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A world without work

theatlantic.com

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Re: A world without work

#171

Post by snowwrestler »

tspike wrote: post #94
snowwrestler wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm trading in the best years of my life, my focus, my attention, my time, my life for money. That's the nature of this transaction. I'm trading in this short life I get for cash. I feel like a prostitute. Money is unavoidable, so if you're going to be unhappy about earning it, you're going to have an unhappy life no matter what . I kind of doubt money is the issue...you might just be looking for inspiration. Maybe…

Where do I look for those organizations?

There are some nonprofit job search engines (just search something like "nonprofit jobs"), but another way is to pick an issue you feel strongly about, and then do some web searching to find orgs that are working on that issue. Then check their job listings to see what they're looking for.

Nonprofits tend to not grow very fast, so there might not be a job that's exactly what you want to do. If you can find one or two orgs you like, you can get your foot in the door through volunteering first.

There is also a healthy ecosystem of companies that provide support to nonprofits. Nonprofits often outsource parts of their technology, so another way to get into the nonprofit world is through a digital agency. I would try looking for tech jobs in the DC area--a lot of the companies in DC that support nonprofits will happily hire remote developers, project managers, etc.

Re: A world without work

#172

Post by eli_gottlieb »

VLM wrote: post #23
rcarrigan87 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does capitalism have an ending? Maybe we can envision some kind of ending on earth. But what about when we start colonizing other planets? What new jobs begin to be created as we step outside earth.

Never forget Balkanization or fragmentation. For example 90% of the population has been permanently kicked out of big city coastal real estate and will never, ever, live there or own property there via hyperinflation in real estate prices. Yet, the sun still rises in the east and 90% of the countries population lives on, under different goals and interests. Its highly likely crony capitalism as we know it will never…

>Its highly likely crony capitalism as we know it will never end and income wealth inequality will increase until almost no one owns everything,

Anything that can't continue indefinitely, won't.

Re: A world without work

#173

Post by sktrdie »

I strongly believe in universal basic income and that being forced to work is a form of slavery. I also believe that if you let people do whatever they want, sure you'll have 90% or more just doing nothing all day, but you'll have those 10% doing something great. Also, capitalism is really not that great! Builds societies that nurture exclusion, self-interest and survival of the fittest. In 100 years, when robotics has automated pretty much everything (this is inevitable), we'll look back at these days and laugh about how we used to build societies where people worked most of the day, rather than just lived most of the day.

Re: A world without work

#174

Post by digikata »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #122
tolmasky wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic income will probably result in even more antagonism towards immigrants. As Milton Friedman said, "It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state". I feel immigration to the US is too restrictive as it is, let alone what it would become if it meant giving everyone a paycheck. You basically have these options: 1. Restrict immigration (perhaps you are OK with this, I am not. I feel immigrati…

Good points there. I feel this is a bit too early for basic income. That change will come to pass naturally when society will be able to continue to exist and function normally even if almost nobody will work. That would require some pretty hefty advancements in AI and robotics. Basically, I don't see struggle-free basic income without the robots doing all the work for us.

Basic Income won't come naturally, look at how difficult a 40 hour week / 8hr day was to bring into existence. Basically, widespread strikes were required. The baseline productivity of the world is already sufficient for basic income, and/or increased leisure vs work weeks - the only thing that advanced automation might to in the future is make the disconnect between historical economic assumptions and modern productivity unavoidable from a political standpoint.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day

Re: A world without work

#175

Post by zzalpha »

rayiner wrote: post #110
nicholas73 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt the same way at your age and in many ways still do at 32. 29 wasn't that long ago, and it wasn't biological maturing that happened. I became a father and now have a tenth of the free time I had before. The perspective that changed is twofold: first is that a job does provide life (your kid's), and second is that life is LONG. If you don't get rich by 30, you can get rich by 40 and still have a long time to do…

Having kids is a great way to give yourself some perspective and curb existential angst.

Or you could just finish growing up.

I know that sounds pithy, but the reality is most folks don't really hit their adult stride until their late twenties or early thirties. My peers and siblings all shared that same experience. To be honest, I wonder if it's actually bio/neurological.

Coincidentally, that's also about the timeframe when a lot of folks start having kids. So is it really the kids that gave you "perspective and curb existential angst"? Or was it just natural maturation, and the kids happened to be around at the time?

And let's suppose it isn't biological. That it's the kids themselves. I'd contend what you're actually doing is just distracting yourself... it's tough to care about the meaning of life when you're up at 2am changing another diaper. Is that perspective? Or is it just horse blinders?

Re: A world without work

#176

Post by mj_langford »

methodover wrote: post #55

I really enjoyed reading this article. I've been thinking quite a bit about work recently. I'm just about to turn 29, and by all accounts I'm fairly successful: I graduated college with a worthless liberal arts degree just as the Great Recession was beginning. After an unsuccessful attempt at copywriting for a couple years, I managed to learn programming. A few years after that and I'm the leader of the engineering t…

Someone once wrote a lot about that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx's_theory_of_alienation

Go start a microISV-style tiny business a la @patio11 in a field you feel you can make things better

Re: A world without work

#177

Post by misterbwong »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #113
misterbwong wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the sentiment but I think your conclusion is misguided. You're not trading your life/focus/attention/time for money , you're trading it for what you can do with that money. Money is just a temporary store of value. It's worthless unless you use it for something. That something is what you're working for. Whether that's worth trading your time for is the real question you need to answer.

Generally speaking I agree with you, but there's another element to discuss, and that's in flexibility. Imagine you have two jobs to choose from, both in the same field. One is part-time and pays a low wage, but a wage that is just about high enough to live on. One is full-time and pays a much higher wage, enough that you can spend without worrying about overspending. How many people have the luxury of choosing betwe…

Good thoughts. The hard nosed capitalist in me is saying that those more unfortunate people aren't trapped but are choosing to keep what (little) they have instead of choosing the (often riskier and very often unsuccessful) ways of moving up. Good thing that part of me is small ;)

Re: A world without work

#178

Post by jcovington »

methodover wrote: post #55

I really enjoyed reading this article. I've been thinking quite a bit about work recently. I'm just about to turn 29, and by all accounts I'm fairly successful: I graduated college with a worthless liberal arts degree just as the Great Recession was beginning. After an unsuccessful attempt at copywriting for a couple years, I managed to learn programming. A few years after that and I'm the leader of the engineering t…

Make/adopt some babies and enjoy your successes as an engineer in the context of something larger!

Re: A world without work

#179

Post by shkkmo »

tolmasky wrote: post #117
oliveira12345 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Basic income would pay for basic needs, and let people devote "free time" to more personally-satisfacting-activities: open-source programming, studiyng new interesting fields, etc... The mere fact that in today's professional career there is little oportunity for a 40-50years to work on a completely-new-unexperienced-field is an clear example. There is a point in time after which a job converts from ilusion-and…

Basic income will probably result in even more antagonism towards immigrants. As Milton Friedman said, "It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state". I feel immigration to the US is too restrictive as it is, let alone what it would become if it meant giving everyone a paycheck. You basically have these options: 1. Restrict immigration (perhaps you are OK with this, I am not. I feel immigrati…

I think option 2 is the obvious solution. You offer basic income to your citizens and provide a rational process for acquiring citizenship that allows the naturalization of individuals who have contributed value to the country. We already have many different rules and obligations for citizens and I don't see this as a problem. Our currently problematic means of allowing naturalization is much more of an issue.

I do think that basic income needs to introduced gradually and needs to be paired with reductions in the minimum wage.

This reduction in the bottom range of wages will make more jobs economically viable (Since they have to produce less value to make a profit beyond the cost of the wages). It makes immigration less attractive to people earning the bottom range of wages without leaving our working poor in the lurch. This combined with the provision of basic income to citizens makes citizens more able to compete for low income jobs since they are being subsidized.

Re: A world without work

#180

Post by abandonliberty »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #131
abandonliberty wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our reward mechanisms are not tuned finely enough to prevent video games and porn from hijacking them :)

Sure, but even that is temporary. You can't play video games forever.

Many of us eventually figure out that the rewards are false. Then video games stop being enjoyable, so they start to rely on our social ties e.g. farmville.
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