The meaning of life in a world without work | Hacker News Reader

The meaning of life in a world without work

theguardian.com

79 pointsshubhamjain79 comments

The meaning of life or its purpose is to do things that one like to do...There is absolutely nothing more to it...

The triumph of the modern society is that it could twist people's likes to suit its own purpose, so in the end people are left exhausted after pursuing their "likes" but still left unhappy, because their likes are not really their likes, and has been artificially projected on to them by other agents..

> their likes are not really their likes, and has been artificially projected

Can you please provide a clear distinction between a though or an idea that has been "artificially projected" vs "their own"?

i'll give it a go..

i work in a cafe, shilling high margin coffee at minimum wage in a city whose minimum is below the poverty line for cafe owners who own multiple homes along the California coast

I(i) asked a co-worker(c) if thae do anything in thaer free time and thae explained how thae get home from work and are so exhausted thae just like to relax and watch some TV

I responded, 'yeah, I wish i could exhaust myself doing something I liked, then relax to some entertainment'

Thaer response, 'nah dude, I like working here'

To which I asked, 'would you do it for free?'

(i) 'What would you do for free?'

(i) 'Then you should be able to cook what you want, when you want, for who you want'

So psychopaths are OK to kill people if they like it? I don't think you have thought this through.

Just because something is one's purpose, doesn't mean that it's ethical.

What kind of screwed up religion did this author grow up in? Someplace where people were judged just on the number of times they prayed?

In the religions I see, activities like prayer are largely for the benefit of the participant (strengthening their connection with God and helping bring them reassurance and guidance) not to "keep score". And all the religions I know of have some obligation to their members to invest time, money, and care into aiding the poor and the needy, which had a direct positive effect on the world.

And I say these things despite the fact that I am an atheist.

> Yuval Noah Harari lectures at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Given where it is written from, I guess the author got more than his fair share of "religion" in his life.

Though if I remember correctly he is a Buddhist.

> invest time, money, and care into aiding the poor and the needy

Actually most organized religions are criminally inefficient at this. As an example the Catholic Church in Germany earns about 6 billion euros per year, completely tax-exempt. 50% of that actually comes from tax money. Now, if you look at social institutions which claim to be funded by the church, it is usually only 5-40% (rather the lower end) that the Catholic church contributes and the rest comes from insurance companies, contributions by the patients/care receivers and, again, from taxes. The church does not contribute to religious education at all and there also is no freedom of strike in the German Catholic church and many similarly miserable exception clauses.

Is the German Catholic church required to spend German donations in Germany, or can they e.g. reroute them to impoverished churches in South America?

That could explain some of the inflow/outflow discrepancy if you only look at Germany (one of the wealthiest countries in the world)

The spectrum of human experience (and the meaning people find in it) can't be reduced to a concept like "gaining points". What about art, conversation, watching TV, taking care of family members, romance, sex, raising children, playing sports, traveling, dancing, or cooking? What about reading, writing, listening to music, making music, knitting, or playing with our pets? People have been finding meaning outside of work for thousands of years.

Thought experiment: under the premise that a human brain can theoretically be simulated by a beefy Turing machine (not a foregone conclusion to be sure), then wouldn't it follow that human experience can indeed be reduced to a concept like "gaining points"?

For suitably defined "points", anything can be reduced to the concept of "gaining points". That doesn't imply that this is an interesting or useful reduction.

Points are a single number. There would presumably be a lot of numbers involved in such a machine.

I think the author is saying that those pleasant leisure things you list are all about 'gaining points'. I believe the author means the examples given - "we pray to collect virtuous points" and "You gain points with new cars and vacations abroad" - to extend to all pleasure activities.

I thought about it for long. I used to believe life without work was a goal, but I've revised the idea since.

I think the problem is what we today call work. IMO working comes from helping the group you live with, and it's not just work it's teamwork with the shared pleasure of partnering to insure survival. Ideally it's a lot more meaningful, you care about others, they care about you, you know why you do things it's a nice emotional flow.

Today, everything is cut into pieces and decoupled, we work for our economy, which is an abstract entity that doesn't even really bring back the energy into you.

We do like work, we all do, we all love to craft, whether it's clothes, furnitures, devices, landscaping, treehouses, visual arts, musical arts ... as we love to share and learn.

It's the disembodiment of it that makes it a pain.

In a society without hard requirement for work, we'd probably enjoy leisure for a while and then seek new ventures to explore. A form of soft competition would probably emerge too. Which is always "nice" since it tickles a lot of our emotions. And ventures + competition seems a lot like business.

The aristocracy can be a great subject of study for a post-work society. In the majority of cases, they seemed to be perfectly happy living a life of leisure.

Good point, very good point. One tiny point of potential disagreement, aristocracy may get pleasure from their social status. In a world where we're all aristocrats would it still be a pleasure ?

Prestige or social standing may be an important part of the formula as agumonkey says. There are native communities that haven't done well while getting large amounts of oil revenue (or basic income.) So being able to accord that may be more important than the money itself, for happiness. Once upon a time churches and monasteries were pretty good at this; not the only path but it shows it can be done.

it's not just work it's teamwork

That's clearly where many people find satisfaction, but when contemplating the future of work, please please don't overgeneralise. There's always been a group who find their satisfaction in (to a greater or lesser extent) "self-sufficiency". For me, the constant refrain of "team" is exactly the thing that makes the contemporary workplace taxing.

Sure, I didn't think about this much. One question: have you never found a pleasurable collaboration ? Let's say I'm a bit like you, and often had issues in workplace and was way more efficient when alone after colleagues were gone. I also fondly remember the best moments of college to be peer programming. We were sweating like musicians at a concert, a never ending relay of ideas and problems.

Back to the question, maybe an hybrid structure where everyone can follow its own ideas as independantly as he needs to but can also gather around to share once in a while. (sounds like research conferences :)

Yes, I've enjoyed collaboration -- but almost always when it's reasonably coarse-grained, i.e. split a problem up then go [at least] several days without constant re-synchronization.

But still think the biggest satisfaction for me comes from self-sufficiency.

Note that I'm into frugal/minimal self sufficiency quite a bit too. My brain enjoys having a clear and generic view on things, oherwise I often feel distressed by relying on trust and obscurity.

"Teamwork" meaning that the result of your work is appreciated and useful to others. Not necessarily that you actually did the work in a team, especially not the kind of BS "team" in modern office environments.

> I think the problem is what we today call work. IMO working comes from helping the group you live with, and it's not just work it's teamwork with the shared pleasure of partnering to insure survival. Ideally it's a lot more meaningful, you care about others, they care about you, you know why you do things it's a nice emotional flow.

I think this is a slightly myopic. It doesn't speak to life choices like becoming a modern hermit. Honestly, I prefer solitary contemplation much more than collaboration. Of course, I need socialization for feedback, but working with a team is less sublime.

This is a very nice description of Marx's theory of alienation. It is exactly the same idea.

I also agree completely, and have noticed that in the tech industry the stereotypical path is to find it absurd in your early twenties and accept it as obvious fact by the time you are in your mid-30's.

> It's the disembodiment of it that makes it a pain.

Well put.

Slightly off-topic - I always find it a bit sad when people say things like "Christians go through life trying to gain points... If by the end of your life you gain enough points, then after you die you go to the next level of the game (aka heaven)".

It shows the author has never actually heard the gospel (ie the good news) of Christianity - that you don't need to do that! That's why it's good news.

> It shows the author has never actually heard the gospel (ie the good news) of Christianity - that you don't need to do that! That's why it's good news.

Eh, that's just one view. Christianity also sold indulgences as insurance (sometimes preemptively)

I wish more people tried to gain a high score instead of entering a cheat code right before death

I'm pretty sure most Christians believe God is all-knowing enough to be able to detect cheating.

As I understand it, if one accepts Jesus into his/her heart and as lord and savior, that is, according to the good news of the gospel, all that is required, as long as their heart is pure and they truly repent. I may be mistaken. I only went to Catholic school for 12 years so what do I know?

Yes, pretty much. There are probably quite a number of exceptions, for example denominations that believe in predestination (although I don't know much about that).

I guess my point was that the way I see it, if someone is truly repentant, they're not cheating. On the other hand, if you live your life in an 'evil' way with the idea that you can just speak the magic words on your deathbed, it wouldn't be truly repentant.

(I have no doubt that there are also groups that believe it's all about the magic words, but I suspect those are pretty rare.)

Have you read the gospels?

http://biblehub.com/john/14-6.htm

> Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

That's a conditional statement.

And I'd argue a despicable thing to say

I think the believer was trying to refer to the distinction between works and faith (and is, therefore, most likely Protestant.) Perhaps in error, since the original analogy in the article might work with "grace points" or "actions according to faith points," too.

The author is wrong, though: only a fraction of Christians think that way. For example, the entire Calvinist concept of predestination is a reaction against thinking you can earn your way into heaven by scoring points. I've often heard what you just expressed as being "saved by the grace of God", and that's the doctrine of a large fraction of Christians.

Basically, the author would have a hard time finding a generalization about Christians theology that's more wrong.

Comparing the United States and the Nordic countries as speculation about “basic income” gradually heats up, I could see it working for the latter but being a disaster for the former. The Nordic countries have a strong tradition of publicly funding community centres were the jobless can still go out and do wholesome things. Libraries and clubhouses are well-sustained and many small locales have an orchestra or theatre. Plus, with alcohol sales being a state monopoly, people are discouraged from drinking themselves into oblivion (though some subset of people will do their best anyway).

Meanwhile, in the United States where the state doesn’t always provision such places, and even churches have been losing their role as an analogue, people might be relatively susceptible to destructive behaviours. Perhaps the heroin and meth epidemics in “flyover country” are a harbinger of this: many of the victims aren’t exactly in danger of starving – existing welfare covers their needs about as well as a basic income would – but what else is there to do with their time?

My father and I are arguing around such questions when I try to show him that BI is inevitable. He thinks that when people don't have to work anymore due to BI, they'll get bored pretty quick.

Your point is they (some) might start drug.

His point is that people will go back to their primary animal purpose : reproduction. And that the world population will start rising dangerously fast.

I guess if they're not plugged in any virtual world as described in this article, there is a risk.

this idea that people are "useless" if they can't be employed by a soul-sucking corporation to make money for it is patently offensive.

He means not important for the political and economical system, not literary useless.

What about someone who leaves work to raise their child? Just because they aren't making money doesn't mean their work is unimportant.

That's correct. If I recall correctly, Marx was one of the first to note that the value of this kind of work (which he called "reproductive work" if I'm translating the German "Reproduktionsarbeit" correctly) is not reflected by our economic system (in terms of monetary output) properly.

Tangentially related: Childcare subsidies are a big win for governments because it lets them convert what would otherwise be "unpaid" labour into something that appears in GDP.

Better than that; by transferring a bit of money from taxpayers you can account for wages from 2 paid jobs, the mother's and the carer's.

There is a sort of neoliberal logic to it of course; in early childcare in my country, ratios are 4:1 - there is an "efficiency gain" if the mother earns more than childcare fees for the children under care.

But of course childcare availability is certainly not a bad thing even if there might be agendas in play.

But why are they raising a child? What is the "purpose" of that child? To be nurtured to the point where it can breed and create a child who itself needs to be nurtured to the point where it can breed and create a child who itself...

What is the "purpose" of that child

To generate future GDP (and thus tax revenue).

This is indeed the biological imperative bestowed upon us by our genes (and similarly for almost all the other species).

Why not say that instead?

I agree. Perhaps Mr Harari wrote that to provoke the readers. The next sentence is: «People who are not just unemployed, but unemployable.» – so perhaps a better term is the «unemployable class».

Useless class is catchier. I like it.

Catchier yes but imprecise and moralising. What if you have been born with an impairment which makes it difficult for employers to take you? You don't want to be called useless because of that.

> employed by a soul-sucking corporation to make money

AKA providing a service or product to the society. They must be useful to their friends and family, of course - but they're sure as hell useless to another anonymous person.

> this idea that people are "useless" if they can't be employed by a soul-sucking corporation to make money

You are right. It is a travesty. However, a frighteningly significant, most likely the majority, of people in the United States equate your worth with your economic success in capitalist society....like you are your score in some shitty video game.

One line that stuck out for me: "To the best of our scientific knowledge, human life has no meaning."

Maybe the meaning of life should be to improve our scientific knowledge. By understanding more deeply the nature, the universe that we live in and how the brain works, we could answer better this question.

There is a good Micheal Chricton interview somewhere out there where he says meaning is just a post facto story we learn to cook up over time. You ask a 5 year old WHY they want a particular thing and all you will get is BECAUSE. Over time that 5 year old realizes he better come up with a good story people want to hear cause everyone keeps bringing up this WHY question for every other action he takes. There is no why there is just the fact that you want chocolate ice cream right now or you want to climb that mountain or save the world. The why part is just a story you need when others look at you quizzically.

So the meaning of life is to do those things as often as possible that hit the metaphorical reward button in the brain as hard as possible? :)

Find the things that are in your nature. Do it to the best of your ability. That's how things like the Taj Mahal get built. It's not just about instant gratification.

from Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations §217: 'If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."'

> To the best of our scientific knowledge, human life has no meaning." Maybe the meaning of life should be to improve our scientific knowledge.

This has been the conundrum of the existentialist for well over a century. However, you need to consider those who don't enjoy science. For me personally, it was mostly the arts that spurred my love and thirst for scientific knowledge.

Thea beauty of being human (assuming free will isn't an illusion) is that since life has no meaning, the individual gets to define a personalized meaning of life.

If one finds the popping of bubble wrap their life's calling and has their physical, psychological, social, etc. needs met, then by all means pop those bubbles until transcendence. :)

I agree, not everybody will or can do it. I actually enjoy science, but I found out that I'm not enough good to do something meaningfull.

> but I found out that I'm not enough good to do something meaningfull

Don't shortchange yourself. History is an extremely abridged version of reality. For things like, say Einstein's theory, his wife was an important contributor in the sense that he'd converse with her almost every day in formulating his theories.

Of course you have to pay bills, but you don't have to published papers that are heavily referenced to have success. If you enjoy it, that is its own reward.

"By 2050 a new class of people might emerge – the useless class. People who are not just unemployed, but unemployable"

This class is already beginning to exist right now. In 30 years it might be half the population.

That class always existed. It just used to be limited to the old, crippled and mentally ill.

Careful, without going all "pc brigade" on you, none of those things make a person "useless".

It does for the definition of "useless" that the article uses: not employable.

If you believe a person being old, "crippled" (I suppose you mean living with a physical disability) or living with a mental illness means they are unemployable then not only are you wrong, you could easily create a bunch of legal trouble if you are involved in hiring decisions.

Also, if you genuinely have never worked with anyone in the classes you listed, I personally think you're missing out on some valuable perspectives.

In the context of "unemployable" it certainly used to. Modern laws are great, but it used to be the exception that folks in those groups were hired in large numbers.

>No natural law requires the repetition of magical formulas, and no natural law forbids homosexuality or eating pork<

One might consider the natural law to be selection on relative fitness: reinforcing connections to allies, producing descendants, and avoiding premature death via trichinosis, for example. Societies which encourage these behaviours (or which strictly regulate who may specialize in genetic v memetic reproduction, and how) may gain an advantage over their competitors to propagate genes and memes. The glib treatment of religion in this piece, and other short pieces by this author,ellides a lot of interesting discussion about the intersection of social and 'natural' law, and its precriptivist v descriptivist components.

I'm not convinced by the description of the inducible teenage otaku. Over the medium term, some will feel compelled to perform activities that garner attention and praise from potential mating partners. Over the long term, the otaku are likely to be overtaken by persons who more strongly feel such a compulsion, and who gain mating opportunities as a result. The scenario he proposes requires widespread buy-in by both genders to avoid a selective differential (in the absence of a huge disruption to our current reproductive arrangements).

"What is a religion if not a big virtual reality game played by millions of people together?"

If only the flamewars about which reality game is better weren't so violent..

Question: What is the meaning of life? Answer: Why are you asking?

I'm less susceptible to the lure of sports than most, but I love that sports exist, since they're proof that human beings can create meaning out of thin air quite efficiently, thank you very much - existential dilemma solved. Perhaps there's a way to tie ordinary people's activities into ways to advantage their favorite teams (including in esports), and expand the reach of that conjured significance?

> by 2050 a new class of people might emerge – the useless class. People who are not just unemployed, but unemployable.

We, I am one, already exist

Side note.. the tagline from a favorite movie of mine: withnail and i;

> Two unemployed and unemployable actors mistakenly vacation in the English countryside

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withnail_and_I

Kind of interesting. I like his 'useless class', but to call religion a group virtual reality game is a huge stretch. By which I mean... it's just not.

maybe virtual reality games of the future will be a valuable source of random numbers? also currency liquidity? I think they will be more and more useful to multiple aspects of life, and not just to the people playing them.

I posit the meaning of life is to work toward improving the health of humans and our planet.

I'd say learn to work hard at whatever it is that interests you. Everything follows from that. If you haven't learnt how to work hard put yourself in environments with people who do.

Except the article is all about a future in which this might very well be a senseless pursuit -- in which the technology keeps things healthier better than we ourselves could.

In which case the position you've forwarded is in trouble.

Not really. If anything, the metaphorical dog has caught its tail. Maybe you can retire in peace? Whatever that means. Or maybe the goal posts start shifting on the definition of 'health'.

I'd say humans years from now, as we do to the past, will explain how unhealthy we all were and how many avocados we all ate. so ye the definition must be moving

Why?

If religion is a "virtual reality game" then it is one with very real world effects. For instance, only religious people reproduce - the rest have sub replacement level birth rates.

Though I suppose one could regard liberalism and its sub-ideologies (feminism, diversity-ism, etc.) as virtual reality games as well, with the real world effect of not having children.

> only religious people reproduce

The totality of that statement is absurd. I've seen plenty of non-religious people reproduce.

Also, if we're considering the lesser argument of "religious people reproduce more than non-religious people", then by that logic the people of Niger are (on average) 4 times more religious than US americans.

Source: https://ourworldindata.org/fertility/ (I'm looking at the curve from 2005 in the first chart.)

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