Should People Have to Work?

[Morrovvind]

With the advent of new technologies today and in the future, it may be possible for all people, regardless of what situation they are born into, to have all their basic needs fulfilled without having to work, those basic needs being: food, water, shelter, education, transportation, a sense of security, privacy.

 

How is this, one may ask. A look at recent technological advances shows a trend of mechanical, robotic, or computer processes that replace human workers. The agricultural, manufacturing, and now even the service industries jobs done by humans are being done now by automated processes (bank tellers replaced by ATMs, store clerks replaced by self checkout, the list goes on). Today, this means more competition and means many people can't survive. Tomorrow, this trend could mean freedom.

 

There probably will always be human (volunteer) jobs, but should people be forced to work to survive? Would having the option to not work, but still have free access to clean air, clean water, sustaining food, and shelter from the elements, provide a sense of equality and justice around the globe? Would all the free time for leisure and education and self exploration promote a better psychological well being for billions of people? Would all that free time translate into more inventors and humanitarians and futurists determined to further improve the quality of life for our (and others) species?

 

What do others think? Should humans be destined to toil?

[Beriallord]

Who is going to harvest the food, build the shelters, educate people, build the vehicles for transportation, etc? Why should those people have to work when most others would get a free ride? I'm not living and working just to carry others on my back.

 

Every other creature on this planet has to do something in order to survive, and we humans are no different in that regard. I'd prefer a society where people pull their own weight. If we allow society to be comprised of a bunch of lazy sloths who don't want to work, then where would we end up? Why would anyone care about trying hard?

Edited June 13, 2013 by Beriallord

[billyro]

It's probably a possible direction of the human race. Personally, I'd be happy to be spoonfed the rest of my life so I can engage solely in personal activities.

 

Perhaps that's my sleep deprived state talking, but I really wouldn't care.

[JimboUK]

There will always be work for people to do, rather than having people sitting around doing nothing we should be ensure that people have the skills necessary to contribute something. Anyway humans are greedy by nature, free food would see most of us weighing 20+ stone, free drink would lead to rampant alcoholism and our homes would soon fill up with material goods we don't need.

[Morrovvind]

Who is going to harvest the food, build the shelters, educate people, build the vehicles for transportation, etc? Why should those people have to work when most others would get a free ride? I'm not living and working just to carry others on my back.

 

Every other creature on this planet has to do something in order to survive, and we humans are no different in that regard. I'd prefer a society where people pull their own weight. If we allow society to be comprised of a bunch of lazy sloths who don't want to work, then where would we end up? Why would anyone care about trying hard?

 

Do you believe all jobs contribute equally to today's society? What if my job was an "account holder" and I collect interest off a large sum of money and your job (barely making ends meet) was to flip burgers which, on occasion I came to buy and eat, driving an expensive Lamborghini and wearing a super rich clothes made from sweat shops. Would you be opposed to a future where robots were burger flippers (and field harvesters, shelter builders, etc)?

 

EDIT: most vehicle factories are automated now with very little human interaction

Edited June 13, 2013 by Morrovvind

[TRoaches]

@Morrowvvind: I don't think anyone would be opposed to a utopia without work, but the premise seems to rest on the unrealistic assumption that the bounty produced by automation would be shared freely with the population for the benefit of all. Technology has already made it possible to feed, clothe, and house every human on the planet. It has not happened yet because of a lack of empathy, not a lack of necessary technology.

[colourwheel]

Think we already live in a world where people don't "have" to work. The problem is some people "need" to work just to survive and make ends meet. One of the things I suspect is the reason behind this is social engineering. Even in grade school you start off with speration of classes such as jocks, nerd, geeks, punks, emos, etc... Even in College people tend to find a group they are comfortable with and tend to only relate to. No different after education either. You have heard the phrase used before when a friend finds someone who they think are attractive and then someone says.... "they are out of your league." Some what implying that the person who your friend is interested in would never have a chance or ideally a socially fit match to date that person. Just like we have economic classes from poor, to lower class, to middle class, to higher class, to the extremely wealthy..... Unless the world somehow eliminates greed, prejudism, racism, etc... we could never have a utopia where people wouldn't "have" to work. Even if we do live in a world where it could be possible for machines to do all the work for us.

Edited June 13, 2013 by colourwheel

[Morrovvind]

Very good replies, TRoaches and Colorwheel. Your insight, TRoaches, is incredibly clear and concise.

 

The lack of empathy, in my opinion, is more of a lack of vision. Has anyone here heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? Imagine the 7 billion or however many people there are now, as having many more inventors due to receiving basic needs to live and an education. The technological prowess of the human race would increase many times over, allowing for more benefits for all.

 

It would be more interesting to live in a cooperative society as opposed to a competitive society simply because of the implications of how we would think. Instead of competing and watching our fellow human fall, we try to raise them up because our group is only as strong as its weakest member, realizing that it could have been us born in their shoes.

[sukeban]

Dang, trying to find the link... but some MIT professors have recently tackled this subject.

 

Personally, I could see a fully automated society as either leading to a semi-utopia or to a technocratic dictatorship (or worse, if SkyNet becomes self-aware...).

 

Given that you will always have need for a core, technocratic elite to create and maintain machines and software, you WILL have a certain class of workers that will command enormous power over their peers, essentially enabling them to survive (or not) depending on their moral disposition as a class. If this class is benificent, then society may evolve into a semi-utopia where all the rest of the ex-workers are free to pursue their own ends, which is all well and good--up until a point. If they are less than beneificent, they could do anything they wanted with us, from mere neglect to authoritarianism to bondage to potentially wholesale liquidation.

 

But, say the engineers are nice and they decide to try and make the world a better place through the abolishment of work. I don't necessarily think that the absence of work is good for the humans either. Certainly some work is inefficient and dehumanizing and that's great if that is abolished, but people will always have need of doing something productive (even if only subjectively so) else they disappear into a whirlpool of ennui and/or existential decay. So the relevant machines better go into overdrive producing hobby equipment, art supplies, sports gear, books, birth control pills, etc. lest everyone go all Jonestown due to the sheer boredom of it all.

 

Anyway, it's quite possible that I've read/watched/played too much Sci Fi and/or underestimate human empathy, but I, for one, am not particularly bullish on a future where a) so few control so much and b) humans are so utterly redundant.

Edited June 13, 2013 by sukeban

[TRoaches]

The technocratic dictatorship is what comes to my mind any time I hear dire warnings about "overpopulation" or positive mentions of "population control". I consider it propaganda meant to acclimate us to our own planned obsolescence. There have always been members of the elite class who consider the rest of us a necessary burden (unwashed masses, mouths to feed, etc), and automation would remove the necessity of the existence of lower classes to produce food and infrastructure.

 

Put yourself in the shoes of a patriarch of one of the world's truly elite groups. I don't mean people that are simply "wealthy" but the people who control wealth itself, such as the old royal families and their more modern cousins in the international banks. Like any other patriarch you probably think and plan for your faction's future. Where most normal people would be concerned about their progeny's survival and prosperity you have no need to be concerned about this. Their prosperity is already a sure thing. Instead you have the luxury of truly looking ahead to the destiny of humanity itself and what role your faction will play in that destiny.

 

Now, if you are a good-natured, humble, and altruistic person then you would not consider those of the lower classes (and remember, EVERY class is lower than yours) to be an expendable waste of resources. However, there is a good chance that a person who was born into that level of power is NOT altruistic, humble, or good-natured. If they are none of these things they may consider the vast majority of the world's population to be unnecessary and wasteful, and their plans would be for their eventual extermination.From their perspective it would perhaps be viewed as a necessary evil to bring about world peace. Most wars are fought over resources, so eliminating the need for vast amounts of those resources would eliminate much of the war on the planet. Also, the environment would no longer be damaged by human sprawl.

 

The flaw in this philosophy is that much or most of humanity's technological and cultural progress has been the result of efforts by people who were born into those lower classes, and many of their innovations were inspired by the struggles they were affected by within their families and communities. You could create a technocracy that awards scientists and thinkers with high status, but I imagine the rate at which new scientists, thinkers, and innovators are produced would surely decrease if the working class was eliminated. Even if there were no extermination or eugenics scenario that occurred, and the earlier mentioned elite class truly are altruistic and allow everyone to just live happy in a work and strife-free utopia, I think the same stagnation would occur with regard to scientific and cultural innovation. Competition for survival and denial of bliss are not an entirely bad things because they motivate people to innovate.