[hackinthebochs]

There's some serious class bias going on here. There is a certain segment of the population that will find productive work to do that give their life meaning if left to their own devices. There is another segment that absolutely will become blobs or worse (engage in mischief, anti-social behavior, etc). Those who have only ever known folks from the former category see only positives from a future without the necessity of work. Those who know folks from the latter category, well we fear such a future.

Another strange class bias is that those from the (lets call it) "productive" class are absolutely convinced everyone is like them and if only given the opportunity they would be just as productive and fulfilled as they are. Some of us know better.

[danShumway]

> There's some serious class bias going on here.

"Class bias" is a really weird word to use here to talk about that. It's class bias to assume that blue-collar workers aren't intrinsically lazy and that they might find meaningful activities to do if they had the time/energy to do so?

This is the first time I've ever seen "people need work for meaning, and they literally don't have the inclination/drive to find meaning in their lives unless they're forced to work under the threat of losing their livihoods" represented as solidarity with the working class. I don't think most people would consider that perspective to be synonymous with class consciousness.

[wizofaus]

I think it's more subtle than that - I'd suggest for many of us, regardless of class, the whole reason work gives us meaning is because you know you're providing services that contribute towards society. That knowledge partly comes from seeing that the company you work for (or even run yourself) brings in at least enough revenue to pay its workers' salaries in order for them to enjoy a decent standard living. It's not so hard to believe that a future where there's simply no need for the vast majority of us to work at all will leave many of us feeling like we no longer contribute much towards society, which is likely to be at least somewhat detrimental to our sense of self-worth and purpose etc. But whether that's likely to be a widespread catastrophic issue I don't think anybody really knows. After all, for centuries the undeniable contribution women made towards society was never recognised via a pay cheque.

[neltnerb]

Yes, this will be a major catastrophe if we don't plan ahead.

I think it's coming one way or another.

For an increasing number of us, the costs of automation will be lower than the cost of living. It will happen quickly. We absolutely need a serious safety net or it will be chaos.

And we need to discover another way to find meaning in what we do, or else it will be a mental health catastrophe.

I have thought on this long and hard and am confident I can find meaning in my life even if a computer can do what I enjoy more productively. It will take getting used to. It won't be comfortable. It is necessary.

It will be very bad if only a tiny fraction of people have financial security.

[hackinthebochs]

I use the term class bias mainly because I couldn't find a better term. But it is unique to a particular class to see oneself as the ideal that others are held back from reaching due to environment or circumstance. It's the reason why progressives think conservatives vote against their own interests and would see things the way progressives do if only they were better educated. It's just a fundamental inability to recognize that other people are different and aren't motivated by the same things. What's so insidious about this thinking is that its framed as benevolence. But the mistake is thinking that your way is intrinsically more valuable and so it must be a disparagement to assume that not everyone can reach the intrinsic good that you have reached.

You want to see what people get up to when they have endless free time, just see what idle young men get up to.

Adding on what the sibling comment said, meaning and fulfillment aren't just about the work one does, its about the social role that work facilitates. You may hate your job yet derive meaning from being a provider, from being the man of the family, being a hard worker, and so on. We're already in the process of destroying social connections with ones community and we're seeing a widespread crisis of loneliness as a result. Take away the meaning that work provides (regardless of job) and you basically destroy whats left of meaning in a good portion of people's lives.

[danShumway]

> What's so insidious about this thinking is that its framed as benevolence.

Again, I want to remind the context of this: the context is that you're saying we need to force people to work under the threat of losing their livelihood or they can't be fulfilled.

And you're phrasing this as if I'm coming in and colonizing blue-collar workers or pushing my ideals on them. I don't think "benevolence" is the right word to use here, I just don't think there's anything noble about forcing people to work and saying that it's for their own good. It's an interesting turn of phrase to write about this like it's a "culture" when -- again -- the conversation is about whether or not people in blue-collar positions are too lazy and unmotivated to find meaning unless they're forced to work.

I just... it's wild to hear that phrased using the terms you're using. And I wonder if those blue-collar workers would agree that guaranteed income would be "taking away" their purposes, because most of the blue-collar workers I know are much more engaged in social institutions than the white-collar workers around them, and are therefore probably more prepared to find meaning within their communities and families outside of work than the average programmer on HN is.

> You want to see what people get up to when they have endless free time, just see what idle young men get up to.

This is me imposing my culture on other people? Pointing out that you're basically comparing blue-collar workers to lazy youth? Come on.

We derive tremendous value from blue-collar workers that hold up white-collar jobs and allow society to continue to function, even though they're often paid significantly less than us for what is arguably more important work. The least we can do is not pretend that this arrangement is somehow created for their benefit. This has all the energy of the proletariat complaining that the rabble can't take care of themselves and how the actually offensive thing is suggesting that they can.

If only HN could get out of its bubble and empathize more with the average worker, then it would realize that the average worker is lazy and unmotivated and needs to be managed /s

[neltnerb]

If only gpt4 could tell people what to do in order to find meaning. Surely it understands the human condition at least as well as market forces.

/s

Wait, no actually from what I've seen gpt4 might be more empathetic to the idea that people deserve to find their own meaning in life without their betters giving them a purpose.

"Idle young men", oof. So, so patronizing, like people who think fast food jobs are only for high school kids.

[hackinthebochs]

>the context is that you're saying we need to force people to work under the threat of losing their livelihood or they can't be fulfilled.

That's one (bad) way to frame the context of the conversation. The better way is that the need to work is intrinsic to our psyche and core to our self-worth, but the ability to self-actualize is not. The need to constantly work has been a steady feature of our environment ever since we left the trees. Self-actualization, on the other hand, has not historically been a part of this. Meaning in human lives has largely been external, deriving from one's place in the social hierarchy. And work was a key facilitator in securing ones social status.

It should be a given that drastically changing the environment away from the historical baseline will have serious psychological ramifications. The progress of technology has had strong impact, but the social environment overlaid on the technological milieu has largely remained constant. So people got by mostly just fine. The internet has changed this calculus and we've seen widespread psychological damage as a result. AI stands to explosively accelerate this transformation.

What I am asking is whether people as a whole will be better off without necessary work being a driving force in their lives. People like you take it as axiomatic that a post-work society will be better, and offer misplaced moralistic arguments in favor of it. All I am saying is that its absolutely not axiomatic and should be considered directly on its merits and demerits. We've already seen many of the problems I'm talking about materialize.

>And I wonder if those blue-collar workers would agree that guaranteed income would be "taking away" their purposes

For gods sakes, this has nothing to do with the blue collar, white collar division. It's a division between the self-actualizers and non-self-actualizers. I used "class" as a generic grouping term. Although I expect the non-self-actualizers to be overrepresented among blue collar workers. That is, people who don't have the skill or the interest to engage in intellectual pursuits, but just want to make an honest living and take pride in their work.

>The least we can do is not pretend that this arrangement is somehow created for their benefit.

That's obviously not what I'm doing. Spare me these silly moralistic arguments. We need to be willing to discuss this issue as plainly as we can, not be hamstrung by misplaced political correctness.

[danShumway]

> That's one (bad) way to frame the context of the conversation.

Is it actually a bad way to frame the context? Are you not saying that people need to be forced to work for their own benefit under the threat of losing their income? What you're saying is:

> What I am asking is whether people as a whole will be better off without necessary work being a driving force in their lives.

So... yeah, you're saying that people will be worse-off without an external force making them work, and it's good for them that they're forced to work. I think my phrasing is entirely accurate here. Losing the income requirement to work is the part you're concerned about, because stuff like UBI only gets rid of the requirement to work for income, it doesn't get rid of any social status that would be associated with work.

You're worried about people not needing to work for their financial security, and you're saying it's bad for them if they don't have a requirement to work for their financial security.

> although I expect the non-self-actualizers to be overrepresented among blue collar workers. That is, people who don't have the skill or the interest to engage in intellectual pursuits, but just want to make an honest living and take pride in their work.

You keep phrasing this like it's a compliment, but being able to make an honest living and being able to take pride in one's work has nothing to do with one's ability to self actualize. I'd push back again on this characterization -- the "non-self-actualizers" I know that make an honest living tend to be very involved in their communities. They go to church, they have social connections, they form meaningful relationships, they marry and have kids. They actually do stuff outside of work.

Self-actualization is not at all the same thing as whether or not you like academic pursuits.

----

I don't know whether or not a post-work society will have its own challenges or if it will be better, and I don't know if it's feasible to build one in the first place. I don't even know that people should be worried about GPT at all, I'm not sure it actually is going to take everyone's jobs. I don't think we're particularly close to a post-work-society, and I think programs like UBI are severely under-studied for the amount of praise they get.

But I do know that we're not doing people a favor by threatening them with financial destitution if they don't work.

And call that moralizing if you want, I'm fine with that. Call it politically correct, call it denying reality, whatever. But don't pretend that it's less empathetic to suggest that someone who doesn't go to college or learn to program isn't going to be intrinsically worse at self-actualization than everyone else. Don't phrase that like it's some kind of solidarity to call people unmotivated.

Yes, people struggle with deriving meaning outside of work, but that does not fit neatly into any singular social category, and it has a lot more to do with one's relationship with one's community and integration into non-work social institutions than it has to do with whether or not someone went to college.

[hackinthebochs]

>Are you not saying that people need to be forced to work for their own benefit under the threat of losing their income? What you're saying is:

Presumably you would take an antivaxxer to be dishonest by framing a vaccine mandate as "forcibly injecting me with chemicals against my will". This is no different. Stripping context alters the meaning and is dishonest. Notice how you defend this framing instead of just accepting my original words. It's clearly intended to give your argument some rhetorical benefit without needing to be explicit. This is a dishonest debate tactic.

One important difference is that no one is forcing anyone to work, that is simply the natural state of existence. There is freedom in battling against nature's cruelty. This is not equal to being forced to work at the end of a whip. Your phrasing doesn't distinguish between the two, mine does.

>You're worried about people not needing to work for their financial security, and you're saying it's bad for them if they don't have a requirement to work for their financial security.

I'll accept this phrasing. But notice it is importantly different than "being forced to work".

>You keep phrasing this like it's a compliment

I'm not ascribing any valence in my statements. I am being as neutral and non-judgmental as possible.

> but being able to make an honest living and being able to take pride in one's work has nothing to do with one's ability to self actualize.

Didn't say it did. Self-actualization is the process by which one derives meaning outside of their work/career. The point was that people who "just want to make an honest living" are generally not the self-actualizers.

>the "non-self-actualizers" I know that make an honest living tend to be very involved in their communities.

I agree. But the trends against church-going and community participation are steady. There is every reason to think those connections will eventually be severed for the working class folks as well.

>Self-actualization is not at all the same thing as whether or not you like academic pursuits.

Obviously. But academic pursuits are one avenue for self-actualization that the tech-class points to as ways people will fill the meaning gap in the future. The point is that this avenue is only viable for a relatively small percentage.

>Don't phrase that like it's some kind of solidarity to call people unmotivated.

That's just projection if anything. I'm interested in describing the world as it actually is so we can have an honest discussion about how not to drive society off a cliff. For some reason its damn near impossible to have honest discussions these days.

[namarie]

> There is a certain segment of the population that will find productive work to do that give their life meaning if left to their own devices. There is another segment that absolutely will become blobs or worse (engage in mischief, anti-social behavior, etc).

Even if that is true, and I very much doubt that it is, a big chunk of the "productive" segment's work will be to help the other segment. People already do that a lot by volunteering. Imagine how much more people could psychologists, social workers, and others help if they don't have to worry about their own livelihoods?

[hackinthebochs]

I don't find that plausible. People volunteer to help those who naturally garner sympathy (poor, homeless, invalid, etc). There won't be much sympathy for those that don't have the disposition to self-actualize meaning like the "productive" class. On the other hand, those in the unproductive class won't want this kind of "help" either.

What we need are new institutions to fill the role of providing social connection and meaning. Things that churches and clubs used to provide. But how to revive those things is its own issue.

[danShumway]

> Things that churches and clubs used to provide. But how to revive those things is its own issue.

Would reviving communal institutions be a meaningful and useful activity for people to do? Part of the reason why we rely less on community and social institutions is because we are relying on other things (like work) to fulfill that same role. It's not really surprising that people volunteer less at their local church if they're told that their life meaning ought to come from their job.

[namarie]

> People volunteer to help those who naturally garner sympathy (poor, homeless, invalid, etc).

Not really? Plenty of people volunteer to help people in jail, for example.

>On the other hand, those in the unproductive class won't want this kind of "help" either.

People won't want help to find meaning in their lives? I find it hard to believe. Churches and clubs, as you also said, used to (and still do) help provide people with that as well, so I'm not sure you truly believe it either.

[hackinthebochs]

>Not really? Plenty of people volunteer to help people in jail, for example.

Of course there are always some number of people that find even unlikely targets sympathetic. But what you're talking about is some kind of widespread movement to help close the meaning gap when something like a third to half of the world is having a crisis of meaning. To have that kind of a movement needs a naturally very sympathetic target, like victims of police brutality. The movement to improve prison conditions is practically non-existent by comparison. I don't find it plausible that the non-self-actualizers will be similarly sympathetic.

>Churches and clubs, as you also said, used to (and still do) help provide people with that as well

I wasn't talking about "help" like how psychologists provide help to their clients. What I mean is an attractive gathering place where people naturally find connection and meaning. People don't want to be "helped", i.e. being made to feel like a charity case, they want to come by meaning and purpose naturally.

[ilyt]

Sure some people will be useless. But they are useless now, in the job, producing barely any "value". Might not even be of their own uselessness, there is plenty of useless jobs to go around.

Also, even the "useless" always want more. Even if it is bigger TV and bigger pick-up truck, that would still require work

[neltnerb]

I agree, for some segment of the population the current definition of "productive" is "meaningful". That's why it will be okay to let people do things they find meaningful.

If Priya had preferred to stay with her family, and there was no financial pressure, the situation would be unambiguously better. Her family may have encouraged her to go to study for family pride -- what if studying and living while studying were free for her and her family had no financial pressure for her to get a job and send money home? I struggle to see who benefits here. Maybe she would have preferred to stay home with her family, maybe she has siblings that she will miss, why would it be up to me at all? I don't get to define productive.

UBI (or whatever mechanism for providing basic needs) also doesn't mean there is no financial reward for employment. She could still go and study and earn money and send it home to a family that doesn't need it badly except now if the job is automated by GPT4 somehow no one suffers. No harm is done other than that she wasted her time studying this thing, but no one is going to suffer because of bad luck beyond wasted time.

There are a number of things that I do think people don't find meaning in doing. Many of these things can be increasingly automated like being a teller or working in a call center, but not all of which can be (for now), like repairing sidewalks. These are a set of things that aren't very fun to do which still need to be done, sure. Oddly the ones I can list off my fingers are not the ones that pay well, so something is certainly not working right on the incentives, sure. I agree that society should reward jobs less if they are meaningful and enjoyable than jobs that no one wants to do, but that's not really how capitalism works.

Plenty of people don't tend to do things even they would consider "productive" in their spare time, but how much of that is because they are under constant financial stress and have so little free time? I believe that if basic needs are met people will generally find more genuine sources of meaning, for them, whether or not I consider those things productive.

But my opinion isn't important here, that's the patronizing part.

I simply do not believe people will sit around and watch TV all day if they are in good health and aren't required to work all the time for security. Or if they do then that's their business, I'd rather try to inspire them to do other things than force them to by withholding food and shelter.

Let people be people and learn what makes their human life meaningful to them rather than trying to starve them into action that you consider productive.

[wizofaus]

> These are a set of things that aren't very fun to do which still need to be done...[they] are not the ones that pay well

Because they're generally things that don't require extensive training/exceptional skills/abilities to do, hence there lots of possible candidates to take on such jobs. I wonder what a world where there's billions of us with no job options other than the few remaining disgusting/dangerous jobs that automation can't yet handle will look like...

[neltnerb]

Here's how I do that thought experiment. Maybe your answer is different.

It will depend on who owns the machines that do the work.

It's not comfortable to think about, but I think it's silly to ignore completely. I've worried about it a lot and am at peace with it, for what it is worth.

If there's a strong safety net and regulations on corporations

No matter who owns the machines that produce things people need, people are able to live comfortably. In that scenario, the world looks like one where those undesirable jobs pay exceptionally well, gain increased respect, and improved working conditions until they're desirable -- because starvation and housing is no longer under immediate threat of being withheld. I don't hate that world, it seems frankly more fair. I think we can agree that more rational decisions are likely to be better, and that forcing people to make decisions that are only rational to them under threat of food and shelter is bad.

It's not like my friends and I in middle school loved doing engineering because we saw dollar signs. We did it because we had a knack for it and liked doing it with no ulterior motive. Forcing people who weren't interested in engineering to be engineers has honestly just never seemed like it worked that great. Give kids opportunities to discover that they find engineering fun instead... there are other means to get to a good place without the threat of food, health, and housing. Much of it education.

But maybe for me, meaningful means going and helping with my friends projects until I'm inspired to make some kind of art or work on a project to make a new idea. Who knows, being productive financially is just not necessarily always what will give me a meaningful life, and we only get one. Lots of things that are meaningful to me aren't productive financially.

If there's not a strong safety net

God help us all. If you don't own the increasingly small number of things that do an increasingly large fraction of all production you are way, way, way more screwed.

[peyton]

I think that is unrealistic.

If everyone gets free money the optimal move as an individual is to speculate on assets because everyone else will be. The financial rewards from gambling will be higher than working with much, much less effort.

I don’t think many people will find meaning in that world.

[neltnerb]

The financial reward of "gambling on assets" is already far higher than working with much, much less effort. Except that now only rich people get to do it safely.

Housing is an asset that must be "gambled" in order to live securely and control your residence. I agree that is horribly broken, but everyone deserves a chance to buy assets without my permission.

I also argue that currently poor people under less financial stress will be more able to avoid getting fleeced, and that arguably many are already better at it than plenty of people with inherited wealth.

As a concrete example, mortgage rates being higher for poor people than rich people is already abusive.

[namarie]

If people followed the "optimal move" all the time, assuming you mean it in a financial sense, there wouldn't be any teachers or social workers or librarians.

If everyone gets the relief of knowing they are free to pursue what they like without risk of starving, I imagine it'd be way easier to find meaning in the world than it is now.