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Read this interesting essay written by DEREK THOMPSON
For centuries, experts have predicted that machines would make workers obsolete. That moment may finally be arriving. Could that be a good thing ?
The end of work is still just a futuristic concept for most of the United States, but it is something like a moment in history for Youngstown, Ohio, one its residents can cite with precision: September 19, 1977.
For much of the 20th century, Youngstown's steel mills delivered such great prosperity that the city was a model of the American dream, boasting a median income and a home ownership rate that were among the nation's highest. But as manufacturing shifted abroad after World War II, Youngstown steel suffered, and on that gray September afternoon in 1977, Youngstown Sheet and Tube announced the shuttering of its Campbell Works mill. Within five years, the city lost 50,000 jobs and $1.3 billion in manufacturing wages. The effect was so severe that a term was coined to describe the fallout: regional depression.
Youngstown was transformed not only by an economic disruption but also by a psychological and cultural breakdown. Depression, spousal abuse, and suicide all became much more prevalent; the caseload of the area's mental-health center tripled within a decade. The city built four prisons in the mid-1990s—a rare growth industry. One of the few downtown construction projects of that period was a museum dedicated to the defunct steel industry.
The future will tell us whether or not this pans out as he envisions. What does SN think will happen ?
Original Submission
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @10:45AM
For most people, work is a necessity, not just for earning a living but for having something to do with their lives. Busy-work is an insult. The notion that you do something without meaning is unbearable. Even being just a tiny, instantly replaceable cog in a big machine is better than doing something that nobody needs at all. We're generations away from not having to work, because more than new machines we need new people to be able to stop working for a living.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @10:53AM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday June 25 2015, @11:05AM
everyone is bitterly unhappy because they have nothing to do, even during wartime the machines do all the fighting.
Someone's car breaks down. Particularly poignant is that someone, but for a moment, has a job while he fashions a gasket from his leather belt.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @11:23AM
Having nothing to do doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm always keeping busy, and I can pick up hobbies until my time is filled. What bothers me is being told by other people that what I do doesn't matter because I don't get paid to do it. Other people bother me, so much so that I just don't bother talking to people, ever.
Before a world without work can become tolerable, culture needs to change, and society is the problem.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @01:10PM
That's because they were not taught what to do with their lives if they don't have someone telling them what to do. In that utopian society, people of course would be taught how to cope with that situation, just as today people are taught how to cope with the fact that you have to work in order to live.
Of course the big question is whether that utopian society will ever happen. As things are going now, sadly the more likely future will be that we run out of resources, causing the current population to be no longer sustainable, and while people might not have work, they will be busy fighting for their life.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mcgrew on Thursday June 25 2015, @01:51PM
I've been retired for a year and a half and have never been happier. There's plenty to do -- art, literature, tinkering.
I really should be working on writing my next book instead of posting on soylent.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday June 26 2015, @04:13AM
Sadly, I see too many people that should be retired and enjoying themselves struggling with a shit job trying to survive. The old guy at Walmart, the two very old ladies who seem to spend all their time delivering papers come to mind.
Pensions are going away along with jobs that allow savings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @07:15PM
Who are these people who "need" work? I've heard this argument before, yet everyone I know has hobbies that they would spend more time on if they didn't have to work (with the possible exception of some of the academics I know for whom their work is their only hobby). Some of these hobbies don't produce anything like hiking but a lot of them are creative. These people would be producing a lot more art if they didn't have to work. Sure, they would probably watch a bit more TV, too, but not 40 hours/week more.