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My (honestly non-snarky) answer is: who cares? Do we really need all of the programmers that are currently being employed? Will society collapse if there aren'

My (honestly non-snarky) answer is: who cares? Do we really need all of the programmers that are currently being employed? Will society collapse if there aren't 100,000 working on the next photo sharing app? The important stuff will get done. Anything that is a luxury will get done only if someone wants to do it for themselves or if someone can convince another person to do it. Money doesn't need to disappear under a world of UBI, it's just not something that every single person on earth needs to participate in under thread of starvation and death.

Chris2048 3y ago
> My (honestly non-snarky) answer > 100,000 working on the next photo sharing app? hmm.. There are plenty of programmers that don't work for FB et al companies. A lot of modern infrastructure depends of custom software. We probably don't need Twitter (although the cultural impact of SMN might be important e.g. #meetoo, arab-spring etc). > The important stuff will get done. Yes, it will. You know how? Because the importance will inspire more money to be offered.
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  > Yes, it will. You know how? Because the importance will inspire more money to be offered. Actually I am the lead engineer and maintainer on an open source farming robot project. I do get paid enough to cover my bills, but the pay is less than 50% what I could earn at any of the companies which repeatedly pester me on linkedin. But the work I am doing is more important to me than all that. I am doing the work for less money specifically because it is important. In a world where we have community control of the means of production, what does it mean for work to be important? It means our community members need us to solve problems so they can grow food, make clothes, and build shelter. Caring for one another is in our DNA, literally! There is no specific monetary incentive required, the care for community members is already enough incentive. The only reason we need to pay people huge sums of money for some SAAS app is that the work is nearly meaningless to us. The money is the only thing that makes it worthwhile. But if we don't need money, we can work on what really matters. And when we open source the results of the work we needed, many others will find that it solves their problems too, perhaps with modest changes, so they don't need to reinvent the wheel over and over again. This means the work goes farther for the same effort.

Chris2048 3y ago

> My (honestly non-snarky) answer > 100,000 working on the next photo sharing app? hmm.. There are plenty of programmers that don't work for FB et al companies. A lot of modern infrastructure depends of custom software. We probably don't need Twitter (although the cultural impact of SMN might be important e.g. #meetoo, arab-spring etc). > The important stuff will get done. Yes, it will. You know how? Because the importance will inspire more money to be offered.

TaylorAlexander 3y ago
> Yes, it will. You know how? Because the importance will inspire more money to be offered. Actually I am the lead engineer and maintainer on an open source farming robot project. I do get paid enough to cover my bills, but the pay is less than 50% what I could earn at any of the companies which repeatedly pester me on linkedin. But the work I am doing is more important to me than all that. I am doing the work for less money specifically because it is important. In a world where we have community control of the means of production, what does it mean for work to be important? It means our community members need us to solve problems so they can grow food, make clothes, and build shelter. Caring for one another is in our DNA, literally! There is no specific monetary incentive required, the care for community members is already enough incentive. The only reason we need to pay people huge sums of money for some SAAS app is that the work is nearly meaningless to us. The money is the only thing that makes it worthwhile. But if we don't need money, we can work on what really matters. And when we open source the results of the work we needed, many others will find that it solves their problems too, perhaps with modest changes, so they don't need to reinvent the wheel over and over again. This means the work goes farther for the same effort.