CDZ A World Without Jobs: Utopia or Hell?

[esthermoon]

Many of them could eat without work because in that time you can live without money.
Likely for them money wasn't everything like today

 

[JoeMoma]

Many of them could eat without work because in that time you can live without money.
Likely for them money wasn't everything like today

Perhaps ignorance is bliss!

 

[JimBowie1958]

The era of robots: thousands of builders to lose jobs as machines take over, says construction boss

Robots should work.
We should LIVE.

I cant speak for you or for your culture, but I enjoyed my work and would have gladly worked for minimum wage or for free. In fact thousands do in various projects on line.

Love what you do and you will never have to WORK a day in your life.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Many of them could eat without work because in that time you can live without money.
Likely for them money wasn't everything like today

Perhaps ignorance is bliss!

I wonder how many Millennials would eat chittlins if they knew what they were, lol.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Many of them could eat without work because in that time you can live without money.
Likely for them money wasn't everything like today

Money is a *good* thing for our time, as it is a store of value that is convenient, universally accepted and you dont have to pay portage to get your commodity to the mall.

Imagine if we had to barter Tide detergent (a common drug trafficking commodity that serves as a currency) every time we went to the store to buy something.

That could get wearisome.

 

[boedicca]

I have a dystopian theory, it is mine and belongs to me, and I own it and what it is, too:

Now that we are seeing the realities of cyber warfare, and the use of robots to act as servants, lovers, factory workers and soldiers, the vast mass of humanity is obsolete. It's highly likely that some pandemic-catastrophe is in the works to rid the world of its "surplus population". The remaining Overlords with their Robot Armies will then divvy up the planet for their own Mega Estates.

So long and thanks for all the fish!

The End.

 

[boedicca]

Many of them could eat without work because in that time you can live without money.
Likely for them money wasn't everything like today

Perhaps ignorance is bliss!

I wonder how many Millennials would eat chittlins if they knew what they were, lol.

They would use the "avoiding cultural appropriation" excuse, no doubt.

 

[JimBowie1958]

I have a dystopian theory, it is mine and belongs to me, and I own it and what it is, too:

Now that we are seeing the realities of cyber warfare, and the use of robots to act as servants, lovers, factory workers and soldiers, the vast mass of humanity is obsolete. It's highly likely that some pandemic-catastrophe is in the works to rid the world of its "surplus population". The remaining Overlords with their Robot Armies will then divvy up the planet for their own Mega Estates.

So long and thanks for all the fish!

The End.

Actually, a good number of "experts" think a pandemic is inevitable because, in part, the Oligarchs dont want to drag the rest of us into the Technological Utopia of the future.

Humanity, for them, is obsolete, and so the herd must be culled by gradual increments untill only the cream is left.

I disagree only because the Oligarchs also need people to show off their wealth to and make us envious of them, they think so anyway.

That is much of what drives them psychologically.

They have, we dont, and they get off on that.

 

[boedicca]

I have a dystopian theory, it is mine and belongs to me, and I own it and what it is, too:

Now that we are seeing the realities of cyber warfare, and the use of robots to act as servants, lovers, factory workers and soldiers, the vast mass of humanity is obsolete. It's highly likely that some pandemic-catastrophe is in the works to rid the world of its "surplus population". The remaining Overlords with their Robot Armies will then divvy up the planet for their own Mega Estates.

So long and thanks for all the fish!

The End.

Actually, a good number of "experts" think a pandemic is inevitable because, in part, the Oligarchs dont want to drag the rest of us into the Technological Utopia of the future.

Humanity, for them, is obsolete.

I disagree only because the Oligarchs also need people to show off their wealth to and make us envious of them, they think so anyway.

They are quite happy to show off among themselves, and AI robots can provide them the slavering adulation if they really need it. Most humans today serve as either voting & tax serfs or instruments of war. Financing is largely driven by computer programs now, which can provide all the fake money the Robot Overlords will need. Their power games will change so that they don't need a Voter Mob to carry them along. And war will be cyber as well. No need for human shield hostages, etc.

 

[JimBowie1958]

I have a dystopian theory, it is mine and belongs to me, and I own it and what it is, too:

Now that we are seeing the realities of cyber warfare, and the use of robots to act as servants, lovers, factory workers and soldiers, the vast mass of humanity is obsolete. It's highly likely that some pandemic-catastrophe is in the works to rid the world of its "surplus population". The remaining Overlords with their Robot Armies will then divvy up the planet for their own Mega Estates.

So long and thanks for all the fish!

The End.

Actually, a good number of "experts" think a pandemic is inevitable because, in part, the Oligarchs dont want to drag the rest of us into the Technological Utopia of the future.

Humanity, for them, is obsolete.

I disagree only because the Oligarchs also need people to show off their wealth to and make us envious of them, they think so anyway.

They are quite happy to show off amount themselves, and AI robots can provide them the slavering adulation if they really need it. Most humans today serve as either voting & tax serfs or instruments of war. Financing is largely driven by computer programs now, which can provide all the fake money the Robot Overlords will need. Their power games will change so that they don't need a Voter Mob to carry them along. And war will be cyber as well. No need for human shield hostages, etc.

What I am trying to describe is difficult to convey.

Maybe a short story would help.

When I was in school back in the 1970s, Reagan was having a discussion with someone, I want to say William F Buckley Jr but I dont remember and he pointed out that "a rising tide lifts all ships". Another student sitting with us in the lounge area was snickering at that statement and we asked him why.

He said "What is the point of lifting all ships? How does that help anyone?" The gist of what he was referring to, rephrasing him a bit as I cant remember the exact words, "Workers will still be working for the same people that they work for, and it is not about the money it is about ruling over other people by monopolizing economic advantage."

The Oligarchs dont just want to be rich, they want to KNOW that they are above other PEOPLE and that other people envy them.

It is the difference between ruling some virtual kingdom on line vrs holding real power over other people as mayor of a small town. More people would rather be mayor because it is real and the virtual stuff just isnt there yet.

But maybe it will be in another 15 years?

I dont know, but dominating a robot is kind of pointless as anyone can do that, but dominating millions of people through the use of the power of wealth and office is quite another thing.

 

[320 Years of History]

In response to the title question of whether a world without jobs would be utopia or hell....

A job is the activity(s) one performs in exchange for compensation. While people will perform jobs that call them to perform activities they otherwise would not do, for the most part, the activity one performs for compensation should be some sort of activity that one would otherwise be inclined to perform with or without compensation. Would writers not write if they weren't paid to do it? Do thinkers not think but for being paid to do so? Do singers not sing when they are not paid for it? Of course they do all those things, sometimes for compensation and sometimes not.

I am the same way. My job is one whereby I'm asked by my clients to solve a problem they either cannot solve or that they lack the resources, or will to use them, to solve them on their own. I would not stop being a problem solver merely because I'm not paid to do so. I've been "into" solving problems since I was a child; it's what I enjoy doing.

The nature of the problems I solve for my clients is very specific relative to the nature of problems one may possibly have, but nonetheless, it's problem solving. In a world wherein one receives no compensation for solving problems, there would still be problems that need solving. I would set myself about solving some of them. Would that state of affairs be a qualitative hell or utopia? I don't really know that it'd be either, but I'm reasonably confident it'd be no different than is the world now for I'd still be solving problems, be they my own problems or larger problems.

That's with regard to myself. Do I think people in general would find the world a hell or utopia were there no paid work for humans to do? That would depend on whether there's actually a need for one to have a medium of exchange and whether the things one can exchange continue to be perceived as having greater and lesser value. Things have great value at points in time and no value at other points in time. For example, when I'm backpacking through the mountains, a car is of almost no value whatsoever. Similarly, when I'm in Amsterdam, a bike is more valuable to me than is a car. Ditto when I'm traveling with visitors around The Mall in D.C. or taking a short vacation in Copenhagen where bikes are free of charge for one to use and drop of at a collection point when one is done using them.

Expanding on the idea of things having greater and lesser value, it's likely that a world without paid work would see many more things merely be available for one when one needs them and not in one's possession when one does not need them. That's going to necessitate that we make lifestyle changes, but that lifestyle probably would be fine.

Take shelter as another example. What size is your home? If one lives in a home that's very large, it's safe to say that one most of the time does not need all the space, shelter and storage one has purchased, but one has it because one has acquired a lot of things, or merely for convenience and indulgence sake. My own home has 2.5 kitchens and except for when I host a large party, I just use one of them. Could I live in a much smaller dwelling and be quite happy? Of course, I could. I don't own a large home because I routinely need the space, I have it almost purely for self-indulgent reasons.

The two examples above are just two illustrations of the overall nature of the paradigm shift that would have to take place in a world without compensation for one's efforts. I suppose if one truly believes one's life would not be complete were one to rent one's "digital escargot forks" rather than own them, I guess one would see that world as closer to hell. If, however, one is able to be happy having and using what one needs when one needs it and then relinquishing possession of it when one is done, such a world may be closer to a utopia.

 

[JimBowie1958]

That's going to necessitate that we make lifestyle changes, but that lifestyle probably would be fine.

Take shelter as another example. What size is your home? If one lives in a home that's very large, it's safe to say that one most of the time does not need all the space, shelter and storage one has purchased, but one has it because one has acquired a lot of things, or merely for convenience and indulgence sake. My own home has 2.5 kitchens and except for when I host a large party, I just use one of them. Could I live in a much smaller dwelling and be quite happy? Of course, I could. I don't own a large home because I routinely need the space, I have it almost purely for self-indulgent reasons.

That house is an example of a "Consumer Based Economy" which encourages buying what you might use as opposed to what you do need and get along with minimal resources for the occasional episode your normal resources cant handle it. Our economy since WW2 is based on this model; pay the workers more and they can buy your products and everyone elses products and the economy grows.

But we have shifted to a "Penny Crunching" economic model instead and the Middle Class is suffering from the consumer market shrinkage going on now as people buy more with less money because everything today is made with what amounts to slave labor. Gone is the notion that we would lift all workers of the world to an American Middle Class lifestyle and instead we have a race to the bottom of currency values, wreaking havoc on savings and driving us all to the living standards of Jakarta.

Who ever got together and decided that that new Jakarta Subsistence model would be the optimal solution for anyone? No one did, just the corporate Brahmins who think that they are Masters of the Universe.

The day is coming when the only thing that they will rule is the end of a rope swinging from a lamp post if they are not more generous and careful.

 

[320 Years of History]

That house is an example of a "Consumer Based Economy" which encourages buying what you might use as opposed to what you do need and get along with minimal resources for the occasional episode your normal resources cant handle it. Our economy since WW2 is based on this model; pay the workers more and they can buy your products and everyone elses products and the economy grows.

Gone is the notion that we would lift all workers of the world to an American Middle Class lifestyle

Black bold:
I'm not of the mind that there was ever a good reason to think that "lifting all workers....to an "American Middle Class lifestyle" has ever been something that we or anyone should pursue, at least not in the sense of what you've identified as the "Consumer Based Economy." I don't mind that lifestyle, but also I don't see the American definition of "middle class lifestyle" as being the thing that everyone, the world, needs to or should live. I think everyone should have what they need when and where they need it, but that belief doesn't go as far as thinking that everyone should own as many of those things as possible "just in case," so to speak.

Take for example cars. Why would one need to have a car if there is a place within steps of one's home and office to pick up a car, use it and return it when one is done? Sure there are things one pretty much needs to possess -- shelter, clothing, furniture, communication methods, and consumables and durable goods that don't "share well" -- but there is a lot that we own that we really don't have to own, but we do, and having them rather than sharing them is is intrinsic to the existing paradigm of the American Middle Class lifestyle.

Can one be happy under a different paradigm, one in which one is predisposed to borrow "stuff" more so than to buy it so long as one has access to the stuff one needs when and where on needs it? For myself, the answer to that is, most certainly. I don't care that I own something; I care that I have full use of it when and where I want, but once I'm done doing whatever gave rise to my wanting to use an item, I don't have a need to own it after that. If I need the item again, I'm perfectly fine with borrowing it again.

So while I'm a product of and an active participant in the consumer based model, I'm not of a mind that it's the only model that can work and work well. It's the model under which we live, so it's the one we participate in and it's the one we act to thrive. I don't see anything saying, given that completely different paradigms exist, I don't feel compelled to insist that it's unreasonable to adopt one of them if/when the time comes that humans essentially do not receive economic compensation (that is, a quantity of a medium of exchange) for their efforts.

Now if one wants to force a consumption based paradigm that is about owning things "just in case" to work with the ideas I've discussed in describing what is clearly a wholly different model that depends on having access and use of that which one needs without actually owning and permanently possessing it, well, I'm hard pressed to see that working very well for anyone.

we have shifted to a "Penny Crunching" economic model instead and the Middle Class is suffering from the consumer market shrinkage going on now as people buy more with less money because everything today is made with what amounts to slave labor.

• The prospect of one's dollar "going farther" doesn't strike me as anything but a good thing.
• That folks toil doing things that don't compensate them as well as they would like a matter of their not having acted to enable/prepare themselves to do work that is more highly compensated.
• Slave labor is labor that is not compensated with money, so no forms of labor amount to slave labor.

 

[JimBowie1958]

That house is an example of a "Consumer Based Economy" which encourages buying what you might use as opposed to what you do need and get along with minimal resources for the occasional episode your normal resources cant handle it. Our economy since WW2 is based on this model; pay the workers more and they can buy your products and everyone elses products and the economy grows.

Gone is the notion that we would lift all workers of the world to an American Middle Class lifestyle

Black bold:
I'm not of the mind that there was ever a good reason to think that "lifting all workers....to an "American Middle Class lifestyle" has ever been something that we or anyone should pursue, at least not in the sense of what you've identified as the "Consumer Based Economy." I don't mind that lifestyle, but also I don't see the American definition of "middle class lifestyle" as being the thing that everyone, the world, needs to or should live. I think everyone should have what they need when and where they need it, but that belief doesn't go as far as thinking that everyone should own as many of those things as possible "just in case," so to speak. ....

• The prospect of one's dollar "going farther" doesn't strike me as anything but a good thing.
• That folks toil doing things that don't compensate them as well as they would like a matter of their not having acted to enable/prepare themselves to do work that is more highly compensated.
• Slave labor is labor that is not compensated with money, so no forms of labor amount to slave labor.

You missed my main point. It isnt that the change to the new economy is happening, however I do not like that either, but the way in which everyone has been suckered into agreement with it by slow incremental changes instead of proposing it and putting it to a vote.

You know, that democratic process thing.

Instead we have had a kabal of multinational corporate CEOs deciding what we will do and how.

That is slavery for us, mastery of us for them..

 

[320 Years of History]

That house is an example of a "Consumer Based Economy" which encourages buying what you might use as opposed to what you do need and get along with minimal resources for the occasional episode your normal resources cant handle it. Our economy since WW2 is based on this model; pay the workers more and they can buy your products and everyone elses products and the economy grows.

Gone is the notion that we would lift all workers of the world to an American Middle Class lifestyle

Black bold:
I'm not of the mind that there was ever a good reason to think that "lifting all workers....to an "American Middle Class lifestyle" has ever been something that we or anyone should pursue, at least not in the sense of what you've identified as the "Consumer Based Economy." I don't mind that lifestyle, but also I don't see the American definition of "middle class lifestyle" as being the thing that everyone, the world, needs to or should live. I think everyone should have what they need when and where they need it, but that belief doesn't go as far as thinking that everyone should own as many of those things as possible "just in case," so to speak. ....

• The prospect of one's dollar "going farther" doesn't strike me as anything but a good thing.
• That folks toil doing things that don't compensate them as well as they would like a matter of their not having acted to enable/prepare themselves to do work that is more highly compensated.
• Slave labor is labor that is not compensated with money, so no forms of labor amount to slave labor.

You missed my main point. It isnt that the change to the new economy is happening, however I do not like that either, but the way in which everyone has been suckered into agreement with it by slow incremental changes instead of proposing it and putting it to a vote.

You know, that democratic process thing.

Instead we have had a kabal of multinational corporate CEOs deciding what we will do and how.

That is slavery for us, mastery of us for them..

Red:
CEOs and corporations do not hold people at gunpoint in order to obtain sales, and sales, and the money derived from them, are what make possible everything the CEOs' companies do. That "suckering," as you put it, is in essence "voted" upon. It's done with dollars, namely the dollars people spend when they purchase the items/services the "kabal of multinational corporate CEOs' " companies offer. Don't support the companies by purchasing the products/services, vocalize the reason(s) for the lack of monetary approbation, and the CEOs will change their behavior.

For example, I don't approve of GE's essentially paying no taxes. I don't buy GE's products and services to the extent I'm aware GE produced them. I do the same every time I am the decision maker for a purchase, with regard to the goods and services offered by every one of the top companies I'm aware of and that paid no federal income taxes.


The problem is that in the U.S., far too many people want to "have their cake and eat it too" insofar as they consume the goods and services offered by companies exhibiting behaviors and practices they revile, yet they also want those companies to stop certain practices. Well, that approach doesn't work and why anyone in their right mind thinks it even might is beyond me. If one wants to demonstrate one's disapproval of a company, one thing one should and can do is not buy its products, but doing that does mean one may have to "do without." That can at times hard to do, but in most cases, it's not impossible to do, yet people won't, in general, do it.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Amazing humanoid robot does press-ups and SWEATS to keep itself cool

 

[JimBowie1958]

Robot journalists to start writing stories for Britain's national news agency

 

[JimBowie1958]

Meet China's freakishly realistic droids at the World Robot Conference | Daily Mail Online

 

[320 Years of History]

I'm surprised you haven't latched onto this thread. I would have shared the info here, but the temporal theme and context of your title and OP led me to post the content in a fresh thread.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Elon Musk: Robots will take your jobs, government will have to pay your wage