[verylittlemeat]

How many of those people in tent cities would even take a job if you offered them one? How many are drug addicted or mentally ill to the point of being unemployable?

Society shouldn't pretend these people don't exist but they're rightfully a different class of unemployed.

[ta1234567890]

A lot of those people are actually employed but can't afford housing. This is a problem with no good solution in sight so far and it's going to get exacerbated with job automation.

[briandear]

Were we not making these same vapid arguments in the 1800s regarding automation and machines? The Luddites were an entire movement opposed to machines for exactly the same reasons, yet living standards are vastly higher than in those times — even the poor have air conditioners, TV and refrigerators. If we would have listened to the Luddites, we’d still be riding horses and using outhouses with a life expectancy of 45.

[ta1234567890]

Sure, maybe 200 years from now everyone in the world "on average" might be doing better. That still doesn't mean people whose jobs get automated today wont suffer, or that the Luddites didn't suffer when their jobs got taken away back in the day.

In any case, very few technologies (relative to everything that's created) actually make living standards better, mostly just things in healthcare. Almost everything else is pretty much a rats race fueled by business and profit, not by intentions of improving people's lives.

[ta1234567890]

Seems like this comment struck a cord.

To make it a bit clearer...

Currently, humanity as a whole has the resources (materials, technology, etc), to provide good housing, education, food and healthcare for everyone on this planet. However, everyday we choose not to do that and do whatever else it is we do instead.

This is just an observation, not a moral judgement on anyone in particular. By the way, I'm personally not doing anything to change the current state of affairs, so I can't really point any fingers.

Hopefully the situation will change at some point.

[jaggederest]

Those folks don't deserve to have meaningful work, if they want it?

Which percentage of society should be permanently alienated from ownership and engagement, and who decides?

[throwawayjava]

I think the point was that people who currently choose not to work are not harmed by automation of low-barrier-to-entry jobs that they are already choosing not to take.

And it's a valid point! If people really are choosing not to take jobs that are readily available, then automating those jobs is a net benefit.

Now, we should not ignore the fact that this is stated as a hypothetical! Are there a mass of unemployed who are choosing not to work? And would all of the people who lose their jobs due to burger flipping automation be able to find new jobs or be happy with no job?

Those seem like the more relevant questions.