[grecy]

> No, you don't. Plenty of retired people don't go to work and yet they have all of those things

of course, retirement is an option.

But we're talking about people that need to re-train, so I'm assuming here we're talking about people who are not yet ready to retire

[dventimi]

If somebody can't or won't re-train, don't you think maybe they're ready to retire?

[grecy]

They might want to, but obviously they can't if they don't have enough saved

[dventimi]

I don't regard that as obvious. A social safety net COULD catch them when they fall out of the workforce. We don't seem to have such a safety net in America, but that's a consequence of politics, not of economics or technology. Confronting those politics admittedly is a tall order, but consider the alternative: retarding innovation, wasting human potential, and maintaining make-work jobs because politics is hard? Is that really the hill you wanna die on?

[grecy]

> but consider the alternative

You make it sound like there are only two choices:

1. Confronting the politics of building a social saftey net in America.

2. Retarding innovation, wasting human potential, etc. etc.

Yet there is a perfectly good third solution that has worked countless times in history when technology has made certain jobs redundant, and will without a doubt continue to work long into the future.

3. Re-skill and get a different job.

[dventimi]

You made it sound like there's only one choice when you wrote above:

> Eventually, you simply have to go to work for a roof over your head, food and healthcare.

I'm glad we finally agree that there are at least three choices, that building a safety net is one of them, and that going to work so that you have a roof, food, and healthcare isn't the only one.