Design Against Productivity

palaces in time
designing against
productivity
Sebastian Deterding (@dingstweets)
MIT Advancing Wellbeing Series, November 24, 2015
c b

john maynard keynes
»Technological unemployment ... means in the long
run that mankind is solving its economic problem.
Thus for the first time since his creation man will be
faced with his real, his permanent problem – how to
use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to
occupy the leisure, ... to live wisely and agreeably and
well.«
economic possibilities for our grandchildren (1930)
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_17/b4225060960537.htm

http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/8344872@N05/5166095952

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/11/hyperemployment-or-the-exhausting-work-of-the-technology-user/281149/

http://www.strikingly.com/hibernate

henry david thoreau
»There are a thousand hacking at
the branches of evil to one who is
striking at the root«
walden (1854)

<2>
better calvinism
through technology

horatio alger
»Now, in the boot-blacking business, as well
as in higher avocations, the same rule
prevails, that energy and industry are
rewarded, and indolence suffers. Dick was
energetic and on the alert for business, but
Johnny the reverse. The consequence was that
Dick earned probably three times as much as
the other.«
ragged dick, or, street life in new york with the boot blacks (1868)

benjamin franklin
»In short, the Way to Wealth, if you desire it, is as plain
as the Way to Market. It depends chiefly on two Words,
Industry and Frugality; i.e. Waste neither Time nor
Money, but make the best Use of both. He that gets all
he can honestly, and saves all he gets (necessary
Expences excepted) will certainly become Rich«
advice to a young tradesman (1748)

max weber
»The peculiarity of this philosophy of avarice
appears to be ... the idea of a duty of the
individual toward the increase of his capital,
which is assumed an end in itself. Truly what is
here preached is not simply a means of making
one’s way in the world, but a peculiar ethic.«
the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism (1930: 51)

max weber
»If we thus ask, why should ‘money be made of men’,
Benjamin Franklin himself … answers in his autobiography
with a quotation from the Bible, which his strict Calvinistic
father drummed into him again and again in his youth: ‘Seest
though a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before
kings’ (Prov. xxii. 29). The earning of money is ... the result and
the expression of virtue and proficiency in a calling.«

max weber
»On earth man must, to be certain of his state of
grace, ‘do the works of him who sent him, as long
as it is yet day.’ Not leisure and enjoyment, but
only activity serves to increase the glory of God ...
Waste of time is thus the first and in principle the
deadliest of sins.«

max weber
»the state of grace ... could not be guaranteed by any magical
sacraments, by relief in the confession, nor by individual good
works. That was only possible by proof in a specific type of
conduct unmistakably different from the way of life of the
natural man. From that followed for the individual an
incentive methodically to supervise his own state of grace in
his own conduct, and thus to penetrate it with asceticism.«

enshrined in productivity apps …

“technologies of the self”

http://instagram.com/p/KTOGobADKa

learn to hack your own life …

crunch that crunch! hack that hackathon!

shred that fat! waste not a second!

burn that midnight oil, burn it!

win that game of productivity!

max weber
»Not leisure and enjoyment, but only
activity serves to increase the glory of
God ... Waste of time is thus the first
and in principle the deadliest of sins.«

gianpiero petriglieri
»The truly talented, we are told, flee
obligations to work themselves into the
ground. And yet they appear to love
opportunities to do so, if presented in the
guise of solving big problems, learning, and
pushing themselves further.«
is overwork killing you? (2015)

»I (Over)Work Therefore I Am. ... Work becomes a passionate
pursuit and a form of self-expression. In a workplace that has co-
opted the accoutrements of romance and religion, where CEOs
have visions and passionate managers are work martyrs,
productivity is not the only aim. Passion, after all, has no concern
for efficiency and martyrdom has never been about getting things
done. Both have always been about expressing virtue and devotion.
And people have long endured pains and trials to claim a valued
self, with the belonging and expression it affords.«

erving goffman
»Many gods have been done away
with, but the individual himself
stubbornly remains as a deity of
considerable importance.«
interaction ritual (1967: 95)

max weber
»Work hard in your calling. ... This peculiar idea, so
familiar to us to-day, but in reality so little a matter of
course, of one’s duty in a calling, is what is most
characteristic of the social ethic of capitalistic culture, and
is in a sense the fundamental basis of it. It is an obligation
which the individual is supposed to feel and does feel
towards the content of his professional activity, no matter
in what it consists«

<3>
calvinism
and its discontents

issue
#1
more productivity ≠ more well-being

issue
#2
more work = less well-being

longer work
hours
less productivity
more stress less time for
sleep
good food
exercise
positive experiences
socialising
family
less focus, critical
thinking, creativity;
more errors
more work-
family conflict
less well-being
metabolic syndrome
heart disease
weight gain
hypertension
sleeplessness
anxiety
depression
immune suppression
Perlow & Porter, 2009; Solovieva, Lallukka, Virtanen et al., 2013; Yamada et al., 2013; Bannai & Tamakoshi, 2014; Goh, Pfeffer & Zenios, 2015

longer work
hours
less
productivity
less well-being
what keeps this
engine running?

longer work
hours
less
productivity
less well-being
inequality &
precariousness
McNamara, Bohle & Quinlan, 2010

longer work
hours
less
productivity
less well-being
inequality &
precariousness what keeps this
engine running?
McNamara, Bohle & Quinlan, 2010

longer work
hours
less
productivity
less well-being
inequality &
precariousness
secular
calvinism
the alger myth

Implicit theory of social changeresponsibilisation of self

“when discipline is reinforced, revolution cannot fail!”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/small-
painless-behaviour-change
backgrounding systemic root causes

benjamin franklin
»In short, the Way to Wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the Way to
Market. It depends chiefly on two Words, Industry and Frugality; i.e.
Waste neither Time nor Money, but make the best Use of both. He that
gets all he can honestly, and saves all he gets (necessary Expences
excepted) will certainly become Rich; If that Being who governs the
World, to whom all should look for a Blessing on their honest
Endeavours, doth not in his wise Providence otherwise determine.«
advice to a young tradesman (1748)

longer work
hours
less
productivity
less well-being
inequality &
precariousness
secular
calvinism
the alger myth
what keeps this
engine running?

the capital sin of acedia
issue
#4

josef pieper
»At the zenith of the Middle Ages, ... it was held
that sloth and restlessness, ‘leisurelessness’, the
incapacity to enjoy leisure, were all closely
connected; sloth was held to be the source of
restlessness, and the ultimate cause of ‘work for
work’s sake’.«
leisure: the basis of culture (1952: 23)

josef pieper
»Acedia means that a man does not, in the last
resort, give the consent of his will to his own being;
that behind or beneath the dynamic activity of his
existence, he is still not at one with himself, ... he is
a prey to sadness.«

issue
#5
the death of imagination

ben horowitz
»Technology means ‘a better way of doing things.’ Making
a better way of storing information, a better currency, or a
better way of making friends means improving on
thousands of years of human experience and is therefore
extraordinarily difficult. ... The technology startup world is
where brilliant people come to imagine the impossible.«
can-do vs. can’t-do culture (2014)
http://recode.net/2014/01/01/can-do-vs-cant-do-culture/

marc andreessen
»The key attribute of disruptive innovation is a new
product for a previously underserved market – typically
cheaper than existing product. This is inherently pro-
consumer ... It’s about creation – new products, new
choices, for more people. ... Disruptive innovation shrinks
inequality, by bringing to lower-income consumers things
that only richer consumers had access to before.«
what disruption is really about (2014)
http://venturebeat.com/2014/12/02/marc-andreessen-teaches-startups-what-disruption-is-really-about-in-17-tweets/

»Seen this way, overwork is not defined by the
amount of our day work occupies but by the amount
of our selves tied up to it. We “over”work not when
we work too hard but when working becomes less of
a means and more of an end. When meditation,
exercise, sleep, holidays, and even parenting, are cast
as tools to make us better workers.«

josef pieper
»Is there a sphere of human activity ... that does not
need to be justified by inclusion in a five-year plan
and its technical organization? … Can man develop
to the full as a ‘worker’ and nothing else; can a full
human existence be contained within an exclusively
workaday existence?«
leisure: the basis of culture (1952: 19–20)

»If, then, there is some end of the thing we do,
which we desire for its own sake (everything else
being desired for the sake of this), … clearly this
must be the good and the chief good.«
Aristotle
nichomachean ethics (1.1094a)

»Now such a thing happiness,
above all else, is held to be.«
Aristotle
nichomachean ethics (1097b)

Not seeking pleasure & avoiding pain

εὐδαιμονία
Well-being, flourishing, the good life:
»the exercise of the rational faculties of the soul
in conformity with excellence or virtue, or if there
be several, the best and most final one.«
Aristotle
nichomachean ethics (1098a)

»If we understand the ergon of a human
being as self-concordance, then self-
knowledge and the perfection of the
analytic, navigational, and motivational
competencies (to realize it) are the virtues.«
Hope May
aristotle‘s ethics (2010: 148)

»It is clear that the virtues relating to
leisure are essential; since, as has
been said repeatedly, peace is the end
of war, leisure of business.«
Aristotle
politics (7.1334a)

josef pieper
»The point and justification of leisure are not that the
functionary should function faultlessly and without a
breakdown, but that the functionary should continue to be a
man – he should not be fully absorbed in the clear-cut milieu
of his strictly limited function; ... he should continue to be
capable of seeing life as a whole and the world as a whole;
that he should fulfil himself, and come to full possession of
his faculties, face to face with being as a whole.«

longer work
hours
less
productivity
less well-being
economic
precariousness
secular
calvinism
less time for
reflection

http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/geraldford/8468746385
athens was built on slaves

the political unconscious of technology criticism

longer work
hours
less
productivity
less well-being
economic
precariousness
secular
calvinism
less time for
reflection
less time for
political action

josef pieper
»‘Deproletarianizing’ would mean: enlargening the scope of life
beyond the confines of merely useful servile work, and widening
the sphere of servile work the the advantage of the liberal arts
[which are an end in themselves]; and this process ... can only
be carried out by combining three things: by giving the wage-
earner the opportunity to save and acquire property, by limiting
the power of the state, and by overcoming the inner
impoverishment of the individual.«

livingprinciples.org
where are our economic equality design principles?

where is the equitable proposition design template?

where are the campaigns that make worker rights sexy?

where are the financial innovation hackathons?

http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/geraldford/8468746385

http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/50879678@N03/8537472528

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ben30/3159380406

http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/chajms/21010

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanitas

speed up slow down
reduce seams interrupt
abundance constraint
behaviours Intentions
doing receiving
improve “how” ask “what for”

Marc Hassenzahl
»With an aesthetic of convenience, you
will never instil change. What you need,
rather, is an aesthetic of friction.«
towards an aesthetic of friction (2011)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehWdLEXSoh8

http://designinghappiness.wordpress.com/

http://kotaku.com/30-years-later-one-mans-still-trying-to-fix-video-gam-1490377821

What vision of
The Good Life
do you want to live?

sebastian@codingconduct.cc
@dingstweets
codingconduct.cc
Thank you.

Design Against Productivity

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