Things you wouldn't admit in real life part 2

[TwinklyFawn]

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I think AI in some professional contexts is a massive accident waiting to happen and my organisation has not done the work to protect against that. It’s seen as a tool for efficiency and everyone has it as an explicit objective to use it as much as possible. It’s going to result at some point in some kind of fuck up.

I don’t think they have given a thought to ethical issues like energy use or what it does to the workforce and the junior pipeline (not just our industry but in general). The use of AI in creative contexts is an act of theft from human creatives in my opinion and there should be thought given to the future of creativity and human social and artistic endeavors and networks.

I have asked senior people what policies and documentation exist around these things and have had angry brush offs.

if I speak up further about this I will not progress and may lose my job. I will change jobs when I can but in the meantime the situation makes me feel anxious and guilty.

I don’t mind whacking the odd query into Claude but this - all this stuff at work - is very worrying

But you're still economically inactive while young and healthy, right? And taking money out of the public purse via the state pension but not generating taxes or productivity, even though you're young and healthy. What if everyone did that?

I think that’s a bit harsh, it’s younger economically inactive people who are milking the country, not those who have worked 3 jobs so they can retire a little earlier

I think those are pretty usual views and not surprising.

you are forgetting the fact that my money is flowing out to businesses. I don't call that being economically inactive. Everybody who has disposable income and spends it is keeping companies in business and people employed.

Yeah, maybe. I've just watched the older generation in my family be thoroughly self-indulgent - you know, gold-plated lump-sum final-salary pensions, and they benefited from low house prices when they were starting out in the Sixties, and no uni fees for their kids plus grants for them. And I don't think they worked harder than my generation - quite the opposite. House prices were such that a family house could be bought on one salary, so one person could stay at home, and jobs were much less stressful than today.

So yeah, the thread is about things you wouldn't say out loud, and my issue with people who have long, early retirements while still in great health is mine!

Also, this working multiple jobs thing is a red herring. We all have the same amount of time in a week, it doesn't matter if your long hours are spread between three jobs or you just work long hours at one. I also don't believe the PP's claim about working 15 hours a day, 7 days a week for a length of time that would make a difference to when you could retire. There would be no time to shower, do laundry, have meals, ever watch a TV programme or see a friend. It's just nonsense.

You just sound bitter and resentful. Put your energy into improving your own lot, not bitching about other people.

Not everyone who has a well-thought-out opinion has it because of bitterness or resentment, you know. As for bitching about other people, did you not read the thread title? This is for things you wouldn't admit to in real life. And sorry to disappoint you, but I'm ten years into my dream job and doing just fine. The fact is, there are a lot of healthy people who choose to become economically inactive early in life, which does society no favours. We already have too many unproductive people. Perhaps you're one of them, to react so rudely and personally?

You'd have even more disposable income to give businesses if you had a job - AND you'd be generating taxes and productivity as well!

I don't think anyone in good health should be allowed to retire before 70. When I'm Queen for a day....😂 Exceptions to be made for anyone who has health issues and anyone who has ever had cancer.

We bought our first house in the early 70's. I know this is going to sound like living in a box and licking the road clean but it wasn't cheap compared to what we earned. We had furniture basics (god bless MFI) and our wedding present saucepans china, bedlinen and cutlery. I am not going to give you all the tiresome Hovis ad details, but that was it.....oh and plastic laundry baskets to store our clothes in. I don't see how you can be so confident that jobs were less stressful? Yes my late husband retired with a final salary pension, part of which I inherited but by god he sweated to earn it and he put every penny of additional contibutions in that we could afford....oh and I get taxed on it. I do sympathise with your feelings but I am challenging the veracity of your observations.

I do generate tax, I pay it on my pension.

And another one.

Re retired people, if you go out and about midweek the main people spending and keeping the economy going are retired people. The economy would collapse without them

Oh, MFI! God, that's a blast from the past. I'd forgotten all about them.

It just seems that many people back then had 9-5 jobs, a family house on one salary, job security - you stayed at one place for forty years and then got a gold watch on retirement - and work did not bleed into evenings and weekends.

I haven't thought about it in as much depth as you suggest; they're just feelings I've had as I watched the older generations in my family, and this thread is for things you wouldn't admit out loud, so...

All four of my grandparents had retirements of quarter of a century, but they did live through two world wars and came from dreadful poverty. They also didn't indulge themselves with endless travel. Their children, my late parents and my aunts and uncles, didn't have such long retirements but went on truly endless long holidays for YEARS. I could never do that. I'm British but moved to the US in my early thirties for lurve, so have been there for many years now, and I do think the sheer number of holidays the British take is a disgrace. That's any age, not just retirement. British people, it seems to me, just don't want to work, whether that's taking early retirement while in great health and travelling all the time, or taking as many holiday as possible at any age. It's probably why our output is so low compared to other countries. We are lazy, that's what it comes down to.

You're nuts. I intend to retire at 50, 55 at the latest. I don't owe the country my labour, I pay my taxes and that's that.

True, but it's not retired people I object to per se, it's the ones who retire early in perfect health and then go on to laze about for thirty years!

Not true as you get people who work on weekends or part time shopping during the week.

It's absolutely none of your business. None. And if you live in the US, you have bigger problems than people half a world away retiring early. Good lord. I think this has to be one of the most moronic takes I have ever seen on this site, which is really saying something.

Well, you kind of do owe society your labour, morally speaking. Imagine if everyone said that! And you're a part of society. Surely you want decent hospitals and schools and provision for people who actually are too old and/or ill to work? Those things have to be funded by taxes, so the more taxes that are generated, the better.

Britain's workers are low-productivity. It's embarrassing. British workers produce $52,500 per year compared to American workers, who produce $75,500.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/britain-is-falling-behind-the-us-and-productivity-is-largely-to-blame/

Britain is a low-wage, low-productivity economy, and early retirees (who have no excuse like health issues) do not help.

But it is my business. It's the business of anyone who is a part of society. See my post above. Britain is a low-wage, low-productivity economy, so we need all the taxes we can get. I'd like to move home, but when I look at how my salary would be cut in half, I can't.

Maybe you could write to the London School of Economics and tell them that their research about Britain's low productivity is moronic?

And please remember that this thread is about the things we wouldn't say out loud.

I've watched family members spend YEARS gallivanting off on endless holidays, perfectly healthy although retired, and clearly set for retirements of thirty years duration, while Britain sinks to the bottom of the league tables, and I find it galling. I have the right to that opinion. There's no need to be so rude. And obviously it's not all the fault of early retirees. But they don't help matters.

sorry but there is a generation who’ve retired early at our expense. They may think they earned their pensions but actually if it’s defined benefit (which no one my age will get) that’s cash extracted (because the pension fund is contractually obliged to) that leaves a liability that has to be backfilled. By workers who won’t get a sniff of anything similar. I don’t mind people not working as a lot of work is made up bullshit. I do mind having to pay for extravagant lifestyles of the non- working. Why should people my age be hostages to fortune, only allowed to extract from what’s left after everyone else had had their greedy sticky little fingers in there, and those a bit older just pull out cash that isn’t there to live extravagantly off for decades?

@Horsie I’m retired early (was 57 at the time), don’t get my old age pension for another 5 years so I’m not getting any money from the government. I pay tax on the pension I worked 39 years for. The way I look at it is that my job went to a younger person who needed it, if everyone worked til 70 there would be no jobs for 20 somethings. I know quite a few people my age who could afford to retire but keep on working to splurge money on holidays and cars, I actually think they are crazy to continue working and should make way for someone younger who genuinely needs the money.

I had three abortions due to tokophobia and severe anxiety.

Quite. I'd much rather my taxes went to the provision of schools, hospitals, mental-health services, and the support of vulnerable and/or old people who cannot work, than to funding early retirements - meaning retirements of quarter of a century or more!

When this lot have had their paws in the honeypot for so many decades, there'll be none left for us!

But if more people worked, and retirements that lasted for twenty years or more weren't a thing (unless you have bad health), then in theory the economy would expand and there would be more jobs for everyone, no?