I stopped reading there. "You" did what? Is the author suggesting that "slackers" brought us the internet? It seems to me that a vast army of workaholic scientists and hackers of all types "brought us the internet", not a bunch of wannabe artists working part-time jobs at Starbucks.
Perhaps I'm missing the point of this article, but it seems overly loose and unjustified, and filled with fallacies. Freelancers aren't slackers, they work harder than people in regular jobs, in most cases. Hackers aren't slackers - they have many characteristics of slackers, perhaps, but if you get down to it, most of us are obsessive, driven workaholics - for the right work.
I think you are missing some nuances of what it means to be a Slacker. It's not just about work or non-work. It's also about a kind of passive, almost anti-social way of assigning a low value to things that most of society considers important.
I get the point about slackers bringing the internet. The internet may have been invented for "workaholic scientists" to scam more grant money out of DARPA, but it is what it is today due to the persistent, unstoppable, abuse of employer's computers and resources for non-work related activity.
It takes a slacker to show up to work early on Monday morning to use the faster internet connection to browse ebay.
If so much internet usage wasn't on employer's computers, there would less incentive to use javascript and AJAX, because it would be easier to get people to just install desktop applications.
"No respect for work and real estate or the value of a good pair of cufflinks... But now, in the cold glare of a recession, everything looks different: We've got no house to lose, no career to dash, no school-aged children in need of pricey Wii gaming systems."
Author makes some big leaps. He doesn't think that having high work ethic is a virtue regardless of what work he's doing... and he follows through with the logical non-materialism... and then, he's lucky he doesn't have kids, because you have to buy toys for your kids?
I think he was trying to drive home that he's a nonconformist, and nonconformity is looking a lot better right now than it did two years ago. Very true - but you don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
He makes one good point, and that's that they lived lives they could afford. When you waste money on frivolous things like replacing a car because it's 'old', even though not a single warranty has run out on the vehicle, is going to place you in a very bad position. I'm sure lots of people have lost cars because they missed a few payments and then all of the money they had put into it is gone too.
Personally, I aim to never 'finance' something, aside from the house I buy. I aim to never have credit card debt, that my cards are completely clean before the end of the month.
Another thing, I want to live a life where I can afford 100% of my life, that I don't have to rely on my wife to work so that on the chance one of us loses our job we don't have 50% of our expenses to cut, we only have 10-20%.
"The bubble has burst. We can no longer rely on consumption by refinancing our homes or inexpensive money to fuel economic growth, and that’s certainly had a huge impact..
In 1929, for example, just before the stock market crash, the private debt-to-GDP ratio was 160 percent. Last year, private sector debt as a percentage of the GDP: 300 percent; far more leverage. And you can see it’s been a steady increase basically since almost the end of World War II.
In my view, what we now have will be a fundamental economic reset. The economy is going to have to re-establish itself at a level of spending that reflects the real value of underlying assets before we can all start growing again at a healthy rate.
This may not be the thing that people really want to hear, but it’s certainly what we’re planning on, and it’s the truth on which we’re basing sort of our model, if you will, at Microsoft.
In our opinion, in order to reach the reset point, three things need to happen. First, the economy must be deleveraged. Private debt as a percentage of GDP has to be reduced. Restoring health to the nation’s financial system is a fundamental part of this."
Steve Ballmer, February 2009 Speech to Democratic Policy Confab
Yeah this is a great point and its a lesson the entire US economy has completely forgotten. The last decade - really the entire period after 1980 - is one big credit orgy. We really really really need to learn how to live within our means again and stop our debt-fueled overconsumption binge.
The last few years have been particularly disgusting. People competed to get ever-bigger and fancier houses, cars, and various toys that they really did not need.
Its time to start spending only what we earn as a nation, and individually.
It started out promising anyway. I was expecting a great piece on how living within your means and not trying to have everything all at once right out of college... but then he basically turned it into what you say: "neener neener neener I don't have a house to lose because I still live with my pizza delivery buddies!"
There is nothing wrong with prudent management of your money and the accumulation of wealth... the advantage that people that live within their means have right now is that they don't have cash-flow issues. Their lives don't depend on predictable steady cash-flow to the same extent as that prototypical American with the $22k in credit card debt.
The fact that most slackers tend to live within their means does not imply that most people that live within their means are slackers.
It would have been nice to see some facts or figures verifying that his anecdotal views accurately reflect some significant part of the "Gen X" population.
[+] [-] swombat|17 years ago|reply
I stopped reading there. "You" did what? Is the author suggesting that "slackers" brought us the internet? It seems to me that a vast army of workaholic scientists and hackers of all types "brought us the internet", not a bunch of wannabe artists working part-time jobs at Starbucks.
Perhaps I'm missing the point of this article, but it seems overly loose and unjustified, and filled with fallacies. Freelancers aren't slackers, they work harder than people in regular jobs, in most cases. Hackers aren't slackers - they have many characteristics of slackers, perhaps, but if you get down to it, most of us are obsessive, driven workaholics - for the right work.
[+] [-] RobGR|17 years ago|reply
I get the point about slackers bringing the internet. The internet may have been invented for "workaholic scientists" to scam more grant money out of DARPA, but it is what it is today due to the persistent, unstoppable, abuse of employer's computers and resources for non-work related activity.
It takes a slacker to show up to work early on Monday morning to use the faster internet connection to browse ebay.
If so much internet usage wasn't on employer's computers, there would less incentive to use javascript and AJAX, because it would be easier to get people to just install desktop applications.
[+] [-] robg|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lionhearted|17 years ago|reply
Author makes some big leaps. He doesn't think that having high work ethic is a virtue regardless of what work he's doing... and he follows through with the logical non-materialism... and then, he's lucky he doesn't have kids, because you have to buy toys for your kids?
I think he was trying to drive home that he's a nonconformist, and nonconformity is looking a lot better right now than it did two years ago. Very true - but you don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
[+] [-] electromagnetic|17 years ago|reply
Personally, I aim to never 'finance' something, aside from the house I buy. I aim to never have credit card debt, that my cards are completely clean before the end of the month.
Another thing, I want to live a life where I can afford 100% of my life, that I don't have to rely on my wife to work so that on the chance one of us loses our job we don't have 50% of our expenses to cut, we only have 10-20%.
[+] [-] wallflower|17 years ago|reply
In 1929, for example, just before the stock market crash, the private debt-to-GDP ratio was 160 percent. Last year, private sector debt as a percentage of the GDP: 300 percent; far more leverage. And you can see it’s been a steady increase basically since almost the end of World War II.
In my view, what we now have will be a fundamental economic reset. The economy is going to have to re-establish itself at a level of spending that reflects the real value of underlying assets before we can all start growing again at a healthy rate.
This may not be the thing that people really want to hear, but it’s certainly what we’re planning on, and it’s the truth on which we’re basing sort of our model, if you will, at Microsoft.
In our opinion, in order to reach the reset point, three things need to happen. First, the economy must be deleveraged. Private debt as a percentage of GDP has to be reduced. Restoring health to the nation’s financial system is a fundamental part of this."
Steve Ballmer, February 2009 Speech to Democratic Policy Confab
[+] [-] chadmalik|17 years ago|reply
The last few years have been particularly disgusting. People competed to get ever-bigger and fancier houses, cars, and various toys that they really did not need.
Its time to start spending only what we earn as a nation, and individually.
[+] [-] jff|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Xichekolas|17 years ago|reply
There is nothing wrong with prudent management of your money and the accumulation of wealth... the advantage that people that live within their means have right now is that they don't have cash-flow issues. Their lives don't depend on predictable steady cash-flow to the same extent as that prototypical American with the $22k in credit card debt.
The fact that most slackers tend to live within their means does not imply that most people that live within their means are slackers.
[+] [-] streety|17 years ago|reply
I wonder what he thinks of Tennyson.
[+] [-] jimbokun|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nihilocrat|17 years ago|reply