[AnimalMuppet]

I think the whole question shows that people are thinking wrong.

Think of a society/civilization spending people. Oh, we can automate much of agriculture? Great; we don't have to spend 90% of our people on growing food. Now we can spend them on factory jobs, and our society becomes better off. Now we don't have to spend so many people in factories? That's a good thing, too - we can spend those people on more productive things. Again, our society will become better off.

There are a couple of ways this could not work out, though. First, there is the social unrest that can happen in the time of transition. Second, we can lose one kind of jobs before we figure out what the new kind is, and so leave a lot of people idle. Third, we could eventually create jobs that are beyond our ability to train the bulk of people to be able to do them.

[eli_gottlieb]

But human idleness is the goal! Working, for most people, is a bunch of miserable drudgery.

[fastandfurryous]

Profit maximization is the goal behind automation.

We'd need to see changes in human nature or society to ensure that misplaced labor can still have a quality of life if idle, because profit optimization says you won't see a cent if I don't have to give it to you.

[AnimalMuppet]

Even accepting your premise (which I'm not sure that I do), that still doesn't disprove my point. When farm workers went into factories, we got a bunch of stuff like cars, dishwashers, and refrigerators. That means that I can go to the store less often, and I don't have to walk there when I go, and I don't have to wash the dishes myself each night. We gained a bunch of idleness from that - but we couldn't have done so without moving people from farms to factories.

[cholantesh]

I wonder what they'd transition to. When I'm not working, I feel depressed and anxious to a fault.