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

What are they supposed to do?

Focus on physical fitness. Pursue arts, raise children, do charitable works, visit nursing homes, volunteer, lay around and smoke and fuck all day. Learn new things, read books.

There are a million pursuits out there for people who don't need to be told what to do to do.

We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.

—Buckminster fuller

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[–] FPSFairy 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago  (edited ago)

I was more asking "how would those people pay the bills in a world where their services aren't required and there is no support system?" But yeah, I agree with you, from what I gathered of your opinion - ideally, in a highly mechanized world, we'd support the portion of the population that doesn't need to/can't work, and they'd be free to better themselves and others. Kind of like how the Federation from Star Trek runs, I guess. Everyone gets food and a house, but if, say, you show a lot of scientific aptitude, you could also get a lab. Or if you're really good at horticulture, you could afford a vinyard. Or if you help maintain the factory robots, you'd get paid and could afford a slightly better house... etc.

It's way too Utopian, I know, but I like it better than the vision of a very wealthy few buying bigger and bigger yachts while all the would-be manual laborers starve.