World Without Work...

Larry Gude

Strung Out
...OK, so, this is slowly starting to get attention, the reality that work will become, largely, a thing of the past. Set aside the economics of the thing for a moment based on the reality that we simply will have to figure it out.

So, widespread automation, robotics, AI, in your mind try and put all the jobs in one category, the ones most likely to be automated. Then, another category of stuff that simply will remain human; your job if it really can't be automated, athletes, artists, craftsmen, artisans, people doing things they truly WANT to do. Run it all out however you need to in your mind to get to this question;

If you were making what you make now and did not have to work, what would you do? Would you just sit and rot, eat bad food, spend all your time seeking medical treatment so you could rot some more? Or, what?

:popcorn:
 

This_person

Well-Known Member
...OK, so, this is slowly starting to get attention, the reality that work will become, largely, a thing of the past. Set aside the economics of the thing for a moment based on the reality that we simply will have to figure it out.

So, widespread automation, robotics, AI, in your mind try and put all the jobs in one category, the ones most likely to be automated. Then, another category of stuff that simply will remain human; your job if it really can't be automated, athletes, artists, craftsmen, artisans, people doing things they truly WANT to do. Run it all out however you need to in your mind to get to this question;

If you were making what you make now and did not have to work, what would you do? Would you just sit and rot, eat bad food, spend all your time seeking medical treatment so you could rot some more? Or, what?

:popcorn:

Read and re-read the bible, spend as much time as possible learning and teaching, spend as much time as possible with my family.

Or, if I were Tim McGraw, I would go skydiving, Rocky Mountain climbing, I'd go 2.7 seconds on a bull named FuManChu, I would love deeper, speak sweeter, be the husband my wife deserves, be the friend a friend would like to have, give forgiveness I'd been denying, and watch an eagle as it was flying.

Actually, that's a pretty good list (except bull riding).

Doesn't this belong in the philosophy community, not the politics one?
 

DEEKAYPEE8569

Well-Known Member
If you were making what you make now and did not have to work, what would you do?
For me personally, this becomes: 'if you could leave what you're doing now.....' If I could still make the same money and not have to work, I would probably leave; but I'd likely also have to get another job to keep up with the general rising costs of things.
 

This_person

Well-Known Member
No because we're talking future public policy and the subject interests the hell out of me. :buddies:

I thought it was a fantasy thing. It could never be public policy - from where would the money come to pay me, and who would accomplish what I accomplish?
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
I love my job but every single day I come up with an idea for a new business I could start or service I could provide. So if a robot took over my job and I had to find something to do with myself, I'd think of what was missing that people wanted and I'd start a business providing it. Even if it wasn't for money, just for the satisfaction of solving a problem or filling a need.

I like working. I like being useful. :shrug:
 

Larry Gude

Strung Out
I thought it was a fantasy thing. It could never be public policy - from where would the money come to pay me, and who would accomplish what I accomplish?

It WILL be public policy. The rate at which you get your head wrapped around that simple fact is up to you. :buddies:
 

Larry Gude

Strung Out
So are the people that actually do work going to be the new royalty? The powerful?

There will be SOME human jobs but less and less of us will be needed. As long as we all have the vote we're our own royalty. Many will work because they like it. Many will work to have more than the baseline income. Those who work now for power will do so.
 

This_person

Well-Known Member
There will be SOME human jobs but less and less of us will be needed. As long as we all have the vote we're our own royalty. Many will work because they like it. Many will work to have more than the baseline income. Those who work now for power will do so.

So, in other words, it will be just like now except really expensive - making the minimum income just enough to live in poverty. We could call it "welfare", "years of unemployment", and "food stamps".
 

Larry Gude

Strung Out
So, in other words, it will be just like now except really expensive - making the minimum income just enough to live in poverty. We could call it "welfare", "years of unemployment", and "food stamps".

Feel free to start a thread discussing your resistance to the idea. This thread was supposed to be about what YOU would do if your job is likely to go away AND you continue to get paid the same as now.

:buddies:

If you have to be able to conceive of it as being plausible in order to give it serious consideration think of it as a dividend for being a citizen of the richest, most powerful nation, ever. Or that you hit the lottery.
 
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