Should People Have to Work?

[ginnyfizz]

The very best comes out in humans when people are challenged and pushed to their limits. A society where robots do all the work, and everyone sits around and relaxes won't be a healthy environment for future progress. If nobody had to do anything to survive, then why would anyone have the motivation to strive for something better? Necessity is the mother of invention.

 

Early humans had to fight to survive on a daily basis, and in many ways they were much heartier and more adaptable that we are today regardless of all our technological achievements. If people become lazy and compacent, then if something happens that throws a wrench in their lifestyle, then how would they have the skills to survive if they were forced to do something? If water and power were cut off in the USA for a long period of time, lots of people would die in a matter of weeks. The same would go for lazy people who have become reliant on robot laborers to feed them. If those robots were taken away, they would die.

 

Humanity will face another gut check in the future, where the ones who can't, or won't adapt to the new challenging situation will perish.

Wow, and where I ask you does that leave those of us who are disabled?

I am an intelligent person who wants to work. Unfortunately prospective employers see my crutches and go eeeeepppp.......sorry missus, get lost! They simply don't imagine for one moment that I am at all capable just because I am not capable of running around at 100 miles an hour.

 

Does that mean I should just crawl off into the undergrowth to die?

[JimboUK]

Money will go away in a robot future. Robots don't need to get paid, so therefore they won't charge for their products. Literally everything would be free. The only way you run into problems is if you have a shortage of something. In our pretend future society, if every desirable thing is being made in excess, money becomes pointless and worthless.

 

Resources are finite so those shortages will happen, we'll be back to todays haves and have nots.

[TRoaches]

Wow, and where I ask you does that leave those of us who are disabled?

The "gut check" that Beriallord is describing would be something like a cataclysmic collapse of societal order. I don't think that Beriallord was advocating such a scenario, but rather was warning of its possibility. Such a scenario could be caused by any number of reasons such as war, sudden environmental changes (meteor impact etc), or a financial breakdown akin to the stock market crash and ensuing great depression of the 1920's. The harsh truth is that, in any of those scenarios, a physically disabled person would have a high chance being an early casualty unless that person had prepared in advance for such a scenario. Everyone, disabled or not, would be in danger but those who are prepared would have a better chances of surviving than those who have never given it any thought, and those who were not prepared but are clever enough to improvise would fair better than those who are neither. That improvisation would be much more difficult if mobility is limited due to a disability. This means that a disabled person who recognizes the possibility of a cataclysm and is concerned about their ability to survive should take steps to prepare for it with greater urgency than an able bodied person.

 

When I say "prepared" I don't necessarily mean stockpiles of food (though that is a good idea). Preparedness also comes in the form of knowledge and independence. During the great depression society was much more agrarian than it is now, so the average person had knowledge of gardening, hunting, fishing, trapping, construction, repair, sewing, water purification, and so on. In large part because of this collective survival knowledge there were surprisingly few deaths during the depression as a result of starvation. If the same scenario were to occur today the death rate would likely be much higher due to our increased dependence on technology and infrastructure and our decreased collective knowledge of basic survival.

 

As our basic needs are met through an increasing amount of automation we lose the necessity of learning how to meet those needs without the automation. Because all automation is dependent on social and economic order to operate any interruption of that order would mean interruption of the supply to those needs. Therefore, there are two synergistic negative side effects to increased automation: Increased dependency combined with decreased collective knowledge.

[colourwheel]

One thing I wish to add to this topic. There is no evidence that links machines replacing manual labor jobs leads to laziness or obesity. There is evidence Obesity is cause primarily by poor nutrition, lack of exercise, and health literacy. Mostly all of these three things combined lead to a person becoming obese. Ussually the laziness in people commonly is caused from poor nutrition because they are not consuming the right things that give them enough energy to be actively physical for long periods of time. Where as leading to lack of exercise also contributes a lot to obesity as well from lack of energy. Nutrition and exercise go hand in hand. Adding to this, manual labor does not exactly sufficiently equate to physical exercising unless you are someone working in the hard labor field lifting heavy objects constantly. Even for the past few centuries man has created mechanical devices to lift and move heavy object beyond anything a single person can lift alone yet we still have people in these fields to operate or manage these machines. Humanity will never be completely out of work because machines are doing things people use to do manully and neither will it lead to laziness and/or obesity. I feel there is just not enough evidence to support these claims to even worry about it...

Edited June 19, 2013 by colourwheel

[Morrovvind]

 

 

As our basic needs are met through an increasing amount of automation we lose the necessity of learning how to meet those needs without the automation. Because all automation is dependent on social and economic order to operate any interruption of that order would mean interruption of the supply to those needs. Therefore, there are two synergistic negative side effects to increased automation: Increased dependency combined with decreased collective knowledge.

 

 

A future where people don't need to work doesn't necessarily mean school wouldn't be encouraged or possibly mandated like today (and adults allowed to go to school for free). School could be a great place for field trips into nature, to teach the necessary skills for survival without technology.

 

With all the free time people could have, I wouldn't be surprised if camping and general outdoorsmanship became a prevalent hobby, therefore increasing survival knowledge as opposed to the lack thereof in our current society of all work (at jobs that could have nothing to do with learning survival skills) and no play.

 

What do retired people do, generally (no work to do and nothing but free time)? Or people on vacation/trips? Camping, fishing, hunting, mountaineering, hiking, swimming, surviving. Retired people are dependent upon income coming in, but they still go out and do these activities on their own. With the technology that affords them better survival :biggrin: , but still, the trend is there.

 

The comment about disabled people earlier was very good and insightful, too. I believe with better technological infrastructure, these people would be afforded a better lifestyle as well.

[ginnyfizz]

The thing is...

 

I know very well how to shoot, look after animals and to grow things in my garden. I am a countrywoman born and bred and used to be a formidable outdoorswoman. Not to mention I sew and knit with the best of them.

But physical labour just ain't happening for me anymore - I have all the skills but can't use any of them any more, due to the disability, except the sewing and knitting.

I guess that means that, come the cataclysm, I hang out with the more able bodied and trade my crafts skills for a spot of gardening...

[Maharg67]

As a society we will need to find a new approach to work as in people doing less days a week, thus sharing out work. There are also many tasks that people could carry out that are not being done today, even ones that need to be done. What about the cleaning up the abandoned areas of Detroit city with all of the derelict houses there or helping fix the soil in parts of Australia and so forth.

 

The question is not just do we work but what work we do, what we work on and what particular value we give to work. We may also be able to take on technologies that humans can use to create new kinds of labour such as humans guiding remote working drones (land, sea and air) or even factory or warehouse robots; humans have greater problem solving flexibility than do computers.

 

One solution might be to pay more artists, carers and others for doing what they do who now are often given no such finacial support.

 

We need to broaden the whole general debate about work and the impact of advancing technologies. We need to come up with new approaches, questions and hopefully new answers.

[Morrovvind]

Superb response, Maharg67! Such utilitarian, realistic, level headed ideas brought much inspiration.

 

In a sane future, a basis of food, shelter, water, and clean air is given to all humans, and those that volunteer for all those humanitarian or environmental jobs are further rewarded than just the basic needs to survive, encouraging survival for all human species yet still maintaining incentive for people to do more.

 

I entered the debate thinking nobody should have to work but realized from others that machines don't possess the ingenuity of humans and can't do all jobs, but also that we have a long way to go in creating meaningful jobs that actually do good for the world.

 

I still think robots could be utilized to grow and harvest and distribute food, and build basic apartment units, and have better infrastructure for clean water.

[EnaiSiaion]

I wouldn't worry about getting "bored" without work, because you'll be busy scavenging enough food to survive! Once there are obviously fewer jobs than people on the planet, 3 things can happen:

 

 

Togas and crystal spires. The guvmint cares for those without a job, using the plentiful added value created by machines and by people with a job. This is not going to happen because it would involve taking money from important people and would run counter to the global economic race to the bottom.

 

Nothing, leading to widespread unemployment. Social peace is maintaned by the fact that technically anyone can reach the top. In practice most people won't be in the lucky top 20%, but there will be a feeling among the upper classes that the lower classes just need to "work harder", while the masses are too busy fighting each other for jobs and clinging to what they have to unite. The world turns into Global Brazil.

 

War. After the US loses its grip on the global economy and China (or India) becomes the next economic and political hegemon while the military strongman awkwardly remains the US, a series of proxy wars breaks out across the Middle East and Africa, with China supplying one side and the US the other (while Europe does nothing as usual). The worst case scenario at that point is that China and the US stumble into a game of brinksmanship chicken, the US backs down a few times and then decides to not yield another inch, leading to war. This is actually not impossible; China will at some point stop being afraid of the US while the US will be desperate to hold on to its dominance, which is similar to the situation before both WWI and WWII.

[TRoaches]

After the US loses its grip on the global economy and China (or India) becomes the next economic and political hegemon while the military strongman awkwardly remains the US, a series of proxy wars breaks out across the Middle East and Africa, with China supplying one side and the US the other (while Europe does nothing as usual).

I think there is a very strong argument to be made that this is a concise description of the current state of things more so than a hypothetical situation, except for the part about Europe doing nothing. The European powers have never stopped imperialistically meddling in the affairs of foreign sovereignties, and likely never will.

 

I don't think it will lead to world war, however. If global economics were a race China and India would be like young, very fit competitors who are not necessarily winning but are accelerating while their older, fatter competitors are losing speed. They have no interest in stopping the race to fight the other competitors, who may be out of shape but have strong heavy hands and punch very hard, and losing their momentum in the process. If they maintain their current bearing and continue to accelerate they can win the war economically without firing any shots. Why try to compete militarily when you are winning the economic competition?