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In a heavily automated society, the only question we need to answer is, should people have only as much money as they have earned, or only as much money as they
by knodi123 11y ago
In a heavily automated society, the only question we need to answer is, should people have only as much money as they have earned, or only as much money as they need?
If the former, then it will be seen as almost immoral or evil to give a comfortable wage to someone who didn't earn it.
If the latter, then it will be seen as almost immoral for the one guy who owns the robotic factory to reap all of the profit and earn a fortune every year by having made workers redundant.
The third option is to eschew automation entirely and keep a steady supply of make-work jobs, just to justify enough salaries to keep everybody from starving. Which strikes me as more dystopian than the oligarchy in option #2.
- JulianMorrison 11y agoThe third option is what society does now. Every time you hear politicians talk about "creating jobs", that's what it means, nearly always: the amount of available make-work just went up. We don't so much eschew robotics, as under-bid them. McDonalds finds it cheaper to hire humans than automate - for now. (The touch screen, card-accepting menus I've seen appearing lately, make the case that this won't last much longer.)
- knodi123 11y ago> The third option is what society does now Yes, I did start off stipulating "in a heavily automated society". I don't think we're quite there yet, but we will be soon, and increasing our make-work programs in lock-step with the progress of automation is a quick road to dystopia #3.