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The radical idea of a world without jobs

theguardian.com

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Re: The radical idea of a world without jobs

#101

Post by Jare »

time_invarient wrote: post #15

I’m stuck in a dead end job right now. I will never be granted a shred of decision making capacity or autonomy. It is a waiting game. Waiting for more assignments. Waiting until 5PM. Waiting for my paycheck. Waiting to get fired. Waiting to retire. Waiting to die. ( n * (Commute. Sit. Wait. Commute. Eat. Sleep.)) Die. Where n == the days I have left in this world. The things I work on feel like absurd, meaningless bo…

As long as you are physically capable of trying to make changes to your context, activities and expectations, there's a way out of that routine. Your "ideal life" may be way out of reach, but it is about as far away, from your current situation, as the opposite end of giving up. If you can consider walking in one direction, please consider the opposite as well.

The inertia of your current situation probably drains your energy and motivation to even experiment with making changes, but it is worth to find a trained professional that can help break that cycle. There's no shame in seeking therapy or support of some kind.

Re: The radical idea of a world without jobs

#102

Post by NiklasMort »

aalleavitch wrote: post #83
NiklasMort wrote: post #72

Unpopular opinion: It is easy to work less or nearly work nothing and still get by fine (in the context of the modern western world!), the issue is more that people spend their money in bad ways and make bad long term decisions. If you live reasonable and don't spend money on things you don't need you also don't need to work so much...And I often heard from people now "I don't even know why I work so much, I don't ne…

You've lived a charmingly sheltered life if you believe the majority of people live in that situation. The social support and education that allow people to easily survive while hardly working are not evenly distributed throughout society.

I live in the most corrupt and poorest country of all Western Society, I come from a poor family, my whole life was fighting, I have been starving, I have been freezing (couldn't afford heating, sleeping bag in winter). I don't blame anyone, I don't expect anything from society. I spend years acquiring skills, knowledge and experience and now it pays off. The whole knowledge of the world is available online to anyone, if someone can't make something out of that then they have to try harder.

Re: The radical idea of a world without jobs

#103

Post by gaius »

TuringTest wrote: post #98
gaius wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The final piece of course is the cultural reform required for UBI. What will you spend your UBI on if the goods and services are not being produced, because no one is being paid to do them?

Why do you assume that not being paid means that no goods and services will be produced?

Because many things that are pleasurable or satisfying to do for yourself are not so much when you scale them. That’s why people get paid to do them now.

Re: The radical idea of a world without jobs

#104

Post by madengr »

fergie wrote: post #11

"Work is badly distributed. People have too much, or too little, or both in the same month. And away from our unpredictable, all-consuming workplaces, vital human activities are increasingly neglected. Workers lack the time or energy to raise children attentively, or to look after elderly relations. “The crisis of work is also a crisis of home,” ... This neglect will only get worse as the population grows and ages."…

Like in Asimovs books, we’ll probably have decay without work (with robots automating it all). Humans will just do busy work.

Re: The radical idea of a world without jobs

#105

Post by svantana »

amelius wrote: post #17

I want a world where it is more clear what we should work on. Most startups come up with solutions looking for a problem. Yet if people or companies formulated their problems more directly, we wouldn't have to guess at them. As a consequence, work would be more meaningful and more effective.

What people want, say they want, and how they act are separate things. For example, no one has ever said "I want to spend hundreds of dollars on a pointless mobile game", yet that is what a lot of people end up doing. Conversely, people have plenty of problems that they are not willing to spend (enough) money on solving, at least not until it is socially common to do so.

However, I think you're on to something here -- something like a reversed kickstarter; anyone could post something they would want to have and how much they would spend on it, more people could join the campaign and creators could get to work on solving it. Probably people already tried it, but off the top of my head I can think of about 10 reasons why it won't work...

Re: The radical idea of a world without jobs

#106

Post by TuringTest »

gaius wrote: post #103
TuringTest wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you assume that not being paid means that no goods and services will be produced?

Because many things that are pleasurable or satisfying to do for yourself are not so much when you scale them. That’s why people get paid to do them now.

That's a reason for ''some'' services not being done, not all services not being done.

Re: The radical idea of a world without jobs

#107

Post by throwanem »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #100
throwanem wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, using figures from http://time.com/money/4746795/richest-people-in-the-world/ , if we take the top eight, sum their fortunes (conveniently expressed in billions), and divide by 3.6, we find that a maximally equitable redistribution would allocate, to each of the lucky recipients, the princely sum of $165.38 US. So, I'm going to guess the problem may lie somewhere other than with eight really rich people. But we…

You're not extrapolating. Thats just the top 8 people...Take the sum of the rest of the the global 1% or even 10% and do your math... OH nm, the math has already been done. 280 trillion in global wealth / 6 billion people = 46k per person And the top 10% has 86% percent of it, and the inequality is just growing exponentially. I'm not advocating that wealth should be equally distributed OR that capitalism is all bad..…

It's not terribly controversial that anarchocapitalism is a bad idea. It's also an entirely different proposition from the one you previously advanced.

Re: The radical idea of a world without jobs

#108

Post by lbotos »

swalsh wrote: post #26
fergie wrote: post #11

"Work is badly distributed. People have too much, or too little, or both in the same month. And away from our unpredictable, all-consuming workplaces, vital human activities are increasingly neglected. Workers lack the time or energy to raise children attentively, or to look after elderly relations. “The crisis of work is also a crisis of home,” ... This neglect will only get worse as the population grows and ages."…

These conversations I feel always seem shallow to me. Automation is definitely helping to free us from a lot of work.. but the world we live in today feels like a preview of what an automated world feels like. In reality, our material lifestyle is still supported by a very large number of people working away in countries most Americans can't find on a map for extremely low wages. If we're going to talk about "reorgan…

I've been calling amazon prime a "hiding of the poor" to my friends and family. Hide the laborers in a far off insanely demanding warehouse, you just get the goods.

(I don't have prime, I don't use prime, and I don't want this to be our future.)

Re: The radical idea of a world without jobs

#109

Post by clarry »

carlmr wrote: post #65
clarry wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Automation is definitely helping to free us from a lot of work.. but the world we live in today feels like a preview of what an automated world feels like. In reality, our material lifestyle is still supported by a very large number of people working away in countries most Americans can't find on a map for extremely low wages. I don't know about you but the homes, roads, cars, plumbing, healthcare, energy, food, an…

>And even where Asian products are popular (e.g. big home appliances), European alternatives do exist. I can think of Miele. That's the only one that's propely German still. Bosch/Siemens are both very much Asian on the inside. They do some assembly in Germany as far as I know. Can't think of any other European brands in this space.

How about Electrolux (AEG, Rosenlew, etc.), Liebherr, Gorenje/Asko/Upo, Festivo, Smeg, Hotpoint? If you want to avoid Asian products, we can buy American too.. e.g. Whirlpool.
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