In parent's defense, I believe that needs are endless and there is always a tiny motion that can be rationalized away or a shiny item that can be obtained before the others get it (think iphone a decade back).
Unless we reach the singularity, there will always be the need for something.
And if you think of needs as something as abstract as "power over the universe" (which is still a limited resource, even after the singularity), you cannot ever reach the state where machines produce everything we need.
Hence, the premise can be unreachable, or - in parent's words - "ridiculous"
> a shiny item that can be obtained before the others get it
> machines produce everything we need
There's a difference between need and want. People want iPhones, but they don't need them, so they can decide themselves whether working more is worth it.
On the other hand, people need food. The only choice is work or die, which isn't really a choice. There is an infinitely large jump between extremely cheap food and free food (and energy/shelter). As food gets cheaper, wages decrease as well, so you still need to work about as long to survive. When/if food becomes free, people won't need to work any longer.
The things that people think they need. Be it plain consumerism or something cultural or social like honor, an iphone, a beautiful wife, a car for boys to impress girls or to go to work, a marriage before losing virginity.
In each of the above cases need in the survivalist sense and need in the subjective sense cannot be more different.
One will have a hard time arguing that those people don't need what we think they don't need.
There already exists a renewable surplus of food, water, and shelter but so much of it goes wasted every year. So poverty is not a problem of production but of distribution.
I disagree. The issue is that for production of food and energy, we still need labor. A lot of this labor is low-paid (supermarket workers, truck drivers, fruit pickers, butchers ...). If you make food free, you won't be able to motivate these low-paid workers any more, so noone will work on food production, so food production won't be free any more.
It used to be 90% of the population was working to produce food, now its around 1% and decreasing with increasing efficiency. So it is an increasingly negligible amount of labor needed to provide an already surplus amount of food.
It is cynical and ignorant to assume the dollar is the monotheistic deity of motivation for everyone. There are and have been countless cultures across the world who don't require monetary payment to produce the requisite food for the community.
Exactly. As a demonstration, compare our current production situation to the production situation as of, I don't know, a thousand years ago. It used to be the case that 90% or more of the population was dedicated to food production. Right now, something like 2% of the population is dedicated to food production. By their standards, we've got machines producing everything we need.
>By their standards, we've got machines producing everything we need.
Except we don't live by their standards -- we live by our standards. And even if they had lived to see today, their standards would have immediately readjusted to want more. That's why it's ridiculous to assume we will ever have "everything we need".
Whilst I certainly want things that my iron-age ancestors wouldn't even have known they could want, my actual physical needs are not greatly different from theirs.
Part of the "challenge" a capitalist society faces is making sure there are jobs despite that only a tiny fraction of the population needs to work to provide everyone's basic biological needs, but that without work everyone else can't pay for those needs to be satisfied.
>And even if they had lived to see today, their standards would have immediately readjusted to want more.
This is not true of many tribal or "uncivilized" cultures. Conspicuous consumption, luxury, and economic advantage/inequality as moral value systems are taboo for close knit tribal communities.
>Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men, we didn't have any kind of prison. Because of this, we didn't have any delinquents. Without a prison, there can't be no delinquents. We had no locks nor keys therefore among us there were no thieves. When someone was so poor that he couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift. We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property. We didn't know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being was not determined by his wealth. We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another. We were really in bad shape before the white man arrived and I don't know how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society.
Not really. Machines don't care if you instruct them to build a Ferrari or a Toyota. There's no difference in robot labor. After that, all that's left is resources, and sending robots to mine outer space isn't a deal-beaker either.
AI + Space = everything we need
Machines have been labor saving entities since the invention of the wheel. Inevitably, one day they will perform all labor.
To think in absolutes would be to believe that human desires are finite. Even if I'm 100% materially comfortable in life (an unlikely occurrence given our ever increasing standards), I'm going to desire forms of consumption that can only come from human interaction.
If you're 100% materially comfortable in your life you would have increased freedom for human interaction. As it stands now we spend more time at work than we do with family or friends.
Then disagree with the premise. Is it wrong? Why is it ridiculous? Are the adavances in robotics and ML that we are currently experiencing going to hit a wall soon?
It's not that advancements are going to hit a wall. It's absurd to assume human demand for consumption is finite. There will always be human desires that cannot be satiated by machines.
Even if that's true, it doesn't say anything about ratios. Say 90% of our needs are met by machines, 10% is not, we still have a huge problem in terms of labor/capital value mismatch.
Unless we reach the singularity, there will always be the need for something.
And if you think of needs as something as abstract as "power over the universe" (which is still a limited resource, even after the singularity), you cannot ever reach the state where machines produce everything we need.
Hence, the premise can be unreachable, or - in parent's words - "ridiculous"