Bob Sneidar wrote:
> If we get to the point where mankind no longer has to work
> to live (universal basic income), then I fear we will come
> to experience intimately what the old saying hints at, "An
> idle mind is the devil's playground."
You'd be in good company. Camus, Sartre, and others in the middle of the
last century about how the newfound leisure ultimately borne of the
productivity gains of the Industrial Revolution might become the
greatest crisis mankind faces.
Prone as I am to myopic projection, I'm not so sure. If we find the
tedious work of providing basis essentials delivered by machines, I
believe we'd find new and more interesting things to do.
I've enjoyed the rhythmic calisthenics of digging ditches, and the
back-to-nature connectedness of farming. But TBH for all those jobs
taught me I find designing board games more fascinating.
> It will be the end of any really productive society.
Art isn't "productive", but I'm glad people do it.
And at the moment the only way to stop it is to try to shut the machines
down by throwing a shoe into their gears (the legendary etymology of
"saboteur").
With automation resulting in widespread permanent unemployment, folks
will be idle either way.
The only question is whether we want to see the masses thriving, or
living in a cardboard box under a freeway no longer driven by anyone but
the owners of the machines.
I prefer thriving.
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World Systems
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