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[Dutchling]

Sounds like Utopia to me.

[Xantalos]

Well hey, if we somehow manage to transfer into a society where the menial work is done by robots and most humans are free to explore sciences, the arts, and all that stuff, I'll be a happy guy.
Hell, even engineering and stuff would be good since you'd need to mantain th robot workforce.

[Frumple]

... "for their own good in the long run"? Most people I've met that made it to retirement were... not bettered by the experience. Either literally crippled (i.e. working conditions left them in considerably worse shape than they could have been in) or so worn down by decades of, well, work, that they're just... not in a good place in the end. To say nothing of the fact that they end up sinking the prime of their life into shit that's generally not primarily to their benefit, and end up no longer physically capable of... a lot, really. There's been the occasional exception, but, well. Exception est.

But... do you really think it takes working for 20-30 years to generate the sort of benefit you're talking about, Hiiri? Because if so, that has got to be one of the most bloody wasteful ways of going about things in existence

Regardless, you could still have forced social encounters and forced self-discipline without the systems that surround the current job structures, so... yeah. Any good that comes out of them (on the personal level) could probably come from somewhere else, too. And likely more efficiently and/or effectively.

[Tack]

I really hope people realize that Utopia by it's nature is non-existent?
Literally the word Utopia wasn't originally greek. It was an amalgamation of two greek words meaning "Good place" And "Impossible place" respectively.


And L.Bucket, your statements are starting to get more and more absurd. People want to go to restaurants and fast food because people can cook better food for them, faster.
Less Time.
Less Effort.
More Quality.

Which is what is the original cause for capitalism in the first place. I can only assume that your 'ideal society' so far is one where everything is mass produced from factories and you have the option to go to the factories and take whatever goods you want?
Or is your ideal society one where people never leave their houses, have water taken out of the air outside and their sewage recycled. Their food is delivered and they cook it themselves and rely on computers for passing their endless days?

Because both of those are fundamentally flawed.

(Edit: Also some more calculations on that - [Addendum, this is in Australia, where we have superannuation] You finish grade 12 at the age of 17 usually, and retire at 65. Humans generally live to an average of 80 years so you're spending 40% of your life living off either your pension or your parents. If you factor that in it changes a lot of things.)

[Xantalos]

I really hope people realize that Utopia by it's nature is non-existent?
Literally the word Utopia wasn't originally greek. It was an amalgamation of two greek words meaning "Good place" And "Impossible place" respectively.

Of course. It's impossible to achieve perfect utopia, but it's the struggle to achieve something as close to it as possible that defines ... life, really.
But this is all off-topic. We were talking capitalism. So let's talk capitalism.
Except for me because I'm tired and can't logic when tired.

[Hiiri]

Spoiler: Off-topic? @Frumple (click to show/hide)

... "for their own good in the long run"? Most people I've met that made it to retirement were... not bettered by the experience. Either literally crippled (i.e. working conditions left them in considerably worse shape than they could have been in) or so worn down by decades of, well, work, that they're just... not in a good place in the end. To say nothing of the fact that they end up sinking the prime of their life into shit that's generally not primarily to their benefit, and end up no longer physically capable of... a lot, really. There's been the occasional exception, but, well. Exception est.

Sure, and I can say the same thing about long-term unemployed people. Many of whom have become drunkards, mentally ill, completely fallen off the grid and physically devastated. I think they'd be better off had they had an excuse to get up in the morning. You can even see this same effect in some retirees once they leave the workforce.

As for your example, I'm all for better distribution of labor, opposite what a capitalist system can offer. Even degrowth.

But... do you really think it takes working for 20-30 years to generate the sort of benefit you're talking about, Hiiri? Because if so, that has got to be one of the most bloody wasteful ways of going about things in existence

It takes all my life to try and stay somewhat physically fit. It's not really a wasted time, is it?

Regardless, you could still have forced social encounters and forced self-discipline without the systems that surround the current job structures, so... yeah. Any good that comes out of them (on the personal level) could probably come from somewhere else, too. And likely more efficiently and/or effectively.

I'm all ears for suggestions. I can only think of hobbies as a viable alternative, but if a person hasn't developed self-discipline, they're not much of an option. 'Coz I dun wanna'

[Tack]

It could all just come down to education? People would spend their lives being educated or educating others. Bang, forced social encounters, ability to work and self-discipline, and a constant outflow of people to advance the march of technology.

[sneakey pete]

The last few weeks i've spent working out here on the gas fields has majorly reenforced my view that the whole idea of "lets just automate all manual labor" to be terribly laughable, particularly the way its banded about as "well once we do that we can then go on and do x y z etc *cue wall of text and theory*"

It aint going to be happening for a long, long, long time.

[SalmonGod]

I'm only halfway into the automate everything camp.  In most areas, technology has greatly increased productivity and efficiency, not eliminated the need for labor to the degree that LordBucket is saying.  The result is the amount of work required to provide everyone in society their essentials is vastly reduced. 

This should be a great thing, but the incentives provided by capitalism completely foil any potential benefits.  People who own and manage businesses have every short-sighted reason to look at the situation and say "Great!  I only need to employ 1/4 of the people for the same pay and keep several times the profit!" 

Now 3/4 of the people who would once have been employed in that sector are not.  So now we have one small portion of people taking on increased amounts of responsibility, and another portion of people who are forced into poverty.  The only people who benefit are the wealthy.  The capitalist mantra asserts that a rising tide lifts all boats, but less and less people can afford a fucking boat -- boat being representative of the ability to participate in the economy at all.  If you don't have an income, you don't get to benefit from progress.  You sink.  And progress seems to be resulting in more and more people sinking.  Pretty counter-intuitive, right?

Those who are freed from work should be able to put their time towards other kinds of productive pursuits.  There are a lot of people around my age who have struggled with employment for years, and the majority of them are intelligent people with wonderful ideas they'd love to be able to pursue.  If they were allowed the time and resources to dedicate to innovation, society would benefit immensely.  But they can't.  They are required to struggle day after day to make themselves marketable to someone wealthier, so they can be hired into a job that will support them. 

Bullshit jobs, as I've mentioned before, are one consequence of this, due to immense public pressure to provide everyone with jobs, most of which end up revolving around abstract manipulation of the imaginary number game to mitigate its natural inclination towards fucking over the majority.  Vast numbers of people who spend the majority of their lives doing completely pointless crap. 

You know how I spent the last 7 years?  My job was to pull up a commercial invoice for a shipment being imported into the country.  I'd classify the goods being shipped according to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, which is a system whereby every material item imaginable is associated with a 10-digit number, because... well, after 7 fucking years I still don't really get the point.  Then I'd identify the country of origin, commercial value, shipper, importer, and some potential other requirements having to do with government agencies (such as FCC forms).  I'd enter that into a system which produced a nice little one page document so that a customs officer could glance at it and stamp the goods ok for import.  Literally just copying information from one form into another all day every day, with a sprinkling of specialized knowledge about completely made up crap of zero tangible consequence, for the sole purpose of making another guy's job a tiny bit easier.  That other guy's job being enforcement of taxation on imports, which has absolutely zero relevance outside of everyone's favorite imaginary number game.  It was soul-crushing.  And there are millions of people wasting away in jobs like this.

If we stopped making people do work like that and, against the wishes of wealthy business owners, divided up the remaining work that actually matters among everyone more equitably, there is zero reason we couldn't achieve a 10 hour work week with double the pay you currently get for putting in 40 hours + a much stronger safety net.  Society would be much, much, much happier and more stable.  Not only that, but people would be free to pursue their own ideas.  Even if you believe that most people are lazy and will just jack off their extra 30 hours a week, you'd have to be the most bitterly cynical person on the planet to believe that there would be no minority who would do great things with the extra time and resources.  There would be an immense acceleration of progress.

But it's never going to happen unless our culture decides to challenge the basic structure of capitalism.  Those who have been bestowed by the economy with the means to facilitate these changes have every incentive to instead prevent them from occurring.

[pisskop]

Here's a ptw.

[10ebbor10]

I would say we're either there right now, or we're very close. I think we could probably do it with current technology, provided that society were sufficiently culturally restructured. Though, the way I'm seeing it...it wouldn't quite so much be a voluntary worker class providing for everyone else, as you appear to be describing...and more of a distributed provide-for-yourself scenario. Like, the example given previous of replacing centralized water purification, eliminating all underground piping and sewage, and simply replacing all those publically maintained systems with atmospheric water condensers and septic ranks at every house. That would be a massive reduction in work requirement with no real loss of functionality. Yes, somebody would still need to build condensers and install septic tanks, but if you take that general mindset and apply it enough, I really believe you could eliminate the vast majority of work.

Not so sure about that, actually. Your decentralized water system has several key problems.
1) You're not eliminating the jobs, you're redistributing them. Instead of a few dedicated people working on something, you'll turn it into a task everyone has to spent some time upon. (Maintenance, checking filters,...). While this doesn't seem that bad, do note that the majority of human societal evolution has been made possible due to specialization of labour.
2) Water condensers will fail in cities and suburban areas. Not only will the water be slightly polluted due to the air pollution, there will also be distinct shortages. Your average American family uses 400 gallons (more than 1500 liter of water a day*). New York has population densities of 10 000 people/ kmē (Meaning you're extracting 14.8 liter/ mē. Which is a lot.). Belgium has a population density of 300 people/ kmē and lower water usage, but it will still be problematic. And that's not counting industrial usage. It will have an enormous effect on weather patterns, agriculture and might make city centers unliveable.
3) You can't fill a tank forever. Once a septic tank is full, it needs to be emptied. (Doing this with trucks defeats the purpose) Alright, there are biological ways to filter water, but those don't work for chemically polluted water. (washing machine, dishwasher,...). And even then, these methods are fairly spacious, making suburbs and cities an impossibility, and further increasing land usage.

*Which is ridiculous and must change, but anyway.

Or, better example...food services industry. According to the labor statistics link earlier, over 11 million people in the US are employed in "Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations." Waiters, chefs, etc. That entire industry is purely a cultural phenomenon. I don't expect other people to do my laundry for me. I could live in a world where I didn't expect other people to cook and serve my food for me either. Granted, it would be a massive cultural shift. Eating out at restaurants is a very deeply engrained phenomenon. But personally it would be worth it to me to cook and clean up after my own self in order to have 11 million people not have to work pointless, menial jobs that probably most of them hate.

This is a better example. Though well, there are people who enjoy to work at restaurants. And often it's higher quality than what you can prepare yourself. Waiters do deserve a better situation, especially in the US. And then there's the entire company/school/other canteens/cantinas. The abundance of mundane services all across the country is what allows people to travel further than their hometown.


As for an answer to capitalism, how about a cyberocracy. A centrally managed and digitally linked economy, that is capable of directly analyzing everyone's demands and wishes. Avoids the loss of production that plagued old Planned Economies, and avoids the struggle between government and economy. You can make it as capitalistic or communistic as you want it to be, by providing wages or allowances.

[Dutchling]

I for one, am very much a fan of the existence of restaurants.

[majikero]

LordBucket, I grew up next to a store that bakes and sells pies, literally. My grandmother started that business and it has provided jobs for people. I was friendly with people who own small stores who sells exactly what you can find in a large market, especially the one in front of my private highschool even if our school has a caterer to serve our lunch(meaning food isn't crap like in the US).

Apologize! Apologize to all the people who started those small business as a dream. Apologize to all the people who worked hard to realize that dream. Apologize to all of humanity!

[alexandertnt]

I was going to make a post on the decentralised water system, but 10ebbor10 pretty much said everything I was going to and more. This may also be relevant.

Maby you could share the task of running a centralised water system (a sort of communal water system), to get both its efficiency and avoid having people work the menial job their whole life?


I also like restaurants.

[10ebbor10]

Relevant