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Are we going to end up with vast structural unemployment? I'm playing devil's advocate a little perhaps, but would it really be a terrible thing if that happen

Are we going to end up with vast structural unemployment? I'm playing devil's advocate a little perhaps, but would it really be a terrible thing if that happened? In the 60s and 70s it was predicted that technology would increase leisure time. Perhaps that will happen after all, through higher rates of unemployment. Would it be so bad if robots and computers did most of the work required to keep people alive, and people only did work if they really wanted to?

_delirium 17y ago
That'd only really work if some of the results of the robot/computer work were distributed freely, wouldn't it? If robots are doing enough work to keep everyone alive, but those robots aren't government- or charity-run robots that distribute their products to everyone for free, then humans still have to work some sort of job to get the money needed to buy the stuff from the robots' owners. If you had high unemployment, and the robot greenhouses aren't giving away their vegetables for free, how are the unemployed people supposed to get the vegetables?