The fact that you do care about that is refreshing.
No current economic system can sustain it on a large scale either, because reality itself is against it. Maybe someday, but we need still more productivity first.
As a thought experiment labor costs go up 10fold which jobs stop happening and which ones become more automated. You could dramatically reduce the distance the average trucker drives by using trains. Small farms suck from a labor standpoint. There is little reason a person needs to make the coffee at Starbucks. Romba style machines can clean vacuum. Bathrooms can be designed and built to be automatically cleaned. etc.
IMO, low skilled human labor is still cheep, but a change in the cost of human labor would soon see a huge shift.
We can't quite have robotic truck drivers... but we're actually getting reasonably close. We can't quite automate a gas station... but we are getting reasonably close. We can't quite automate a fast-food joint (one of my personal favorite robotic bellwethers), but we're getting within sight of that possibility.
That's why I left open the possibility that this will change in the future. Right now society still requires us to all work, but we're getting within spitting distance of that not being true. Now, that's going to be an economic disruption on par with the industrial revolution, and I'd say we're actually on the early part of that curve, because the first industries to feel this are the ones most easily Internet-able...
We have automated gas stations 95% of the time I show up pump my gas and go. There was a time when when a guy would pump your gas but that cost more so people where fine without that. As to Oil, and Tire pressure, my car senses them while I am driving. I don't even need directions due to GPS. Other than cleaning the bathrooms what do do we need someone in the gas station for? O yea, the station does not want to add cash machines to each of the pumps. (I suspect this is because when people are waiting to pay for their gas they are more likely to buy something else.)
IMO, we are already at the point in the US where most people's job's are redundant. But, as the need for people to do stuff drops off the cost of human labor also drops. The human greeter at Wallmart is a great example of this as their job could be done by a sign, OK they also cut down on shoplifters.
Some interpolation. Cutting humans out by 50% has a surprisingly small effect because we've got most of the low-hanging fruit there and you end up with other human costs getting in the way.
You've got to drop them to 0 to really matter.
"We have automated gas stations 95% of the time I show up pump my gas and go."
But there's a guy in the store, and it's going to take a lot of work to get him/her out. The rest of the stuff you mentioned is low-hanging fruit long plucked, and getting the rest of the way there takes a lot of stuff.
"The human greeter at Wallmart is a great example of this as their job could be done by a sign, OK they also cut down on shoplifters."
Cutting down on shoplifting is their primary job; greeters are secondary. Also, to the extent that greeters make people feel more at home and more likely to spend, that's something nothing but a human is going to accomplish.
It may not be obvious why hiring a cashier to run your gas station is better than buying a credit card reader and a vending machine, but the reason is there somewhere.
There's a continuing search for cost effective replacements for human labor, and when we figure one out, it gets used.
We had several fully automated no-attendant gas stations in my town a few years ago. They're all shut down now.
What if you do what you love and money never follows? Will you stop doing it? Will you stop loving it?
I think money should never be part of the equation. This citation needs be to rewritten to "Do what you love and something will follow". You'll never know what will follow and that's the interesting part of the adventure.
Then, your love will lead to enough hard work to make the business plan succeed.
Actually there are plenty of jobs that, no matter how much you love them, just aren't going to make you wealthy. To pick a simple example, "elementary school teacher". Important to society, probably rewarding for many people, but not something that will make you rich.
> you'll still be doing what you love and that's worth more than money.
Yeah, but money helps too.
But I agree with you, I can't stand the people that want money for the status or what have you...such philistines.
So I have to work for money like the greedy bastard I am, to make the world a better place for me.
Let me quote one of Ireland's most successful businessman, Michael O'Leary, CEO of Ryanair, on "doing what you love":
"I am not a cloud bunny. I am not an aerosexual. I don't like aeroplanes. I never wanted to be a pilot like those other goons who populate the air industry"
If a business out there is willing to pay 10 people to sit in a cube and do something all day, and it isn't all day, most of the time, cubers are getting coffee or chatting with coworkers and not really working and they get paid /bank/ to do it. If someone will pay you to sit in a cube and do something -- and you are /really/ good at it, then 10 other companies will pay you just as much to do it for them and you'll make a lot of money. Don't be lazy!
How about "Work /hard/ doing what you /love/ and the money will come." The focus here is on working hard at doing what you love, forget about the money. Just forget that money exists. If you're paying the rent or you can pay the rent for a year, quit your job and figure out what you love. Then get another job doing that thing. Why are you arguing with me when you know I'm right? It's not even I who am right, lots of people smarter than I am have been saying the same thing for many years. It's true and it works. Don't be a hater!
You said, "to make the world a better place for me."
I know. I know. Look, here's the deal. You can make the world a better place for you by making the world a better place for everyone. I mean, if the world is better for everyone and you are in that world and you are a subset of everyone, then the world is better for you too.
I'm not being naive, this rational.
I'm not saying you have to love your job every day. I love my job /almost/ every day, but sometimes a lazy customer calls and wants me to do /their/ job for them like I don't have my own work to do and I do it anyway to make the customer happy and I think to myself, "Man... why do I do that crap?" and I beat myself up and then I find a silver lining like, "Okay, if it was hard for that customer it is hard for other customers, so I'm going to make it easier!" And then I do and I have a better product and the world gets better for everyone, including myself.
That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. If the product I build is better for /me/ then it's better for a lot of other people too. If I make it better for /them/ then it gets better for /me/ too!
Man, I hope my tone doesn't scare people off. It sounds like i haven't really thought this stuff out, but I have. I've gone though all the arguments against it and I still believe it. I /believe/ it.
You don't have to believe it a lot of people don't believe it. A lot of people do things they hate their whole entire lives and then get fired, laid off, their pension plans get sucked away by some greedy bastard like you (jk, i'm playin, i'm playin, you seem like a nice guy) or cancer and die and they regret it. I don't want to be like that.
If I do what I love every day and it's honorable and honest and good, then I'll die a happy person and people will look at me like, "That guy never made a dime but he was always smiling and happy, except when he was exhausted from working so hard." Like Boxer in Animal Farm, except smarter and hopefully the bad guys won't turn me into glue for some booze.
Anyway, it'd be a nice life until the dead part. I'd like to live that life. Work hard. Love life. Die happy.
I've had lots of money and I've had no money and right now I have almost no money and I'm so happy. I'm working harder than when I had lots of money. I'm spending that money on my company and it's fun and I love what I do and I don't know, I don't think I'm special or different. I'm just like everyone else and if it can work for me, it can work for other people and if it does and they get happy, i'll be happier too!
In 15 years, if all this is a total failure, it is possible that I could look back and think, "Wow, I was so dumb, I shouldn't have listened to myself." That very well may happen, but I don't think it will. I don't believe it will. It's in the future, so by definition it is an opinion and it could be wrong, but I'm listening to myself right now, myself right now is saying, keep typing, keep telling the world the TRUTH and keep saying it!
There's an endlessly looping voice in my head saying, "There are going to be naysayers, don't listen to them. Those people need excuses for their misery. They need justification for not going for it, for not taking a risk, for not trying, for not working hard. They're lazy!"
Don't be lazy! Don't make excuses. WORK HARD. It's sooo much easier to work hard if you love what you are doing.
Here's one more quote and I'll finish with it:
Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life
If the money doesn't follow, you'll still be doing what you love and that's worth more than money. People like being around people who are doing what they love.
But not a lot of people like being around people with a lot of money. Who cares about the money. I give most of mine away because my life is better without it.
If you have a lot of money, people wonder who you screwed to get it. There's a real bias against people with money in the world. They're greedy. They cause the collapse of the world economy. They force the people to enact laws that limit their own freedoms.
People who are motivated by money aren't that fun to be around.
People who want to succeed or accomplish something or make the world a better place or have a grand vision and work hard to implement it -- those are the people /I/ want to be around.
I know a lot of people with a lot of money and a lot of them are pretty boring. They hate their jobs. They complain a lot. They're actually kind of lazy to be honest. You don't have to work hard to make $70k a year and $70k a year is a /lot/ of money, don't scoff. There are people in many parts of America who don't know where their next meal is coming from. They could do a lot with $70k/yr.
Those motivated by new experiences and love of life. Those people are happy, because well.. they love their lives. They make people smile. They laugh. They make the world better.
One of my favorite VP superiors told me a story once, her mother-in-law was born without a dollar to her name and died without a dollar to her name and /still/ has a library named after her.
Do what you love. Forget the money, you'll have more of it than you'll know what to do with. If you love what you do, you won't have time to spend it anyway...