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Comment by gaius | Hacker News Reader

In 1845, Karl Marx wrote that in a communist society workers would be freed from the monotony of a single draining job to “hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner”

Starve in the morning, starve in the afternoon, starve in the evening, self-criticise instead of dinner.

FTFY.

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He, and Keynes' prediction of 15 hour work weeks, were largely right. We spend quite few hours in the week doing the work we need for basic shelter, food and security, at least to a 1845/1930 standard. You could theoretically live in a simple house in a non-congested corner of countryside and feed a small family simple food on perhaps a days average wages a week (there are some logistics around actually getting someone to hire you for a day a week).

What they got wrong is that the things we ended up prioritizing for the rest of the time are luxuries, that costs money and that we thus need to work to afford, rather than merely leisure time. This then pushes us to want to live in (expensive) cities, to be near better jobs and luxury spending opportunities, which again means we have to earn more to afford this.

Not really - you can't choose to work 15 hour weeks at most places, even if that is all the money you need. I know if I could CHOOSE to work 20hrs/week and get paid half the salary I definitely would, but that's not an option for 99% of us. I prioritize time over luxuries, but employers still dictate the terms.

Interestingly, you're legally allowed to ask for this in the UK (it's still at the employer's discretion, but more places, especially large ones, will actively consider it if you're worth keeping).

I chose to alter mine slightly, cutting from 37.5 to 35 (I could have gone properly part-time to 20 if I didn't need the money), and everything is just pro rated.

Perhaps it's a Europe vs US thing, but it's fairly common to request changes to your career design to allow for flexible working. Obviously it works best for knowledge worker jobs, but it's also applicable to all kinds of shift-pattern work too.

The argument of course is that if you need multiple people to cover the role, the overhead cost is more. However, on a twofold point: many employers know about the BS around productive hours and don't always need cover (I work with people who work shorter hours than I and they aren't covered), and larger organisations (the unsexy ones) can abosrb this without barely a glance.

You can't choose 15 hour work weeks over a 45 year career, but you can choose to work 45 hour weeks over a 15 year career and retire. It's doable, but it helps if you adopt a 1950s-esque lifestyle and standard of living.

3 employees doing 20hrs costs more than one doing 60hrs even if the pay is the same. That said I'd expect 3 employees to also bring more value and have greater productivity.

This case would probably be easier as self-employed, but then the income is not guaranteed.

Retail loves having part time workers because it gives them more resilience.

Even if we do build fully-automated and autonomous means to grow/build/create everything we need, identity in this era is still overwhelmingly rooted in our jobs. I am a Developer, she is a farmer, he is a doctor. If all the jobs go to robots, what are we?

Ask any jobless person for whom no job exists how they feel about life.

Jobless people, eg retirees, who have their needs met but choose to "work" seem often happy. My father was a teacher, his pension is sufficient, he spends his days working with a teaching union.

A friend who was a construction engineer builds extensions and does building work for relatives.

My mother when she was able lent her extensive knowledge of countryside planning to the local council, helped on patients fora for hospitals, cared for more elderly members of the community.

They all do "jobs" that can be paid for, none of them needed to financially. They all seem content in their roles.

Being penniless and being jobless are different things. Moreover, not all people choose to find identity in the jobs they do for survival.

In Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series, set in the 2400's, most people work 20 hour weeks with the rest of their time spent on hobbies. A minority of people, whose jobs are their passions, work significantly more than 20 hours, this is termed Voking (as in, to be a vocateur) and is considered kinda unusual.

Reading between the lines, I think full automation is entirely possible in the setting but the world naturally settled on a 20 hour week to give everyone the benefits of purpose etc.

I'd also like to plug Iain M Banks' Culture series as an example of post-scarcity living. There is no shortage of ways to spend one's time or define one's identity without it being coupled to income generation.

You can still be a developer, a farmer, or a doctor even if you find that you don't require those activities in order to eat.

Agreed. However, if you drive a tractor and write code to drive tractors, say, are you a coder or a farmer (or a software engineering or a soil scientist ...).

Perhaps you see yourself primarily as a mother, or an artist, or ...

I see myself as a human. What I do for money or for hobby doesn't define me all by itself. I'm interested in music production as well as in B2B sales. I'm a software engineer as well as someone who spends weeks at a time in the nature without any electronics at all. You can't say that I'm a software engineer or a DJ or a salesman. I'm all of these.

I supposed limited to owns imagination. While I agree it will be a fundamental shift in thinking, especially for current and older generations, kids who are born and grow with this mindset will have no problem finding something else to do. How about doing science for fun - trying to discover new things. The drive for money and power can be replaced with the drive of prestige and recognition? It is not so hard to imagine.

I am by all means as capitalist as I would imagine are the majority of the audience on this forum but I cannot deny the fact that there are disadvantages to our way of life and without exploring other ways it is hard to conclude which one is better.

Here is another provoking thought. Imagine that we expand the human lifespan well over 500 years. Would you be still doing what you are doing today at the same age? While there will be certainly wealthy people if we live in a capitalistic society, we can also imagine that some people may decide to do a lot of different things in their first 100 years and many other things in the second 100 years and so on. But that system may not be viable. What if 1 in 5 people get to be rich and live wealthy? I would not say that this will work but in your 500 years, you will have 100 that the society will allow you just "because" to be very wealthy and live a wealthy lifestyle. These ideas sound crazy for sure but who knows.

Thats because ur the product of your generation.

your son and son's will not have the same perspective

I've been jobless for a bit. It's really depressing. That's because I'm supposed to have a job. Socially and financially, I am less of a person for not having a job.

If I wasn't required to have a job? If I could live a full life without one? I wouldn't mind on bit.

The question will change. In your scenario, it will be an outdated thing to ask. Language change all the time following social changes.

It might be like:

- What's your recent?

- How's your hobjob?

- How's your AI farm?

this is assuming that new industries shall not develop once complete automation (of those possible) is achieved. engineering jobs - for example - should branch out to many more folds of specializations compared to where they are now.

Won't those, once complete automation is achieved, be automated?

you are being restricted by - I am making assumptions here - a lack of creativity and a desire to be sarcastic. We may also differ in our interpretation of what "engineering" is. There are numerous jobs already in existence that are likely a thousand years away from being able to reach automation. However, should economy proceed normally after achieving full automation of what is possible within this century - my statement may become clearer.

Distance between our respective positions on this topic is enough that I have to spend considerably more effort to communicate using words a more complete explanation.

p.s. I love to edit as much as I am able to, and dislike those that are prejudiced otherwise.

This is my thought: once true AI is achieved, everything we know can be automated, because true AI will be able to do all things humans can do. I believe true AI will be achieved this century. These claims are my personal thoughts and due to the unpredictable nature inventions occurn these thoughts are not based on any research.

that is quite a pessimistic view on human capability (justified in current context because of shitbags) while equally bullish on human-developed AI capabilities. Sure, machine learning — blah — self-improving machines — blah - but I say, improving within bounds but cannot provide mathematical proof of the necessity of existence of such bounds blah.

machines have us beat on speed. however, let us not be blinded by this singularly awesome edge machines provide.

Nice, I've never heard that one before. What a stunning contribution to the discussion. /s

Did you just skip over the entire article to get a shallow dig in at communism?

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