[jrowen]

This is due to the flawed cornerstone of our culture that a person's job is their worth and value and purpose in the world. This was necessary when the combined efforts of our labor were still not enough to provide basic needs for the people.

The dream of automation was always to fix that. We did that, and more. We have long had the technology to provide for people. But we invent tons of meaningless unnecessary jobs and still cling to the "jobs" model because that's all we know. It's the same reason vaccuum cleaners didn't reduce the amount of cleaning work to be done. We never say "great, I can do less now because I have a thing to do it for me." That thing just enables me to fixate on the next thing "to be done." The next dollar to be gained.

A McDonalds robot should free the people of doing that kind of work. But instead those people become "unemployed" and one individual gets another yacht and creates a couple "marketing" jobs that don't actually provide any value in a holistic humanitarian sense.

[abandonliberty]

>It's the same reason vacuum cleaners didn't reduce the amount of cleaning work to be done.

It's true that some of the some of the capacity created by technology was consumed by increasing standards, the data do show a significant reduction in time spent on chores in spite of this.

1965-2011 hours spent on housework decreased 40%, while male housework doubled and female housework halved. The proportion of mothers working went up 90%, but somehow time spent with children went up 70% for men and women, again with improvements in gender equality.

Technology dramatically improved the efficiency of household chores. People invest some of that efficiency into further quality of living improvements or work, and still got to spend more time with their family.

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/03/14/chapter...

If you go further back in time the differences would be even more stark.

Yes, we can do better. Expectations on parents have gotten ridiculous, and much of this additional time is spent ferrying their children between 10 different extracurriculars. We spend a lot of time chasing more (thanks, dopamine) which could be spent enjoying what we have.

But the lack of understanding that technology and science have led to dramatic improvements in quality of life has led us to start turning our backs on it as a species, and we will pay a huge price for that.

[jrowen]

Those statistics are extremely broad, hard to draw much inference from...do they account for the cleaning/maid industry? How has that changed over the same period? It could be possible that the general accumulation of wealth/tech allowed for more people to pay for someone to clean.

The dramatic improvements to quality of life brought by science and tech are undoubtable, it was not my intent to question that. More just that we as people have a hard time with the concept of a goal state. It is about balance. Let's keep creating new and great things to improve our lives, but let's also acknowledge the futility and desperation of an infinite treadmill.

[rightbyte]

> Technology dramatically improved the efficiency of household chores.

Since 1965? Except paying bills via the internet instead of in some bank office, what chore has become more efficient since 1965.

Regarding robot vacuum cleaners my take is that picking up stuff from the floor is what takes the most time anyway.

[xg15]

That's part of it, but I think not the whole picture. Many jobs do have some genuine benefits they give the employee (in addition to salary) : practical experience and skill training, but most importantly a certain degree of influence and power: You can't go on strike if you don't have a job.

Those are cold comfort if compensation isn't enough or the job ruins your health or drives you into burnout, but I think their absence becomes important if you talk about popular UBI or "end of work" scenarios.

That's why I think even if we had some friendly tech company that did All The Jobs for free using automation and allowed everyone to live a comfortable life without even the need for an income, and even if we changed the culture such that this was totally fine, it would still be a dystopia, or at least risk very quickly drifting into one: Because while everyone could live a happy, fully consumption-oriented life, they'd have zero influence how to live that life: If the company does everything for you that is to be done, it also has all the knowledge and power to set the rules.

[jrowen]

practical experience and skill training, but most importantly a certain degree of influence and power: You can't go on strike if you don't have a job.

People don't have to need these things though. For a lot of people it's all just the means to the end of being able to live comfortably.

Because while everyone could live a happy, fully consumption-oriented life, they'd have zero influence how to live that life:

I don't think most people care much about that. But either way, they have the option to. I don't think humanity will slip into a vegetative dystopia because the default spirit of life is grow, expand, go, go, go, don't stop to think about the bigger picture. There is always curiosity and ambition in the gene pool. But society is jammed up with this model that is low-efficiency for everyone except the people that are financially in a position where they don't have to care (and I include myself at the lower end of that tier).