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Some day we are going to expect only some people to have to work for a living? How are we going to choose the poor saps that have to work while the robots feed
by krupan 15y ago
Some day we are going to expect only some people to have to work for a living? How are we going to choose the poor saps that have to work while the robots feed all the rest of us while we sit by our swimming pools?
- eli_gottlieb 15y agoSimple: we don't set it up like that, with the few as slaves to the many. We just distribute a basic living to everyone, shorten the length of the work necessary for "full-time" status (or ideally abolish the distinction between part-time and full-time), and let anyone who wants extra go work for it.
- Futurebot 15y agoA few other countries have it more-or-less figured out the basics, though without this future need in mind. Countries with a "guaranteed basic income" do this. There's also Milton Friedman's "Negative Income Tax" idea. At some point, we're going to be looking at world where few /people/ are honestly needed to do anything, and we will in fact need a way to support them. The post-scarcity society envisioned by some is probably no longer centuries away. What's more interesting is how thinkers from various political persuasions have had their opinions on the matter converge to this answer while the dominant narratives (in the US at least) stay centered on variants of no-rules early Capitalism (Republicans/Libertarians), neo-Mercantilism (China), or 1950s union-jobs-for-life (Democrats), all of which seem increasingly untenable. Watch this (starts getting really interesting around 1:00) for more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KOoHRircmhM http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=K...