The Hard Working Paradox

Consider this in regards to the best way to advance.

Some people work harder than others.
Some people work harder at certain things than others.
Some societies work harder at certain things than others.

You may think working harder is better.
You may also be aware of working smarter is better than working harder.

But what if you were unaware you were not working smarter, but thought you were.

Someone who works hard, ultimately may get more work done than someone who doesn't.

Imagine what Hitler may have done if he had nuclear weapons.
He thought he was doing a good thing, as did many of those working with nuclear technology.

I guess we can be thankful some people develop slowly technology and productivity wise, as the worst that can happen is being 'Stuck in the Stone Age'

I would love for us to be able to work smart with 100% accuracy, but don't feel we're there yet.
Topics that may link from other posts may discuss things like 'Genetic Engineering', 'Highly Intelligent Technology', 'Dependency on Oil for Life's Necessities', etc.

Obviously though, we do need to do something to get food, clothes and housing. And too little work may lead to mass shortages.

Are we truly focussed enough?
Are we working too hard on some things, and not hard enough on others?
How high a percentage of accuracy (of working smart) is necessary?

black gold, unfortunately i do not have the answers to your questions, but, i would like to comment. The idea of "Primitive Anarchy" seems to be what your getting at. correct me if im wrong. thats just the way i interpreted it.

I think I was basically saying that working very hard on something that we're not completely (100%) certain about may lead to danger.
The nuclear energy issue was/is an example...
We work hard to be productive, but cannot always be certain of it's consequences.
Can you elaborate more on the "Primitive Anarchy"?
(I Googled it but got no decent response...)

maybe with the human physci working hard and smart are bad things. look our technology.
cars-suppose to be ruining our atmo
guns-generally used to kill other humans
bombs-a way of killing larger amounts of people by ripping them apart with explosive force
planes-oh yeah look we can put bombs on them so we can blow up people farther away.
flamethrowers-lets burn others alive
plants-well if i roll it this way and burn it i can screw up my mind!
medicine-side affects tend to alot worse than the results until perfected at an unknown time
cell phones-similar technology is used to be a trigget for a bomb
houses-made of wood that we used to have to cut down trees to build
houses today- made of metal that was mined were and by who?
oil/plastic bags-traps for animals and somthing that when in the water tends to make people sick and kill pretty much anything in the water.
you might say that im focusing on the bad that im not supporting our troops that im disloyal that i shouldnt talk about things that i have no clue about. something to think about.
most of the things humans created somebody either died making or was made to kill another person/s

Its all a state of mind. Someone who works with the intention of helping others can easily work twice as hard with half the effort of someone who works for themselves and feels they must suffer.
As far as why weapons are the focus of technology, thats because in order for someone to have an agenda it must be forced upon the people.
If its our choice then they cant have their way!

Ive often thought along these lines Black Gold.

I think about all the people who go to work day after day and feel they are contributing to society. Then I wonder what people in the future will think of them. All the cars that bleed pollution into the atmosphere as they went to work, all the trivial things they researched and created that have no positive affect on the planet but to appease selfish consumers for a very small amount of time. All the resources that hard workers spend their lives depleting, so a few people today, here an now, can be happy. And most of them aren't even happy with their lives anyway.

Has anyone ever seen those old photos of hunters and trappers at the beginning of last century? Standing there, surrounded by the heads and bodies of animals which are now mostly extinct. With their big, thick moustaches, wearing such proud looks on their faces at the amazing job they had done.

And I wonder if oneday our predecessors will look at photos of us and our "hard working" achievements and see us the same way.

Primitive Anarchy or Anarcho-Primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, and alienation. Anarcho-primitivists advocate a return to non-"civilized" ways of life through deindustrialisation, abolition of division of labour or specialization, and abandonment of technology.

With the advancement of technology, many aspects of life become "better". and this being the reason for our advancements, it becomes entirely selfish and obviously smothered in human nature. and in the end, since it is rooted in selfishness and the desperation to step over one another in the socioeconomic hierarchy, it will fail.

The best way to advance is to make some serious changes to the systems of "advancement" that currently exist.

The problem isn't how hard people are or are not working, or efficiency.

The problem is that our creativity, intelligence, technology, reality, common sense, balance, and lives have been manipulated, controlled, and suppressed to the point of enslavement and self destruction.

The point of your paradox isn't of work, but of results and seeming lack of benefits to us as individuals and to society as a whole.

Modern societies have been overproducing at a rate of over-efficiency so great that our resources, including ourselves, are strained to the point of collapse.

Yet the only advancement we have these days is in obtaining more and more stuff of less and less quality at more and more cost to us.

How is this the case if so many are working so hard?

It is because we are not aware, we are not in control, and those that are, are not interested in "OUR" advancement.

Though we could be in an instant.

I'm part of program called desination imagination the idea behind this program is to promote growth of the mind and a lot of thinking outside the box activty's.

We have a saying that we adopted from some old archtechs (On the team i'm on) who designed some buildings in france that said if you can't do it with quility then one must do it with quanity.

I think that people in power have adopted this philophy becuause it works in most places in life. Except when applied to certain area's where quility is the only way, when applied other wise it fails.

The idea can be applied to the nuclear thing if you think about it instead of a handfull of great minds like the germans tried the united states used over a 100,000 people to think out all the details and such.

I think that this idea that quanity is 1st more inclusive and 2nd potentionally more profitable that apeals to people who try to create things which tends to cause a over production of goods.

I believe that the most work done these days is based mostly on personal advance, what we truly should be doing is working on advance of human kind, in either case working hard or working smart is depending on each and everyones personal possibilyties.