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I read an interesting article called Making a Living (The history of what we call work) which is a discussion of a book called Work: A Deep History. From the Stone Age to the Age of Robots, by South African anthropologist James Suzman.
It was particularly interesting because it delves into Keynesian economics and discusses the transition of human societies from hunter-gatherers to agrarian and then industrial, finally dealing with current day issues of automation, the growing disparity between well-paid and poorly-paid jobs, wealth inequality, environmental issues and the need for perpetual economic growth.
TL;DR: We have been conditioned to confuse wants and needs, keeping up with the Joneses is the source of many of our problems, and we'd do well to work a bit less and party a bit more.
They say that no one ever says they wished they worked more/harder on their death bed. I'm not so sure. I can see myself on mine wishing I'd achieved more. I don't necessarily mean the acquisition of material possessions, and I don't mean ticking off a bucket list, I just mean doing cool new stuff, learning, discovering and so on.
Don't get me wrong, I do value many material possessions. I value being warm and dry with somewhere safe to sleep, to have plenty of food and to have my medical needs met. I value having cool stuff to do things with. I'm sitting in a room just now with 10 computers of my own (11 if you count my old ZX-81). We have two good cars, which are very useful and a pleasure to drive. I wish I had a bigger brain so I could do more cool stuff...
What I got from that article was that there are a lot of people in the world who need to work to be fulfilled. That doesn't mean working themselves into poor health or an early grave and it doesn't mean working in order to acquire enormous amounts of material wealth but to achieve things, to do meaningful things, to discover new things, to heal the sick and so on.
We need Star Trek now more than ever. We need to redirect more of this effort and more of these resources to science and exploration. We'll all benefit, including materially, but most of all we'll become more fulfilled. Let's not suffocate ourselves on this rock in the pursuit of social status.
By the way, I spent the last two weekends planting trees, scattering seeds and planting saplings. I planted over 100 saplings (lodge pole pine, silver birch, sitka spruce). I've scattered thousands of seeds (rowan, juniper, larch). I have some oak and chestnut saplings from last autumn's seeds that need to be transplanted soon too. They'll need protectors to stop the deer eating them (again).
Next year, after the site has been cleared, I'm going to buy a few hundred saplings of other species to plant.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 18 2021, @05:36AM (8 children)
I think it would be great to live in a world where noone has to worry about food, water, shelter, etc., but I don't see a practical way to get there without burning everything down first.
How do you propose to end artificial and strategic scarcity? Governments and militaries are too untrusting to ever put down the weapons or make resources available to everyone. The ruling classes do not take kindly to having their benefits infringed upon. Neither they or the middle classes want to be put on the same level as the lower classes, it would be too damaging to their pride, self-image, and societal position. How do you go about convincing the relatively well-off to give up what they have for the benefit of others?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 18 2021, @03:21PM (7 children)
Produce the goods that are so scarce. It's straight-forward in a market economy.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday October 19 2021, @08:30PM (6 children)
:-) Let us know when you see one. I have already shown you how merchandise is dumped to keep prices up. Your financial industry cannot survive without creating scarcity.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 19 2021, @08:56PM (5 children)
Where?
Anyway, my point is that if you make more such merchandise and sell it in said market economy, then well, prices aren't kept up.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday October 19 2021, @10:15PM (4 children)
Thus you artificially make the product more scarce, you may have to collude with others in case you don't have a monopoly, but that's how it's done. Keep prices high through scarcity..
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 19 2021, @10:53PM (3 children)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday October 20 2021, @12:04AM (2 children)
Can't happen when we let the monopoly run the government.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 21 2021, @04:40AM (1 child)
Unless, of course, the competition competes anyway. I got this worked out. Totally.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 21 2021, @04:58AM
:-) No you don't...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 18 2021, @01:37PM (10 children)
Yes.
Unless someone else does the working for you.
Want a meal? Someone's cooking that, at some point. Even if it's a factory-assembled MRE, someone's working in that factory.
Want a plate from which to eat it? Someone made that.
And so on, and on, down the line. COVID-19 vaccines didn't spring unbidden from the bark of a tree for everyone; somebody had to make them.
The only question is: who needs to?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 18 2021, @06:22PM (9 children)
You're running into the issue with marketing again. Like the slogan "defund the police" it is just a slogan meant to start a conversation. No one except really dumb or literal people think it means get rid of the police. Same here, no one thinks that no one has to work. The conversation is about lowering the time in a typical work week. The real problem is too many humans view life and the economy as a zero sum game, and others don't care about the efficiency of their business only how much money they can wring out of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 18 2021, @07:44PM (8 children)
So in other words, we do need to work.
As for post-scarcity, wake me when we have as much energy as we want for the asking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 18 2021, @08:44PM (7 children)
We could have all the energy we need if we invested heavily in solar. Replies like yours just want to shit on things. Why?
Rhetorical question, since the article asks if we need to work you must simply be a troll that just wants to win against the idea that humans no longer have to work.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 19 2021, @02:09AM (3 children)
Depends how much that solar costs. I can see the potential for it resulting in cheap enough power, but I also see that hasn't happened yet despite very heavy investments in solar to date.
I think the answer is mild cynicism. After all, we have the better part [medium.com] of a century of bad predictions on this very matter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @02:23AM
A lot! [zerohedge.com]
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @06:35AM (1 child)
Yes, indeed, after we pay ol' Sol for residuals, intellectual property, and severance for photons, solar energy will probably not even break even. Or, khallow is an idiot.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 19 2021, @08:09PM
Meanwhile on my planet, solar panels cost money to make and install. It's not free, especially if you're "heavily investing" in it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @02:38AM (2 children)
No. We don't have all the energy we want "for the asking". We have it IF we mine a lot of stuff, AND manufacture a lot of stuff AND install a lot of stuff AND maintain a lot of stuff.
There's a scarcity of solar energy, modulated by our willingness to do something about it. It's inherent to physical realities, and even if we blanketed the whole goddamn planet in solar panels somehow, there would still be a finite quantity of solar power on offer - that limitation is, to that extent, a case of scarcity at work. You can take it to any market you choose. Iron? Gotta mine and refine. Soft, silky boxers for your base layer? Better get spinning, weaving and tailoring. Whores ready to pleasure your groin in ways that you'd never imagined? They don't work free.
Scarcity is built into the universe, and has nothing to do with human malice in the abstract, specific examples of deliberate deprivation notwithstanding.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @07:28AM (1 child)
Yeah TANSTAAFL we all know, now did you have something useful to add or just more banal commentary?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @03:58PM
OP asked a question. Reply answered it.
So tell me, how does that exchange make you feel? Worried? Tense?
... vulnerable?
Would you like a shoulder to cry on?