> or automate 99% of the business and free these poor souls from a mundane existence.

I agree on one hand, but there's a lot of hand waving and hopeful/wishful thinking built into that answer.

It's very easy to say, "Do something else," but if it were that easy, it wouldn't be an issue in the first place. And if 20 million food service workers all get CS degrees, guess which will be the next industry with plummeting wages and few job opportunities?

We have more people on earth than ever before, but we also have more automation and less need for those people than ever before. It seems like at some point society is going to have some hard questions to answer about employment, pay, etc.

> guess which will be the next industry with plummeting wages and few job opportunities?

'cept with 20 million CS degrees, the software industry would boom - more code, more customized, bespoke software for every firm, presumably increasing productivity and output and thus, increases wealth.

Not to mention these people may also "stumble" upon something great by being entrepreneurial.

So it'd be strictly better to have 20 million CS degrees holders, vs 20 million hospitality workers.

It’s not socially efficient to spend all our effort trying to automate things. This happens naturally as wages required to hire people for a given task increase and automation gets cheaper. The natural progression of the situation in the article is that wages go up, increasing the viability of automation, so you’ll get your wish (in this context) soon enough.

If we “freed” people from work with welfare, 99.9% of recipients would smoke weed and watch cartoons, not create art. It might still be preferable to having people work low-engagement jobs, but let’s not be too idealistic.

I think that the leverage of automation is so high that we can afford it. Look at how much money the top founders of companies have...

FTR I also think the social safety net should be bare minimum existence, for a single person something like a bunk bed, 3 minimum nutrition meals (simple food like beans, rice etc not steaks...), clothes from a thrift store etc. -- It's more complex when kids are involved because you have to consider that you're essentially growing the future generation so have to consider the repercussions of underinvesting in formation.

This bare minimum would still leave lots to be desired and thusly incentivized (such as money for weed and a tv/netflix) ... But they'd have the time and basic support to do something contributing that only humans can do (at the moment at least) .

If society actively encouraged the creation of more positive ways to contribute positive things, I bet we'd see an "organic" growth in numbers of people choosing to do so.

Example; There've been some pretty positive things happening around community gardens in some places (when they're not being attacked by self-appointed neighborhood Nannies that don't like to see people gathering together around something beneficial).

Example 2; I remember "maker" clubs and similar community groups doin' lots of really fun activities that benefited more than just the group itself (free community virus cleanups, operating system install parties, community LAN parties - everyone's welcome).

I'm sure that if enough positive activities were presented to society as a whole, you'd just naturally find a growing percentage of humanity doin' good things for each other that used to be considered "work" at some point in the past before whatever "safety net" made it unnecessary to do for survival's sake anymore. People might even still do some of those things at a higher level of quality than others and net themselves some personal gain out of it.

Problem is that humans aren't willing to cooperate with one another enough to even approach any sort of Utopian ideal, and they're often too ready to jump at all the reasons such a thing is "impossible" without being willing to even consider any ideas that might lead to it bein' a reality.

You could introduce a negative income tax (to implement UBI) and then increase your tax credits by joining community groups or going to college. Competitive groups could then receive more tax credits based on their ranking.

Instead of career tracks you will be offered volunteer tracks.

However, this is a complex solution to the problem and it is prone to being gutted because it will be seen as socialist and once there is full employment politicians will demand everyone to quit their clubs the same way they demand welfare recipients to quit today.

> "because it will be seen as socialist"

Yeah, that just took the wind outta my sails. I literally give up trying to restore my hopes for humanity or any sort of better future for myself or anyone else. We're all fucked. I need to just accept that.

When I traveled to Geneva 4 years ago I marveled at the efficiency of every service and labor job I saw. The prevailing wage for a grocery store clerk is ~35 USD per hour in Geneva.

The Restaurant workers had portable credit card stations to ensure they didn't have to run back and forth to a central register. The garbage trucks had automated arms for picking up trash bins. A busy restaurant had ~1/3rd the staff of a similar restaurant in the US. This compares to my condo association which recently hired snow shovelers who don't have a snow blower because they were cheaper than the ones with a snow blower!

There is no employment crises in Switzerland, and by simple inspection I'd believe that the American service/labor sector could absorb the 3-6x improvement in productivity present internationally without an existential crises.

There is already an enormous oversupply of art. The struggling artists' real product is something rarer: authenticity. If they did not struggle then they would not be able to produce it.

This is an interesting take, but most of my favorite artists grew up comfortably middle class, because it gave them the time and space to develop their art, compared to people who had to get jobs as teens or watch their little siblings.

Pretty weird take. I guess every classical composer didn't make anything authentic because they were all nobles from rich families.

How is that related? I only claimed that struggling artists were manufacturing authenticity. I made no claims about other sources.

You've got the causality backwards. Authenticity means steering clear of the siren call of mass market appeal. An overwhelming focus on creating things, despite their lack of commercial expedience, is what causes the struggling.

The analog in software is working for a surveillance company versus architecting your software to cut out needless middlemen.

Is suffering the only source of authenticity?

> Also, I think we should support them w/ safety net (see basically andrew yang's platform).

Which raises the question of why anyone would work, if doing whatever you want and still living a comfortable life was an option.

It sounds like a lovely future, but I don't the automation exists yet to replace all the jobs.

> Which raises the question of why anyone would work, if doing whatever you want and still living a comfortable life was an option.

People with literally billions of dollars of wealth still devote time and energy to earning more. I don't think its a stretch to think that people who merely have enough for tolerable food, clothing, shelter will continue to do so.

But there are very few people with that kind of wealth, because very few people have the innate drive to do what it takes to attain it. Most people don't have that drive. Most people just want a paycheck and a low-risk life.

> Most people don't have that drive. Most people just want a paycheck and a low-risk life.

If I look at the size of the median house, the price of the median car, that doesn't seem true. If most people would be satisfied with a basic income scheme and nothing more, why aren't most middle class people trying to save half their paycheck and retire before 50?

Use free market logic instead of making things up. If a billionaire has enough money to do nothing then why would he do something? It's because the tradeoff is worth it. Business owners have a large stake in their business. They can get billions out of a company.

For a minimum wage worker it is absolutely trivial to see that the tradeoff isn't worth it and subsequently they behave predictably like a lazy person. People acting according to free market logic deserve the stick. Do you see the problem?

Ah yes. The innate drive to inherit a couple million dollars.

> Which raises the question of why anyone would work, if doing whatever you want and still living a comfortable life was an option.

Let's say you got $20k/yr[0] for free. Do you think you could live comfortably on that? Would you be willing to work to improve your comfort level?

[0] full time US minimum wage with no time off is about $15k/yr

> Which raises the question of why anyone would work, if doing whatever you want and still living a comfortable life was an option.

You work to be able to afford nicer clothes, more vidya games, fine whisky, more-comfortable retirement when you do stop working, vacations, better school for your kids, a nicer house with a view, and so on.

The carrot remains the same, the stick is just somewhat smaller.