> It’s unavoidable unless we drop back to pre-1900s technology and/or population levels.

No. What we need to do is to not define our worth as humans by the work we do. Only then we can truly automate our crucial needs (i.e. food production, transportation) as far as possible without fearing massive social unrest by millions of people "without employment". A single train conductor replaces a hundred truck drivers. Many governmental services could be done by the citizens themselves based on automated processes. Most teachers (especially the ones who spend all their day droning in front of a blackboard) could be replaced by videos.

The only thing where we will definitely need humans in the future is research, care work and construction/trades. Everything else? Look at the Star Trek economy.

Since moving to the EU, I can count the number of times someone has actually cared what I do for a living. It took a few years for me not to care too. I think one of my friends works in a machine shop and another at a bike shop, but I really have no idea. We hang out, play games together, complain about people at our jobs, and all the normal stuff. Yet, not once have we actually talked about what we do for a living.

In the US, the question of what I did for a living was one of the first questions in any conversation, as if my answer was who I was and defined my worth in their eyes. I don’t miss it.

I am fully supportive of moving the economy to a “Star Trek” model, and think that from a technical perspective that doing so will be achievable within the next 1-2 decades.

It would require both political will and lack of obstruction from large employers and entities invested in residential real estate however, and I don’t see that happening in the US for the foreseeable future short of a near-total turnover of the current elected body of politicians, rooting out any who would rather be in the pockets of lobbyists than represent the people.

Note that in the Star Trek universe, the Star Trek economy only developed after WW3 destroyed basically all governments and major cities, along with killing 600M people in a nuclear holocaust.

This seems to be a common feature of world history: major changes in social systems only happen after widespread warfare destroys everything, and eventually people get sick of the death and destruction, vowing "never again" for approximately the next 80 years.

The rich Gulf sheikdoms are a place where the citizens do not really need to work and do not define their worth by their work.

They still struggle with various social pathologies - alcohol, drugs, domestic violence, religious extremism.

I think some people cannot handle a life that is too easy. Arguably, even modern Westerners from richer backgrounds tend to plunge into surrogate struggles or take up very distant causes.

> They still struggle with various social pathologies - alcohol, drugs, domestic violence, religious extremism.

The domestic violence / religious extremism is a result of the Western nations favoring radical Islam interpretations as a base for the regimes they bought their oil from. A kingdom/dictatorship where the ruling class has their assets (i.e. their oil money) in Western nations is more stable for oil supply than a democracy.

In Western nations, people in that situation may join some weird cults instead.