Tag Archives | Boredom

Time Wars

Picture: Alan Cleaver (CC)

Science fiction is tackling the issue of economic inequality using the metaphor of rationed time and mortality. Radical blogger and professor of ‘cultural analysis’ Mark Fisher doesn’t see this as too far from the truth.

His writing examines autonomy, workerism, post-Marxism, post-Fordism, punk, post-punk, neoliberalism, new atheism and anarchism. As fear of losing one’s job, debt closing in, mortality, apocalypse, the devastating end of capitalism or Malthusian collapse tick away in our background, all of us feel that constant tremor, further emphasized by the endless updates to our devices, making us addicted to our own anxiety. Society stalls and experimental innovation is crushed under the systemic pressure of time constraints. As he writes:  “Given all of this, it is clear that most political struggles at the moment amount to a war over time.

Via Gonzo Circus:

For most workers, there is no such thing as the long term.

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Is Your Job So Boring It’s Killing You?

Bored PrincessLondon researchers studied 7,524 civil workers, and concluded “those who report being bored are more likely to die younger than those who are not bored.”

Severe job boredom made them 2.5 times more likely to die of cardiovascular disease, and this article argues chronic boredom also “lures desperate humans into ‘make-me-feel-alive’ behavior like over-eating, alcoholism, sex addiction, drug dependency, smoking, self-mutilation, off-road racing, fist-fighting, pathological gambling, and vandalism…”

There’s also a helpful list of the most boring cities, books, and jobs, plus the countries where you’re most likely to commit suicide. It’s the #1 reason people oppose immortality, according to one survey, but fortunately, this article predicts boredom will vanish in the future — “especially after all redundant work is performed by robots.” Still, if you get bored while reading this, click away to safety!

“I don’t want your death on my conscience.”… Read the rest

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