Well okay, let's walk the goalposts back. Suppose there was some radical UBI scheme in place and now you get paid the same amount for working as you would for not working. There is no financial incentive to do any piece of work, but also no financial punishment for not working. Do you think most people would still go to their jobs? I think no. Most people are only motivated to work by the financial reward they get from working, not some fundamental desire to sit in an office for hours of the day.

Quite frankly, I see people with your attitude as the real bad ones to work for. Expecting people to have a work ethic beyond what you pay them for, or to pretend to be passionate about whatever you're selling, these are the real red flags you should look out for when applying to a job. Not someone expecting you to do what you're told. I am exchanging my labour for money, and I think both parties understanding that is the bedrock of good professional relationship.

You haven't moved the goalposts back. You just used more words to suggest that people won't be willing to do work for free. That doesn't speak to whether they want to do the work or not. People can want to have a job but also want to reap some external reward from that job.

But I know, you've reduced it to such a degree that you can't think clearly about it any other way. So, to humor you: I know a woman who won the lottery at a young age, but kept her job as a waitress for decades because she wanted to be a waitress. I know retirees who have started new careers. I know retirees who have gone back to doing the same work they did before. None of these people needed money. They all did jobs. Nevermind volunteering, which, while you will probably argue isn't a job, is evidence that people will work for reasons other than financial incentives. Please note, these people aren't outliers, they're just people who even you have to believe are working for reasons other than money.

Regardless, the fundamental problem with your argument besides trying to prop up a poor definition of 'job' is that you're conflating needing any job with needing a particular job. Lots of people are doing the job they want to be doing. Lots of people have other choices.

> Quite frankly, I see people with your attitude as the real bad ones to work for. Expecting people to have a work ethic beyond what you pay them for, or to pretend to be passionate about whatever you're selling, these are the real red flags you should look out for when applying to a job. Not someone expecting you to do what you're told. I am exchanging my labour for money, and I think both parties understanding that is the bedrock of good professional relationship.

We definitely do not have the same definition of 'work ethic' if this is what you took from my words.

> I know a woman who won the lottery at a young age, but kept her job as a waitress for decades because she wanted to be a waitress

This is a lovely anecdote, but practically speaking most people do not have such enjoyable jobs. The world needs septic tank specialists and web developers and telephone sanitisers and accountants. Most of the things that need doing aren't all that desirable to do on their own. This is not to say that you can't take joy in doing them anyway, after all one must imagine Sisyphus happy, but merely that given ultimate choice, most people would not choose their current working arrangement. For instance within the field of programming, most people probably have something else they'd rather work on than what they do for living. Your millionaire waitress probably wouldn't want to work behind the fryer at MacDonalds.

> We definitely do not have the same definition of 'work ethic' if this is what you took from my words.

Clearly. In my view, work ethic is unrelated to enjoyment of your job. Someone with a good work ethic would be willing to do jobs that they don't enjoy, and would complete them at a similar standard to the work they do enjoy. It's easy to have a good work ethic when doing something you want to do; the real test of it is the things you don't want to do.

So, you still haven’t made your case for your original claim. You’re ignoring my argument I think because it’s not reductive enough for you to see. And you just sent a paragraph about a single example among several examples which I specifically disclaimed as exemplary and highly visible as if that somehow is negated by your hypotheticals.

You are following that up by, I guess, trying to convince me that I should ignore my experiences in favor of your reductive arguments that are based largely on definitions that I don’t agree on in the first place.

What are we even doing here?

What you experience internally is not evidence of what “the real world” is actually like. You may very well have an amazing work ethic and view your jobs as strictly transactional (and that’s irrespective of enjoyment which is reductive of the many reasons people want to do their jobs). Honestly, I believe that about you. But that internal view is far from universal regardless of work ethic.

I understand you’ve convinced yourself that the UBI and other hypotheticals are proof but they’re only proof if you’re already subscribed to those reductive views. “Wants” don’t work that way and if they did we’d be able to reduce them further and say that people do want to do their jobs evidenced by the fact that they do them.

> I understand you’ve convinced yourself that the UBI and other hypotheticals are proof but they’re only proof if you’re already subscribed to those reductive views

Far from reductive, my theory is fully explanatory. People have a certain way they would like to spend their time (what they want to do) then for every step you take away from that, you need to compensate them with something (usually money). Obviously in the real world there is the threat of starvation when you don't work, so factoring that in a lot of people will be forced to accept a lower premium for their time.

> What you experience internally is not evidence of what “the real world”

This is not an internal experience. I interact with many people on a daily basis. They work in many places. Stocking store shelves, sales, secretaries, janitors, etc. These people all would rather be doing something else, but work because they are paid. Likewise many people do take joy in those same jobs, but if I ask them, there are other things they would rather be doing. The issue is that those things don't pay. It is my assertion that almost all jobs are like this. People sacrificing their time and enjoyment for money, which may then bring them more enjoyment in the future.

> people do want to do their jobs evidenced by the fact that they do them

My point is that people don't want the job, they want the money the job provides. If you gave them the money, they would start working a different job that they like better. The same way I don't really want to eat healthy, but I do because I like being fit. If I could be lean and eat like a pig, I would certainly do it. People will often do things they don't want to in exchange for rewards. This is the distinction between work and pleasure. Things you want to do vs. things you do for the reward. Then there are some things which are a mix. Where you are moderately happy doing them and so you don't need as much of a reward to be convinced to take that action. If we're going do discuss justifying original points, perhaps you should address yours: "I wouldn’t accept an employee or a boss who thought this [the exchanged of labour for money] was a reasonable definition of a job."

Can you at least see my objection? Someone who thinks a job aught to be pleasurable is breaking down the boundary between work and pleasure. This can very easily lead to abuse, where someone believes they are entitled to their employees' work and the employees should be thankful for being exploited.

Listen, your argument follows from your premises, but your premises are flawed. Your argument is reductive because it requires the assumption that people only want one thing (specifically in this case: to do a thing other than their job). Of course it follows that they're doing something they don't want to be doing when you only allow them to want one thing.

It's not reasonable to take someone saying, "I'd rather be parasailing..." to mean, "I don't want to do this work." Those are not equivalent statements. For starters, one is relative and the other is absolute. Even if that weren't the case, people can want more than one thing and even conflicting things.

If I say, "I want to fly like Superman" you can't then conclude that everything in my life that I'm doing is something I don't want to be doing since I'm not flying like Superman at any moment.

It's reductive and the only thing it fully explains is the highly reductive space it constructs.

> If we're going do discuss justifying original points, perhaps you should address yours: "I wouldn’t accept an employee or a boss who thought this [the exchanged of labour for money] was a reasonable definition of a job."

I've already justified it. In my experience, which I understand is not your experience, an employee with this attitude is more likely to not have a good work ethic. You then made up a bunch of stuff about what I mean by that, but I just mean they're less likely to do a good job. A boss with this attitude is more likely to feel entitled to my labor and make unreasonable demands, including but not limited to trying to require me to do things I don't want to do (i.e., that I haven't agreed to do as part of accepting a job).

> Can you at least see my objection? Someone who thinks a job aught to be pleasurable is breaking down the boundary between work and pleasure. This can very easily lead to abuse, where someone believes they are entitled to their employees' work and the employees should be thankful for being exploited.

There was never a moment when I couldn't see your objection. I just think the opposite is more likely, but this view is really just your opinion and not actually related to your original statement, except in terms of its explanatory power for why you want to believe the world works a certain way.

It's wholly unclear to me why a boss acting badly means all employees everywhere should have a wall between work and pleasure. That seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Should we all just do jobs we hate so this doesn't happen?

A boss can certainly try to exploit his employees by using their non-monetary interests against them. But the boss that thinks transactionally is more likely to do it!

On the flip side, any employee can have a good work ethic, but...

Suppose you have a transactional employee and an employee who wants to be there. Suppose also you have a machine that requires maintenance and it is such that it is difficult to see whether that maintenance has been done. If the maintenance isn't done, you won't know until (say) two years later when the machine breaks down and requires relatively expensive repairs.

Are you going to assign the employee that has said to you this is just transactional? What is his incentive to even do the maintenance? Yes, either employee can get away without doing the maintenance. But which one do you think is more likely to shirk the responsibility? Which one is more likely to not be around to face consequences if they don't do the work?

So, yes, I see what you are saying. But I'm not even a little bit convinced. I don't want to deal with people as employees, bosses, partners, contractors, clients, etc who view work this way, because 'the real world' just doesn't work that way and people who think it does, again in my experience are generally more likely to be a problem than others.

> Your argument is reductive because it requires the assumption that people only want one thing

No it doesn't. I explicitly mention that there is one thing they want to do the most and that other things are closer to or further away from that thing.

> Are you going to assign the employee that has said to you this is just transactional? What is his incentive to even do the maintenance.

I would assign the employee which I trust more, which could well be the transnational one. Someone who claims to enjoy their job might enjoy it because they don't bother with the stuff that bores them, and someone who hates their job might hate it because they put intense effort into ensuring it is done well. I have family members who fall exactly into the latter group. They are highly committed to the idea of earning their pay and thus have a much harder time of it than they would otherwise. Someone who thinks "I must work because I'm getting paid" is far more reliable than someone who thinks "I'll work because I enjoy it". Of course some people will try to get away with doing less work, but I don't see much difference between avoiding work you don't enjoy because you don't enjoy it and avoiding work you don't enjoy because you can still get paid without doing it.

The point I'd like to make is this: someone who works for pay has a clear motivation to do work they don't enjoy. Why would someone who works for enjoyment bother with the parts they don't enjoy? You skirt this problem by saying the employee wants to be there and so wants to do all work, but there are some people who enjoy certain parts of their work and not others. "Wanting to be there" is not a motivation for working but the outcome of that motivation, where "pay" and "enjoyment" are reasons to work and it's not so clear that someone who only works when they enjoy it would be more reliable.