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[–] FPSFairy 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

I'm eager to see how this works. To be honest, given that mechanized labor seems to be on the near horizon, and with it a sharp decrease in the cost of labor and increase in its availability, I can't think of a way to avoid massive amounts of poverty other than something like the "basic income" idea (as far as I understand it anyway).

Of course, I'm not an economist, so if anyone has better ideas, I'd love to hear them.

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[–] cynoclast [S] 1 point 0 points (+1|-1) ago 

The whole point of machines is not to make us more productive, but so that we don't have to work as much.

The goal isn't productivity, it's laziness. And as Heinlein said:

Progress doesn't come from early risers — progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.

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[–] FPSFairy ago 

Right, but our capacity for production would increase, a lot, possibly to where one person would be capable of expending only minimal effort to do what used to be the jobs of multiple people. Many people will become redundant, economically speaking, particularly those who are only capable of doing jobs that become automated. What are they supposed to do? I guess we could have a bunch of people around maintaining a handful of machines each, but... Why would a company over-staff themselves like that? What makes you think we'd go down the route of having a bunch of people do very little rather than having only a few people expend slightly more effort?

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[–] Chiefpacman ago  (edited ago)

It would be alright if humans never reached that level.

Life will suck when we are spoiled with that.