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I wasn't suggesting we invent jobs to keep people busy - I think we should strive towards employment being required for no one. Once food and material goods are

• TeMPOraL 12y ago
  Ok, maybe you weren't suggesting that but I see this tossed around quite often - that people will always find new jobs and therefore we can keep requiring everyone to work for sustenance. And we're inventing many bullshit jobs right now - not to look too far, half of the work done in web development is probably contributing to nothing else than zero-sum games of companies trying to out-advertise one another. I agree - as long as resources required for basic survival are scarce, there will be employment. But the point is, we shouldn't try to maintain the status quo as long as possible; we should jump to letting people live without a job the first moment this becomes feasible.
• dragonwriter 12y ago
  > But as long as anything is scarce (and experiences are, broadly, and I don't think there's any way around that), we'll have something like "employment". If labor isn't scarce (e.g., if there are easy substitutes that provide the utility provided by labor), then there's no real basis for employment even if there is scarcity in goods. Scarcity guarantees that people will have an incentive to sacrifice to get scarce goods, but if labor isn't scarce, then sacrificing time in the form of labor isn't likely to be an option to do that.