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> Ideally, none of us would ever have to work. Unfortunately, that isn't our reality. Yet! Seriously, lets just focus on building robots to do things like buil

> Ideally, none of us would ever have to work. Unfortunately, that isn't our reality. Yet! Seriously, lets just focus on building robots to do things like build roads and buildings, tend farms, drive vehicles, etc. etc. We could almost definitely pass human efficiency in the next 50 years, and nobody would ever have to do manual work again (although if that's something somebody likes doing they should totally have the option if that's what they want). Also, I'm not convinced a job in construction is "similarly skilled" to office and admin work. But that's kind of beside the point, it's possible to earn a good living from either manual or sedentary work. Sure, the extremely high earners are exclusively sedentary workers (if they work in the traditional sense at all), but that speaks to the wider problem of wealth distribution, where the fabled top 1% have 20% of the countries total wealth.

translocation 14y ago
In the US, the top 1% own 35% of the country's total wealth.
- shubb 14y ago
  But I wonder - if they spent it, would it still have the same value? Imagine one year, everyone spent all their income on stuff - earned and unearned. How much would an ipad cost? There is a limited capacity to raise ipad production - building new factories takes time. So the cost of an ipad would increase. Right now, all that wealth is locked up in various markets, increasing the value of property and various past what is rational. If it suddenly came out to play, surely we'd see things people need to live increase more than the poorest can afford. Is wealth that is never going to be spent really wealth?
  - pekk 14y ago
    This argument is reduced to absurdity because it suggests that everyone will get things cheapest if one Scrooge McDuck accumulates all the wealth and simply sits on it.
    - whatshisface 14y ago
      There's nothing absurd about deflation. If you took 50% of all the money out of the world, the money that was left would be worth twice as much.
    - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
      That's exactly the argument that was had in the Western world starting with the '70s inflation "crisis", and this was indeed the conclusion people came to: radical inequality is an acceptable price to pay for low inflation. And now we're suffering the consequences of having an overly deflationary labor market.

translocation 14y ago

In the US, the top 1% own 35% of the country's total wealth.

shubb 14y ago
But I wonder - if they spent it, would it still have the same value? Imagine one year, everyone spent all their income on stuff - earned and unearned. How much would an ipad cost? There is a limited capacity to raise ipad production - building new factories takes time. So the cost of an ipad would increase. Right now, all that wealth is locked up in various markets, increasing the value of property and various past what is rational. If it suddenly came out to play, surely we'd see things people need to live increase more than the poorest can afford. Is wealth that is never going to be spent really wealth?
- pekk 14y ago
  This argument is reduced to absurdity because it suggests that everyone will get things cheapest if one Scrooge McDuck accumulates all the wealth and simply sits on it.
  - whatshisface 14y ago
    There's nothing absurd about deflation. If you took 50% of all the money out of the world, the money that was left would be worth twice as much.
  - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
    That's exactly the argument that was had in the Western world starting with the '70s inflation "crisis", and this was indeed the conclusion people came to: radical inequality is an acceptable price to pay for low inflation. And now we're suffering the consequences of having an overly deflationary labor market.