[soup10]

I used to think on similar lines, that at some point there wouldn't be enough work to do. But it's absolutely Utopian horseshit.

There is ALWAYS useful work to do sometimes there's just of shortage of funds or skilled workers to do it. Look at our aging infrastructure, fix our bridges, tunnels, roads, buildings, houses, etc. Care for our old and sick, learn art and design and make the world more beautiful, engineer spaceships, create amazing entertainment, etc. etc.

Don't confuse market inefficiency with a lack of useful things to do.

[icandoitbetter]

There's always work to do exactly because there are always people looking for work. It's not the other way around. Most jobs aren't necessary for our survival, so people who don't want to work shouldn't be forced to work.

It's not Utopian horseshit. Please be less dismissive of ideas.

[philwelch]

If the whole human race sat down and wrote up a list of things we all wanted done, it would probably be even more than we could ever accomplish. Chances are, if you're a human being, you have something on that list, and you have the ability to help complete a task that's on that list as well.

Most jobs aren't necessary for our survival. OK, maybe people shouldn't be forced to work for their survival. But if they want much more than survival, they should do their fair share. And since I want much more than survival, I'd rather more people could pitch in and help out with that.

[icandoitbetter]

People would still want to work. But they'll start working on things they actually care about, because they won't be enslaved by their fear that if they quit their jobs they'll end up homeless or without health insurance. Right now so few startups dare to actually imagine new things because investors must be pleased and profit must be made. Plus, if we escaped the job-for-survival mindset, we would actually start focusing on automation. It's a mistake to think that automation hasn't come at the scale we expected because of unprecedented technical challenges. It hasn't come because the government has stopped throwing money on basic research. We need to focus on wild, idealistic, big-scale projects. And admit that the private sector isn't good at radically innovating, because, to radically innovate, you need to have been failing for many, many years, and have someone sustain you throughout those years. The best the private sector can do is catch up and minimize costs, like SpaceX does.

[philwelch]

It's utter first-world utopian horseshit to propose this kind of thinking, of all things, as a response to today's unemployment problems. It's like you don't even realize that there are third world migrant workers picking our fruit because every single one of those unemployed college graduates is, to put it bluntly, too spoiled and decadent to do the work. Or that the lifestyle of those unemployed college graduates is made possible by armies of Chinese factory workers.

I don't mean this as a personal attack on anyone. Frankly, I'm probably too spoiled and decadent to pick fruit all day too. But I'm willing to admit that's a weakness on my part, and I'm uncomfortable living in a world where I have to rest my weight on the backs of those who will gladly and happily do what I'm either incapable of or unwilling to do.

The one saving grace for us is that if we depend on people who do things we can't or won't do, then we can climb up the value chain and make them depend on us doing things they can't or won't do. Decadent as it may be to sit in an air-conditioned office and make stupid iPhone games for other spoiled, decadent first worlders to play, at least that guy living in the Foxconn dormitory and assembling iPhones all day might be grateful to us for making sure he still has work. I'm sure the guys who made "Angry Birds" boosted demand just enough to buy a few weeks breakfast, lunch, and dinner for maybe a couple thousand Chinese factory workers.

Pretending there isn't enough work out there and hence we should pay people to do nothing is just an excuse for cultural laziness. I can't imagine any social justice in subsidizing first-world people to contribute nothing and continue to live off the backs of third-world workers. Once those Chinese factory workers and Mexican fruit pickers are out of work because we can replace them with robots, then we can talk.

[zurn]

I bet the migrant workers you romanticise have a different view than being "stronger" than you and hence doing underpaid back-breaking work in bad conditions and no health coverage...

[philwelch]

Romanticize? Not at all, I think they have a right to be outraged that they're practically supporting an idle class on their backs already. Nonetheless it's something I can't or won't do, and that's a flaw on my part.

[mh-]

>so people who don't want to work shouldn't be forced to work.

I'm not sure I understand your POV on this. In your mind, how would these people sustain themselves?

[icandoitbetter]

With a wealth redistribution mechanism like basic income.

[Androsynth]

Who is going to pay for that? The broke US government? If 1/3 of the US pop was given $25k/year, it would amount to 1/4 of our GDP.

Until we have ubiquitous power sources, food replicators, cheap teleportation, solved all health problems and sturdy insta-houses, its just a pipe-dream.

The social implications would be even worse. You would have about 10% of society supporting about 50% of society, which would easily create the biggest class divide the US has ever seen. The bottom would ask for more, the top would own the government (because government that size would be corrupt to the core, theres no way it wouldnt).

It would ultimately lead back to a feudalistic society.

[_delirium]

Milton Friedman (of all people!) had a pretty worked-out proposal for it, though he was going more for a poverty-line basic income. Basically, everyone (rich and poor) would get a refundable tax credit roughly equal to the poverty line (something like $11k), rather than having a specific cutoff or phase-out. It would implicitly phase out for richer people because a flat $11k credit just doesn't equal too much if you're making a lot of money.

At the time, at least, he argued that it could almost entirely be paid for just by rolling all our current welfare programs into it: instead of this patchwork of welfare, food stamps, section 8 housing assistance, etc., just have one refundable tax credit, thereby massively reducing both the bureaucracy and the market distortions while still providing a social safety net.

[JamesPeterson]

In Australia, we almost match this by (a) having a "Low Income Tax Offset" (being fazed out in favour of an $18k tax free bracket) and (b) having a wide-reaching 'Centrelink' social security scheme. One of our greatest worries as a nation is that we're very dependent on such structural measures, but that we're using a medium-term cyclical benefit (the mining boom) to pay for it.

[georgieporgie]

Not that I necessarily agree with the views of the parent post (I don't know them well enough), but I think you're looking at "now" to argue the impossibility of "then". In other words, I don't think our current society really reflects much of what society will have to become in the fairly near-term future.

We already have effectively unlimited energy in the form of the sun (we currently collect only a tiny, tiny fraction of its full output), I don't see how teleportation factors into it, food production seems likely to become almost entirely robot-driven within, say, a 50 year time-frame (by competitive influence), we're progressing by leaps and bounds in the area of human health, and population management will obviously be necessary to balance quality-of-life and resource concerns.

[Androsynth]

You can't anticipate anything though. Perhaps someday we will have a bucolic utopian society, but we can't make current decisions based on those assumptions.

[Androsynth]

You're actually just repeating what he said: you're talking about guaranteed income. Public works projects are very close to guaranteed work (and will never get funding in our current system). 'Care for our old and sick' is a $5/hour job. But they will get paid 4-5 times that. Again, its guaranteed income.

>>learn art and design and make the world more beautiful, engineer spaceships, create amazing entertainment

Lets not pretend that every human is capable of doing any of this if they only had the time. The people who are capable will do it, the rest won't.

[georgieporgie]

Lets not pretend that every human is capable of doing any of this if they only had the time. The people who are capable will do it, the rest won't.

It seems unlikely to me with advances in genetics (and 'consumer' demand) that future generations will reflect the intelligence and talent distribution of current generations.

[jarek]

> There is ALWAYS useful work to do

Yep, the only problem is the amount of this work. Fixing or building a road or a bridge takes a lot less people than it used to. Trends in other fields are similar. You can argue that this can be compensated for by building more or better bridges, but at some point the society's appetite for useful bridges will hit a cost barrier.