Work is dead... and good riddance!

epgc3fyqirnbsx

This letter was in yesterdays Indo and I think it's worth posting

No commentator has identified the absolute change that has occurred to the "job market" and the role that work must play in future society. Work has had a dual role in society; it provided the goods and distributed the wealth. Methods of producing the goods constantly improved with inevitable job loss, but there were always other avenues for redeployment of workers.

Not any more. We have tipped the balance. We can supply more and more with less and less. Technology has changed the whole world of work. We no longer need the jobs to supply the goods; we only need them to distribute the wealth. Until we accept this we have no hope of developing a strategy to cope with the technological commercial world of the 21st Century.

We have achieved extraordinary advances in the human condition; in health, longevity, food supply, consumer goods, education, entertainment, communications, travel -- in practically every aspect of a better lifestyle. We lack nothing except jobs. And because of a refusal to even acknowledge this wonderful achievement we dread rather than celebrate it.

Why should we work so long or so hard when we no longer need to? We are so stuck in the mould of work, work, work that we can envisage nothing else but a return to full (or nearly full) employment. Work is dead -- and good riddance.

We should be preparing now. How wonderful if work was just 20 hours a week, with three months of holidays a year and retirement at 55? All with good salaries and pensions? And it could be achieved. The machines can do it for us. They are capable of producing more wealth than all the work in the world ever could.

I hear endless analysis of the financial crisis, whereas it is the side show. We appear to have the dumbest experts ever; the economist in the cave must have had some little realisation that the roundy thing with the hole in the middle would influence human development. Not our lot!

Padraic Neary

Tubbercurry, Co Sligo

Link

So, as the letter says we are producing more than ever with less and less labour. We have sophisticated farming methods and automated production methods. We produce more than we need. Yet we're still struggling and working longer and harder than ever before!

So why can't we all just chill out and smell the roses?
Tbh, I think it's the human condition, we're just too damn curious and aggresive. We strive for new technology to make our lives easier, though we have to work longer to afford it and of course we have to keep up with the Jones's. Though I suppose that's what made us advance in the first place.

Anyone think we ever will reduce the length of the working week?

(Of course this question doesn't apply to the wretches on the dole who wouldn't know what a working week was and who'll just reply tl;dr anyway...)
says he just back to work two weeks

Copper23

Its a bit idealist.

Not every job can be replaced by a robot to do it in 1/8th the time.
Does a robot deliver the post? who designs and builds the machines? Who does better on the markets... humans or a nice computer algorithm? How about we stop paying footballers such crazy money and all watch AI vs AI games of FIFA 10 at the weekend?

We could all kick back now, accept we have reached the pinnacle of technology and enjoy it but how are we gonna advance even more in technology.

Ah it's just one of those welcome to the future rants... some people live in bubbles of ignorance.

mikom

Jonah Moldy Plankton wrote: »

The machines can do it for us. They are capable of producing more wealth than all the work in the world ever could.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKF-tOtK6nw

Cheap Thrills!

Music to my ears!

I've no work ethic what-so-ever.

Work is for chumps.

epgc3fyqirnbsx

Copper23 wrote: »

Its a bit idealist.

Not every job can be replaced by a robot to do it in 1/8th the time.
Does a robot deliver the post? who designs and builds the machines? Who does better on the markets... humans or a nice computer algorithm? How about we stop paying footballers such crazy money and all watch AI vs AI games of FIFA 10 at the weekend?

We could all kick back now, accept we have reached the pinnacle of technology and enjoy it but how are we gonna advance even more in technology.

Ah it's just one of those welcome to the future rants... some people live in bubbles of ignorance.

yeah it's definitely idealistic and highly naive, but just got me wondering to whether we will ever have a shorter working week. We develop and we advance and we progress but if we spend most of our lives at work then whats the point?
But thats just people, we always want the next thing. Or a good scrap...

dr.bollocko

I remember a bunch of lecturers in college banging on about ludic activity and the human shift from a work ethic to a play ethic.
Lecturers. Overpaid underworked lecturers. Telling the hungover lazy students who bothered attending that eventually we'll all as a society naturally shift to exist for recreation moreso than work.
Blooming pied pipers need a few days cleaning toilets. Brave new world wasn't a frigging manifesto.

zenno

Copper23 wrote: »

Its a bit idealist.

Not every job can be replaced by a robot to do it in 1/8th the time.
Does a robot deliver the post? who designs and builds the machines? Who does better on the markets... humans or a nice computer algorithm? How about we stop paying footballers such crazy money and all watch AI vs AI games of FIFA 10 at the weekend?

We could all kick back now, accept we have reached the pinnacle of technology and enjoy it but how are we gonna advance even more in technology.

Ah it's just one of those welcome to the future rants... some people live in bubbles of ignorance.

the robot (internet) will soon be delivering the post as it won't be long before everyone in this country owns a computer. all post will be sent to your personal e-mail address. the post is old fart now technology is progressing so fast that it won't be long.

4zn76tysfajdxp

dr.bollocko wrote: »

I remember a bunch of lecturers in college banging on about ludic activity and the human shift from a work ethic to a play ethic.
Lecturers. Overpaid underworked lecturers. Telling the hungover lazy students who bothered attending that eventually we'll all as a society naturally shift to exist for recreation moreso than work.
Blooming pied pipers need a few days cleaning toilets. Brave new world wasn't a frigging manifesto.

Relax, Bernard. Take some Soma.

ScumLord

Copper23 wrote: »

Its a bit idealist.

Not every job can be replaced by a robot to do it in 1/8th the time.
Does a robot deliver the post? who designs and builds the machines? Who does better on the markets... humans or a nice computer algorithm? How about we stop paying footballers such crazy money and all watch AI vs AI games of FIFA 10 at the weekend?

We could all kick back now, accept we have reached the pinnacle of technology and enjoy it but how are we gonna advance even more in technology.

Ah it's just one of those welcome to the future rants... some people live in bubbles of ignorance.

He's talking about manufacturing though, robot factories already build our cars, I've heard in many Japanese car factories the workers sit around all day playing cards because theirs nothing for them to do and they can't be fired. Allot of mundane tasks (even delivering the post) can be done by machines there's just a large investment to get it done in the first place. People would still need to design and maintain the machines but being an engineer is a good and interesting job.

It frees people up to do what they want and educate themselves properly in whatever takes their fancy. People learn much better when they are actually interested in what they're learning rather than trying to learn a career path, so the quality of processionals would go up.

gollem_1975

Jonah Moldy Plankton wrote: »

Yet we're still struggling and working longer and harder than ever before!

:pac: yeah those pesky kids back in the cotton mills and factories of the industrial revolution don't know how easy they had it!

CiaranC

Copper23 wrote: »

Its a bit idealist.

Not every job can be replaced by a robot to do it in 1/8th the time.
Does a robot deliver the post?

Its called email dude, look it up

epgc3fyqirnbsx

gollem_1975 wrote: »

:pac: yeah those pesky kids back in the cotton mills and factories of the industrial revolution don't know how easy they had it!

ah yeah but at least they died young and didn't have to worry about 40 year mortgages

thebaldsoprano

Ehm:

Padraic Neary

Tubbercurry, Co Sligo

That looks like a cunning pen-name for our good ol' financial "regulator" Patrick Neary, writing from a holiday home bought with his golden handshake if you ask me.

How wonderful if work was just 20 hours a week, with three months of holidays a year and retirement at 55

How wonderful for him that he he could do that, but for most of us, getting in with the FF/banking elite is a mere pipe dream

zenno

Conner Petite Drivel wrote: »

Relax, mother****er. Take some Soma.

LOL

Overheal

That letter is the kind of thing that makes my fellow americans dust off their shotguns and buy an extra box of shells.

I'm particularly disturbed by the correlation in the letter between working 20 hours a week and calling it Ideal when this is the same amount of hours (well, 19.5?) That will be required in the future to receive Dole.

Am I the only person who thinks this is sounding more and more like Collectivization? The government will hire you for €220/week while machines do the actual work.

I'd certainly be concerned for you. Or at least for Mr. Neary.

sligopark

read that myself and thought great - where do we get the free money from then?

ScumLord

Overheal wrote: »

Am I the only person who thinks this is sounding more and more like Collectivization? The government will hire you for €220/week while machines do the actual work.

I don't think so, I think with more free time people can get more involved in running their country, putting a stop to the boys club and with a better education across the board you'd have a better type of politician.

PeterIanStaker

Jonah Moldy Plankton wrote: »

ah yeah but at least they died young and didn't have to worry about 40 year mortgages

sounds like a plan:D

Copper23

CiaranC wrote: »

Its called email dude, look it up

Oh right, I'm sorry, I must have missed An Post closing down with the invention of the POP3 account. :rolleyes:

So when you manage to get that iPod you got a deal on with eBay or the new dress you bought online cos it can't be bought in Ireland...

Wow, emails come a long way to send those to your desktop.

haha, email replacing a postal service... sure thing Orwell.

CiaranC

Copper23 wrote: »

Oh right, I'm sorry, I must have missed An Post closing down with the invention of the POP3 account. :rolleyes:

So when you manage to get that iPod you got a deal on with eBay or the new dress you bought online cos it can't be bought in Ireland...

Wow, emails come a long way to send those to your desktop.

haha, email replacing a postal service... sure thing Orwell.

Um, it was a joke like. But seeing as you being a smart lad, An Post and every other national post carrier have been reduced to the status of huge-loss-making parcel carrier, who have a fraction of the work for their staff compared to 15 years ago. Like what he said in that there letter.

Lumen

Morlock or Eloi. Take your pick, you're screwed either way.

My name is URL

What the fcuk is a work ethic anyway? Is it not just a drive to remain not dead and surround yourself with material comforts? Work ethic me hole, that's a phrase trotted out by slave drivers. If a day comes where I can quit working and live comfortably at the same time; whatever semblance of any non-existent ethic towards work that I have will vanish. We're all selfish individuals.. and calling our drive to indulge ourselves an ethic is only a way to mask that selfishness

epgc3fyqirnbsx

My name is URL wrote: »

What the fcuk is a work ethic anyway? Is it not just a drive to remain not dead and surround yourself with material comforts? Work ethic me hole, that's a phrase trotted out by slave drivers. If a day comes where I can quit working and live comfortably at the same time; whatever semblance of any non-existent ethic towards work that I have will vanish. We're all selfish individuals.. and calling our drive to indulge ourselves an ethic is only a way to mask that selfishness

Think you kind of hit the nail on the head there, most of us work just to have more sh*t, and to have more or as much as the neighbours. Some work because they want to be the best but that's often arrogance.
And a hell of a lot of us work because we're (a) conditioned to think we must do so, or (b) out of necessity to live in some comfort

I can't help thinking these days that a part time job and a farm would be an ideal existence, you can provide pretty much all of your own food and only have to worry about clothes, the leccy and maybe the odd holiday

gollem_1975

Jonah Moldy Plankton wrote: »

I can't help thinking these days that a part time job and a farm would be an ideal existence, you can provide pretty much all of your own food and only have to worry about clothes, the leccy and maybe the odd holiday

with the dole and rent allowance being what it is and the price of food(and beer) in the discounters being so cheap why bother with the farm and the job :cool:

Absurdum

Copper23 wrote: »

the new dress you bought online cos it can't be bought in Ireland...

hmmm

CiaranC, explaing yourself

veritable

ScumLord wrote: »

I don't think so, I think with more free time people can get more involved in running their country, putting a stop to the boys club and with a better education across the board you'd have a better type of politician.

This thread is completely devoid of reality and ignorant of the basic facts of life

epgc3fyqirnbsx

veritable wrote: »

This thread is completely devoid of reality and ignorant of the basic facts of life

which are?

veritable

Jonah Moldy Plankton wrote: »

which are?

The world's resources are limited.

previous user

My name is URL wrote: »

What the fcuk is a work ethic anyway? Is it not just a drive to remain not dead and surround yourself with material comforts? Work ethic me hole, that's a phrase trotted out by slave drivers. If a day comes where I can quit working and live comfortably at the same time; whatever semblance of any non-existent ethic towards work that I have will vanish. We're all selfish individuals.. and calling our drive to indulge ourselves an ethic is only a way to mask that selfishness

agreed, work harder = house = status.

Mr Benevolent

Marx thought the same thing and he was wrong too.

agreed, work harder = house = status.

In the crappy society that passes for a country called Ireland, yes.

ScissorPaperRock

Naturally as technology grows more and more sophisticated over time less and less human labour will be required.

Also in major-decision making where humans will be able to run increasingly sophisticated models to determine the outcomes of different decisions.

Eventually, as long as technology can supply people with what they need, and can produce alternatives when a resource runs low, then there will be no need for money.

jimmycrackcorm

Who will pick the potatoes now?

Overheal

ScissorPaperRoc wrote: »

Naturally as technology grows more and more sophisticated over time less and less human labour will be required.

I disagree. Automation does and will free up humans to accomplish other goals but that shouldnt necessarily mean lazing about.

For instance, you didn't have many artisans and Phd's in the Pre-Industrial age.

Automation will just means it will be harder to find work without an education, as unskilled work will get swept up by that automation. Instead people will devote themselves to far more complicated, skilled jobs. Engineering; Space Travel; Genetics; Programming; Arts; Architecture; etc.

As an example let me reference this important piece of metaphor (click, it's a series of diagrams):

http://gizmodo.com/5613794/what-is-exactly-a-doctorate

....Done?


so, as that that breadth of human knowledge expands, that circle will grow; the circumference so to speak, will increase in magnitude, as the more we learn will owe itself to even vaster amounts of knowledge that we have yet to acquire. And in order to reach more of that knowledge? Lot's more education; Lots more research, in Lot's more Fields. Research and Education, which cannot be reliably automated.

There will always be work to be done. If humanity "Retires" and automates everything while doing nothing of contributory value, we may as well die off as a society and species.

southsiderosie

Overheal wrote: »

I disagree. Automation does and will free up humans to accomplish other goals but that shouldnt necessarily mean lazing about. For instance, you didn't have many artisans and Phd's in the Pre-Industrial age.

What? There were far more artisans before industrialization. Their jobs, livelihoods, and centuries of tacit knowledge were destroyed by automated production processes. Who do you think the Luddites were?

Overheal wrote: »

Automation will just means it will be harder to find work without an education, as unskilled work will get swept up by that automation. Instead people will devote themselves to far more complicated, skilled jobs. Engineering; Space Travel; Genetics; Programming; Arts; Architecture; etc...

I think there is a lot of magical thinking here. Not everyone has the capacity to be an engineer or a geneticist. And all of the fuss about "knowledge economies" misses the fact that a) these kinds of jobs make up a pretty small percentage of the labor market, and b) there is a global market for these kinds of highly skilled workers. Expecting everyone to end up in the creative arts or some kind of engineering will never be a route to full employment.

Someone earlier in the thread said Marx was wrong. He may have been wrong about the revolution and class consciousness, but I think he was on to something in his analysis of capitalism, especially its trajectory of increasingly severe crises and its incapacity to sustain itself.

Overheal

What I'm saying is the more you automate, the more you free up a human to be able to do. Nobody has a job shoveling sh!t anymore because of indoor plumbing. We now have people that monitor the septic system, which is largely automated. We have less aerial surveillance because of access to Satellite imagery, which does way more for us at a miniscule fraction that it would have cost to collect the same data traditionally.

You also don't have scribes that copy/publish books, or lab interns that sort computer punch cards. You do however have business that do nothing but make prints and copies all day. We have to get our blueprints done of a woman and she showed me a machine thats about 1/4 the size of a small car that can print up to a thousand pages and have them automatically stapled/bound together. All she does is puts the original on a tray and press Start, freeing her up to manage other aspects of her business.

The people who would have been doing those things traditionally? Sitting on their asses off doing something that yields more results for the same amount of effort. Until one day you may only need a handful of farmers to tend to an entire continent's crops. And the hundreds of thousands of farmers currently employed will be off working on something else.

But yes, I'm the magical-thinking loon, not the guy in Sligo. But I think he even gets it though, despite conveying his point in the opposite direction: That Automation will mean that Humans can achieve the same amount for less effort. Thats fine. But in opposition to that, I argue the inverse:

We should be doing the same amount of effort to achieve more.

The Gent

Hmm true there is always the argument against work. No-one realy dreams of working 9 to 5 in an office or cubicle from their mid 20s till retirement age. Yet the reality is what else would we do with our time? Jobs and working defined ours give people purpose, allow us to feel good to be doing something that allows us to be social with other people while earning a bit of cash. Holidays and breaks from worked are able to appeciated as its something new and refreshing from the inevitable repetitiveness of the same carreer or job. Working gives us a chance to really appreciate the time off to doss and hang out with family or mates.

moonage

"Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do."
Oscar Wilde

"There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living."
Henry David Thoreau

southsiderosie

Overheal wrote: »

The people who would have been doing those things traditionally? Sitting on their asses off doing something that yields more results for the same amount of effort. Until one day you may only need a handful of farmers to tend to an entire continent's crops. And the hundreds of thousands of farmers currently employed will be off working on something else.

But yes, I'm the magical-thinking loon, not the guy in Sligo. But I think he even gets it though, despite conveying his point in the opposite direction: That Automation will mean that Humans can achieve the same amount for less effort. Thats fine. But in opposition to that, I argue the inverse:

We should be doing the same amount of effort to achieve more.

I'm not disagreeing that automation frees up people to do something else. What I'm saying is that it is a fallacy to think that once people are freed of working in auto factories that they will somehow all turn to learning (or to address the OP, enjoy leisure time). There is very little evidence that workers who have lost out due to de-industrialization have seamlessly shifted into knowledge-intensive industries, or even skilled service industries. Increasingly labor markets are being split into two camps: highly skilled "knowledge" workers in the financial services and tech industries, and low-wage low skill service sector jobs. And the kind of middle-class jobs that you need some kind of training for are increasingly only found in the public sector - which most countries are trying to shrink right now.

Amhran Nua

He's talking about a post scarcity society. We'll eventually have something similar but not for a few centuries, after we're exploiting in-system resources and automated orbital manufacturing.

southsiderosie

Amhran Nua wrote: »

He's talking about a post scarcity society. We'll eventually have something similar but not for a few centuries, after we're exploiting in-system resources and automated orbital manufacturing.

I can only see that kind of society existing if there was also a fundamental change in human nature - i.e., if people stopped being greedy feckers.

Amhran Nua

southsiderosie wrote: »

I can only see that kind of society existing if there was also a fundamental change in human nature - i.e., if people stopped being greedy feckers.

Well the theory goes that the resources available near to the planet earth in space are so utterly vast and readily available, by the time we are exploiting them and moving manufacturing off the planet (two inevitabilities I think most would agree), greed will have become largely pointless. I mean yes, most will never be able to own their own fleet of ocean liners, but once you can order up a porsche for the equivalent of a few euros, a lot of things will become redundant. Physically, there is no reason why not.

I agree with overheal here though, that won't lead to some wall-e type situation, people will always keep working.

bnt

No commentator has identified the absolute change that has occurred to the "job market" and the role that work must play in future society. Work has had a dual role in society; it provided the goods and distributed the wealth. Methods of producing the goods constantly improved with inevitable job loss, but there were always other avenues for redeployment of workers.

I'm guessing that the writer has never seen an episode of Star Trek, then? In that vision of the future, nobody gets paid, since there is no money - yet people choose to work, because ... what else are they going to do? There is no more competition for resources, so I presume that means they've solved all population problems, including the degradation of the environment. You could call it a Socialist economy, or even Communist, since it follows the Communist dictum: "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" - but your "needs", in the Star Trek future, are so fully satisfied that they no longer mean anything in political terms.

But can you imagine getting "paid", in real terms, just for existing? To be all take and no give? The idea horrifies me, and it's not sustainable. If you pay people to have children, with no consequences, you know what will happen: a population boom. So, if technology means that nobody ever has to work, great, but that's only part of the solution. The author of that letter, like Star Trek, glosses over the other part: creating a sustainable existence for ourselves on this planet. By "sustainable" I mean permanently sustainable: something that can last for a hundred, a thousand, or a million years. It's not going to run on oil, for starters ... :eek:

ScissorPaperRock

Overheal wrote: »

I disagree. Automation does and will free up humans to accomplish other goals but that shouldnt necessarily mean lazing about.

I didn't say humans would laze about, just that work as we see it today would not be necessary.

There isn't anyway we could fully understand it now, I mean I'd imagine there would huge changes in society's values to go along with such huge changes in the economy.

But essentially it would mean people would be much more free to do what they enjoy with their lives, which in the end is all that should really matter.

Overheal

ScissorPaperRoc wrote: »

But essentially it would mean people would be much more free to do what they enjoy with their lives, which in the end is all that should really matter.

Thats a little bit idealist and more importantly it ignores the idea that many people derive enjoyment from their work.

ScissorPaperRock

Overheal wrote: »

Thats a little bit idealist and more importantly it ignores the idea that many people derive enjoyment from their work.

No you're just distinguishing between what people enjoy doing and work, while I'm saying that they could be the same thing.


It wouldn't have to be formal, or about earning a living, but people would probably enjoy learning and researching and experimenting in areas of interest. While this is viewed as "work" today, it may not be seen as such when people can do it as much or as little as they please, and when resources are available to do so.

Overheal

ScissorPaperRoc wrote: »

No you're just distinguishing between what people enjoy doing and work, while I'm saying that they could be the same thing.

No, that's actually what I said.

ScissorPaperRock

ScissorPaperRoc wrote: »

Naturally as technology grows more and more sophisticated over time less and less human labour will be required.

ScissorPaperRoc wrote:

But essentially it would mean people would be much more free to do what they enjoy with their lives, which in the end is all that should really matter.

Overheal wrote:

No, that's actually what I said.

I said less labour would be required, and that people would be more free to do what they enjoy with their lives.

Which part of this do you disagree with then?

Or which part of this contradicts my last statement that what people consider work today (research, learning etc) may not be seen as such in the future?

kowloon

What does the French working week stand at these days?