates which are down
significantly even just from five years
ago
we are a status motivated hierarchical
species and I believe that the answer to
that question what do you do the noun
that we give in response is so powerful
that it can guide our entire lives in
directions in which we may were
otherwise not wish to have gone take for
example someone who identifies as a
creative now they may not relish drawing
up steel production reports for a
company all day as long as I can go home
with wouldn’t rimmed glasses and outfit
from Gorman and the title of graphic
designer suddenly its are much easier
cross to bear
similarly if you reflect on someone who
spent years studying ecology well they
may be outright conflicted when it’s
their job to produce the report that
green lights the bulldozer that clears
yet another swamp and pushes yet another
set of species closer to extinction but
this dissonance is far easier to pave if
they’ve got a card in their pocket that
says environmental consultant it’s in
the name it must be environmental this
phenomenon is never more telling for me
than when we look at our school levers
the decision kids make when they’re
leaving schools very indicative
theoretically if you’re the top
achieving student you get the best
grades you should be able to choose from
the entire pantheon of human activity
whatever you desire should be able to be
yours how sadly telling it is that our
top school leaders instill instead
choose from a very narrow bandwidth of
the courses for which their grade
qualifies them not being one who wants
to waste their score you can see that
there’ll be those in your own lives it’s
not yourself who is pursued a perhaps
prestigious discipline such as law
without any primary interest in it
and this decision that we make is an
under stress ill-informed
seventeen-year-old can inform our whole
lives because of our inability to
navigate and I like natural cognitive
resistance to sunk costs you could see
how like well I got the grade I should
do the course well I got the course I
should do the job
oh well I’ve been here for ten years I
worked very hard to be where I am I
should continue doing listen to the best
that I can perhaps never taking a
gateway to reflect that you may have
been happier the whole time just
learning to plant a garden or sail ships
and of course the inverse is true
depending on your social expectations
and isn’t that ultimately what all this
toil is for the pursuit of some nebulous
concept of happiness
well increasingly the more we understand
about happiness the less it seems to
resemble how we structured our modern
work lives is it any wonder then that we
are wading through a mental health
crisis many things are innate to
everyday species experience until recent
history are removed from us for example
exercising through nature hanging out
with friends spending all day in your
closest moments with your dear family
pursuing exciting sexual encounters
mastering a skill these things are
increasingly divorced from if not
explicitly forbidden from our daily
working lives I’m not saying that the
work that we do is useless obviously a
huge amount of it is obviously a huge
amount of it is incredibly vital i’m
just asking us to reflect upon whether
we think the role of work in our society
and how we’re doing it is designed to
benefit us or if the benefits that we do
get are commensurate with the cost of
we’re paying and perhaps you can conduct
a little experiment in your own life
maybe go down to a three-day week six
hour a day come hang out with me in the
sun and buy tickets to my shows at night
thank you
you
you
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