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My point is that there already is not enough work to do. We can fill the basic needs of humanity with well below full employment and this will only become more

by rms 17y ago

My point is that there already is not enough work to do. We can fill the basic needs of humanity with well below full employment and this will only become more obvious in the future.

loganfrederick 17y ago
Society creates ways to compensate people for doing some form of work. It would be great for society if we all reached the point where perhaps 5% of workers covered our basic human needs and the other 95% were paid to entertain and do academic/scientific research to further improve our standard of living. That is my expectation for a bright future for humanity.
- gaius 17y ago
  The problem is that 95% of people simply aren't capable of being entertainers or researchers, not in the meaningful sense of creating something genuinely original. That's not elitist, it's a fact. Those people would have to come come, more or less, from the ranks of the 5% needed to operate things.
  - kalendae 17y ago
    that is assuming we can't genetically engineer ever and for people who are already born not able to alter our DNA through some kind of viral infection mechanism.
dschobel 17y ago
That has been true in theory since the Industrial Revolution with the advent of mass-production and I believe it's still only a problem in theory. As evidence I point to the fact that the majority of countries still fail to meet the basic human needs of their citizenry. We have drought and flood resistant crops, we have assembly lines, we have heavy machinery, and yet the majority of the world's population lives without clean water and regular meals. There is a huge reservoir of work which needs to be done but because of the degenerate governments, is not getting done. On the other end of the spectrum, wealthy countries are expanding the definition of what basic needs are. Just last month, Finland declared that broadband internet access is a right of every citizen [1]. All of a sudden you have, by government mandate, a new service which must be provided to every corner of the country. So on the one hand you have all this latent potential and on the other hand you have ever growing demand for services. I just don't see the artificial jobs/services limit ever being an issue, even though we've long had the means to cloth and feed every man, woman and child on earth. [1] http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/15/finland.internet.rights/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/15/finland.internet.rights/i...
noonespecial 17y ago
Meeting basic needs is the beginning of the human story, not the destination. We don't need "work". We need imagination. Work will take care of itself.

by rms 17y ago

My point is that there already is not enough work to do. We can fill the basic needs of humanity with well below full employment and this will only become more obvious in the future.

loganfrederick 17y ago

Society creates ways to compensate people for doing some form of work. It would be great for society if we all reached the point where perhaps 5% of workers covered our basic human needs and the other 95% were paid to entertain and do academic/scientific research to further improve our standard of living. That is my expectation for a bright future for humanity.

gaius 17y ago
The problem is that 95% of people simply aren't capable of being entertainers or researchers, not in the meaningful sense of creating something genuinely original. That's not elitist, it's a fact. Those people would have to come come, more or less, from the ranks of the 5% needed to operate things.
- kalendae 17y ago
  that is assuming we can't genetically engineer ever and for people who are already born not able to alter our DNA through some kind of viral infection mechanism.

dschobel 17y ago

That has been true in theory since the Industrial Revolution with the advent of mass-production and I believe it's still only a problem in theory. As evidence I point to the fact that the majority of countries still fail to meet the basic human needs of their citizenry. We have drought and flood resistant crops, we have assembly lines, we have heavy machinery, and yet the majority of the world's population lives without clean water and regular meals. There is a huge reservoir of work which needs to be done but because of the degenerate governments, is not getting done. On the other end of the spectrum, wealthy countries are expanding the definition of what basic needs are. Just last month, Finland declared that broadband internet access is a right of every citizen [1]. All of a sudden you have, by government mandate, a new service which must be provided to every corner of the country. So on the one hand you have all this latent potential and on the other hand you have ever growing demand for services. I just don't see the artificial jobs/services limit ever being an issue, even though we've long had the means to cloth and feed every man, woman and child on earth. [1] http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/15/finland.internet.rights/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/15/finland.internet.rights/i...

noonespecial 17y ago

Meeting basic needs is the beginning of the human story, not the destination. We don't need "work". We need imagination. Work will take care of itself.