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> I know I'm ranting but to me, society looks like a giant treading mill. Happiness and the slow, intelligent life have been forgotten in favor of a society of

> I know I'm ranting but to me, society looks like a giant treading mill. Happiness and the slow, intelligent life have been forgotten in favor of a society of endless work and jobs. Contributing to the labor force has become a religion. The simple idea of idleness and staying at home to paint or draw seems to drive people crazy. It should not. I mean, to a degree i can understand what you mean. We are seeking happiness in the treadmill and that rarely seems to bring it. We hope that after the treadmill there will be happiness, but few are sure of that. My problem though, with what i took from your words, was that it sounds like you believe work is becoming less and less required. I don't feel that's true, unfortunately. I think that will become true, in time, but we don't have the technology to automate the work we need to. Sure, we have various factory line jobs replaces with robotics, and we're working on lots of general replacement (Taxis, for example), but most of the labor force, even "just" manual labor, requires specific intensive understanding that we are not even close to replicating with robotics. Hell, we're still struggling to walk easily and effectively. Sure, walking robots are becoming more natural and skilled, but it's definitely still a WIP. My robotics leap may have seemed odd, but that's what i believe is required before your comment holds true. Work will always be required - there is no doubt about that. Someone, some thing, will be doing work. And humanity will only be able to ignore work once we've enslaved something else to do it for us. So back to topic, i think part of the stress you feel from society is a bit of a "i have to do it, so you have to do it" thing. Why should you get to do what you like, when others so clearly cant? You could argue that we're all expecting too much, we don't need the gadgets/etc, and that living very frugal can be a means to happiness, but living frugal doesn't absolve yourself from work. The frugal lives of the world still work. Some may not work as hard, some may have much more free time, but there's still work to be done. You still have to learn the trades to repair your stuff, or pay someone else to do it for you. To grow your food, or to pay someone else to. And etc. I'm not trying to come off aggressive, so i hope it doesn't seem that way. Perhaps i'm missing your point, but the statement of: > ... and it's fine, because work is less and less necessary. Seems very very foreign to me.

kazagistar 10y ago
Work seems to be becoming zero sum competition, which is inherently nonproductive. Advertising, shitty flashlight apps, sales, much financial work, etc; we could drop many of these with little to no negate impact on productivity in society. These jobs exist because useful work is running out, so people are hiring extra labor to fight over their slice of the pie.
jokoon 10y ago
> Why should you get to do what you like, when others so clearly cant? Because I'm free to do so, because work is consented, not forced. > Seems very very foreign to me. The most basic things are becoming cheaper and cheaper, so I don't think there are good enough reasons to run on that treadmill to deliver pizzas or wait tables. Those are bonus, yet we warrant that those things are necessary in society, instead of giving a basic income. My rant is not only about automation and the need of jobs, it's also political, it's about resource allocation. Arguing that "everybody has to do its part" is a paradox in a free capitalist society. If there is known inequality on top of it, asking people to get that job will not make sense, especially when you hear that people are working hard to automate everything. So either your take unemployed people and you train them at robotics, but you can't tell them to deliver pizza when engineers are working on pizza-making machines.
- fizzbatter 10y ago
  > Because I'm free to do so, because work is consented, not forced. I mean, you're not really addressing the argument with that part. I'm not forcing you to do so, but do you really think you are entitled to live off welfare of others? Because that is the implication of that statement. If you want to not work, not pay taxes, and live in the woods, by all means. But if you expect society to support you, with no contribution, then you're just abusing the system. Sure, you may "be free to do so", but that doesn't make it correct. And if everyone abused the system like that, it wouldn't work.
Grishnakh 10y ago
The problem is that more and more low-level jobs are going to be automated away in the coming years, and that's going to leave a lot of people without jobs available that pay sufficiently to allow them to survive. Truck drivers, burger flippers, fruit pickers, various clerical workers, and many more will be out of a job because those jobs can be done better and cheaper by robots; at best, they'll have one worker overseeing the robots and making sure they work right, and coordinating between them. The computer you wrote this comment on was mostly built with robotic labor: no one populates modern circuit boards by hand. So yes, work is less and less necessary, regardless of your religious beliefs to the contrary. No, not all work is going to go away; we'll still need engineers for a long time (unless they invent human-level AIs to do the engineering work for us). But not everyone is capable of being an engineer or doctor or other worker requiring significant education; most people just aren't capable of those jobs. The other big factor is: how much work? Why do we need to work 40 hours a week or more? With more work being done by automation, and our productivity at the highest point in history, when can we finally take more time off and do enjoyable things instead of putting in "face time" at a workplace because of the quaint notion of hourly pay? Why are we not all benefitting from automated labor making our lives easier and more luxurious?

kazagistar 10y ago

Work seems to be becoming zero sum competition, which is inherently nonproductive. Advertising, shitty flashlight apps, sales, much financial work, etc; we could drop many of these with little to no negate impact on productivity in society. These jobs exist because useful work is running out, so people are hiring extra labor to fight over their slice of the pie.

jokoon 10y ago

> Why should you get to do what you like, when others so clearly cant? Because I'm free to do so, because work is consented, not forced. > Seems very very foreign to me. The most basic things are becoming cheaper and cheaper, so I don't think there are good enough reasons to run on that treadmill to deliver pizzas or wait tables. Those are bonus, yet we warrant that those things are necessary in society, instead of giving a basic income. My rant is not only about automation and the need of jobs, it's also political, it's about resource allocation. Arguing that "everybody has to do its part" is a paradox in a free capitalist society. If there is known inequality on top of it, asking people to get that job will not make sense, especially when you hear that people are working hard to automate everything. So either your take unemployed people and you train them at robotics, but you can't tell them to deliver pizza when engineers are working on pizza-making machines.

fizzbatter 10y ago
> Because I'm free to do so, because work is consented, not forced. I mean, you're not really addressing the argument with that part. I'm not forcing you to do so, but do you really think you are entitled to live off welfare of others? Because that is the implication of that statement. If you want to not work, not pay taxes, and live in the woods, by all means. But if you expect society to support you, with no contribution, then you're just abusing the system. Sure, you may "be free to do so", but that doesn't make it correct. And if everyone abused the system like that, it wouldn't work.

Grishnakh 10y ago

The problem is that more and more low-level jobs are going to be automated away in the coming years, and that's going to leave a lot of people without jobs available that pay sufficiently to allow them to survive. Truck drivers, burger flippers, fruit pickers, various clerical workers, and many more will be out of a job because those jobs can be done better and cheaper by robots; at best, they'll have one worker overseeing the robots and making sure they work right, and coordinating between them. The computer you wrote this comment on was mostly built with robotic labor: no one populates modern circuit boards by hand. So yes, work is less and less necessary, regardless of your religious beliefs to the contrary. No, not all work is going to go away; we'll still need engineers for a long time (unless they invent human-level AIs to do the engineering work for us). But not everyone is capable of being an engineer or doctor or other worker requiring significant education; most people just aren't capable of those jobs. The other big factor is: how much work? Why do we need to work 40 hours a week or more? With more work being done by automation, and our productivity at the highest point in history, when can we finally take more time off and do enjoyable things instead of putting in "face time" at a workplace because of the quaint notion of hourly pay? Why are we not all benefitting from automated labor making our lives easier and more luxurious?