Wat. I keep hearing the argument that there "won't be useful work to be done soon." Considering that a median house still costs 4x yearly median salary means that not only do we live in a resource-scarce world but we will continue to for a long time.

Just because you don't "see" the work humans currently do doesn't allow you to be ignorant to it happening. Just because you personally don't want to work (as most people) doesn't mean there isn't plenty out there for people to do.

>Considering that a median house still costs 4x yearly median salary means that not only do we live in a resource-scarce world but we will continue to for a long time.

Are housing prices, at least in the U.S. actually attached to the value of work, or they mostly affected by the banks willingness to hand out money?

Let's go another step and take work out of it completely. If houses were free, there would still be houses that are worth far more than others, simply because of proximity to other things of human interest.

Why, there still will be plenty of work to do - maintenance, for instance. But probably not enough for everyone.

That "a median house still costs 4x yearly median salary" means exactly nothing. The size of median salary is market driven, and the price of housing reflects the games banks and housing developers are playing, and thus can be arbitrarily high.

The house price is set by what buyer's are willing to pay for them. This is taking into account that in median, 4 years of that person's work-output will be required to purchase a house.

In which country is that? Last time I checked, the common way for financing a house purchase in the entire Western world is through a mortgage loan, which makes the house price tied to the size of the loan a bank is willing to give to an average person.

That's not how prices are set. Just because I can borrow $X thousand dollars on my credit doesn't mean I go ahead and purchase all the big screen tvs and computers I want. Just because I can borrow $XX thousand to purchase a car doesn't mean I'm driving around in a new mercedes. Just because I can borrow $X million to purchase a house doesn't mean I will purchase real estate which will turn my net accrued savings to 0.

When people only think short-term (what's can I afford monthly) vs. long-term (what will I pay out over the life of the loan vs. what I'm getting now) they make mistakes. These mistakes are self-inflicted but these people tend to then blame any and all others for why they can't get ahead, why the system doesn't work, why the American dream is dead :).

That's besides the point. Most young people today can't afford a house. So they take a mortgage loan to buy one, and surprisingly, houses tend to be priced just at the level of the loan an average person can get.

The situation is different from the TVs and computers and cars because those are not considered as important as your own house. Most people eventually have to move out, so they have to participate in the game. I believe we call it "inelastic demand".

At that point perhaps our society will have to recognize that we've reached the point where we simply don't need the entire population working. There's nothing inherently wrong with a fraction of the population working to support the rest of it, assuming everyone's on board. It might not be a easy change, but I imagine something like that will happen eventually.

>assuming everyone's on board

I'm on board with surfing all day while you maintain the robots to make my food. Is that cool with you?

Not GP, but yeah, it's cool with me. I can use some break from coding my own projects, but not too much. :).

Sure. And I'll have a bigger house, better food and more luxuries in compensation for volunteering my time to help support humanity.

Hence, IanDrake's point 2) in the comment upthread.

>Yes, we can keep inventing bullshit jobs

What is an example of a non-government bullshit job?

Most of the advertising industry, and resources they draw from other industries, e.g. print (think printing leaflets).

Let's elect dictator TeMPOraL to tell society what he/she deems worthy of human ouptut. Whatcouldpossiblygowrong.

Why thank you, but sadly, I must refuse. I am yet too stupid to hold such position responsibly. :).

You should still accept and then offload your decisions onto someone else you think is responsible enough.

Greeter?