211–220 of 236 posts
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40-70% is a wide range. How did you get that number?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment-to-population_ratio Iceland is 81.8% and South Africa is 41.7%, according to the table on the page.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment-to-population_ratio Iceland is 81.8% and South Africa is 41.7%, according to the table on the page.
That’s the total working population, not those who work on technology to support agriculture.
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What the hell. How do you suppose energy, transportation, raw materials, fertilizer, paved roads, markets for distribution, etc. would materialize to allow for that 1% agriculture worker population to feed anyone?
Technology and automation. We’re arguing over how the productivity from those are distributed.
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Let me guess - it's thrown when it's already not in the very edible condition? And it's produced in the first place in the hope that it will be bought at the price asked? So, I'm not sure that those who produce (or distribute) it will agree at once "let's give right away half of produced for free". But if you pressure them much, they might "agree" to cut the production in half. But you may imagine where that could le…
This misses the point. The original poster made reference a reference to medieval beliefs in earthly paradise with the idea of food falling from the heavens. In reality, we already sorta live in the land of Cockaigne given the dizzying variety and quantity of food we are able to produce, as well as the amount of energy. We have the technology, and we have the ability. Granted, it would be nice to have much cheaper en…
> of food we are able to produce, as well as the amount of energy. We have the technology, and we have the ability.
And you miss my point too. I keep reading "we", "we", "we" in replies here, but who's that "we"? I for one this year was able to produce following food: a few stems of mint, and 5 centimeter diameter watermelon on my balcony.
So let me tell you - "they" are able to produce food. "They" have technology and ability. And that's exactly what people keep saying here: They should collect our garbage. They should turn cities into more suitable for automated vehicles. They should automate agriculture. For I don't see a great desire among participants here to grow their own potato crop (automated or not).
But what if they decided that we want too much from them? What if they decided it would be "easier" or maybe even "better" to just kill us?
> This reminds me a bit of members of the House of Commons wondering if the poor would become too lazy if we decrease the working day from 16 hours to a mere eight.
And they did become too lazy, ain't it? At least they don't die like flies (smells bad) and don't run revolts that often.
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That's true of all living things. It's a choice. You can sit there and twiddle your thumbs until entropy does its thing, or you can choose to work against it. You can hunt, gather, and farm. Or you can do something in exchange for credits to get food from other people who do.
I have no interest in an academic debate about choice. Most reasonable people will agree that having a "choice" between x and the end of your existence (in most cases in extremely painful and excruciating way) is no choice at all.
>Such is “work.” Play is just the opposite. Play is always voluntary. What might otherwise be play is work if it’s forced. This is axiomatic. Work and play are both voluntary to different degrees. You can survive without working, although your existence will likely be miserable. You can also survive without playing, but again, your existence will also likely be miserable. Play is something we prefer to do voluntarily…
Change a single number in your bank account and see how everything you're saying here changes. Work is voluntary for the rich. Poor people will do the things that rich people don't want to do in order to keep their lives at the level they want.
> Poor people will do the things that rich people don't want to do in order to keep their lives at the level they want.
Yes, that's a fact of life. The things that people don't want to do are still things that (mostly) need to be done.
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For more than 20 years I have advocated and pursued the idea that society should abolish work. I am astonished that in 2020 most of our production is not automated. We have had the ability to automate most work for two decades. Food, clothes, furniture, electronic devices, all of these could be produced with close to zero human labor. Why don't we? After exploring a market (agriculture) in order to launch my own auto…
In rich societies with strong social safety nets, it is possible to live as if work had been abolished. One only needs a fraction of the ressources consumed by a normal Westerner to live a materially comfortable life. But what you realize when you try reaping the benefits of our already largely automated economy, is that work is about ideology. You'll be materially comfortable, but a social outcast. People don't like…
Probably because they wonder how those people are figuring out how to eat without contributing to the economy.
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In rich societies with strong social safety nets, it is possible to live as if work had been abolished. One only needs a fraction of the ressources consumed by a normal Westerner to live a materially comfortable life. But what you realize when you try reaping the benefits of our already largely automated economy, is that work is about ideology. You'll be materially comfortable, but a social outcast. People don't like…
> People don't like to work, but they hate non-working people even more. Probably because they wonder how those people are figuring out how to eat without contributing to the economy.
But I see an inconsistency in their feeling of injustice, because some people have to work a lot to get comparatively very little benefits from our largely automated economy. Anyone who works should feel like they live a luxurious life. Instead we see a lot of addiction and despair, despite lifestyles that consume huge amounts of energy.
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Much of the produced food is thrown away because it's no longer considered fit to eat, however. And scarcity also takes into account the where . Malnourished people in poor countries might happily eat bread which is past its 'sell by' date in rich countries' supermarkets, or even the slightly burned leftovers from my plate, but there isn't a distribution system to get it there (and the resources needed to transport t…
I've written a lengthier response to that in the conversation tree, but the gist of it is that it is a political choice whereas the OP sarcastically alluded to a physical problem (mana from heaven, which we already have thanks to tech) The problem is that the massive tech surplus is captured and not allocated to make life less hellish.
I disagree, it is economic reasoning.
> The problem is that the massive tech surplus is captured and not allocated to make life less hellish.
What massive tech surplus is there that could move food across the ocean for free?
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I have been on welfare in the developed world and it wasn’t like that at all - I’m very skeptical that you’ve managed to get significant personal understanding of welfare across even a majority of the developed world. It sounds like you’re not thinking of pensioners, for one, who generally don’t have many recurring forms to fill out.
I was not aware 20 year olds could be pensioners.