How does humanity move beyond the value of human labor?

[qdouble]

Right now, there are many populist appeals against foreign labor, trade, wage and everything else that could be perceived as disenfranchising the worker class. The reality of the situation is that, as our technology improves, there will be a decreasing demand for any type of work. Some hang on to the idea that society creates new jobs as science advances, but technology evolves at a rate that exceeds human evolution. We will eventually come to a point where technology exceeds our ability to create human jobs that are necessary or beneficial.

So when we do reach that stage where our technology progresses beyond the benefits of human labor, what are we to do?

Personally, I think that a living wage and universal welfare is the only way forward. I also think that we should create virtual economies and promote virtual goods as way to satisfy our nature.

What do you think?

[Shankapotomus]

1. Sounds great

But how do you eat virtual food?

[qdouble]

2. food can be grown without the involvement of many humans...

that's the situation I'm speaking about.

[CJCRANE]

3. The big issue is: who wil own the machines that do all the work?

Because right now the people who own the machines don't care about us.

[qdouble]

4. Well humanity represent millions and billions of people...

How are we going to reconcile the fact that our own clever ingenuity is going to eventually make human labor obsolete?

[CJCRANE]

6. We will only be obsolete if we let ourselves become obsolete. We apparently live in a democracy

where we get to make the rules.

And even without democracy people often find a way of enforcing their will.

[qdouble]

7. Well of course but machines are made by the few...

so there will need to be discussion of societal good beyond machines. The time will come, if it has not come already, where innovation will surpass the need of human labor... and we need to know or at least have some plans of what is the best way to progress in such a scenario.

[jwirr]

15. First I think we have to talk about the areas of life we do

not want to give up to a machine. While we are already giving much up how far do we want to let this go? I was setting with my great granddaughter while she did her home work on a machine that she had brought home from school.

It dawned on me that she did not necessarily need a teacher anymore to gain knowledge. But schools have more purposes than just knowledge. Socialization for one. Getting to know other people and learning to work with them. If we use the machines (this small computer she was using and on-line education ect.) what is going to teach us about each other on a personal level? Or do we not need that personal level?

Another issue I see with going totally robotic is that most people who work today derive a sense of accomplishment from work worth doing. I have watched members of my family go from working thankless jobs to jobs where they really are helping people and watched their self concept change. What exactly is going to give humanity a sense of being needed?

So I think when we are planning how we want the future to role out in front of us we need to decide where to draw the line. There are some jobs that we would no doubt eagerly give up because they are the dirties and most dangerous in the world. Like cleaning up after one of the machines we are already dependent on - nuclear accidents. But the robots they sent into the plant in Japan did not seem to work so well.

What about nursing - the hands on care of a patient? I wonder if a machine can replace the personal touch and concern of a human?

IMO we are going to carefully evaluate exactly what kind of work cannot be replaced by a machine. But I think the biggest problem will be distributing the benefit of the machine equally. Right now the rich get most of the benefit of machines and the very poor (especially in poor countries) get the least. How long before that will not be tolerated if only the 1% of the world gets the benefits.

And finally - it takes energy to build machines. Where are we going to get that energy from? So far we have very few sources of energy that do not have some seriously dangerous side effects. Climate change and the end of fossil fuels are going to make this idea of machines less easier to accomplish.

As to the economic issue that you started talking about - you might as well have asked "what are we going to do about greed?". And the world has been asking that question without any satisfactory answers from the beginning of history.

[Ghost Dog]

5. Universal birth control would also be essential.

The universal living wage must be inflation-linked &/or with pricc controls on basic essentials. Along with universal healthcare & other welfare, encourage lifelong education and other cultural opportunities. Work to expand the human habitat beyond (parts of) this planet's biosphere.

I would suggest a collective approach to achieving the above, and a reduction in the size and political influence of large corporations and oligarchs in favor of smaller privately or collectively-owned enterprises.

[PADemD]

8. People will still need a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

[PasadenaTrudy]

13. Dogs are my reason :) nt

[PADemD]

14. No pets

Kids grown.

Housework

[Rex]

16. Yeah well work is only one reason to get out of bed, not the only reason.

People need to be content, that does not always mean they have to work to feel that way.

[whereisjustice]

9. China, India, Vietnam, Mexico labor is much cheaper than automation, USA demands this, we demand

this. Nearly everyone reading this post demands that we use slave labor in Mexico and Asia to build our shit. EVERYONE. No Democrat or Republican this gives a damn about the working poor as long as they get their iPhone.

Automation is highly over valued as a disruption to the workforce. Our political system promises that we will be slashing USA wages and offshoring work for the next 200 years.

It's just economics. Keep people working for minimum wages, they won't have the strength to fight back against the exploitation.

[Francis Booth]

10. I think a much shorter work week would be a good start

I don't see any system where a few people work to support the many as being practical or fair. As automation and efficiency multiplies human labor, we should divide that remaining labor among the displaced. Right now we have about 20% non-participation in the work force of healthy people who would otherwise wish to work. We could absorb that 20% just going to a 4-day workweek.

[Cresent City Kid]

11. The transition from here to Utopia will not be smooth if it is even possible.

Capitalism is based on the concept of ownership. There is land and materials on and under this land. The notion that a person could own this land and the materials is like money, an artificial concept made real by nearly universal acceptance of the concept. In terms of availability, could we on a given day say that we have enough resources to feed and shelter everyone on earth? Even if the answer is "yes", what would be harder, the logistics of distribution, or the obstacle of resistance by people who would feel like they are losing something they "own" without compensation?

I am not hopeful about how easy this will be. When revolutionary concepts appear, purveyors of the old ways dig in their heels. We have large populations still resisting the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. This will be hard if everyone was on board, and they are most assuredly not.

[jwirr]

18. I have watched the "progress" in Africa where small farmers

who could afford to feed their families were swept off of their lands by big foreign corporations so that they could grow foods to be exported to wealthier countries.

The prior owners were told that they should move to the cities where they could get jobs to support that family. We brought modern technology into a country with little education and replaced their way of life with modern ideas. Some did get jobs in the factories that we sent over there but friends told me that once the machinery broke down no one knew how to fix it so the jobs were gone. That left huge cities full of very poor people with no way to progress.

If these machines replace the work and economy of the 1% will they also replace those needs of those displace? I don't think so.

[CK_John]

12. We need age 50yr SocSec safety net, micro loans and grants to

start a workshop, a hobbyshop, shift to bicycle/tricycle and learn to weld.

Human nature will solve this with WWIII if we don't learn how live without a job.

[Shandris]

17. We won't reach that stage.

People have handed it to a select few. Those select few will use it to enslave everyone else or kill them off as unnecessary.

There is no future -- NONE -- that doesn't involve scalar communities with NO centralized authority and the complete removal of the concept 'money' other than eternal slavery. Now, you might be able to slide with a monetary analogue that isn't predicated on human labor (I've considered the idea of a constantly generating, constantly depreciating number that increases in multipliers the more people you're around in a day up to a specified limit, for instance, then using that as a basis for access to scarce resources.), but you won't do so with central authority of any kind.

Authority "exists" for one and only one purpose -- to empower itself continually. Until people realize that that is a dead end (as it MUST be by definition), we aren't going anywhere.

[Rex]

19. At 3 cents a week, I don't know if it can. Greedy people will always be there to exploit others.

Robots work for free, but do not cost 3 cents a week. Also some companies simply will never automate themselves, they will always pay low skilled workers next to nothing.

[ileus]

20. Living wage and welfare will only work if there's someone to take the money from.

I guess we could send out groups of people to take what we need to provide for the population back home.

Myself I can't imagine how useless I'd feel if I didn't produce/contribute is some way.

While it's great to imagine a life where I could go fishing everyday, I don't know if I could do that for 30 years in a row.

[dumbcat]

21. Reduce the population significantly

which will happen, one way or another.