

What happens when no one needs to work? - marvin
http://marshalljonesjr.com/what-happens-when-no-one-needs-to-work/

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caseorganic
Not sure whether to consider this a mental exercise or if this author is
serious in his assumptions.

If he is serious, the author seems to have forgotten about all of the jobs
that cannot be automated. Book writing, art, entertainment, inspirational
speaking, posting funny cat pictures and original memes to the internet,
innovation and clever software development, music and musicians, and more.
Prostitution, legal services, etc.

Even if all of these were to somehow be automated people would still need each
other. Service industries are also important.

Could you imagine living in a reality where every job is done by a machine but
because there is only one person running the show there is no one around to
support or improve on the code? None of society would move forward. We'd be
running on legacy architecture and legacy ideas. And then what would the point
of living be? Likely we'd see a whole lot of anomie and disassociation. What
would be the point of learning if there were no purpose in applying it?

The "logic" fails when the author assumes that society in the future will be
an "either/or" instead of the spectrum of human experience and automation that
it always has been and always will be. We are nothing without machines, and
they are nothing without us. They need us to reproduce them and improve them,
and we need them to help us to maintain homeostasis with our environment. It
is a symbiotic situation, not one of bleak and utopian/dsytopian absolutism.

~~~
cardine
Machines will eventually be able to do everything you mentioned including
improving its own code.

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Quizz
I would like to fill in some gaps that's not addressed by the OP: 1\. The
object of a humane society is friction-less living whereby everybody's basic
needs (food, shelter, safety) are met without having to "work" because robots
have automated everything. 2\. In this future, the energy required for
automation is fully sustainable and automated meaning creation of energy is
self-sustaining from origination (solar, nuclear) to distribution to
maintenance without requiring human input. 3\. The final assumption is that
mankind has lost interest in war and conflict - religions and ideologies co-
exist without being "personal" to the degree that advocates turn to violence
as a persuasive measure.

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pawn
We'll create a virtual reality to live in. Probably will simulate the 21st
century. The machines will feed us intravenously and will be powered by the
energy we put off. Now the question you have to ask yourself is, how do you
know this hasn't already happened?

On a more serious note, we're already paying people to live who aren't
working. Its called welfare. As time goes along, I suspect we'll have growing
numbers of people on welfare while your average job becomes increasingly
technical. If people on welfare were to become more motivated as a whole to
learn these technical jobs, it would probably speed up the process to get to
the point the author describes.

~~~
marvin
Your second paragraph mirrors my thoughts. As I've said before, Norway de
facto has a system like this already. People who are for some reason unable to
work (usually due to low skills or illness) get an allowance from the
government which is just enough to live a comfortable life. We are able to pay
out this kind of welfare since the petroleum industry is very lucrative at the
moment.

People who are jobless due to low skills are paid to receive more training,
and payment is only made if the person enrolls in some kind of education
program. People who are jobless due to long-term illness get a more or less
permanent monthly payment.

A system like this is probably what we'll end up with, where the richest are
taxed hard enough to make it work. There are doubtless lots of challenges
associated with this, but it is the only workable system I can see to make
sure that people don't starve even as we have the richest society in human
history.

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meaty
I think we're already there to some extent. We need less people to keep
everyone alive than there are people alive.

So far this has lead to oodles of unemployed and unemployable people rotting
in social housing.

I think the whole thing needs looking at.

Automation of everything will enslave us as much as not automating it. We need
a healthy balance, even if it does invoke smashing a few looms.

Insert comment about how Marx and Lenin got the right idea...

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guard-of-terra
What happens when a minority of people still need to do unautomatable jobs in
order everyone else to prosper?

Current situation seems to be this: hand a white collar to everyone but a few
(and they don't get to do anything meaningful), pay them allowance. Force
everyone else (a minority) to take a job where they are overworked for a
considerably smaller pay.

I'm sceptical on whether we can make workless society work.

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MaysonL
See: "Jobless recoveries and the disappearance of routine occupations "[1]
It's going to be tough getting there.

[1] [http://www.voxeu.org/article/jobless-recoveries-and-
disappea...](http://www.voxeu.org/article/jobless-recoveries-and-
disappearance-routine-occupations)

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marvin
Credit to manaskarekar for tracking down this link. I've posted it since I
would love to see HN's opinions and thoughts about the long-term implications
of rapid technological progress.

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kiba
And how the market exists if nobody have the money to buy food and drink?

