| > Almost every job right now is so far abstracted from survival that it barely makes any sense We are hyper-specialized, hyper-optimized, hyper-focused cogs in the massive survival machine that is the world economy. So much so that we can no longer see the forest for the trees. But I firmly believe the forest is still there. Supply chain problems of the last few years continue to show us just how fragile of a world we live in. Jobs we've never heard about, performed by poor villagers from places we don't care about, are arguably more important to our survival than musicians and baristas. It doesn't seem fair to ask the people providing goods/services necessary to our survival to support the chosen others who get to follow their dreams. Where do I sign up? I think you're spot on with your comment about finding 8 billion useful things to do. A barista may not be helping us survive, but at least they're making the place a bit nicer for the rest of us. The musician will trade his time/music for a nice cup of coffee. It may not be survival, but it improves the overall human experience. We're all in it together. We're going to reach a point where there isn't anything more people can do to make things nicer. Automation will eventually lead to a crisis, where people no longer have any useful value, and simply breed and consume everything around them in ever larger amounts. A world where everyone is free to pursue their dreams doesn't seem like a utopia to me. Humans free from all constraints sounds like hell to me. Devil will find work for idle hands etc. Must be a really good sci-fi novel in here somewhere. |
To me, the problem is exactly what you identified, that the value is created by jobs we haven't heard about and poor villagers. And also baristas and musicians who are also routinely underpaid. And that value is mostly exploited by whoever the current elite is (currently shareholders and to a lesser extent, software ppl, and lesser still anyone in 1st world countries etc. etc.)
So I think the only difference is a boring semantic problem :p I was defining 'pursuing dreams' as what it means to me specifically - ie. my dream is to do something cool and respected and get paid well for it, which I think jives with why musicians want to be musicians. Making things nicer for people is a major part of it.
All the baristas I know say they like baristaing, the sucky part is that it's every single day and the managers suck, and you have to deal with some awful customers with a smile and you're never doing anything else. But freed from all of that they like making people nice coffee and feeling good about making things better. I hate my job because I'm fiddling with code that (to my understanding) is of no benefit to anyone and is only sustained by mooching off the government and tricking people into things they don't need. Doesn't hurt that we bought all the competition. Pay is nice though.
I think with something like UBI we will be closer to that. Free from exploitation because if the job conditions suck you can quit. But I really believe that most people really do want to be useful and respected and will continue to make value for the world for the pure joy of it. Anyone who is a teacher right now is intentionally giving up almost all possible earnings for the ability to do something directly useful. WWOOFers volunteer on farms. If farmers were respected people would like doing it more. Lots of people volunteer, edit wikipedia, make and share art, etc.
And, of course, ideally this would include all the people in other countries whose sweatshop labor is funding the world economy. I'm rooting for them too. If we can't solve this is our own country it seems unlikely we can solve it for the whole world though, but no reason not to try. I think both fights can (and kinda must) be happening at the same time.