51–60 of 87 posts
If true, is this good? Isn't the purpose of work to end (or to diminish, at least) all work? (and leave us with more time to take care of ourselves, our minds, our bodies, our souls, our kids, our parents, our friends, our neighbours, our politics, our environment etc)
If we 'developed' the world, why not develop other planets and so on and so forth.
Your utopia is close to North Korea's.
Uh, yeah, because there was room to grow or move in to. In 1900 people were still settling in America, and production has grown immensely worldwide at a steady rate since then, while population was relatively low. Now, population has grown three fold in the last hundred years: http://www.historyfuturenow.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/1... There are more old people alive than ever before as a percentage of the overal…
If true, is this good? Isn't the purpose of work to end (or to diminish, at least) all work? (and leave us with more time to take care of ourselves, our minds, our bodies, our souls, our kids, our parents, our friends, our neighbours, our politics, our environment etc)
Uh, yeah, because there was room to grow or move in to. In 1900 people were still settling in America, and production has grown immensely worldwide at a steady rate since then, while population was relatively low. Now, population has grown three fold in the last hundred years: http://www.historyfuturenow.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/1... There are more old people alive than ever before as a percentage of the overal…
There is still plenty of room to grow and improve. Africa and Asia have huge amounts of land that are nowhere as dense as the US, let alone Europe.
> we need something for those who will simply have nothing to do in order to make money...
We need to rethink how money is created and distributed. Once you do that, the need to "make money" might be lessened or replaced with different ones.
If true, is this good? Isn't the purpose of work to end (or to diminish, at least) all work? (and leave us with more time to take care of ourselves, our minds, our bodies, our souls, our kids, our parents, our friends, our neighbours, our politics, our environment etc)
"If there's ever a sign that a society is organized really stupidly, it's that the prospect that actual manual labor being eliminated is a problem. If we don't know what to do with freedom and liberty... that’s pretty messed up." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ruS17ivinU&feature=youtu.be...)
What jobs do we squander our lives with? 37% of British workers think their jobs are meaningless. ("Bullshit jobs" is the technical term. The anthropologist who popularized it thought only 25% would've described their job as meaningless.) (https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/08/12/british-jobs-meaningles...)
If true, is this good? Isn't the purpose of work to end (or to diminish, at least) all work? (and leave us with more time to take care of ourselves, our minds, our bodies, our souls, our kids, our parents, our friends, our neighbours, our politics, our environment etc)
The trap I find myself in is that (at least here in the UK) we are all in competition with each other for a fixed, limited resource. Housing. I earn a very good wage, as does my wife, but we still work tough jobs for long hours so that we can afford a nice house, in a good location, with a garden for our kids to grow up in. No matter how much people like me earn, we will just use it to bid up house prices even more.…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If this was the only effect of technology, it would obviously not be good. However, technology has also greatly improved the quality of life. I'd also argue that an end to work is something that we, as a society, are simply not ready for. Firstly, because our current economic system isn't capable of handling such a change, but also societally, people aren't ready for it. If I recall, there have been studies that have…
> there have been studies that have linked earlier retirement to a reduced life expectancy If you count retirement as sitting around doing nothing then I agree. But retirement shouldnt mean retirement from doing things - just retirement from working for someone else to be able to support yourself. When I 'retire' I'll get much more personally meaningful things done, which otherwise would not earn me enough money to s…
It shouldn't, but the studies suggest this is what happens in practice.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> there have been studies that have linked earlier retirement to a reduced life expectancy If you count retirement as sitting around doing nothing then I agree. But retirement shouldnt mean retirement from doing things - just retirement from working for someone else to be able to support yourself. When I 'retire' I'll get much more personally meaningful things done, which otherwise would not earn me enough money to s…
> But retirement shouldnt mean retirement from doing things It shouldn't, but the studies suggest this is what happens in practice.
But what about the chance to retire at, say, 45? I imagine many folks at that age, having the 2nd half of their lives ahead of them, would go on to focus on a more personal passion that is also active.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People have less they are required to do and use time they would have spent tending to their farm to ensure their survival, to pursue novelty and comfort instead. Are you sure? Maybe what they are actually pursuing is trying to convince other people that some new job is sorely needed in the "new economy"?
Dereference 'they' for me. *People in what you quoted was intended to mean "anybody who would have been a farmer", so that's the 68% that have to find alternative employment. I live in an apartment building, my rooms have air conditioning units, and I have a bed and a sofa and a refrigerator and lots of other things that improve my quality of life, and people had to build all of those things (including the building I…
Seeking leisure is a human nature, true. But maybe also human nature is to compete for resources, get more for your family, and make yourself more attractive to the other sex, even if that means working harder. If the alternative is unemployment, this may drive people to work in (or even create) services that they know are not really that useful.
If true, is this good? Isn't the purpose of work to end (or to diminish, at least) all work? (and leave us with more time to take care of ourselves, our minds, our bodies, our souls, our kids, our parents, our friends, our neighbours, our politics, our environment etc)