[zaroth]

Not sure why this is downvoted. The preeminent economists of the age thought that this is exactly what would happen - everyone would be working 2-4 hours a week and there would be nothing left to be done because every hour would be so damn productive.

The problem is twofold. First, there’s a lot of people in the world and bringing them out of poverty increases the economy up to 3 orders of magnitude, e.g. from living on $0.25 a day to living on $250 a day, which can suck up a whole lot of productivity gains.

And secondly, as it turns out, there’s always new places to shift demand when less and less of your budget is required just to subsist.

And then when all those “beyond sustenance” dollars all start chasing the same limited supply of goods, say, a house in the Bay Area, or even a lobster dinner…

[treeman79]

If your willing to live by 1800 quality of life then 5 hours a week at minimum wage will be plenty of money. Sack of beans and grain. Few yards of cloth.

Land is the only limiter. Even that is cheap if your willing to live in middle of no where.

[hackernewds]

Exactly. We are already there to subsist on basic human needs for food and shelter on < 10 hours work per week. But the human need to keep uplifting our lives will ensure we're always in the rat race desiring to settle in California or Hawaii

[chii]

which is fine i think - the rat race is what got us to today's huge material wealth and comforts.