8 ms·

A World Without Work

34 points by prostoalex 7y ago

jay_kyburz 7y ago
I have trouble imagining a future where people don't want to trade their time for more goods and services. New phones, nice holidays. Especially with the advertising industry constantly bombarding them with messages about how their lives could be better if they just spend a little more. A UBI paid for by taxing capital might help feed and house people, but I think people are always going to want more, and they will be unhappy if they can't trade their time for it.
- cryptoz 7y ago
  I think the definition of 'work' here is work that must be done for day-to-day survival. It is not meant to include all possible enjoyable pursuits, like trading your time for goods and services. I don't think Wilde or the author or others wish for the elimination of all human creativity. There's a big difference between 1) learning sciences or arts or anything at all for the purpose of improving your life (being able to trade your now-valuable time for other things, or simply for the enjoyment of the tasks themselves) and 2) working menial, drudgery tasks simply for the ability to purchase food and ensure a roof over your head one month at a time. Many people I've met think that #2 is a required part of humanity; that if you do not spend most of your waking hours contributing something to society that you don't deserve to keep living. I think we need a societal shift in thinking to allow for a world that is coming, where basic needs for all ought to be met and our unique human experiences can be better spent - either with family, or exploring the cosmos, or building new inventions. It hasn't really been possible before that we are so close to building a society where few human jobs will be required to sustain our populations' needs.
  - jay_kyburz 7y ago
    Yes, but the point I was trying to make was that I still think we will need an economy so that somebody will pay you study or be creative. Otherwise, what will you give the owners of the AI in trade for the new Phone / House / Holiday. People will probably still want to trade about 30-40 hours of time a week doing whatever utopian pursuit pays best. I think the transition from our current economy to this "post work" economy will be very interesting.
    - AstralStorm 7y ago
      Someone has to provide you the basic materials and sustenance for any pursuit. Certain things will still be rare or kept that way for advantage...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- Ghjklov 7y ago
  On the other hand, I spend a lot of my time working to pay rent and feed myself. I'm not even alive, mostly dead inside. What more do I want when there's no time to do anything with more stuff?
- claudiawerner 7y ago
  > I have trouble imagining a future where people don't want to trade their time for more goods and services. New phones, nice holidays. Especially with the advertising industry constantly bombarding them with messages about how their lives could be better if they just spend a little more. This difficulty in imagining a qualitatively different future is what Mark Fisher called "capitalist realism". A changed society produces a changed population, and therefore a society without advertising will not have its members affected in the same compulsion as they are due to advertising today.
sandoooo 7y ago
Let's say we have machines that will produce an unlimited quantity of any good that is currently on the market today. We put one in every house, since that machine can also produce copies of itself. Does this mean nobody have to work? You still need doctors. You still need police. You still need yoga instructors. Plumbers. Somebody to fix your internet. And the need to pay those people means you will still need to find a way to earn money. Plus, land is still expensive because physics, and now that people can afford to pay more, landlords will charge more. Want higher density? Zoning is also not free. Nor are architects and builders. All that happens is that goods are excluded from the economic system, but the system will keep going. The prices for still-limited services will simply go up to the point where you will still need to work 40 hour weeks to afford them.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  This is already here to some extent, we have a rentier economy and the bigger it gets the more of a load it will put on everyone else. I do wonder if rather than UBI we should be pursuing UBH (Universal Basic Housing). Cheap food is a solved problem for everyone but the very poorest, housing isn't.
  - sandoooo 7y ago
    Of course it is already here. I think this is in fact the core problem of Medicare and why costs are going up and up with no end in sight. In the same vein, all that a UBI / UBH would do is shift around allocation of actually-limited resources while causing inefficiency, waste and accounting headaches for everybody. What's more, you'll be shifting those limited resources away from the most materially productive segment of society - the middle class - and onto the underclass, who is not going to all of a suddenly take over the burden of mass production, since that requires many years of education and training. So what I'm saying is you'll start to get goods shortages too. The whole system is an intricate jigsaw puzzle with a billion moving pieces. People keep suggesting we fix it by hitting it with a hammer and setting parts of it on fire.
    - 7y ago
mayniac 7y ago
All of these comments come down to one thing: if work was purely voluntary, would you still work?
- stevewodil 7y ago
  This raises another point of discussion since I would say for most normal people the answer is no. In this scenario any companies that exist would have to work really hard to make the work fun and fulfilling, which is not a requirement in most cases today. It would be interesting to see a world in which employers actively try to make work an enjoyable way to spend your time
- non-entity 7y ago
  I would say, yes, but no where near the hours or even the regular schedule I do now. And of work on things that interest me
- chownie 7y ago
  Yes, but the work I would do probably wouldn't resemble closely what I do now. If I have the comfort of being able to carefully choose rather than having to find anything to pay bills then I would try hard to find something that would allow me to enrich my community. I've always wanted to work in assisting illiterate adults in learning to read but I have no teaching degree (doesn't pay well enough to support my family) and I don't have the luxury of time to seek those kinds of positions.
- alexgmcm 7y ago
  Yeah, but I'd probably go back to Plasma Physics research or BCIs or something. Essentially, "what I was thinking about before somebody came along and told me I had to earn a living" to quote Buckminster Fuller.
- kwhitefoot 7y ago
  Yes. But not as much and not necessarily the same work. Had I had a guaranteed income I probably would have studied for another degree and that would have made me more productive. One of the political problems with UBI for some people is that it promises to change the power relations between employees and employers. A person whose basic needs are guaranteed to be met regardless of employment will be more able and presumably willing to say no to a job that is unpleasant or dangerous or merely inadequately paid. Perhaps then people who perform important but low status tasks will see their income increase at the expense of the rest. I suspect that UBI could be introduced more easily in Europe than in the US for this reason because in Europe (in particular Scandinavia) we already to a large extent work in order to live rather than living merely to work. That doesn't mean people are unwilling to work. I know plenty of people in Norway who are well past retirement age who still do substantial amounts of work. But none of them need the money, they all have decent pensions, they do it because they have skills that they like to exercise. Of course the money they get is a welcome bonus.
rcarmo 7y ago
I see very little of that “machine-enhanced” future. Case in point: construction work (buildings, houses, roads) is still carried out by humans, and will likely always be. Humans have shifted from subsistence and self-preservation to provide services of many sorts to each other, and most of the high-value ones are non-physical in nature (hold that thought!). Toil is something that our society and industry has eliminated in mass-production scenarios, to be sure, but there is still a way to go - consider that ambulatory robots of almost any kind (except vacuum cleaners) are still niche affairs.
himlion 7y ago
The main reason I wouldn't retire early on a very minimal income is that I think there might be expensive anti-aging treatments on the horizon in the coming 40 years. I would like to be situated to take advantage of those.
- chacha2 7y ago
  In 40 years time we're going to be experiencing ecological collapse.
- kungito 7y ago
  So are you wasting your existing time available for a chance at extending your life to do what? Work even more to extend even more? This dilemma always reminds me of Dunbar from Catch 22 https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/496826-dunbar-loved-shooting-skeet-because-he-hated-every-minute-of https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/496826-dunbar-loved-shootin... Personally I'm most happy about the fact that life ends at some point. Whatever I do, whether I waste my life (whatever that meant) or live it "meaningfully", at one point it wont matter any more. Don't get me wrong, I like my life more or less and try to live it "meaningfully" but constantly thinking about whether I'm doing the right thing at the moment and what will happen "in the future" is quite tiring.
Veoich_py 7y ago
I'm down for a world with "less" work but when I think back to the moments when I'm not working and they suck, I always get anxious and depressed usually start binge drinking and getting super fucked up. :/
- Chinjut 7y ago
  Nobody's proposing you wouldn't be allowed to work; just that you wouldn't have to. If you want to go find a boss and be their employee, have at it.
eithed 7y ago
Or it could be like in Culture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_series)
Unsimplified 7y ago
How many hours of other people's worktime do you consume every day? Obviously they want you to work for them too. That's what trade is. So what does fair trade look like? How much forced charity is fair?

34 points by prostoalex 7y ago

I have trouble imagining a future where people don't want to trade their time for more goods and services. New phones, nice holidays. Especially with the advertising industry constantly bombarding them with messages about how their lives could be better if they just spend a little more. A UBI paid for by taxing capital might help feed and house people, but I think people are always going to want more, and they will be unhappy if they can't trade their time for it.

cryptoz 7y ago
I think the definition of 'work' here is work that must be done for day-to-day survival. It is not meant to include all possible enjoyable pursuits, like trading your time for goods and services. I don't think Wilde or the author or others wish for the elimination of all human creativity. There's a big difference between 1) learning sciences or arts or anything at all for the purpose of improving your life (being able to trade your now-valuable time for other things, or simply for the enjoyment of the tasks themselves) and 2) working menial, drudgery tasks simply for the ability to purchase food and ensure a roof over your head one month at a time. Many people I've met think that #2 is a required part of humanity; that if you do not spend most of your waking hours contributing something to society that you don't deserve to keep living. I think we need a societal shift in thinking to allow for a world that is coming, where basic needs for all ought to be met and our unique human experiences can be better spent - either with family, or exploring the cosmos, or building new inventions. It hasn't really been possible before that we are so close to building a society where few human jobs will be required to sustain our populations' needs.
- jay_kyburz 7y ago
  Yes, but the point I was trying to make was that I still think we will need an economy so that somebody will pay you study or be creative. Otherwise, what will you give the owners of the AI in trade for the new Phone / House / Holiday. People will probably still want to trade about 30-40 hours of time a week doing whatever utopian pursuit pays best. I think the transition from our current economy to this "post work" economy will be very interesting.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    Someone has to provide you the basic materials and sustenance for any pursuit. Certain things will still be rare or kept that way for advantage...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Ghjklov 7y ago
On the other hand, I spend a lot of my time working to pay rent and feed myself. I'm not even alive, mostly dead inside. What more do I want when there's no time to do anything with more stuff?
claudiawerner 7y ago
> I have trouble imagining a future where people don't want to trade their time for more goods and services. New phones, nice holidays. Especially with the advertising industry constantly bombarding them with messages about how their lives could be better if they just spend a little more. This difficulty in imagining a qualitatively different future is what Mark Fisher called "capitalist realism". A changed society produces a changed population, and therefore a society without advertising will not have its members affected in the same compulsion as they are due to advertising today.

sandoooo 7y ago

Let's say we have machines that will produce an unlimited quantity of any good that is currently on the market today. We put one in every house, since that machine can also produce copies of itself. Does this mean nobody have to work? You still need doctors. You still need police. You still need yoga instructors. Plumbers. Somebody to fix your internet. And the need to pay those people means you will still need to find a way to earn money. Plus, land is still expensive because physics, and now that people can afford to pay more, landlords will charge more. Want higher density? Zoning is also not free. Nor are architects and builders. All that happens is that goods are excluded from the economic system, but the system will keep going. The prices for still-limited services will simply go up to the point where you will still need to work 40 hour weeks to afford them.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago
This is already here to some extent, we have a rentier economy and the bigger it gets the more of a load it will put on everyone else. I do wonder if rather than UBI we should be pursuing UBH (Universal Basic Housing). Cheap food is a solved problem for everyone but the very poorest, housing isn't.
- sandoooo 7y ago
  Of course it is already here. I think this is in fact the core problem of Medicare and why costs are going up and up with no end in sight. In the same vein, all that a UBI / UBH would do is shift around allocation of actually-limited resources while causing inefficiency, waste and accounting headaches for everybody. What's more, you'll be shifting those limited resources away from the most materially productive segment of society - the middle class - and onto the underclass, who is not going to all of a suddenly take over the burden of mass production, since that requires many years of education and training. So what I'm saying is you'll start to get goods shortages too. The whole system is an intricate jigsaw puzzle with a billion moving pieces. People keep suggesting we fix it by hitting it with a hammer and setting parts of it on fire.
  - 7y ago

mayniac 7y ago

All of these comments come down to one thing: if work was purely voluntary, would you still work?

stevewodil 7y ago
This raises another point of discussion since I would say for most normal people the answer is no. In this scenario any companies that exist would have to work really hard to make the work fun and fulfilling, which is not a requirement in most cases today. It would be interesting to see a world in which employers actively try to make work an enjoyable way to spend your time
non-entity 7y ago
I would say, yes, but no where near the hours or even the regular schedule I do now. And of work on things that interest me
chownie 7y ago
Yes, but the work I would do probably wouldn't resemble closely what I do now. If I have the comfort of being able to carefully choose rather than having to find anything to pay bills then I would try hard to find something that would allow me to enrich my community. I've always wanted to work in assisting illiterate adults in learning to read but I have no teaching degree (doesn't pay well enough to support my family) and I don't have the luxury of time to seek those kinds of positions.
alexgmcm 7y ago
Yeah, but I'd probably go back to Plasma Physics research or BCIs or something. Essentially, "what I was thinking about before somebody came along and told me I had to earn a living" to quote Buckminster Fuller.
kwhitefoot 7y ago
Yes. But not as much and not necessarily the same work. Had I had a guaranteed income I probably would have studied for another degree and that would have made me more productive. One of the political problems with UBI for some people is that it promises to change the power relations between employees and employers. A person whose basic needs are guaranteed to be met regardless of employment will be more able and presumably willing to say no to a job that is unpleasant or dangerous or merely inadequately paid. Perhaps then people who perform important but low status tasks will see their income increase at the expense of the rest. I suspect that UBI could be introduced more easily in Europe than in the US for this reason because in Europe (in particular Scandinavia) we already to a large extent work in order to live rather than living merely to work. That doesn't mean people are unwilling to work. I know plenty of people in Norway who are well past retirement age who still do substantial amounts of work. But none of them need the money, they all have decent pensions, they do it because they have skills that they like to exercise. Of course the money they get is a welcome bonus.

rcarmo 7y ago

I see very little of that “machine-enhanced” future. Case in point: construction work (buildings, houses, roads) is still carried out by humans, and will likely always be. Humans have shifted from subsistence and self-preservation to provide services of many sorts to each other, and most of the high-value ones are non-physical in nature (hold that thought!). Toil is something that our society and industry has eliminated in mass-production scenarios, to be sure, but there is still a way to go - consider that ambulatory robots of almost any kind (except vacuum cleaners) are still niche affairs.

himlion 7y ago

The main reason I wouldn't retire early on a very minimal income is that I think there might be expensive anti-aging treatments on the horizon in the coming 40 years. I would like to be situated to take advantage of those.

chacha2 7y ago
In 40 years time we're going to be experiencing ecological collapse.
kungito 7y ago
So are you wasting your existing time available for a chance at extending your life to do what? Work even more to extend even more? This dilemma always reminds me of Dunbar from Catch 22 https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/496826-dunbar-loved-shooting-skeet-because-he-hated-every-minute-of https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/496826-dunbar-loved-shootin... Personally I'm most happy about the fact that life ends at some point. Whatever I do, whether I waste my life (whatever that meant) or live it "meaningfully", at one point it wont matter any more. Don't get me wrong, I like my life more or less and try to live it "meaningfully" but constantly thinking about whether I'm doing the right thing at the moment and what will happen "in the future" is quite tiring.

Veoich_py 7y ago

I'm down for a world with "less" work but when I think back to the moments when I'm not working and they suck, I always get anxious and depressed usually start binge drinking and getting super fucked up. :/

Chinjut 7y ago
Nobody's proposing you wouldn't be allowed to work; just that you wouldn't have to. If you want to go find a boss and be their employee, have at it.

eithed 7y ago

Or it could be like in Culture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_series)

Unsimplified 7y ago

How many hours of other people's worktime do you consume every day? Obviously they want you to work for them too. That's what trade is. So what does fair trade look like? How much forced charity is fair?