[Donna]

Necessarily having to work in order to survive is fairly central to class antagonisms and people will probably always agitate over the fact until work becomes something that is entirely voluntary or no longer necessary or arranged entirely around personal interests and interchangeable hobbies.

Wealthy, service sector economies with extensive welfare institutions make it possible for the work-shy to live at the poverty line without ever working, however there are countless contradictions within this arrangement that are unraveling the system itself, which we are witnessing today (particularly the demise of social democratic welfare capitalism). This also does not resolve class antagonisms, as those living on welfare are generally confronted with urban decay, crime and exclusion from regular consumerist patterns, etc. (which itself fuels criminal behavior). I've encountered many people who use social services to cover their basic expenses (rent, food, etc.) while engaging in profitable criminal activities or unaccounted day labor ("welfare fraud") in order to participate in regular consumption patterns.

I don't think a zero-hour work week is possible under a capitalist mode of production, though. However, it is something that is obviously desired, otherwise class struggle would not exist nor would anyone have agitated for the 8-hour work week to begin with. Whether the bourgeois armchair-philosophers desire it or not is probably irrelevant.

[wat0n]

Other

Neither desirable nor undesirable. If it ever happens, well it happens.

[stalker]

Of course its desirable.

One can then smoke weed and have hot hot sex all day.

[Modernjan]

Yea, of course. It'd be awesome if everyone was able to live in an automated world.

The only problem I have is people taking that automation for granted and excessively burdening engineers, so the only personalities that should be allowed in such a society would be people competent in engineering (and friends of engineers who those engineers have personally agreed to accommodate).

The OP said no human work at all was needed, so I guess there would be repair robots and such to replace engineers.

Rugoz, the real question is, "Why are so many people being born?"

It'd be a lot easier to handle demand in an efficient manner if you simply... contracted the demand curve.

Both demand and the size of the available workforce are proportional to population size and therefore to each other. Reducing the population would reduce the number of unemployed but not the unemployment rate and that's what matters.

[Daktoria]

The OP said no human work at all was needed, so I guess there would be repair robots and such to replace engineers.

That's true, but someone would have to engineer those repair robots as well.

At some level, you're going to need a central programmer/industrialist to get the whole automated system rolling.

Also, the key to the OP is the definition of work versus play. What I'm saying is that when people learn to embrace the pursuit of scientific discovery itself, people won't view engineering as work anymore. They'll enjoy engineering out of pure curiosity. You see this attitude among enthusiastic kids in math and science classes. The kids who do well are the kids who find the subjects fascinating in themselves. They enjoy how set theory allows them to unlock possibilities at their own leisure.

Both demand and the size of the available workforce are proportional to population size and therefore to each other. Reducing the population would reduce the number of unemployed but not the unemployment rate and that's what matters.

This isn't entirely true.

Population density compounds the issue because with increased density comes information overload and increased demand for social competition. The implication of that is redundancy where demand grows exponentially in order to compete for being paid attention to.

Therefore, if you reduce population density (and/or increase capital intensity), the proportion will decrease. People will communicate on a more organic level, and culture will correspond supply with demand.

___________________

Wealthy, service sector economies with extensive welfare institutions make it possible for the work-shy to live at the poverty line without ever working, however there are countless contradictions within this arrangement that are unraveling the system itself, which we are witnessing today (particularly the demise of social democratic welfare capitalism). This also does not resolve class antagonisms, as those living on welfare are generally confronted with urban decay, crime and exclusion from regular consumerist patterns, etc. (which itself fuels criminal behavior). I've encountered many people who use social services to cover their basic expenses (rent, food, etc.) while engaging in profitable criminal activities or unaccounted day labor ("welfare fraud") in order to participate in regular consumption patterns.

This.

To be clear, however, you seem to have causation backwards between work-shyness and consumption. Work-shyness exists because of exclusion from regular consumption patterns, not the other way around. The proof is in how people need to be motivated to act.

Marx himself recognized the premise of social alienation, but the main problem with Marx's analysis is he insists on objectifying culture through the means of production. This is a crying shame because it shows a total disregard for how people need to be subjectively motivated. Some people produce because of pure emotional ignition, especially among the labor intense working class, but the development of sophisticated technology and art requires abstract craftsmanship which goes beyond mere objective emotion. The conversion of emotion into sublimation is not natural. If it was, people wouldn't need to be disciplined to achieve it.

[Modernjan]

Population density compounds the issue because with increased density comes information overload and increased demand for social competition. The implication of that is redundancy where demand grows exponentially in order to compete for being paid attention to.

Says you... I've never heard of that theory before.

[ness31]

No. I would never want a zero hour working week if it meant everything was automated. How awful.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

As The Clockwork Rat points out, this is really a question in the realms of science fiction. The question includes artificial intelligences that are far more capable than humans, and able to do any job that a human can, at least as well if not a lot better. So Iain M. Banks' Culture novels (whence my screen name is nicked) are a good example; in them, the AIs are benevolent, and so the people (human-like) get a life of luxury, and loaf, produce art, travel etc. as much as they want. But they don't get to decide the direction of the society, because they wouldn't be up to it, while the AIs are. The AIs pride themselves on taking care of the people (and the larger ones on taking care of lesser AIs also in their care). The Culture also has access to energy far beyond anything we have, so that does not produce conflict or scarcity. If energy were still significantly limited in an AI-run society, I would suggest the AIs might well not be benign, and wouldn't want to have humans to take care of; and then you're more in a Skynet-Terminator scenario.

Whether governments should prevent this is therefore a question of whether they should prevent AIs being produced. Once they've been produced, human governments will be just as obsolete as a 40 hour work week. And so will war etc. as we know it. At the very least, AIs will have rights, including voting rights, and the relative population and rate of production of them will completely rewrite all ideas of politics, sociology, law etc.

[Daktoria]

Says you... I've never heard of that theory before.

Well look at it. How can you have greater populations without either greater space or greater density?

If you have greater space, then people won't be aware of each other so much; literally, it will take more mental commitment and physical activity to interact. If you have greater density, then people are going to have to compete with more and more stimulus.

Our sensory organs have limited capacity though, so eventually, what happens is information overload. We fail to assimilate sensory data because there's so much coming in that we're overwhelmed.

Therefore, if you really want to contract demand, you need to reduce this overload. You have to reduce the decreasing marginal utility which comes with there being too much stuff going on.

If you need a real life example, think of the cafeteria you ate in growing up in school. It was a very dense environment, and the easiest way to get attention was by engaging in simple tasks very loudly. You would see this type of behavior especially among working class children.

In contrast, middle class children would understand how perpetually engaging in simple loud tasks breaks down cohesion, so they would generally behave more peacefully, acting out only in sporadic instances to make an exceptional point.

The key to resolving the situation is either bringing everyone up to an understanding (increasing capital intensity), or reducing the amount of people in the cafeteria at any given time/building a larger cafeteria (decreasing population density).

[Modernjan]

@Daktoria

And that relates to demand and consumption how exactly? Also, if your theory were true one would expect it to not be a linear function of population density: going from 2 to 10 people in a room would make a big difference, going from 10 to 20 not so much and above 100 there would be no change anymore so whether the population density in a city is 3000/km^2 or 4000/km^2 wouldn't make any difference. I also believe population reduction would just congregate the remaining humans together: they'll just abandon some regions and converge on others and cities so inhabited areas will remain densely populated. The only difference is the inhabited areas have increased in size. Global population density will rise but the population density common people seee around them.

[Daktoria]

And that relates to demand and consumption how exactly? Also, if your theory were true one would expect it to not be a linear function of population density:

Well first, what do you think is taking place in a cafeteria besides consumption? Even in general context, what do you think takes place in pursuit of attention besides consumption? Literally, when we compete for attention, we're trying to consume each other's time, energy, and memories.

Second, why would you expect it to be linear when the very character of geometric attention economy demand growth from population density is exponential?

For example, with 2 people you have 2 points of relationships.

3 people, 6
4 people, 12
5 people, 20
1000 people, 999,000

That's not linear. y = x(x-1)

Furthermore, in consideration of how competition has to deal with redundancy, the amount of relationships disengaged from any particular person isn't linear either.

For 2 people you have 0 disengaged relationships.

3 people, 1
4 people, 3
5 people , 6
1000 people, 498,501

That's not linear either. y = (x - 2)(x - 1)/2

I also believe population reduction would just congregate the remaining humans together: they'll just abandon some regions and converge on others and cities so inhabited areas will remain densely populated. The only difference is the inhabited areas have increased in size. Global population density will rise but the population density common people seee around them.

Well then you're doing it wrong, heh. In order to restrain population density, your policy would have to target the cities themselves and disallow immigration. It's OK if city limits expand, but what's important is you don't have people so close to one another that they become panicky.

[Wolfman]

As The Clockwork Rat points out, this is really a question in the realms of science fiction. The question includes artificial intelligences that are far more capable than humans, and able to do any job that a human can, at least as well if not a lot better. So Iain M. Banks' Culture novels (whence my screen name is nicked) are a good example; in them, the AIs are benevolent, and so the people (human-like) get a life of luxury, and loaf, produce art, travel etc. as much as they want. But they don't get to decide the direction of the society, because they wouldn't be up to it, while the AIs are. The AIs pride themselves on taking care of the people (and the larger ones on taking care of lesser AIs also in their care). The Culture also has access to energy far beyond anything we have, so that does not produce conflict or scarcity. If energy were still significantly limited in an AI-run society, I would suggest the AIs might well not be benign, and wouldn't want to have humans to take care of; and then you're more in a Skynet-Terminator scenario.

It's probably worth mentioning, that a technology produced period of post-scarcity was probably possible in the 1930s, and that at in the next few decades (50-60, maybe 70) the abilities of manufacturing robots that are not themselves intelligent will probably be in a place so advanced that very little work by any humans will be needed. To borrow from Communist thought for a moment:
The driving force behind Capitalists is making money, and with an existing company (say a shoe factory) they can do this by one of two ways. They can either cut manufacturing costs, or increase price. Raising price may make them noncompetitive. They can cut costs by using cheaper materials (also risking noncompetitive status), decreasing safety standards, or just not using less humans in the first place.
If I was that plant owner, I'd have all of the incentive in the world to replace all of my workers with robots and just two or three guy who fix them. And even in that scenario, they could easily be aided by robots who are able to more accurately, and more quickly diagnose what's wrong with the machines, pass the mechanics tools, and in all, reduce the amount of time my three workers can do their jobs in.

And all of that level of technological production will probably happen in my lifetime. And this isn't some sci fi wank fest either, a lot of engineers are saying this is coming.

[Fasces]

Whether governments should prevent this is therefore a question of whether they should prevent AIs being produced. Once they've been produced, human governments will be just as obsolete as a 40 hour work week. And so will war etc. as we know it. At the very least, AIs will have rights, including voting rights, and the relative population and rate of production of them will completely rewrite all ideas of politics, sociology, law etc.

This is precisely the question I was attempting to ask in the "Technology" thread, though people misunderstood the scope and offered answers like "give the displaced workers job training" which make absolutely no sense.

Should we ban the development of true AI?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

[The Clockwork Rat]

I'm frankly of the opinion of Iain M Banks in that were AI to be designed by humans then it would be designed for humans, and in that sense we should not fear for some Skynet type scenario.

However, that doesn't really answer what you're looking for. In my opinion, most conflict boils down to scarcity and I think we could assume that automating all production (and services) would be far more efficient than having humans do it. Thus, scarcity would be drastically reduced, and assuming population is kept controlled there would be less cause for conflict.

[Daktoria]

TCR, have you ever come across people who argue about how "technology was supposed to make our lives easier, but now, we just work harder"?

The reason this happens is because people don't understand how technology is designed and implemented. That lack of understanding commits people to wanting to prove themselves by working hard instead of working smart.

It will continue indefinitely until people change their minds and stop being stubborn.

Frankly, I would be delighted if all the stubborn people in the world went unemployed and rotted in a ditch far away in no mans land where they were forced to contemplate. That contemplation itself would either resolve their arrogant ignorance or make them self-destruct.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

It's probably worth mentioning, that a technology produced period of post-scarcity was probably possible in the 1930s, and that at in the next few decades (50-60, maybe 70) the abilities of manufacturing robots that are not themselves intelligent will probably be in a place so advanced that very little work by any humans will be needed. To borrow from Communist thought for a moment:
The driving force behind Capitalists is making money, and with an existing company (say a shoe factory) they can do this by one of two ways. They can either cut manufacturing costs, or increase price. Raising price may make them noncompetitive. They can cut costs by using cheaper materials (also risking noncompetitive status), decreasing safety standards, or just not using less humans in the first place.
If I was that plant owner, I'd have all of the incentive in the world to replace all of my workers with robots and just two or three guy who fix them. And even in that scenario, they could easily be aided by robots who are able to more accurately, and more quickly diagnose what's wrong with the machines, pass the mechanics tools, and in all, reduce the amount of time my three workers can do their jobs in.

And all of that level of technological production will probably happen in my lifetime. And this isn't some sci fi wank fest either, a lot of engineers are saying this is coming.

No, I think you're still looking at high-functioning manufacturing robots and automating some services, and not 'all work'. Fixing the robots, and designing them, and marketing (or planning the production) of them would also be done by the AIs. So would owning the plant, and running the society. Once machines are intelligent enough to take over most human jobs, they will rapidly be intelligent enough to do pretty much every job better than humans. Fasces is not talking about a 'zero hour working week' for the working class; it's for everyone.

Having said that, I believe that is a long way off, because we still don't understand what is needed for true artificial intelligence.

[Wolfman]

No, I think you're still looking at high-functioning manufacturing robots and automating some services, and not 'all work'.

There's a difference between what Fasces is saying, and what I'm saying. His position is based on the existence of Hard AI, which I'm not sure is even possible. My position is based on a near future where the vast majority of manufacturing is fully automated, and the majority of services are either done by, or supplemented by robots to the extant that most service industry work is incredibly easy (for example, myself and two other mechs had to spend about 16 hours working on a vehicle, and were about ready to start tearing open the hydraulic lines, until we realized we misdiagnosed the problem. If a computer had done the diagnostics, it would have been done in 30 minutes). A mech would be needed still, but he could do what would now take hours in 45 minutes. That scenario is coming, Fasces is further off, assuming it's even possible.

[Kman]

Well in order to justify an intervention you have to explain why it is needed, why is it necessary to prevent a world where people are free to choose for themselves what kind of activities and competitions they engage in?

[Fasces]

Why is it necessary to prevent a world where humanity is obsolete?

Why don't we manufacture Model T's anymore, Kman?

[Kman]

Why is it necessary to prevent a world where humanity is obsolete?

Obsolete to who? Humanity serves itself, not some omnipotent lord in the sky.

Why don't we manufacture Model T's anymore, Kman?

Because Model T's suck compared to modern cars?