A World Without Slack

Code for Pizza

There is nothing I’d rather do than give up this day job with $BIG_COMPANY and survive on my writing while I whiled away the days trying to learn to code to maybe build an app that I want. Apparently (according to a thread on Twitter) startup businesses require passion and if you’re not willing to code for pizza then you’re not showing passion. And not showing any balls.

That’s shite.

I can’t do this because I have responsibilities. I have a mortgage, kids to feed, a house to run. It’s just not an option. And the answer I get? Rent! WTF? Have you seen the prices of rental properties these days? You might as well pay a mortgage because at least then you have a long term gain in equity.

This very interesting post highlights the issue of the way the world has changed since the early 1960s.

Back then, it was entirely possible to step on the bottom rung of the Life Ladder -- rent an apartment and become an individual -- with a low-level job, like cashier or stock clerk or office filing clerk (yes, there were such things once!).

Today, that's next to impossible.

As he notes, rents are just about the equivalent of mortgage payments -- with the bonus of possibly having to deal with a Nazi landlord who believes he or she can prohibit pets, visitors, smoking, etc.

Society has gone from one in which slack was plentiful to one where slack is altogether gone. It's been exterminated.

Is it greed that's done that? Are the right-wing fringe correct that government deficit spending has pissed away the value of our money and devalued it to the level of toilet paper? What explains what has happened?

The latent paranoid-conspiratorial part of me says this is the way They (whoever they be) want it. As pointed out here, in a different context, it's Feudalism 2.0.

Eejits such as Tom Wolfe can delude themselves into thinking we can sustain what's going on for centuries, but I don't think so. People are cranky not because of their personality or termperament (like me!) but because they feel The Squeeze, daily, moment-by-moment. They have had their ability to enjoy life drained away from them. They can feel that they're all on a treadmill they never chose -- or expected -- and one false move can mean losing everything.

This can't be sustained. Something is going to give.