I'm not sure that this is truly so unpopular.

I mean, it'll be unpopular if you post that on bootlicker social. I mean LinkedIn.

Jokes on you, I am unemployed.

It's not that we're too busy. It's that we're too busy without purpose. What's the point of being busy when it doesn't proportionately translate to having our needs met?
We have more abundance than ever before in all of human history, and yet we work harder than hunter-gatherers just to feed ourselves, and we have less leisure time than they did. We work more hours per day and have fewer days off per year than medieval serfs. And for what? What's the purpose? So some asshole who was born on third base can buy another mansion?
- Thats our monetary policy. People must consume more every year to create more inflation, as technology actively reduces the price of goods.
  If goods get cheaper we have deflation, they create more money supply via lower interest rates, and the price of inelastic shelter gets bid up, and asset holders receive a value windfall until prices rise. Which is why we are at a higher price to income ratio than 2007.
  People born closer to the gold standard are richer, they got in when currency wasnt tethered to consumption.
- Exactly! I work in a group home, so my work is very easy, but I want to go into IT, so I can actually go into a field I love
- Preach.

I'm currently unemployed, and I was not expecting to be so busy. I thought I would have a little more leisure time, might be able to catch up on a few things that I never seemed to have time for, like catching up with family, playing some video games in my back log, and doing a small bit of travel. That hasn't materialized. It's like as soon as I stopped "working", more things came up that needed my attention. I'm basically busy from the time I get up in the morning until I wrap up for the night and veg out in front of the TV for an hour before bed. I swear I had more me time when I was working. Not sure how this happened.
- Would you mind sharing what kinds of things are taking up your time?
- This is common, it's because there was a huge backlog of things you just never got around to doing because you didn't have enough time. When you're working you prioritize some relaxing time because you have to go back to work soon. Now you have to do all the tasks you've stored up.

There is no reason why taxes pooled together from all of our incomes cannot be used to subsidize Healthcare, education and a basic living income for all citizens. But if everone no longer had to worry about survival, no one would put up with corporate abuse from rich cunts and plus if they'd paid their fair share of taxes and couldn't just steal tax money to gamble with, they'd never be as filthy rich as they are to begin with.
- Imagine not working and still being able to survive.
- taxes pooled together from all of our incomes cannot be used to subsidize Healthcare, education and a basic living income for all citizens
  Well that's how it's done in most rich and even some poor countries. So I assume you are talking about the US which is indeed in a terrible situation with human rights for it's wealth. And sadly voting red/blue won't ever change it.
  
  Not the basic living income part, at least not anymore.
  There is Social Security but it's generally pretty miserable and nowadays not even enough to pay for rent (thanks to insane housing inflation all over the place) plus most supposedly developed countries haven't been building much social housing in the last couple of decades (which is partly why the house price inflation is insane - less state built housing means less Supply but the Demand for new living places is still roughly the same).
  Neoliberalism has been exported from the US to even the most Developed nations out there and that's definitelly screwed up the Social Safety net (also Healthcare, even in countries without a national health service, as well as in some cases the quality of Education).
  Also even when things were at their best, there was always this coverage gap for the lower end of the working class: the poor were the ones helped by the social safety net and above a certain income point which was in the area of blue collar work, people could live a pretty decent life from working, but there was a segment of the working class with people having to work shit jobs, juggling multiple jobs and so one just to make ends meet and were the help from social security wasn't enough.
  Even in the best countries this gap has been made much worse by decades of Neoliberalism, both by shrinking even further down the social safety net coverage (to just the trully miserable) and because on the upside income growth didn't keep up with price growth so even parts of the middle class now have to work shit jobs and count their pennies to the end of the month.

I don't think it's the level of busy - for most of human history mere survival took a lot more time than it would take us today if we worked directly on actual survival. The problem is that we do the survival by working on too much irrelevant shit that enriches other people, who keep making our share less and less.
- From historical anthropology and studying modern hunter gatherer groups, I believe the current consensus is that these people work or worked between 20-30 hours a week. Please correct me if there is more recent information.
  
  By golly you're right, the consensus is that people in simple foraging societies worked about 6.5 hrs/day. Scholars seem to believe medieval peasants worked more like 8-16 hrs/day, depending on how long daylight lasted - but taking frequent rest breaks, festivals and other holidays.
  
  The key part is that there was a massive amount of plant and animal life, so there was plenty to forage. Like 80% of all life compared to 10k years ago is dead now and we just have scraps left now.

It's extremely unpopular in the American business world. This world is so fucked up on so many levels. People wonder how things can be so bad over here... This is a big piece of that puzzle, along with our terrible and underfunded education system, and our lack of affordable healthcare.
Just these three things are bad enough, but then there are so, so many more problems. The United States is a gilded dumpster fire we've somehow been convincing the world is a beacon of prosperity.
- The parts of the Nazi "economic recovery" from the Depression besides refusing to pay the rest of the Versailles debt and deficit spending financed by futures in tooth gold and slave labor was literally just making people work longer hours.

Yeah this is one of the reasons labor needs to organize.
There's one boss telling 500 workers that they all need to work themselves to death? Fuck that. We outnumber him. We could be productive without burnout and things could be fine.
- For anyone else reading this: you could be the one to make that change, and gain you and your coworkers better pay and time off.
  Seriously consider joining the IWW. They'll train you on how to organize your coworkers and form a grassroots union, no matter what your job is.
  
  Thanks for the recommendation. I am heartened by recent pushes towards unions. In particular, tech workers are beginning to understand that they are workers (as opposed to the narrative that tech workers exist at a level above the kind of people who need unions).
  I haven't heard of the IWW, but the website for the UK branch has the headline "Bigoted bourgeoisie courts never cared about workers, whether cis or trans" (regarding a recent UK supreme court ruling). I haven't read the article, but that headline has given me a strong first impression of these guys. They seem pretty based
- Unfortunately there is a pyramid scheme in place filled with fools that think they can become that one and are willing to fight against those "beneath" them.
  
  Under the table were the fatcats are sharing slices of the cake, squirrel the little mice living of the crumbs that fall down, and once in a while one of the mice catches a bigger crumb, proudly raises it above its head and shouts: "See, the System works!"
  
  True. There are also many idiots who think like, "I work hard and when I take a break it's well deserved. When they take a break, they're lazy good-for-nothings".
  There's a name for this I can't remember right now. Something more specific than "stupid" or "no empathy".
  
  "recursive bulling"

yea, "unpopular" because we're all indoctrinated from preschool onward that it's "natural" to be yanked out of sleep by an alarm, bust our asses to show up at work, move on to things at the sound of a bell for all the daylight hours, then get minimal, if any, sleep in order to do it all over again tomorrow. god forbid you get an opportunity for a nap in the middle of the day
thank the industrial revolution: slavery dressed up in "freedom and opportunity" -- same as the other familiar phrase "arbeit macht frei"
you exist to generate value for your owners. that's it.
- I worked 55+ hours a week for years. During the pandemic I became a stay at home mom. I suddenly, never sped while driving and any road rage tendencies vanished, nearly overnight.
  While I feel quite isolated and lonely sometimes, as everyone I know works and are busy all the time, I can't stress enough how much of a change my driving habits went through when I was no longer in "workmode".
  I used to break an average of 3 traffic laws every morning getting to my 6am shift. Then, the rush to just.get.home.
  To a point now, I don't like driving during rush hours, or shopping after the work crews get off. 10am on a weekday at the grocery store? Everyone is pleasant and polite."excuse me" I say, and we have a polite interchange. I'll give a compliment to a womans dress, and I've passed some good on to a fellow human, sometimes I even receive compliments from the little old ladies, I've learned from them after all.
  If I go to the shop after 4pm or on a weekend? I can feel folks souls have been ripped out and stomped on, knowing what they feel.. I say excuse me as i have to scoot pass their cart, and I don't even get a response just a glare. Then I return home sad.
  
  Work/life balance is crucial. Ideally, everyone should be guaranteed a healthy work/life balance, while still being able to live comfortably. With one job.
  
  i noticed a similar benefit to my mental state regarding the rat race. i'd been living in city/urban areas pretty much my whole life ~40 years. when i moved to a rural area and could travel 25 miles in 20 minutes instead of 10 miles in 45 minutes, the difference was indescribable. like 3 traffic lights instead of 12, people know what driving etiquette is, no road rage, etc.
  now, even when i occasionally approach the nearest "city," which is tiny by city standards, i feel the stress and irritability level rising right when i start to see more tail lights than road. it's insane. and people do this all day every day. fuck. all. that.

I think about this a lot. We have essentially, purely through accident tbh, created a society that we are evolutionary unprepared to live in. So much of our typical day to day is actually horrible for our bodies and often antithetical to their good function.
In a strange way, it's almost incredible. We have invented a rock that we cannot lift.
- That's because you don't lift the rock, you grind it. Try waking up earlier!
  (jk)
- Eh, agreed except it’s no accident. A small group of people have managed to convince everyone else to do all the lifting in exchange for crumbs and little green pieces of paper. We have allowed ourselves to become our own worst enemy rather than unite and explore the stars
- Competition is good for a lot of things, but it also becomes a day-to-day race to the bottom that rewards whoever is willing to sacrifice more of their life for the sake of their job than others.
  The logical consequence is exactly this: we back ourselves into an increasingly uncomfortable corner that leaves less room for living than we could easily enjoy with our current technology.
  
  Competition is essential in almost all (if not just all) human interaction, as its what pushes us to better ourselves and our species. healthy competition has rules in place that all parties know, and if someone is hurt or confused the competition is stopped to assess and adjust if needed, like sports n shit. We forgot to add that to the economy, whoops
- B-b-b-b greed is human nature!
  Yeah, go check out how any society outside of Europe worked before colonization. Winner writes the history!
  The colonists were able to easily defeat most of the natives by out-arming them. But does anybody ever stop to think about why none of these societies ever invented guns? 🤔
- I have a friend who is probably going to become a nun, and the place where she seems likely to join is a convent which has very little contact with the outside world (it's even on an island). It struck me that the monastic life seems like a pretty good escape from conditions that are objectively antithetical to humanity, especially if you're someone whose faith is already a huge part of how they cope with the world.
  Hell, I'd be tempted by it, if I had a compatible religious belief. Alas, I think that if I had a "vocation"^[1], it would probably require me to stick around and work alongside others who are trying to build a more humane world. I can't do much, but my sense of duty is greater than my desire to escape.
  [1]: As I understand it, "vocation" has a particular meaning for Catholics. Here's a definition I got from Google: "vocation in a religious context is how God calls you to serve Him in the world.". "Vocation" came up a lot when my friend was discussing her plans. Despite me being hilariously far from being a Catholic, the concept resonated with me — perhaps because I'd loosely describe myself as an agnostic theist. I don't believe in a God, per se, but the sense of duty I feel to things like Truth, Justice, Beauty etc. (all of which I feel the need to capitalise) — things which a more religious person might just call "God".

You can't just state facts and then call it an unpopular opinion for likes
- Is this your first day on the internet?
  
  no but I'm getting tired of this "unpopular opinion but I think the sky is blue" shit

I think this is accurate. We may be the most "intelligent" animal on this planet, but we're still animals. We've been pulled out of a natural order and forced into systems the worst of us came up with to keep said worst ones happy. At the exact same time we also have the capacity and potential to make this planet a habitable, utopia for all creatures, but those systems, man...
- Yeah, I feel this. We’ve been forced into a system that treat life like a nonstop grind instead of something we’re meant to actually live. Real connection got replaced by control. It’s crazy how unnatural all this ‘normal’ really is.

It's only unpopular for the 1% extracting wealth from the 99%
- Sort of, but there really are huge swaths of Americans that grew up learning about "work ethic," putting in those extra hours, etc... I still struggle to turn it off sometimes myself. And then have to learn over and over and over again that "put in extra unpaid work and it'll pay off" is horseshit every single fucking time and I'm a fucking idiot.

Especially in USA

As long as groups of people (states?) are locked in deadly competition, there can be no slowdown, anyone who does gets conquered or obliterated.

I'm so tired of working. I just want to live modestly in a bought off house but the ever inflating cost of living will make it an impossible dream.
- I retired from my software developer job right before COVID hit, bought a very small (and very inexpensive) fixer-upper house for cash, and started driving a school bus. I make like 1/5 as much as I used to and I'm as happy as I've ever been in my life. I work less than five hours a day and I have a big break between my morning and afternoon runs so I can ride my bike, have a leisurely lunch and a nice nap in the middle of my day. If the school board would just take my suggestion to send all the middle-schoolers to the Antarctic for three years, my life would be perfect.
  
  I'm in a similar job but I only bought my house about 2 years ago. The mortgage is ridiculously high even for my salary. If things are already tough for me, I'd hate to think how the average person can afford basic necessities. Good on you for being able to buy a cheap house though, I wish that was an option for me.
  
  Yes I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter please and thank you.
- Nancy Birtwhistle has some great books that can help a bit with the cost of living. They include recipes for your own cleaning products and toiletries. It's only a few £s here and there but they start to add up into some real savings, plus you get the benefit of knowing exactly what's in your products, peace of mind from potential health effects, as it's all vinegars, citric acids, and alcohols instead of (to the layman) mystery chemicals.
  And to save even more money they are available on the high seas, although she's put considerable care and attention into them so I've purchased the real things. But for getting started, they are available is all I'm saying.
  Obviously that doesn't help with buying a house or anything as they're crazy prices everywhere but it'll save you on your shopping bills each week at least.

Humans used to have a much more direct connection between what they did and their survival. Gather enough food and you won't starve. Keep an eye out for other tribes/clans/families competing for the same resources and you don't get killed. Processing TPS reports all day doesn't seem like it does much of anything even though it gives you money. We've lost the connection and our brains can't handle it.
- So modern life is simulating an impending death scenario for the brain. All the time.
  
  That actually makes a lot of sense. Like the panic that occurs when layoffs happen.
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation
- If your work isn't mentally stimulating, then get another job that is.
  If you're being complacent then that's up to you.
  I flat out tell my employer to automatise the monkey work because I'm not doing it adequately.
  If you want me to perform, make the work release dopamine etc when I competitively complete it.

For many of us not working full time could mean the death or ruin of us and our family. That degree of anxiety allows for abuse in the work hierarchy, and I think this is at a minimum something we need to work to improve for everyones sake. Regardless of your work effort do you want to be around people scurrying around for no other reason than that they fear death or crippling debt? It doesn't bring out anyone's best.

Some people basically hibernated in the past. Slept for most of the day in winter to conserve energy(ignore the part where they slept a lot because they were hungry, we have food).
Modern "work ethics" is a scam.

This would be terribly unpopular on LinkedIn.
- Gotta keep up that 24-7 365 grindset.

Look at any other mammals our size.
Specifically other primates and great apes.
They lounge in heards and eat plants.
- Some of them fart 100s litres every single day. Fucking legends.
  
  Once saw a gorilla shit a log as big as my head and then fling it ~30ft into a window that a family was viewing it from
  Absolute legends

Humans weren't "meant" for anything. Your particular sub-brand of cell clumps just failed to go extinct fast enough, so now here you are.
- I think you’re agreeing with the premise without realizing it. We weren’t meant to have the norms and expectations that society places on us to just survive. We’re not expected to just retain homeostasis and survival, part of that has been predicated on your “personal productivity” towards the systems that we live under. Access to community and group resources is something we’re made to seek out, but it’s been blocked behind paywalls and monetary requirements effectively.
  
  No, I'm not.
  We're not expected by whom? Weren't meant by whom?
  Who's doing the meaning and the expecting and the making?
  Even beyond the weird metaphysical and iusnaturalist implications, this train of thought is how you end up with people drinking raw water and eating just boiled meat. We weren't "made" to seek out community any more than we were "made" to not have antibiotics or die from appendicitis. Stop it.
- Humans weren't "meant" for anything.
  Hi, it's me, the creator. Your purpose is to create entertaining content, but your output has been slipping lately. You live in a simulation created by my multiversal corporation, which didn't meet growth expectations this cycle, so we'll be making some cuts to your simulation's fidelity — just a few fingers and toes for now. Try refocusing your civilization on pumping out Boss Baby movies (they're very popular here!) and we can talk again in 172 of your years.
  
  This is how I know you don't exist.
  I've been delightful.
- So true! If you are too depressed to have any offspring you simply quit the game of evolutin and the world goes on. Delicious, delicious nihilism. Keep scrolling ;)
  
  Hey, not thinking you're railroaded by some higher power into having kids or whatever else is not nihilism. You just do what you wanna do, man, nature and fake deities can't stop you.
  But if that's nihilism and you're cool with it, nature can't stop you from doing that, either.

Completely accurate.
Historia Civilis has a fantastic video on how conventional working hours have changed over recent history.
- I've only gotten one minute into the video and already it's hit me with truth.
  I'm a sahm, used to work in manufacturing. I enjoy keeping house, ..mostly. The beginning of the video it's stated in the stone age, people would usually have one day of heavy work, followed by a day of less work.
  When I'm left to my own devices on planning and keeping house, this is exactly how my days go. I clean like hell for one day or do an outdoor project, and the next, I just do the bare minimum, maybe a load of dishes and a meal that requires more effort, but nothing else. I thought it was just part of my neurodivergencies. But I really do enjoy working in this manner. I actually get to enjoy the fruits of my labor for a minute.
  Maybe thats what humans are missing, basking in a job well done is important to keep us motivated imo
  
  The "neurodivergent" are just people who don't vibe with capitalism btw

I'm depressed if I'm not
- Yeah there's something to that. Like I feel as though we should always be doing stuff but not what it is that we're currently doing?
  Like, we should be waking up and having tea with our neighbors or helping out in our communities and stuff .. perhaps just building, planting, fixing things that we'd like? I don't feel as though we should be fighting deadlines constantly.
- Me too. I enjoy my job, and I'd do it for free if I wouldn't need money for almost everything, from my daily commute to breakfasts that both guarantee I can work at all. My paycheck is ignorant of this secret taxation.

I mean, historically, the majority of humans were meant die shortly after being born, with women dying in childbirth, and men dying young in wars. Those that lived those parts may have died from malnutrition or diseases/injuries today that are annoyances instead of being fatal.
- With current use of antibiotics in farming; disease and injury will soon be very fatal again. At least we can hope for a reset of the infinite growth issue.
- The world did indeed used to be a brutal place. I guess I'm trying to understand what conclusion you're trying to draw.
  
  The OP picture says "humans were never meant to be" something. That language suggests that either we're biologically designed to be something else (which I don't think that person was saying) or that human society was designed to support something better that is less anxious or depressed. I'm pointing out (not too seriously) that that isn't the case either and that prior human societies were actually "designed" to be far far worse.
  Realistically no one designed anything, so I'm having a lighthearted poke at the premise of OP's picture.

Stress causes burnout. That's something else.
Depression is when you don't do anything. You won't be "too busy". You're not even leaving your bedroom.
Anxious people can't handle stress.
- Depression isn't only "when you don't do anything." That's one of the forms severe depression can take, but it's better generalized as persistent lack of positive emotions and/or motivation resulting from decreased brain activity in key areas
  Also people diagnosed with anxiety can "handle stress," just not to the level demanded by modern society without significant impairment and distress
  
  Nah we cannot handle stress. The difference before and after anxiety medication is tremendous. I went as far as having stomach damage from anxiety. Losing 20 kg because the anxiety kept worsening the condition. Trust me, we cannot handle stress.
  Depression's enemy is serotonine and dopamine. If you aren't stuck in your room, then you're able to workout. Able to get going. It doesn't feel like life's worth living at those moments. Life's on a pause button. But once you get that energy surge. Grab it with both hands and make sure that the motor doesn't stop running.
  Medication against depression is basically the same thing as you get from being active.
  I took Amisulpride for a while against depression after losing the 20 kg, then now am on 10 mg sipralexa. I feel 0 depression whatsoever. Quite the opposite. I have too much energy.
  never going back to anxiety disorder, it has nothing to do with the amount of work. It's just how my brain is wired. I'm very productive right now because I'm not anxious.

That's a pretty fucking stupid take, our ancestors had to be busy all the time just to survive.
We are living in a time of 24/7 news and access to way too much information that's a way better explanation.
In fact I even like the explanation of anxiety being a result of abundance of calories more than this shit. That theory posits that our brains can go into overdrive simply because it has access to so many excess calories whereas in the past it didn't.
There is also the move towards white collar work, work that's not physically demanding, that we didn't evolve to deal with. Try going to the gym/exercising regularly and you will notice a significant drop in anxiety even on your worst days.
- You are 100% correct.