14 ms·

One thing we could do, if we wanted, is to build a society focused on automating away jobs. Such a society would not rely on people to work for its function, bu

One thing we could do, if we wanted, is to build a society focused on automating away jobs. Such a society would not rely on people to work for its function, but on the labor of machines. In such a place, people would be free to work as hard as they want for additional gain. They could also, however, take as much time off as they desired to go to school, learn on their own, spend more time with loved ones, or just relax and explore life in their own way. In such a society, I think many people would be motivated to give their labor to open source projects. I think the machines that run such a society would necessarily be open source, and many people could give back to society by contributing to the design and improvement of the machines that provide for us all. What do you all think of this? Would you want to live in a place like that?

toomuchtodo 8y ago
> What do you all think of this? Would you want to live in a place like that? Yes, but you're going to need to have the political capital to ratchet down the work week and split productivity gains with labor and capital. That does not exist yet, and without it, the advances you speak of will be used to funnel more wealth to the top. Disclaimer: I am active on the political side, and will be running for office in the next federal Congressional election cycle. Drop me a line if you want to chat on how we can work together to obviate the need to work down the road; that's the future I want for everyone.
- jxub 8y ago
  > Disclaimer: I am active on the political side, and will be running for office in the next election cycle. You should make an announcement or something for us in HN (when the time comes)! I'm sure there would be quite a lot of people here to support your candidature.
- profalseidol 8y ago
  Don't we already have a world where machines are the ones producing our needs? There's that Discovery Channel series called "How it's Made" where you see it's practically all robots. Do you agree? > and without it, the advances you speak of will be used to funnel more wealth to the top. All the technologies for mass production so far has indeed funneled to the top huh? And this I believe has also slowed down advancement in technology (unless it's something that is very profitable). > split productivity gains with labor and capital You'll be called Socialist. Giving what the laborers deserve is Socialism. "Share the means of production!" However, the fact that Bernie had a following is a good indicator. There's also Corbin whom is pushing for a 'right to own' policy.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    > Don't we already have a world where machines are the ones producing our needs? There's that Discovery Channel series called "How it's Made" where you see it's practically all robots. Do you agree? I don't agree, in that we haven't gone far enough with regards to automation. It's still much too expensive, putting it out of reach of anyone without deep pockets or access to capital markets. > All the technologies for mass production so far has indeed funneled to the top huh? And this I believe has also slowed down advancement in technology (unless it's something that is very profitable). The majority of productivity gains has been captured by capital, yes: https://i.stack.imgur.com/iCTuo.jpg https://i.stack.imgur.com/iCTuo.jpg (the dismantling of labor unions in the US is also a contributor to wages being held down, but that is out of scope for this comment) > You'll be called Socialist. Giving what the laborers deserve is Socialism. "Share the means of production!" I identify as a Democratic Socialist politically. The distinction is important.
thanksDr 8y ago
This is exactly the kind of utopia so many of us today are trying to build. There are many points of entry: Using FLOSS for governments, for schools, releasing all government funded code, etc.
- TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  Absolutely! I’d like to go farther, and imagine how we could reinvent society if we had high quality open source automation hardware in addition to open source software. Open source software has paved the way and now I’m excited to see what open source robotics combined with the right attitudes can do.
fredley 8y ago
Human beings, at least some of them, crave power. How would one such human behave in a system such as this? How would a group? Could a system be designed to be relient against this threat, at scale? While it's nice to think of a FLOSS utopia, unfortunately human behaviour will never allow it to happen.
- oscargrouch 8y ago
  I used to be pessimistic about it too. I think it will happen in a proper way in some places, in others it will be used as a tool to amass more power, as the human nature implies it will. But the silver lining is that we are creating a collective conciousness through tools like the internet. Humans can naturally create this collective sentient being when forming a tribe for instance. Our problem, in our particular point of history of civilization, was always the problem of scale. Now with the internet we are again able to form this collective mind in a bigger scale. We are still in the infancy of this process, and thats why this collective is acting as a dumb giant. But I think that as we evolve in this process, this collective mind will get more sophisticated. And soon we will be able to collectivelly control whats best for the greater good, trying to repel all hostile movements that could try to control the resources to the benefit of a few. The problem is: it will take a lot of fight to get there, some of us will fall, but i believe that some of us will get there first.
- muxator 8y ago
  I only can think of simple, basic ways: promote different values and make socially unacceptable to be the one who carves for subsuming the others.
- antocv 8y ago
  We make the robots do the resilience for us. Whenever some human has amassed more power over others, and a group feels ill, the robots solve the problem. All such a robot would have to do is apply current laws, facebook is too big, google is too powerful, banks are bankrypt, robot just swings the hammer the elected politicians failed to do.
  - dfischer 8y ago
jdi92mxx 8y ago
A lot of jobs just act as distractions to create jobs A better target than automoting away cashier jobs at pointless retailers would be to target universal access to healthcare and social services as the key economic drivers Then folks aren’t tethered to dumb jobs and can make jewelry or chairs and such for personal needs when they’re on vacation from their job that supports the health economy Creating is an important human outlet. Don’t think it’ll do to automate it away. But we can open it up to anyone learning to create whatever so long as they don’t need to be tethered to a dumb job
drb91 8y ago
This seems like the natural conclusion of a welfare state, not a capitalist society.
- mulmen 8y ago
  Capitalists are not workers. You can create this utopian society by distributing capital in a way that all individuals have their basic needs provided. At that point everyone is a capitalist and is free to pursue whatever interests they desire. Note that all economic systems are concerned with distribution of resources so the idea of distributing capital is not unique to a "welfare state".
  - hueving 8y ago
    > You can create this utopian society by distributing capital in a way that all individuals have their basic needs provided This is currently not even close to possible based on our current technology level. In order for everyone to have their basic needs provided for free we would need full automation for all of these things: * all of healthcare * all of food production * all of shelter construction and maintenance * all energy generation * all transportation * all waste disposal * all water collection and treatment * maintenance of the things that automate all of the above Given that this is not the scenario now, countries are forced to tax the currently economically productive people to pay for some of these things for those not currently participating in the economy. There is no country in the world that provides all of these things for free to all citizens because there would be no incentive for anyone to do the work to support all of the basic needs. It's already hard enough to incentivize people to work to support the economy when they have to do it in exchange for food/shelter/transportation. >Capitalists are not workers This is completely false. Anyone with a retirement account or money sitting in a bank earning interest is a capitalist. Even as a worker with no money earning growth, you are a capitalist selling your own labor/skills/time.
    - canhascodez 8y ago
      Your definition of "capitalist" does not seem to bear much relation to the ideas of Adam Smith. Also, you added a clause ("for free") to the statement you responded to, then argued against it. This is disingenuous and invalid as a form of argument. > Given that this is not the scenario now, countries are forced to tax the currently economically productive people to pay for some of these things for those not currently participating in the economy. It's at least as valid to say that capitalism is incorrect in valuing people only in relation to the value of their labor. We have massive social and financial structures to subsidize students, because we recognize that activity has a great deal of future value to individuals, nations, and the world at large. We provide a great deal of support to mothers, and the elderly, because societies are more than just economic engines. > There is no country in the world that provides all of these things for free to all citizens because there would be no incentive for anyone to do the work to support all of the basic needs. Contradicted by studies. People work because they want to, and because they want more than a basic existence. You would also need to show that it's less expensive to have a bunch of homeless and/or sick people, which is not really possible in a democratic society. Not paying for things that are necessary for your fellow citizens to survive usually ends up being the most expensive way possible to pay for things. I think that you should rethink a great deal of your sociopolitical philosophy.
hinkley 8y ago
I sometimes feel like if we could just make volunteer labor tax deductible, we could get part way to this place. For some projects a couple hours of my time might be more valuable to everybody than the twenty bucks I’m willing to donate. And ten hours a week would increase your take home pay by about 6%, versus working 50-60 a week for your employer for a slightly bigger raise.
macspoofing 8y ago
That society will not exist. People derive meaning from work. Ambition also drives personal development. You take those away and all a person has left is self-medication with drugs and booze and suicide. We need the struggle.
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  Go on believing this fallacy, but please don't work to enslave the rest of us in service to this obsolete idea
  - tomhoward 8y ago
    The parent may or may not be right about work being necessary to for a meaningful life. I don't have a strong opinion either way [1]. What matters more to me is that we are just so far away from all the important work being "done". As long as there are sick people, people in physical or emotional pain, people needing better housing or better education or any form of improvement to their lives, and as long as the global population has yet to figure out how to exist without harming the environment, there will be work to be done, much of it of great importance and urgency. This idea that we are within reach of all the important work being "done" so we can all just live a life of leisure seems fanciful to me; I haven't heard anyone propose a realistic pathway to bring about that version of reality - at least not one that doesn't just rely on handwavy concepts from science fiction. I'd be happy for you to point me to any solid material on this if I'm missing something. [1] I personally think all kinds of things can give people meaning, and those things may be considered "work" by some people and not by others (E.g., caring for loved ones, learning to create art, or indeed, writing open-source software), so it quickly becomes a futile debate over definitions.
    - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
      Its not black and white. Currently folks have lives all over the map - from working retail, fry cook, desk jockey, doctor, engineer. Then there are the underemployed. Some folks could be 'ramped down' now with a UBI that frees them from make-work drudgery. Others will find the UBI insufficient and keep working. It could actually be adjusted to tune the workforce to available work. Later, its true even some engineering, doctoring, lawyering (wait that happened already) jobs will be automated too, and those folks will find the UBI useful. Its a strawman that work just comes to a halt at some date.
pweissbrod 8y ago
Ever watch 'the jetsons'? Generation or so back in the USA that was the the general over-the-rainbow vision of where technology would take us. The robots would do the work while people would afford more time to spend on leisure/artistic oriented lifestyles.
- TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  I grew up watching the Jetsons! Now I want to make it a reality.
- 3pt14159 8y ago
  We could have that today. All our money is getting dumped into arms races. If we: 1. Put a 1000% tax on advertising spending. 2. Taxed property at a much higher rate, but gave each person a basic income. 3. Set a ceiling for the ratio of funds that education institutes can spend on non-professor things. (At least here in Canada they waste most of the money on things that don't actually teach skills, they just look impressive or market the university in some other way.) 4. Set caps on how much individual patents or works of art could earn before they lost financial protected status. 5. Set corporate taxes as a function of in-country sales and total affiliated market cap. 6. Punished corporate region shopping for tax havens and other advantages with trade agreements. 7. Made public healthcare optimize on happy person-years saved and with emphasis on prevention. 8. Make more areas that are 7 storeys tall so people can walk or bike to get their daily things. 9. Set high taxes on cars and invested in high speed city-to-city trains. Then we'd have houses that were safe, but affordable. Cities that had some quiet areas, but were dense enough to be viable for everyone. Great education via well-paid professors and TAs. Reasonable returns in investments in technology and art, without Walt Disney and other soulless corporations milking the same characters year after year. Products that competed mostly on quality instead of advertising. Instead we have almost the opposite. Nobody can afford anything because property gets sucked up into mortgage fuelled bubbles and in classes of 100 people where each person is paying $40k per year after subsidies we have professors and TAs struggling to get grants to fund their research. Why? A single course for a four month term is $350–$500k worth of product. Where did all the money go? Same place all the money always goes: Competition for the best students to get the best reputation to get the best students to get the best...
m3mpp 8y ago
Looks like 1917 russian revolution to me... no, thank you.
- int_19h 8y ago
  There were two revolutions in Russia in 1917. If you mean the communist one, then their program was rather different, and included things such as "dictatorship of the proletariat".
erikpukinskis 8y ago
“Automating away jobs” is like “harvesting away corn”. Sure you can delete someone’s job. But you just leave a job-shaped hole in the person that then goes and finds a new purpose. It only seems like a disappearance for the season, and then you find something new growing there. The idea that we are anywhere near “doing all the work” is batshit. We are presently doing maybe 1% of the work that needs doing. You could automate the entire economy 50 times and still have 50 more careers waiting for the globe’s population. Bioremediation in he wake of climate change alone could occupy an entire generation of earth humans. Mental health another. Building permaculture cities will be the work of an entire generation. None of those things will be amenable to robot labor.
- chii 8y ago
  > Bioremediation ... but who is going to want to pay for such things? The whole reason "jobs" exists is that it's a task somebody wanted done, and is willing to pay some resources for it.
- TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  I don’t think we’re close to doing all the work, and I don’t want to automate all work. I want to automate away jobs. Those things society relies on from everyone to function. The point is that a society that requires everyone to work all the time sucks for a lot of people - particularly those at the bottom. We can and I believe should build a world where working a job is optional. I fully expect people would still work a lot, but it would be optional in the sense that their basic needs (food, shelter, clothing, access to computers and internet) would be provided to them by society. It is certainly possible to build this. And many people want it. The key, I think, is to build the system based on voluntary interaction. Find people who are willing to help support others and then have those people collectively drive the cost of that support down through engineering. I’m not trying to eliminate work. You can never eliminate work. I want to eliminate jobs.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

toomuchtodo 8y ago

> What do you all think of this? Would you want to live in a place like that? Yes, but you're going to need to have the political capital to ratchet down the work week and split productivity gains with labor and capital. That does not exist yet, and without it, the advances you speak of will be used to funnel more wealth to the top. Disclaimer: I am active on the political side, and will be running for office in the next federal Congressional election cycle. Drop me a line if you want to chat on how we can work together to obviate the need to work down the road; that's the future I want for everyone.

jxub 8y ago
> Disclaimer: I am active on the political side, and will be running for office in the next election cycle. You should make an announcement or something for us in HN (when the time comes)! I'm sure there would be quite a lot of people here to support your candidature.
profalseidol 8y ago
Don't we already have a world where machines are the ones producing our needs? There's that Discovery Channel series called "How it's Made" where you see it's practically all robots. Do you agree? > and without it, the advances you speak of will be used to funnel more wealth to the top. All the technologies for mass production so far has indeed funneled to the top huh? And this I believe has also slowed down advancement in technology (unless it's something that is very profitable). > split productivity gains with labor and capital You'll be called Socialist. Giving what the laborers deserve is Socialism. "Share the means of production!" However, the fact that Bernie had a following is a good indicator. There's also Corbin whom is pushing for a 'right to own' policy.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  > Don't we already have a world where machines are the ones producing our needs? There's that Discovery Channel series called "How it's Made" where you see it's practically all robots. Do you agree? I don't agree, in that we haven't gone far enough with regards to automation. It's still much too expensive, putting it out of reach of anyone without deep pockets or access to capital markets. > All the technologies for mass production so far has indeed funneled to the top huh? And this I believe has also slowed down advancement in technology (unless it's something that is very profitable). The majority of productivity gains has been captured by capital, yes: https://i.stack.imgur.com/iCTuo.jpg https://i.stack.imgur.com/iCTuo.jpg (the dismantling of labor unions in the US is also a contributor to wages being held down, but that is out of scope for this comment) > You'll be called Socialist. Giving what the laborers deserve is Socialism. "Share the means of production!" I identify as a Democratic Socialist politically. The distinction is important.

thanksDr 8y ago

This is exactly the kind of utopia so many of us today are trying to build. There are many points of entry: Using FLOSS for governments, for schools, releasing all government funded code, etc.

TaylorAlexander 8y ago
Absolutely! I’d like to go farther, and imagine how we could reinvent society if we had high quality open source automation hardware in addition to open source software. Open source software has paved the way and now I’m excited to see what open source robotics combined with the right attitudes can do.

fredley 8y ago

Human beings, at least some of them, crave power. How would one such human behave in a system such as this? How would a group? Could a system be designed to be relient against this threat, at scale? While it's nice to think of a FLOSS utopia, unfortunately human behaviour will never allow it to happen.

oscargrouch 8y ago
I used to be pessimistic about it too. I think it will happen in a proper way in some places, in others it will be used as a tool to amass more power, as the human nature implies it will. But the silver lining is that we are creating a collective conciousness through tools like the internet. Humans can naturally create this collective sentient being when forming a tribe for instance. Our problem, in our particular point of history of civilization, was always the problem of scale. Now with the internet we are again able to form this collective mind in a bigger scale. We are still in the infancy of this process, and thats why this collective is acting as a dumb giant. But I think that as we evolve in this process, this collective mind will get more sophisticated. And soon we will be able to collectivelly control whats best for the greater good, trying to repel all hostile movements that could try to control the resources to the benefit of a few. The problem is: it will take a lot of fight to get there, some of us will fall, but i believe that some of us will get there first.
muxator 8y ago
I only can think of simple, basic ways: promote different values and make socially unacceptable to be the one who carves for subsuming the others.
antocv 8y ago
We make the robots do the resilience for us. Whenever some human has amassed more power over others, and a group feels ill, the robots solve the problem. All such a robot would have to do is apply current laws, facebook is too big, google is too powerful, banks are bankrypt, robot just swings the hammer the elected politicians failed to do.
- dfischer 8y ago

jdi92mxx 8y ago

A lot of jobs just act as distractions to create jobs A better target than automoting away cashier jobs at pointless retailers would be to target universal access to healthcare and social services as the key economic drivers Then folks aren’t tethered to dumb jobs and can make jewelry or chairs and such for personal needs when they’re on vacation from their job that supports the health economy Creating is an important human outlet. Don’t think it’ll do to automate it away. But we can open it up to anyone learning to create whatever so long as they don’t need to be tethered to a dumb job

drb91 8y ago

This seems like the natural conclusion of a welfare state, not a capitalist society.

mulmen 8y ago
Capitalists are not workers. You can create this utopian society by distributing capital in a way that all individuals have their basic needs provided. At that point everyone is a capitalist and is free to pursue whatever interests they desire. Note that all economic systems are concerned with distribution of resources so the idea of distributing capital is not unique to a "welfare state".
- hueving 8y ago
  > You can create this utopian society by distributing capital in a way that all individuals have their basic needs provided This is currently not even close to possible based on our current technology level. In order for everyone to have their basic needs provided for free we would need full automation for all of these things: * all of healthcare * all of food production * all of shelter construction and maintenance * all energy generation * all transportation * all waste disposal * all water collection and treatment * maintenance of the things that automate all of the above Given that this is not the scenario now, countries are forced to tax the currently economically productive people to pay for some of these things for those not currently participating in the economy. There is no country in the world that provides all of these things for free to all citizens because there would be no incentive for anyone to do the work to support all of the basic needs. It's already hard enough to incentivize people to work to support the economy when they have to do it in exchange for food/shelter/transportation. >Capitalists are not workers This is completely false. Anyone with a retirement account or money sitting in a bank earning interest is a capitalist. Even as a worker with no money earning growth, you are a capitalist selling your own labor/skills/time.
  - canhascodez 8y ago
    Your definition of "capitalist" does not seem to bear much relation to the ideas of Adam Smith. Also, you added a clause ("for free") to the statement you responded to, then argued against it. This is disingenuous and invalid as a form of argument. > Given that this is not the scenario now, countries are forced to tax the currently economically productive people to pay for some of these things for those not currently participating in the economy. It's at least as valid to say that capitalism is incorrect in valuing people only in relation to the value of their labor. We have massive social and financial structures to subsidize students, because we recognize that activity has a great deal of future value to individuals, nations, and the world at large. We provide a great deal of support to mothers, and the elderly, because societies are more than just economic engines. > There is no country in the world that provides all of these things for free to all citizens because there would be no incentive for anyone to do the work to support all of the basic needs. Contradicted by studies. People work because they want to, and because they want more than a basic existence. You would also need to show that it's less expensive to have a bunch of homeless and/or sick people, which is not really possible in a democratic society. Not paying for things that are necessary for your fellow citizens to survive usually ends up being the most expensive way possible to pay for things. I think that you should rethink a great deal of your sociopolitical philosophy.

hinkley 8y ago

I sometimes feel like if we could just make volunteer labor tax deductible, we could get part way to this place. For some projects a couple hours of my time might be more valuable to everybody than the twenty bucks I’m willing to donate. And ten hours a week would increase your take home pay by about 6%, versus working 50-60 a week for your employer for a slightly bigger raise.

macspoofing 8y ago

That society will not exist. People derive meaning from work. Ambition also drives personal development. You take those away and all a person has left is self-medication with drugs and booze and suicide. We need the struggle.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
Go on believing this fallacy, but please don't work to enslave the rest of us in service to this obsolete idea
- tomhoward 8y ago
  The parent may or may not be right about work being necessary to for a meaningful life. I don't have a strong opinion either way [1]. What matters more to me is that we are just so far away from all the important work being "done". As long as there are sick people, people in physical or emotional pain, people needing better housing or better education or any form of improvement to their lives, and as long as the global population has yet to figure out how to exist without harming the environment, there will be work to be done, much of it of great importance and urgency. This idea that we are within reach of all the important work being "done" so we can all just live a life of leisure seems fanciful to me; I haven't heard anyone propose a realistic pathway to bring about that version of reality - at least not one that doesn't just rely on handwavy concepts from science fiction. I'd be happy for you to point me to any solid material on this if I'm missing something. [1] I personally think all kinds of things can give people meaning, and those things may be considered "work" by some people and not by others (E.g., caring for loved ones, learning to create art, or indeed, writing open-source software), so it quickly becomes a futile debate over definitions.
  - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
    Its not black and white. Currently folks have lives all over the map - from working retail, fry cook, desk jockey, doctor, engineer. Then there are the underemployed. Some folks could be 'ramped down' now with a UBI that frees them from make-work drudgery. Others will find the UBI insufficient and keep working. It could actually be adjusted to tune the workforce to available work. Later, its true even some engineering, doctoring, lawyering (wait that happened already) jobs will be automated too, and those folks will find the UBI useful. Its a strawman that work just comes to a halt at some date.

pweissbrod 8y ago

Ever watch 'the jetsons'? Generation or so back in the USA that was the the general over-the-rainbow vision of where technology would take us. The robots would do the work while people would afford more time to spend on leisure/artistic oriented lifestyles.

TaylorAlexander 8y ago
I grew up watching the Jetsons! Now I want to make it a reality.
3pt14159 8y ago
We could have that today. All our money is getting dumped into arms races. If we: 1. Put a 1000% tax on advertising spending. 2. Taxed property at a much higher rate, but gave each person a basic income. 3. Set a ceiling for the ratio of funds that education institutes can spend on non-professor things. (At least here in Canada they waste most of the money on things that don't actually teach skills, they just look impressive or market the university in some other way.) 4. Set caps on how much individual patents or works of art could earn before they lost financial protected status. 5. Set corporate taxes as a function of in-country sales and total affiliated market cap. 6. Punished corporate region shopping for tax havens and other advantages with trade agreements. 7. Made public healthcare optimize on happy person-years saved and with emphasis on prevention. 8. Make more areas that are 7 storeys tall so people can walk or bike to get their daily things. 9. Set high taxes on cars and invested in high speed city-to-city trains. Then we'd have houses that were safe, but affordable. Cities that had some quiet areas, but were dense enough to be viable for everyone. Great education via well-paid professors and TAs. Reasonable returns in investments in technology and art, without Walt Disney and other soulless corporations milking the same characters year after year. Products that competed mostly on quality instead of advertising. Instead we have almost the opposite. Nobody can afford anything because property gets sucked up into mortgage fuelled bubbles and in classes of 100 people where each person is paying $40k per year after subsidies we have professors and TAs struggling to get grants to fund their research. Why? A single course for a four month term is $350–$500k worth of product. Where did all the money go? Same place all the money always goes: Competition for the best students to get the best reputation to get the best students to get the best...

m3mpp 8y ago

Looks like 1917 russian revolution to me... no, thank you.

int_19h 8y ago
There were two revolutions in Russia in 1917. If you mean the communist one, then their program was rather different, and included things such as "dictatorship of the proletariat".

erikpukinskis 8y ago

“Automating away jobs” is like “harvesting away corn”. Sure you can delete someone’s job. But you just leave a job-shaped hole in the person that then goes and finds a new purpose. It only seems like a disappearance for the season, and then you find something new growing there. The idea that we are anywhere near “doing all the work” is batshit. We are presently doing maybe 1% of the work that needs doing. You could automate the entire economy 50 times and still have 50 more careers waiting for the globe’s population. Bioremediation in he wake of climate change alone could occupy an entire generation of earth humans. Mental health another. Building permaculture cities will be the work of an entire generation. None of those things will be amenable to robot labor.

chii 8y ago
> Bioremediation ... but who is going to want to pay for such things? The whole reason "jobs" exists is that it's a task somebody wanted done, and is willing to pay some resources for it.
TaylorAlexander 8y ago
I don’t think we’re close to doing all the work, and I don’t want to automate all work. I want to automate away jobs. Those things society relies on from everyone to function. The point is that a society that requires everyone to work all the time sucks for a lot of people - particularly those at the bottom. We can and I believe should build a world where working a job is optional. I fully expect people would still work a lot, but it would be optional in the sense that their basic needs (food, shelter, clothing, access to computers and internet) would be provided to them by society. It is certainly possible to build this. And many people want it. The key, I think, is to build the system based on voluntary interaction. Find people who are willing to help support others and then have those people collectively drive the cost of that support down through engineering. I’m not trying to eliminate work. You can never eliminate work. I want to eliminate jobs.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]