What would you do if Capitalism didn't curb your potential and force you to sell most of your time?

Let's not be confused here. Specialization is what allows for free time. If everyone has to farm and hunt, that's all you'd do. Specialization is a good thing for humanity and diverse institutions and industries to arise.

I work as a software engineer and I'm also one of these people that just gets a kick out of making things. So I'd probably do some more of that, just not for an employer. Even more contributions to open source would be likely as you've already highlighted.

Would probably build more physical machines/contraptions/electronic doo-dads that I don't have the time or energy to make today. That and I'd probably make more music, or more accurately, finish more music.

Probably grow more vegetables too, but currently that's limited by space anyway.

I would cut cars in half and weld them into the other halves of other cars

I'd still be a programmer. I'd work on open source projects 100% of the time. It's something I love to do.

Man's got to eat though. I still work in an area that makes the world slightly less shitty though, so it's not all bad.

Humans do not like the same thing over and over every day.

Speak for yourself, I like routine and being rewarded for working hard.

I'd have more time to become a better artist.

edit: what the fuck was that unwarranted shitty comment.

I run a goth night once every other month.
I visit friends quite often whenever I want to.
I get up and start my day when I feel like it.
I play with code and build web toys.
I'm a freelance IT guy. I could, if I wanted to, earn a lot more than I do, but my time is worth more than money. It is possible to do, even in this world where everyone is told that you need a 'career' and to work for a company, although a lot more work is needed to freeing other careers from the obligation of the grind.
Don't give up hope, unionise, demand respect, buy a guillotine, and keep an eye out for a way to get what you need and to contribute to society or your community without signing your life away.

(Yes, some people will never get the opportunity. And that, frankly, pisses me off no end. But don't lose hope until you're dead.)

I like my job. It's not a hobby, but it also ensures I don't burn out in my hobbies, which happened when I initially tried to make a hobby my job.

I'd rewrite the game engines for Command & Conquer games so that they could be modernized.

It's a perfectly doable task, but not with the amount of free time I have.

I would be doing more programming and more open source work. I would also spend more time doing physical activities like sports. I wouldn't mind doing gardening for anyone, I also wouldn't mind automating all their systems. Definetely I'd sleep for one extra hour.

I think I would travel or wander a lot more. Not in an instagram backpacker kind of way, just in a dawdle from town to town road trippy kind of way.

I'd do what I'm doing now but I'd be helping hospitals and schools instead of companies.

I would sleep a lot more, that's for sure.

Produce documentaries, develop a video game

If I wasnt working a job for money I wouldn't be doing anything that contributed to making food or providing infrastructure. What I did with my time would probably be considered useless by society and that's why I'm not doing it as a job currently.

Why is there so much communist content on lemmy?

Make art and hike more.

Id play more guitar and more piano, and record more. Id take pictures hiking and take videos and stuff. I'd fully automate the mundane from my life, finish my self hosting projects.

I'd be healthier, overall. By a lot. Mentally and physically.

I'd be that guy that makes all those useless inventions, except they'd be incredibly useful to me and like 2 other people.

I too dream of this same future:

https://sturlabragason.github.io/blog/2023/07/04/Decentralized-Autonomous-Communities.html

Quoting this:

"In DACs, knowledge, creativity, and innovation are communal properties. Whether it’s a new AI algorithm, a more efficient building design, or a breakthrough software update, all are shared freely among the network of DACs. This community-wide open-source approach fuels rapid progress and the spread of beneficial developments."

Basic research. I left basic research because research in academia is a lost cause, killed by lack of funding, hyper toxic environment, rat race to the bottom, mafias and corruption.

It is so bad that I feel a much more morally cleaner environment working in finance.

I would go back doing what I used to do, but without the baggage that forced most of us to leave

I would contribute to any activity that would ensure capitalism wouldn't start existing.

Reading. I have lots of books I want to read but not enough time / energy to do so.

Imma be honest I have no idea. I might legit just sit here and be a leech on society playing video games and watching shows. But I'd like to imagine I would go back to school and try and do freelance repair/maintenance for various things. I just honestly don't know if I'd do enough to consider it a fair contribution to society.

Im fortunate. I love my career. I've been doing since I was 12 what I do for a living now at 39. I'd still do what I do if income were a non-issue.

With that being said, I'd probably only do it three days/week or so, being able to pick a more realistic balance between productivity and burnout would be great. I'd also spend that time making something I want, for me, rather than doing what I'm told. I feel like that's significant here as well.

I also jump around with this. Like I would definitely read more. But there's a part of me that would love to write books. But also male music. But also paint. Basically I would do something in the realm of art.

I wouldn't mind having a part time job doing something physical. Like I used to work at a warehouse for a medical supplies company. It was probably one of my favorite jobs. I could see myself doing that again. Gives me a reason to get out of the house, be active, and people will always need the supplies. Ironically I lost the job because we got bought out by one of the world's largest corporations so they could make even more money, and they closed us down. So I lost that job because of capitalism.

If money weren't an object and I didn't have to worry about rent I would love to bury myself in math, chemistry, earth science, medical science, language, and systems development studies. Then I'd spend my free time sharing what I learned with others who want to learn, focusing on under represented. I'd also do more outdoor sports.

Go hiking everyday

I would spend my time the same way. Honing my specialization to increase benefit to society. I love software development!

What would allow that isn't communism, but a "post-scarcity" society, much like Star Trek TNG. A lot of what we take for granted can only happen thanks to the commercial logistics of fucktons of materials going around.

I'd devote more time into programming, performance optimization, processor architecture and computer graphics. These things are still "magic" to me and there aren't many resources, especially on the "bare metal" graphics part of most recent parts. Once I figured it out enough to feel confident in passing that knowledge around, I would do that in english and portuguese

One thing that I'm already doing thanks to my job giving me a decent salary for only 20h of work is my own game project. Something that I'll probably end up selling, but I'll probably be the first to release a pirate/free version of it, too.

my world could be different if I owned my time

Self ownership is the basis of capitalism and you're already playing the game, you're just playing it bad.

if you're on hourly I want you to ask yourself if you would pay someone else what you earn at work to do whatever you just did in the last hour.
if not why not? did you explicitly set aside this time to be unproductive? do you think people doing better than you let themselves slide like that?

Humans do not like the same thing over and over every day

Speak for yourself, I love having a routine and getting in the zone. Autonomy and Mastery are worth more to me than money.

I would make video games. I'd even do some adult ones, since I've noticed the existing ones aren't super great.

I would, in no certain order:

• Work at a coffee shop part time making coffee for people. Preferably a locally owned shop, but it wouldn't matter too much if not.
• Work as a bartender similarly as above
• Potentially garden if I have the time and interest for it
• Create more YouTube videos
• Write, record, and release more music
• Learn to paint
• Get a film camera and take photos with it
• Contribute to FLOSS projects
• Finally make that D&D table that doubles as a dining table that I've been wanting to make for a few months now
• Actually follow through on learning my several languages I'm working on learning
• Become an interpreter (probably in ASL)
• Develop video games
• Create more art in general
• Do research on how art and society mingle together and interact

Part of what creates in me so much faith in communism is my profession vs my interests.

I am an engineer. If I didn't need to sell my labor I would be an engineer who solves problems and creates progress. Since I live in America, I don't.

Gymnastics, surfing, and study and write philosophical works. And maybe practice guitar.

I'd love to spend more time planting trees. I volunteer to do it occasionally on weekends but I really love the process of going from sprout to seedling to planted. I just wish I could do more of it.

I would be what I am now, just a more "official" version of it, since what I do is akin to a paid hobby and has no firmly nested societal position. But that's assuming what I do would be valued in other types of societies either (it's just barely valued in Capitalism). I know a Marxist society most likely wouldn't value what I do as it's only a necessity-based job on a technical level. And it would have little relevance in Distributism, I think. Mutualism is a coin toss.

I would do loads of degrees. History, English, Psychology, Politics, Spanish, etc. Having the brain space to focus on learning would be amazing. I did my masters part time while working full time and it was a nightmare. Glad I did it but I couldn't do my best as I was bogged down in work stuff.

I would also like to learn more languages. I do a bit of Spanish and Danish when I can but I rarely have the mental energy after work.

Travel too. Maybe write a book.

Probably sleep or do gamedev in a full time fashion.

I would love to do more with animation especially non-traditional animation like LED or Pinscreen, but the barrier of entry is just too high.

Same thing I do now, but instead of full-time work / part-time student, I'd flip it to part-time work and full-time student.

I'm hanging on to the bottom step of the medical ladder - this field is fascinating as fuck, and even as just a tech I get a lot of satisfaction in my role (albeit minor relative to doctors or nurses) in helping others recover from whatever sickness/injury they present with.

Without the financial barriers and current need to work till exhaustion to afford rent, I'd be highly interested in going all the way to physician, but at the rate I'm able to actually afford the time and money to take classes, I'll be pushing 40 when I'm able to clear the hurdle from tech to nurse; and it already hurts to move half of my fucking joints, so once this nursing shit is finished, I don't see myself climbing any more ladders, literal or otherwise... at that point it'll just be the counting the days till retirement or planning out the most pleasurable way to commit suicide.

I'd be writing a lot more music

I'm an intellectually overqualified filmmaker surrounded by anti-intellectuals (I routinely get made fun of for being interested in technical stuff)....and right now, I am on workman's comp with a broken foot. So: exactly what I am doing right now is exactly what I would want to be doing.

What's that?
Hanging out with my daughter in my lab,

Learning

• Haskell/Plutus
• Purescript
• using Nix to glue them together
• hacking an espresso machine (either with a RISC_V Lychee Pi or an ESP32...haven't decided yet).

Practicing:

• guitar

Blazing:

• chronic

Something new every day. Create. Spend time with my children. Volunteer my time and knowledge.

I'd play music for my community. It's alright by myself but I love an audience.

Get involved in whatever community food garden is around.

Make art. Give it away.

I would write and draw more. There's so many stories I wanna make. I might even take up some other medium like animation or something physical like sculpture or architecture. It would be fun to design spaces that don't need to have the soul sucked out of them to appear "mature" or "professional"

I feel like the fear of not making profits and not surviving pressures me into watering down everything I do so it's appealing to someone else. That's why art is strictly a hobby for me and not a career I wanna pursue

Rock climbing. I got into over summer but I only have time to go once or twice a week at most. And that's just indoors. A whole outdoor trip would take way too much of my time, time that I don't have.

If I could start from scratch, maybe something. In my current condition I would probably just feel unproductive and guilty every day, with no personal direction of my own.

I think about this at least a little bit most days.

I'd finish some video games again.

Work on more music, ideally practice piani again to get my theory back on track.

Make projects, communal gardening etc..

Outside the selfish self-enrichment kinda stuff, teach kids programming, and participate more in my hema club.

Without capitalism, I'd probably be serf like my great-grandparents were. There's a lot to criticize about capitalism, but it's still an improvement on its predecessor.

I'd hang out and enjoy the fruits of other people's time being sold. Pretty hard to think of a hobby that wouldn't cover.

What would you when you get in this undefined yet not capitalist utopia and are forced to work long hours at a job you didn't choose to help further the cause of the revolution?

I'd probably still be a mechanical engineer, but maybe I could have gotten some more education in the direction of nuclear power and/or automation. I might have also had another kid instead of just one.

Edit: I'd also like to learn and get good at welding. It would be cool to not only engineer a nuclear power plant, but to help actually build it as well. Then again, I'd probably never get good enough at welding to do so unless I devoted myself to the trade. Maybe I could just get some shifts as a plant operator after it's built.

It'd give me more time to learn languages. I want to learn most Romance languages then later some Germanic languages. I'd have more time to read, study, and learn from the "For Dummies" series books I bought.

I get three days off a week and just got off of a 3 week long vacation and I slept a bunch lol. Played videogames. If I could never work again I'd just relax and enjoy food and entertainment.

Great list!

There's a couple of countries without capitalism, you could try to live your dream there.

Jesus Christ this post sucks

Starve to death.

Permanently Deleted

If that's capitalist society didn't exist you'd spend your time hunting, gathering, farming band generally ensuring you had food on the table. You wouldn't have time or energy to do those other things you dream of. And nor would anyone else.

I would offer people money to work for me.
And then i would help them optimize their brainspace to be more efficient at helping me.
I would allow them to use my workshop to create things that benefit the community. Like tools and Labor.
I would keep watch over the water and electrical lines and repair and service them if needed.
I would train people to do that for me and pay them.

You can do this right now, OP. If you don’t like living in a society just fuck off into the wilderness and do you. There are enormous swaths of land in this world where nobody will ever bother you. What’s stopping you?