I take no joy in saying this, but I suspect that all else being equal, the result of this would be that people would just spend more time consuming media in isolation. Not basing this on feelings, but rather on having been up close with some (anonymized) wireless network datasets. People of all incomes and social strata spend absurd amounts of time in solipsistic media consumption.

It's easy to spend "absurd amounts of time in solipsistic media consumption" is you're weighted down after a 10+-hour work day, or an 8-hour work day + a couple hours of commute, and all others you know are in similar schedules...

Yeah, for those of us with a very finite and easily depleted amount of energy for social interaction, it’s conpletely empty by the time you get home or Saturday rolls around. Net result is, you avoid even eye contact with the person who lives 10m from you.

Or at least 8 weeks of vacation a year like in Germany?

Work is the most meaningful part of many people's lives.

That seems to be cultural. I remember reading some study about it. Americans socialize through work, and make friends at work. Thus, work is their life. But in Europe for example, this wasn't the case. And thus they worked to live out their other activities, instead of living to work.

> they worked to live out their other activities, instead of living to work.

I'm from Europe, and I agree. Not everyone, but most people look at a job as just a means to a salary, regardless of what they do.

But I'm actually critical of this mindset: if you see things that way, then you are spending a great amount of your time doing something 'because you have to', slogging through the work day just to get to the stuff you like to do.

I know I'm generalizing, but I perceive Americans as more intense workers than Europeans. Maybe it's worse for their health, but look at what it's done to the world: space travel, computers, the internet, smartphones: all things that dominate the world (and are ultimately good, even though they have bad sides) and were made / greatly developed in America.

So hyper-capitalism isn't all that bad :)

Most Americans feel this way to. Most aren't working for NASA or doing meaningful work. They just need a paycheck, to pay for all the crap they bought on credit.

Only in countries where they have been conditioned to think so (because it makes for better servants)

And even there, not for the huge majority of the people not doing anything creative. http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

Not to mention, even for creative people who love their job, nobody stops you from working on things on your own free time (e.g. if you're a programmer you can do open source, build stuff you like as side projects, etc, the most "meaningful work" does not have to be your pointy-haired bosses mandated projects at work).

People love to complain about work, but in reality if they become unemployed, many people's lives are destroyed.

That's even if they have a decent money flow from some pension or whatever. The social isolation and lack of purpose turn a lot of people into lonely couch potatoes, just waiting for death.

I had a bad attitude to work in my youth, until I figured out how to think about it:

A ton of people work to make everything I enjoy. The food, the buildings, the vehicles, roads, appliances, etc. Millions of people who get up in the morning and work through the day and come home exhausted make all of this possible. To me, the only decent way to react to this is that I must join in and contribute my part to this system.

>People love to complain about work, but in reality if they become unemployed, many people's lives are destroyed.

That's only when they have been raised in cultures that teach them that their work is their ultimate purpose, and have them structure every aspect of their lives around it.

Nobody dies from not having to work in Mediterranean culture's for example...

>A ton of people work to make everything I enjoy. The food, the buildings, the vehicles, roads, appliances, etc. Millions of people who get up in the morning and work through the day and come home exhausted make all of this possible.

Besides the food, the buildings, the vehicles, roads, appliances, etc, that people do want and depend on, billions of people are also forced to work to make all kinds of crap they don't care about, that makes no difference, is marked up 5 to 100 percent, for others to be unhappy consuming them, and to kill the environment with externalities in the process.

E.g.:

https://www.monbiot.com/2012/12/10/the-gift-of-death/

http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

I notice a lot of retirees like this (close family included!) but I think this is a matter of conditioning and temperament. Having had a habit of working or going to school one’s entire life, suddenly having plenty of time to yourself is likely a huge sudden change.

I’ve seen some individuals, once retiring, take up hobbies and volunteer and enjoy time with friends at cafés. I think they were aware that they could spend a retirement doing nothing, and that was likely a big motivator to find pastimes.

> That's even if they have a decent money flow from some pension or whatever. The social isolation and lack of purpose turn a lot of people into lonely couch potatoes, just waiting for death.

That's one of the saddest aspects of the current setup - even if you manage to escape the system (say, retire very early), you'll still have no one to hang out with, because everybody else is working all the time.

You assume that people would not be productive with more time at their disposal. Some would not. Others would.