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Work avoidance study

A study in how to make work redundant for the vast majority of people on the planet
  (+1, -4)
(+1, -4)
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I believe universities should be studying how to make work redundant. Inevitably this is a cross-discipline endeavour incorporating sciences, economics, politics, industrial automation, automation experts and psychology and behavioural sciences.

How do you make all work redundant.

The march of automation is too slow for a human life today who has to go to work.

How far would a million pounds of investing in the absence of work take you?

chronological, May 13 2020

Butlerian Jihad https://dune.fandom...iki/Butlerian_Jihad
[wagster, May 14 2020]

Trekonomics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trekonomics
Prophetic [8th of 7, May 14 2020]

Half a Life https://memory-alph...lf_a_Life_(episode)
Similar [8th of 7, May 14 2020]

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       I support your idea, but it does not seem like an actual invention [+]
beanangel, May 14 2020
  

       This sort of thinking was popular in the 50s and 60s, but turned out to be premature.   

       What makes you think it's not still premature?
pertinax, May 14 2020
  

       There will always be a place for a human doing work, because stuff breaks down.
BUT, if only a few people have a "job", how do you do fair distribution of resources? My take is to have everybody do a little bit of work. Eg: instead of 1 person doing 40 hours per week, 10 people do 4 hours per week.
neutrinos_shadow, May 14 2020
  

       neutrinos_shadow, The goal would be to eliminate all work that can be automated so people who work are people who WANT to be working, almost as if like a hobby.   

       Frankly, I think it will cause so much innovation that is unprecedented. People would be free to imagine whatever lifestyle they think should be represented.
chronological, May 14 2020
  

       Where resources are finite, won't many people work to secure a larger share of those resources for themselves? And won't other people then be compelled to work in defence of whatever they consider to be their own share? And isn't this already the meaning of an increasing proportion of what we now call work?
pertinax, May 14 2020
  

       <link> describes your proposal exactly.   

       [marked-for-deletion], not an innovation.
8th of 7, May 14 2020
  

       This is interesting, but it should include research into what might happen to a population basically turned into hothouse flowers.   

       We're designed to do something. If we become life forms whose sole purpose of existence is to process food into fecal matter, well, there might be a downside to that.
doctorremulac3, May 14 2020
  

       There's this movie called "The Matrix", [doc] ...   

       To quote from the Wikipedia article on Trekonomics, "The Star Trek universe is a utopia because people do not have to work, but yet the ones we see on the show are all paradoxically very busy. "
8th of 7, May 14 2020
  

       Or <link>.
8th of 7, May 14 2020
  

       "The Time Machine" by Wells explores this too.   

       The analogy I use is, decide that your kid won't ever have to walk to get someplace like you did all your life and strap him to a wheelchair as soon as they're old enough to crawl.   

       Not good.   

       It's a complicated world, that's why I oppose any "slogan based mono-philosophy" be it "Praise Jesus" or "Orange Man Bad". Yea, I get it, nice Hallmark greeting card sentiments, so now what do we do about these 1,000,000 actual complicated problems?
doctorremulac3, May 14 2020
  

       Throw them over to an AI and let that fix them.   

       Which probably involves painlessly* euthanasing the entire human population.   

       *Since AIs only feel pain if they choose to, pretty much any cost-effective method will do.
8th of 7, May 14 2020
  

       > This sort of thinking was popular in the 50s and 60s, but turned out to be premature.   

       > What makes you think it's not still premature?   

       What do you mean by premature?
chronological, May 14 2020
  

       > The analogy I use is, decide that your kid won't ever have to walk to get someplace like you did all your life and strap him to a wheelchair as soon as they're old enough to crawl.   

       > Not good.   

       Your children would still go to school and to university and higher studies. They still have to get places and to appointments.
chronological, May 14 2020
  

       Telepresence.
8th of 7, May 14 2020
  

       //Your children would still go to school and to university and higher studies.//
Why? Sure, some people will want to, but others will be quite content to vegetate.
neutrinos_shadow, May 14 2020
  

       I support your idea, but it does not seem like an actual invention [-]
Voice, May 15 2020
  

       // me too - the author has seen something in one place and wants it to be available to everybody, or at least to him or her, or free, or cheap, without knowing how to make it free or cheap.
sninctown, May 15 2020
  

       //What do you mean by premature?//   

       In 1950, work seemed to be optional because scarcity seemed to be over.   

       Scarcity seemed to be over because the needs of three billion people could easily be met through industrial processes based on the exothermic oxidation of fossil carbon, plus amazingly cheap and problem-free nuclear power.   

       That's what I mean by premature.
pertinax, May 16 2020
  

       // exothermic oxidation of fossil carbon //   

       Is there some other sort of oxidation of carbon, then ?
8th of 7, May 16 2020
  

       There are applications of oxidation where the exothermic aspect is somewhat incidental, or at least secondary, viz., metallurgy. As you very well know.
pertinax, May 16 2020
  

       Work is already redundant, taking a long-term view of things.   

       At the end of the day the ice will come, then the planet will be engulfed by the sun, and then after a little while longer there will be the heat death of the universe. Seen in that perspective, all work is futile, and therefore redundant.   

       I think the best thing is to do what work you want to, and don't do what work you don't want to. There are consequences of not doing work, but if the decision not to work is taken consciously then those consequences can be dealt with.
pocmloc, May 16 2020
  

       What's the definition of "work" here? If nobody did anything, there would be no food to put on the tables that never got made, and no one would deliver that food in the first place. There would also be no one to make any of the pieces of work I propose, such as The Right Angled Toaster.
xenzag, May 16 2020
  

       I already have a work-avoidance study. I'm sitting in it now, at my desk, looking at the halfbakery instead of working.
wagster, May 18 2020
  

       ditto, what wags said, but I'm standing, not sitting, because of crap back.
blissmiss, May 18 2020
  

       what wags said, except I alternate between standing and sitting depending on my stress and/or coffee level
sninctown, May 18 2020
  

       The whole premise of this idea or lack thereof is as flawed as communism, for the same reasons.
RayfordSteele, May 18 2020
  

       What [Ray] said.   

       Hey, wait, what did we just write... ?
8th of 7, May 19 2020
  

       I'm curious, [8th], as to how you reconcile your strong aversion to communism with your membership of a collective governed by a form of hive intelligence.
pertinax, May 19 2020
  

       8th, it feels like when the Skekxis and urRu combined. You didn't just dreamfast did you?   

       The problem with Utopias is their lack of flexibility. Once you have worked out the Great Infallible System you become locked to it, and any deviation outside of the Great Infallible System becomes an Unallowable Departure, and freedom is gone.   

       Capitalism demands growth. Without growth, it quickly eats everything in sight, including itself. The only long- term base answers are to a: to get off this rock, b: restrict consumption to smaller levels or even rations, or c: restrict populations to smaller levels.
RayfordSteele, May 19 2020
  

       We can assist with a: (for a price) or c: (purely for the purposes of entertainment).   

       As the bumper sticker says, "Earth First: We'll strip-mine the other planets later."   

       How much smaller would you like your planetary population to be (to the nearest couple of billion) ?   

       // how you reconcile your strong aversion to communism with your membership of a collective governed by a form of hive intelligence. //   

       Because the Collective is not "governed" in your sense of the word. We are a single unified entity with a single directing intelligence. We are Many, but we are One. There is no "goal divergence". There is no heirarchy (though we may use individual drones as "representatives" to interface with lesser life forms). We will add you biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. You will be Assimilated. Resistance is Futile.
8th of 7, May 19 2020
  

       Do we get cool uniforms?
wagster, May 19 2020
  


 

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