Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible • Hacker News Board

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#571

Post by dominicrose » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 10:05 PM UTC

red-iron-pine wrote: post #559

bluGill wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot predict details of the future, but you can make enough predictions for reasonable purposes. The sun will rise in the east tomorrow. Between December and February next year it will drop below freezing, and snow. The weather will support a garden most summers (enough rain, not too hot or cold), but only if I'm planing specific plants that do well in my climate, there are some foods that will never work where…

i can buy a house because i can plan on having a job next year, and probably in the next 5 years. i can have a kid because i can afford it, because i have a job, and my housing situation is stable i can take time off to recover from illness because i won't get fired for being out of office for a week i can pay for other life infrastructure like a car or a new roof because i know my pay and job is stable and i'm not g…

I would need my family be able to live on one salary to feel safe expanding the family, or have close family that can help us.

To remove the future from the equation, the current situation at least must be able to handle it nicely.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#572

Post by smallmancontrov » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 10:07 PM UTC

georgeecollins wrote: post #355

jbxntuehineoh wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone wants more Not true at all. If I could work two days a week for 40% of my current income I would take the opportunity in a heartbeat and would be much, much happier for it. Unfortunately that option isn't available to me, nor to most people.

> Everyone wants more John Maynard Keynes thought people might eventually work only a few hours per month because the growth in productivity would allow only a few hours of work to cover consumption. He did not imagine that people would want their own cars, their own lavish houses filled with appliances, extensive wardrobes, fancy food. As a westerner you do not feel like you live an opulent lifestyle but compared to…

This is a wildly incorrect take that I thought was now exclusive to Boomers who last balanced a budget 30 years ago and now spend all day listening to Fox News while repeatedly refreshing their house price estimate on Zillow. Evidently not. Let's review.

Things are cheap. Health care, housing, and education are expensive. The median financed iPhone is $30/mo, health care is $500/mo, college is $800/mo, median rent is $1500/mo. You can get three 75" TVs for the cost of one month of median US rent. The average Millenial does not eat three $15 avocado toasts every day, but the average house actually does appreciate by 10*$15 every day (smoothed). This works in reverse, too: you must forego two 75" TV purchases and an iPhone purchase every month to pay rent. Obviously, unless you have a TV factory in your apartment, this is an extremely stupid plan that outs the person floating it as having been disconnected from reality on the ground for decades.

The modern economy solved material problems but it did not solve gatekeeping and rent-seeking problems and oh boy it has a lot of them. These problems are already gigantic compared to all of the material problems put together, so no amount of material deprivation will solve them.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#573

Post by userulluipeste » Tue, Jun 16, 2026, 10:36 PM UTC

pandalism wrote: post #451

ffsm8 wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laying flat is completely different though. It's the realization in china that their efforts will never amount to meaningful rewards, hence they scale down the effort to what's absolutely necessary for survival. Living without a home and only working maybe 1 day a week to get enough food to not die. Equivalent in Europe would be to just be homeless and get by on social security, US probably getting by on food stamps.…

Might be a nitpick this doesn't seem like a sword of Damocles type scenario, that implies the constant, and extraordinary, risk of decisions taken from a position of power, aka you get the throne but the swords there ready to kill you for a minute action/decision and you lose it all. I'm not sure what would be a more apt parable, something about being a leaf in the wind, or trying to swim upstream, aka powerless that…

"I'm not sure what would be a more apt parable, something about being a leaf in the wind, or trying to swim upstream, aka powerless that no matter what you decide, how you act, bigger phenomena than you is the only thing that matters?"

There was and still is a lot of hazard (and lack of control) in anyone's life. It gets either mitigated (somehow, when possible), or assumed & ignored. So, no need for parables, as this just sounds like life, as it always been, no more and no less.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#574

Post by bad_haircut72 » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 12:01 AM UTC

palmotea wrote: post #522

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might like this - Future Shock (1972) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fkUwXenBokU&pp=ygUMZnV0dXJlIHN...

Yeah. And it's worth noting (because I'm sure some "clever" software engineer is going to quote Socrates thinking its some kind of mic drop or something), that I'm not saying change all the sudden got too fast just recently. It's probably been like that for awhile (e.g. since the 70s or before).

I thi k the 70s was when they saw "oh hey this is gonna be bad" and now we're there.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#575

Post by Johanx64 » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 12:07 AM UTC

kjshsh123 wrote: post #405

Johanx64 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The masses work because they want to consume, not the other way around. Hell, no. Masses work, because they have to. It's not under threat of violence, it's under threat of sleeping under a bridge and starving. Which, frankly, isn't that far off. People often spend as much as 30-40% of income on rent alone. Plus, once you stack up all the other basic necessities (which have heavily gone up under inflation), you'll…

Necessities count as consumption. You could survive off rice and live in an internet cafe for $15/night. I don't know what you think the traditional sense of the word "consumption" is.

Why are you being an obtuse "akshually" redditor?

> The masses work because they want to consume, not the other way around. Everyone wants more

If he wanted to say masses work, because they have to pay rent and meet basic necessities (ie. under threat of homelessness and starvation), he would have clearly said so.

The way this is worded very clearly refers to conspicuous consumption and consumerism - ie working as means to buying ever more funkopops and ever pokemon cards, ever larger houses to put ever more stuff in them, garage with ever more cars, a vacation house, a pool, a yacht and then a bigger one. And this being the primary motivator (rather than base survival)

Thus no matter what your productive output is per hour of labour, you will always work as much as you can, because you are - presumably - insatiably driven to always consume ever more with no end to it.

And frankly, he certainly is right, but only to an extent, as there definitely are people that operate like this, however them being majority? I don't think so.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#576

Post by georgeecollins » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 12:23 AM UTC

smallmancontrov wrote: post #572

georgeecollins wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone wants more John Maynard Keynes thought people might eventually work only a few hours per month because the growth in productivity would allow only a few hours of work to cover consumption. He did not imagine that people would want their own cars, their own lavish houses filled with appliances, extensive wardrobes, fancy food. As a westerner you do not feel like you live an opulent lifestyle but compared to…

This is a wildly incorrect take that I thought was now exclusive to Boomers who last balanced a budget 30 years ago and now spend all day listening to Fox News while repeatedly refreshing their house price estimate on Zillow. Evidently not. Let's review. Things are cheap. Health care, housing, and education are expensive. The median financed iPhone is $30/mo, health care is $500/mo, college is $800/mo, median rent is…

I think by making a comparison between today 1900 I wasn't expecting to get on the slot car track of all the bad economic policy of the last couple generations. I agree with you completely about the rent seeking, the protection of the wealth of old people at the expense of future generations, the gatekeeping of expensive accreditation. Amen to all that.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#577

Post by Johanx64 » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 12:27 AM UTC

jongjong wrote: post #375

Johanx64 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The masses work because they want to consume, not the other way around. Hell, no. Masses work, because they have to. It's not under threat of violence, it's under threat of sleeping under a bridge and starving. Which, frankly, isn't that far off. People often spend as much as 30-40% of income on rent alone. Plus, once you stack up all the other basic necessities (which have heavily gone up under inflation), you'll…

> Hell, no. Masses work, because they have to. 100%. Most people can be very happy with very low consumption. What people want is not to work. The happiest time in my life was when I was earning a measily $40K per year in passive income from crypto and didn't work. It was the lowest salary I ever had, least I ever consumed and happiest I'd ever been. The purpose of consumption for most people is to soothe the pain of…

> The purpose of consumption for most people is to soothe the pain of working.

Yes, for a lot of people it is like this.

When I was young, I couldn't understand why people went on 1-2 week short, extremely expensive vacations where they blow multiple months worth of their savings (ie. multiple months of their income after expensives) in what is extremely short amount of time. It seemed mind-bogglingly stupid.

Now I understand. Being part of the system and doing 9-to-5 wageslavery is inescapable fact of their life.

So when they get 2 weeks off - 2 weeks to actually go and live freely, they just go all out on having a good time. Because no matter what - they are going back to 9-to-5 system.

And however wastefully they "consume" whatever is left after basic expenses, doesn't really matter in grand scheme of things and won't free them from slavery.

It's a distraction. "Whatever hours of free time I get after work, I'm gonna indulge consoom however I want"

Now software engineers are a bit different, where it's possible to retire after 10 years of work if you plan and live frugally, this is simply not an option for vast majority of people.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#578

Post by mc32 » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 12:42 AM UTC

the_af wrote: post #541

mc32 wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the USSR, Cuba, China, etc., where expropriation or nationalization happened, first they confiscated everyone’s firearms. That’s always step one to take rights or property from people. I know the 2A is both contentious and leads to problems (like violence), but it also gives pause and prevents overzealous or corrupt governments or individuals from going too far. Yes there was ruby ridge and Waco and Kent state and…

> In the USSR, Cuba, China, etc., where expropriation or nationalization happened, first they confiscated everyone’s firearms. I don't think this is strictly the order of how it went in any of those cases, even though, of course, access to weapons will be heavily controlled and restricted in any country with a strong centralized government. And rivals will be disarmed. > I know the 2A is both contentious and leads to…

Well, in the USSR from 1918 to 1920 they confiscated private gun ownership via various campaigns. They targeted kulaks in the early thirties and carried out mass executions of kulaks in the late '30s.

In Cuba they began confiscation almost immediately after the revolution and instituted programs to get rid of all arms from civilians in the mid 60s. Around the same time the government began religious and cultural persecutions.

Vietnam, almost immediately after the fall of Saigon began confiscating guns from civilians (despite these helping them win the civil war). After the confiscations they began securing absolute control over the south especially and began massive persecutions, re-education camps and forced collectivization, etc.

China was more gradual but there too they eliminated private gun ownership.

There certainly would have been more resistance and couterrevolutions and less repression if they had not confiscated firearms from the people.

If you have an armed militia made up of a subject class, and you have a ruling class they risk having to eliminate the whole of the subject class and having no one left to rule over. It would be like having an elite colony on Mars but no common people thus they become the common people. And being armed the militia made up of everyone who's not elite would put up fierce resistance. Most of the professional soldiers would defect. The elite would be unable to manage the armament not have the methods to deliver lethality. They can't just lob thermonuclear bombs as that would poison the very land they would live on and want to control. No, I think an armed militia is insurance against this scenario. We have witnessed authoritarian regimes who before they go on their repression campaigns do confiscate private firearms ownership from the population.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#579

Post by littlexsparkee » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 1:47 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #545

dominicrose wrote: post #320

It is frustrating to not be able to predict the future. How can you get married, have children, get a 25 year mortgage on a house, buy a car for comfort even though you don't absolutely need it? Even if you do consider buying a home, how do you know it's worth anything if you can't predict this particular place's future situation? Some countries tax enough to make the risk of buying quite high. A leap of faith is req…

How is this any different than it's ever been? Not making life choices because you're worried they'll turn out bad is a terrible way to approach life.

You're making a choice to be resilient - doesn't mean you can't pursue the other course down the line but it's self preservation at this point. I don't think it makes sense to give it a moral valence.

Re: Peopleless economy? Not technically impossible

#580

Post by littlexsparkee » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 1:49 AM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #565

vitally3643 wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think your "worst possible" case is calibrated correctly. The worst possible case is global famine and food chain collapse. Food wars, water riots. Starvation in the literal billions. Living in a Western country won't solve the problems of "crops can't grow anymore" or "keystone species in the food chain are extinct". We'll starve and die in mass numbers just like everyone else.

Even if we had billions dead from starvation worldwide (huge if), life in a western country in 2060 will be better than life for almost anyone born in 1800 anywhere on earth.

That QoL is dependent on resource extraction from developing countries - if they crash, so do we.