11 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2024
    1. "If I have nothing else to do then I write all day; in the morning from 8:30am to noon. Then I go for a short walk with my dog. Then in the afternoon I work again from 2pm to 4pm. Then it's the dog's turn again. Sometimes I lie down for a quarter of an hour.... And, then I usually write until around 11pm. I'm usually in bed by 11pm where I read a few more things."8

      Luhmann his output might be a result of his work ethic and routines. Attributing productivity merely to his zettelkasten is misleading. Also Chris Aldrich on The Cargo Cult of Zettelkasten https://chrisaldrich.wordpress.com/2023/02/03/a-note-on-the-cargo-cult-of-zettelkasten/

  2. Sep 2023
    1. In Protestant countries, such as in Britain, coffee was thought to have antierotic as well as mentally stimulating properties.[6] The idea that coffee would spur people into work and improve the quality of such work was highly compatible with the Protestant work ethic ideology. Free of sexual distractions and instilling asceticism, people could presumably live free from sin. It was seen as a positive alternative to alcohol, and Protestant visitors to the Ottoman Empire saw it as consistent was the Christian (Protestant) values of temperance and the Protestant work ethic.[6]

      Coffee as consistent with protestant work ethic

      • see coffee as source for flow (in combination with distributed cognition)
  3. Mar 2023
    1. wenn man Sethes Lebensprinzip kennt: "Ich arbeite nur, wenn ich mag. Aber ich mag immer arbeiten."

      Kurt Sethes' philosophy was encapsulated as "I only work when I like. But I always like to work." (Translation from German mine.)

  4. Dec 2022
    1. A final point regarding the myth of hard work and poverty is that this mythis particularly powerful because it implies a sense of justice and fairness. Thosewho do well in life through their hard work are seen as deserving, and thosewho do not do well in life through their lack of hard work are also seen as de-serving of their fate.14 There is something comforting about the idea that peopleget their just rewards. Unfortunately, neither the world nor poverty is fair. AsMichael Harrington wrote in his 1963 book, The Other America:The real explanation of why the poor are where they are is that they madethe mistake of being born to the wrong parents, in the wrong section of thecountry, in the wrong industry, or in the wrong racial or ethnic group. Oncethat mistake has been made, they could have been paragons of will and mo-rality, but most of them would never even have had a chance to get out ofthe other America.15
  5. Sep 2022
    1. Unemployed workers are much more likelyto fall into poverty in countries like the United States, Canada, and Japan,compared with countries such as the Netherlands and Iceland.

      Is part of this effect compounded by America's history of the Protestant work ethic (see Max Weber)?

      Do the wealthy/powerful benefit by this structure of penalizing the unemployed this way? Is there a direct benefit to them? Or perhaps the penalty creates a general downward pressure on overall wages and thus provides an indirect benefit to those in power?

      What are the underlying reasons we tax the unemployed this way?

  6. Apr 2022
    1. A common frustrating experience was associated with a poor work ethic and with some members who did not fulfill their obligations. Creating more work for the other members in the group is the direct consequence.

  7. Dec 2021
    1. we found this extraordinary paper from 1951 I think by Goldschmidt Walter Goldschmidt which nobody's read it has 00:29:14 got a very strange title something like a contribution to ethical and philosophical sociology or something which tells you very little about its content but it's about these Californian foragers who live next door to the 00:29:27 highly aristocratic slave keeping fishermen of the northwest coast and what Goldschmidt who was a student of Alfred Kroeber I believe the great sort of Dayan of 00:29:40 California anthropology what he argues there point four point is that these Californian hunter-gatherers actually had a kind of work ethic which is remarkably similar to what Max Weber 00:29:54 classically described as the Protestant work ethic of central and northern Europe

      Walter Goldschmidt had a 1951 paper about coastal Californian foragers next to aristocratic slave keeping fishermen. These hunter-gatherers apparently had a work ethic similar to that of Max Weber's Protestant work ethic.

      Did these fishermen have totem poles (aka decorated wood


      Goldschmidt was a student of Alfred Kroeber. Would he have known or worked with Milman Parry?


      Kroeber received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia.

  8. Oct 2020
    1. "Protestant" life of wealth and risk over the "Catholic" path of poverty and security.[8]

      Is this simply a restatement of the idea that most of "the interesting things" happen at the border or edge of chaos? The Catholic ethic is firmly inside the stable arena while that of the Protestant ethic is pushing the boundaries.

  9. Sep 2020
    1. Thus could Ken Copeland write in his Laws of Prosperity, "Do you want a hundredfold return on your money? Give and let God multiply it back to you. No bank in the world offers this kind of return! Praise the Lord!” In this mentality, tithing is a financially responsible thing to do. It’s a show of faith and a shrewd investment alike, a wager on the idea that God acts in the here and now to reward those with both faith and a sufficiently developed work ethic.

      And of course, if you're giving away 10%, you've got to work even harder to make up that initial loss!

  10. Feb 2019
    1. Reviving Work Ethic in America

      From the title of the article it's apparent that in the opinion of the author there is need for reviving work ethic in America.

  11. Jan 2017
    1. a number of studies have found that people on welfare, black Americans included, feel that people take advantage of the system and receive benefits when they should not

      Protestant work ethic shit, undermining social safety nets for all.