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We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technologi

We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living. - Buckminster Fuller One in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a wage. - Buckminster Fuller ... via https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup

rolltiide 7y ago
Although I also perceive the same things I wonder if there is adequate incentive for the one to create something that provides for others Simply taking their economic output is not incentive
- CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
  Take a look at all of the open source projects listed here: https://paragonie.com/software https://paragonie.com/software Especially random_compat (145 million installs) and sodium_compat (6.5 million installs + WordPress 5.2). My revenue for all of this OSS work was precisely $0.00. When was the last time any of us looked something up in Encyclopedia Brittanica instead of Wikipedia? The carrot-and-stick incentive model doesn't work for fully self-actualized adults. I posit that it only works when you use an oversimplified model of human behavior, rather than the messy truth that is humanity.
  - ernst_klim 7y ago
    > My revenue for all Your revenue may be, but people behind Gstreamer, Linux and other important serious opensource product do it for money (sometimes pretty big money, Linus has $2millions income). > When was the last time any of us looked something up in Encyclopedia Brittanica instead of Wikipedia? Wikipedia is looking for money constantly, the have sponsors, donators, without them it would cease to exist. Also Wikipedia's quality often is pretty abysmal, especially when it's not in English. > The carrot-and-stick incentive model doesn't work for fully self-actualized adults. Sure, let's suggest to abolish patent system and see how many fully self-actualized adults will oppose.
    - CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
      As someone who has done quite a bit of patentable work in the past 10 years, I would applaud abolishing patents. Cryptography patents makes us all less secure, because nobody uses patented cryptography. It's a net-negative in my industry.
    - freeone3000 7y ago
      You'll mainly get opposition from people who own patents, not inventors.
  - lazyjones 7y ago
    You're talking about a niche of products with marginal cost = 0 for production, distribution. Call me when you start building houses for free. ;-)
  - rolltiide 7y ago
    > The carrot-and-stick incentive model doesn't work for fully self-actualized adults. But for those who could be fully self actualized but arent yet and have to exchange time for food and shelter?
    - CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
      I had already covered that with the sentence that followed the one you quote-replied to. To explain: I said it doesn't work with people who are X. Then I posited that it only works in condition Y. Y covers all cases, including non-X, and therefore answers your question (with respect to what I'd posit). If your mental model of humanity is deeply flawed, you expect carrot-and-stick motivations to work. It doesn't matter if they're self-actualized. If anyone is still confused, this might be worth a read: https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594484805 https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivate...
taiwanboy 7y ago
Well put. Also most of the commenters here don’t realize that people who have been unemployed for a while can’t just get to a regular job without a low wage job in between that helps to pay for some of the costs of going to school. Also, wages in the low wage jobs ARE GOING UP, as mentioned throughout the comments
- Aloha 7y ago
  its not even going to school sometimes, often you won't get hired if you've had more then 8-10 months of unemployment without reasonable explanation.
  - 300bps 7y ago
    often you won't get hired if you've had more then 8-10 months of unemployment without reasonable explanation. I do a lot of hiring. You are correct and further - literally any gap at all is viewed as suspicious. And there aren't many reasonable explanations that help the situation.
    - scaryclam 7y ago
      I also do a lot of hiring, and can say that it's also NOT correct. We'll query it, but it's rarely a problem. Different companies have different process and expectations, so let's steer clear of absolute statements like "this is correct" and "this is not true" as it's unhelpful to folks in the situation. Generally speaking, if you have a gap, make sure to explain in a cover letter. These are important and can make the difference between a rejection from HR and being passed onto a hiring manager. Edit: spelling
      - itronitron 7y ago
        Curious to know how you would distinguish between unemployed, volunteer, and self-employed.
      - alchemism 7y ago
        I must disagree, anecdotally. I walked off one job, and went traveling for six months. Another job I was on the losing end of a political maneuver, and used my severance to take another six month sabbatical. Each time I returned to the market I received 20%+ compensation over what I had before. The second time I was promoted into management with hiring authority. Let me know who you turn away for gaps in their resume. Maybe I'll hire them. :-)
hacknat 7y ago
Also it is a total lie and a very narrow definition of utility. Arguably, we’ve actually under priced some of the most important labor in our society (caregivers, teachers, social workers, etc), and over priced some of the dumbest (sorry, but if Uber disappeared tomorrow, society would be moderately inconvenienced, but little else). Finally, nothing in evolutionary biology teaches us that human beings ought to work. Studied hunter-gatherer societies are as multi-faceted as agrarian and technologically driven ones, but they all seem to share a 20 hour work week and a strong affinity for story telling and art. Honestly, if you followed evolutionary biology we all should be working quite a bit less and producing way more art. The idea that people will fall into dissipation without work is supported by very little science, and certainly no biological science. Human beings need missions, not labor, to be fulfilled. The market economy seems capable of only supporting a very narrow slice of mission oriented work, the rest does seem like drudgery to me.
- 7thaccount 7y ago
  I think work is pretty important to being human, but working 40-60 hours a week is absurd. 30 seems like a sweet spot to me. If we could remote, do only 30, and reduce pointless meetings than I bet we'd have a lot more time for the things that make us happy like family, side projects, exercise, and Netflix.
  - hacknat 7y ago
    Why do you think work in and of itself is important? Being useful to your community is absolutely important, but our definition of that utility is absurdly narrow in this market economy. In fact, sometimes what we value and what is useful are totally orthogonal (again teachers are probably undervalued way too much, because we are poor long term thinkers).
    - 7thaccount 7y ago
      Because nearly everyone wants to feel they're contributing to society in some way. I think we agree here. I'm not saying you need a horrendous office job.
lazyjones 7y ago
Technological breakthroughs mean that goods become more affordable, not that the inventors must be punished by making them support people who aren't productive.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Seanzie 7y ago
My mom and i were just discussing my dog's visit to the veterinarian. She said that her father would never have taken a dog to the vet for those symptoms, but my dog got a blood analysis and a stomach X-ray. I spent a lot of money on all this, which paid the vet and their staff and the lab and the equipment manufacturers. Conclusion: increased wealth creates increased opportunity to work.
- contingencies 7y ago
  Medical is a special market due to emotional heartstrings. At a certain point, people will pay anything when death or health are involved. At a political / social impact / behavioral hacking level, there's probably an argument to make near human grade medical services for domestic pets free, as it would likely assist with the reduction in human population growth (aside from companionship, etc.). I am consistently amazed how cheap and fast medical services are in developing countries. The equipment costs so much less outside of western regulatory oversight, and to the consumer standard blood test batteries are often ~5-10 minutes and ~free.
  - alpha_squared 7y ago
    > I am consistently amazed how cheap and fast medical services are in developing countries. The equipment costs so much less outside of western regulatory oversight, and to the consumer standard blood test batteries are often ~5-10 minutes and ~free. This makes me wonder how much other countries indirectly benefit from the regulatory oversight that exists in the west. It's the regulatory oversight, compounded with capitalism, that produces medical equipment. Then the oversight over its usage probably adds to the cost of deploying the equipment. Does the lack of, or reduced, latter oversight contribute in any major way to the pricing discrepancy for procedures for which that medical equipment is necessary?
    - jzwinck 7y ago
      We in the east are well aware that we benefit in some ways from the extremely risk averse regulators in the US and Europe and others. It's often explicitly acknowledged with labels like "treatment developed in the US" though it can also be hard to separate the real from the false claims of such. On the other hand, not only does the east manufacture many of the pharmaceuticals sold in the west, it is a vast market which provides additional revenue with a convenient geographical separation which is difficult to arbitrage (Ibuprofen costs nothing in India compared to the US, but you don't see Indians flying to the US with suitcases of pills for sale).
conanbatt 7y ago
I've come to find comments like these ones very frustrating as an amateur economist. In the end, this idealization of how productivity should be used ends up being a proposal of political power: productivity should be what I think it should be, so we must collectively act as if it is.
- kiliantics 7y ago
  Shouldn't you find the current state of things to be equally frustrating then? It's just another example of the same thing. We never got to choose how our economic/productive output is valued or disposed of, we just were born into this highly unequal and unfair system and had to play along or die. I'd find that a lot more frustrating than the proposal that, if the technological and resource capacity exists to provide enough for all, it should be shared relatively evenly.
  - conanbatt 7y ago
    > We never got to choose how our economic/productive output is valued or disposed of, Bastiat said it long ago: men have the tendency to overvalue their own work and diminish the work of others. There is no better system known to man to solve that issue than the free exchange and refusal of services between them. When someone says that a farmer that can produce food for a thousand people thanks to productivity gains should mean that people eat for free, does he mean the farmer should not get paid, or does he mean that there should be no farmer? Clearly the idea that because productivity is up there is free labor is a fallacy.
    - kiliantics 7y ago
      While I wouldn't disagree with anything you have put forward here, I would assert that "free exchange" cannot really happen if there is massive wealth inequality. Private property will necessarily lead to labour exploitation that involves unequal circumstances and thus unequal terms of exchange.
foogazi 7y ago
He who does not work, neither shall he eat. - Paul the Apostle ... via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_does_not_work,_neither_shall_he_eat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_does_not_work,_neither_...
decasteve 7y ago
The amazing thing about Bucky is that his insights are more applicable today than when he conceived them ~50+ years ago.
kamaal 7y ago
This was also popularly known only a few years back as 'On the phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs'
webXL 7y ago
> It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. What does that mean? Supporting all the rest at 1970 first world living standards? And how is that a fact exactly?
kiliantics 7y ago
The one in ten thousand does not make that breakthrough alone either. They are "standing on the shoulders of giants" of the past and also relying on infrastructure, education, healthcare, social support, etc. that is provided by the broader community. Of course everyone should share directly (not in some "trickle down" way) in the fruits of such success -- they were all a part of nurturing it!
- therealdrag0 7y ago
  > broader community And in most cases a broader community of people working jobs! Huh, turns out those jobs ARE useful. (Sorry in advance for sarcasm.)
anthony_barker 7y ago
Tell that to the 3 billion people who are just scraping by with no local government help.

rolltiide 7y ago

Although I also perceive the same things I wonder if there is adequate incentive for the one to create something that provides for others Simply taking their economic output is not incentive

CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
Take a look at all of the open source projects listed here: https://paragonie.com/software https://paragonie.com/software Especially random_compat (145 million installs) and sodium_compat (6.5 million installs + WordPress 5.2). My revenue for all of this OSS work was precisely $0.00. When was the last time any of us looked something up in Encyclopedia Brittanica instead of Wikipedia? The carrot-and-stick incentive model doesn't work for fully self-actualized adults. I posit that it only works when you use an oversimplified model of human behavior, rather than the messy truth that is humanity.
- ernst_klim 7y ago
  > My revenue for all Your revenue may be, but people behind Gstreamer, Linux and other important serious opensource product do it for money (sometimes pretty big money, Linus has $2millions income). > When was the last time any of us looked something up in Encyclopedia Brittanica instead of Wikipedia? Wikipedia is looking for money constantly, the have sponsors, donators, without them it would cease to exist. Also Wikipedia's quality often is pretty abysmal, especially when it's not in English. > The carrot-and-stick incentive model doesn't work for fully self-actualized adults. Sure, let's suggest to abolish patent system and see how many fully self-actualized adults will oppose.
  - CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
    As someone who has done quite a bit of patentable work in the past 10 years, I would applaud abolishing patents. Cryptography patents makes us all less secure, because nobody uses patented cryptography. It's a net-negative in my industry.
  - freeone3000 7y ago
    You'll mainly get opposition from people who own patents, not inventors.
- lazyjones 7y ago
  You're talking about a niche of products with marginal cost = 0 for production, distribution. Call me when you start building houses for free. ;-)
- rolltiide 7y ago
  > The carrot-and-stick incentive model doesn't work for fully self-actualized adults. But for those who could be fully self actualized but arent yet and have to exchange time for food and shelter?
  - CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
    I had already covered that with the sentence that followed the one you quote-replied to. To explain: I said it doesn't work with people who are X. Then I posited that it only works in condition Y. Y covers all cases, including non-X, and therefore answers your question (with respect to what I'd posit). If your mental model of humanity is deeply flawed, you expect carrot-and-stick motivations to work. It doesn't matter if they're self-actualized. If anyone is still confused, this might be worth a read: https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594484805 https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivate...

taiwanboy 7y ago

Well put. Also most of the commenters here don’t realize that people who have been unemployed for a while can’t just get to a regular job without a low wage job in between that helps to pay for some of the costs of going to school. Also, wages in the low wage jobs ARE GOING UP, as mentioned throughout the comments

Aloha 7y ago
its not even going to school sometimes, often you won't get hired if you've had more then 8-10 months of unemployment without reasonable explanation.
- 300bps 7y ago
  often you won't get hired if you've had more then 8-10 months of unemployment without reasonable explanation. I do a lot of hiring. You are correct and further - literally any gap at all is viewed as suspicious. And there aren't many reasonable explanations that help the situation.
  - scaryclam 7y ago
    I also do a lot of hiring, and can say that it's also NOT correct. We'll query it, but it's rarely a problem. Different companies have different process and expectations, so let's steer clear of absolute statements like "this is correct" and "this is not true" as it's unhelpful to folks in the situation. Generally speaking, if you have a gap, make sure to explain in a cover letter. These are important and can make the difference between a rejection from HR and being passed onto a hiring manager. Edit: spelling
    - itronitron 7y ago
      Curious to know how you would distinguish between unemployed, volunteer, and self-employed.
    - alchemism 7y ago
      I must disagree, anecdotally. I walked off one job, and went traveling for six months. Another job I was on the losing end of a political maneuver, and used my severance to take another six month sabbatical. Each time I returned to the market I received 20%+ compensation over what I had before. The second time I was promoted into management with hiring authority. Let me know who you turn away for gaps in their resume. Maybe I'll hire them. :-)

hacknat 7y ago

Also it is a total lie and a very narrow definition of utility. Arguably, we’ve actually under priced some of the most important labor in our society (caregivers, teachers, social workers, etc), and over priced some of the dumbest (sorry, but if Uber disappeared tomorrow, society would be moderately inconvenienced, but little else). Finally, nothing in evolutionary biology teaches us that human beings ought to work. Studied hunter-gatherer societies are as multi-faceted as agrarian and technologically driven ones, but they all seem to share a 20 hour work week and a strong affinity for story telling and art. Honestly, if you followed evolutionary biology we all should be working quite a bit less and producing way more art. The idea that people will fall into dissipation without work is supported by very little science, and certainly no biological science. Human beings need missions, not labor, to be fulfilled. The market economy seems capable of only supporting a very narrow slice of mission oriented work, the rest does seem like drudgery to me.

7thaccount 7y ago
I think work is pretty important to being human, but working 40-60 hours a week is absurd. 30 seems like a sweet spot to me. If we could remote, do only 30, and reduce pointless meetings than I bet we'd have a lot more time for the things that make us happy like family, side projects, exercise, and Netflix.
- hacknat 7y ago
  Why do you think work in and of itself is important? Being useful to your community is absolutely important, but our definition of that utility is absurdly narrow in this market economy. In fact, sometimes what we value and what is useful are totally orthogonal (again teachers are probably undervalued way too much, because we are poor long term thinkers).
  - 7thaccount 7y ago
    Because nearly everyone wants to feel they're contributing to society in some way. I think we agree here. I'm not saying you need a horrendous office job.

lazyjones 7y ago

Technological breakthroughs mean that goods become more affordable, not that the inventors must be punished by making them support people who aren't productive.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Seanzie 7y ago

My mom and i were just discussing my dog's visit to the veterinarian. She said that her father would never have taken a dog to the vet for those symptoms, but my dog got a blood analysis and a stomach X-ray. I spent a lot of money on all this, which paid the vet and their staff and the lab and the equipment manufacturers. Conclusion: increased wealth creates increased opportunity to work.

contingencies 7y ago
Medical is a special market due to emotional heartstrings. At a certain point, people will pay anything when death or health are involved. At a political / social impact / behavioral hacking level, there's probably an argument to make near human grade medical services for domestic pets free, as it would likely assist with the reduction in human population growth (aside from companionship, etc.). I am consistently amazed how cheap and fast medical services are in developing countries. The equipment costs so much less outside of western regulatory oversight, and to the consumer standard blood test batteries are often ~5-10 minutes and ~free.
- alpha_squared 7y ago
  > I am consistently amazed how cheap and fast medical services are in developing countries. The equipment costs so much less outside of western regulatory oversight, and to the consumer standard blood test batteries are often ~5-10 minutes and ~free. This makes me wonder how much other countries indirectly benefit from the regulatory oversight that exists in the west. It's the regulatory oversight, compounded with capitalism, that produces medical equipment. Then the oversight over its usage probably adds to the cost of deploying the equipment. Does the lack of, or reduced, latter oversight contribute in any major way to the pricing discrepancy for procedures for which that medical equipment is necessary?
  - jzwinck 7y ago
    We in the east are well aware that we benefit in some ways from the extremely risk averse regulators in the US and Europe and others. It's often explicitly acknowledged with labels like "treatment developed in the US" though it can also be hard to separate the real from the false claims of such. On the other hand, not only does the east manufacture many of the pharmaceuticals sold in the west, it is a vast market which provides additional revenue with a convenient geographical separation which is difficult to arbitrage (Ibuprofen costs nothing in India compared to the US, but you don't see Indians flying to the US with suitcases of pills for sale).

conanbatt 7y ago

I've come to find comments like these ones very frustrating as an amateur economist. In the end, this idealization of how productivity should be used ends up being a proposal of political power: productivity should be what I think it should be, so we must collectively act as if it is.

kiliantics 7y ago
Shouldn't you find the current state of things to be equally frustrating then? It's just another example of the same thing. We never got to choose how our economic/productive output is valued or disposed of, we just were born into this highly unequal and unfair system and had to play along or die. I'd find that a lot more frustrating than the proposal that, if the technological and resource capacity exists to provide enough for all, it should be shared relatively evenly.
- conanbatt 7y ago
  > We never got to choose how our economic/productive output is valued or disposed of, Bastiat said it long ago: men have the tendency to overvalue their own work and diminish the work of others. There is no better system known to man to solve that issue than the free exchange and refusal of services between them. When someone says that a farmer that can produce food for a thousand people thanks to productivity gains should mean that people eat for free, does he mean the farmer should not get paid, or does he mean that there should be no farmer? Clearly the idea that because productivity is up there is free labor is a fallacy.
  - kiliantics 7y ago
    While I wouldn't disagree with anything you have put forward here, I would assert that "free exchange" cannot really happen if there is massive wealth inequality. Private property will necessarily lead to labour exploitation that involves unequal circumstances and thus unequal terms of exchange.

foogazi 7y ago

He who does not work, neither shall he eat. - Paul the Apostle ... via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_does_not_work,_neither_shall_he_eat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_does_not_work,_neither_...

decasteve 7y ago

The amazing thing about Bucky is that his insights are more applicable today than when he conceived them ~50+ years ago.

kamaal 7y ago

This was also popularly known only a few years back as 'On the phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs'

webXL 7y ago

> It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. What does that mean? Supporting all the rest at 1970 first world living standards? And how is that a fact exactly?

kiliantics 7y ago

The one in ten thousand does not make that breakthrough alone either. They are "standing on the shoulders of giants" of the past and also relying on infrastructure, education, healthcare, social support, etc. that is provided by the broader community. Of course everyone should share directly (not in some "trickle down" way) in the fruits of such success -- they were all a part of nurturing it!

therealdrag0 7y ago
> broader community And in most cases a broader community of people working jobs! Huh, turns out those jobs ARE useful. (Sorry in advance for sarcasm.)

anthony_barker 7y ago

Tell that to the 3 billion people who are just scraping by with no local government help.