> Where's the predicted society where automation allows us all to work for two hours a day, and spend the rest at leisure? Others have already commented on the

> Where's the predicted society where automation allows us all to work for two hours a day, and spend the rest at leisure? Others have already commented on the fact that quality of life has generally increased. I think it's also worth realizing that over the course of a lifetime people today spend a much smaller fraction of their waking hours engaged in work than before. 100 years ago a typical man in a developed country might have started work aged 14 and then stopped working a few years before death if they were lucky to not die before. Nowadays even someone "uneducated" would start working at 18, while others might start aged 22 or older. And a common expectation is to have a retirement of 15+ years. So averaging over a lifetime we do work a lot less as a fraction of our lives than in earlier times. Edit: numbers were plucked from thin air based on my experiences of my own country, but i guess the general point applies to most developed countries