Maybe just "enjoy nature" would be the best bet if we survive the robot wars.
Because you enjoy doing it. It is about the journey, not the destination. It always was and will be.
> what the future looks like when we literally have nothing to do
Human life is about finding meaning. Go to a book club, learn sailing, dance at a beach, practice blacksmithing, learn to draw the best circle you can freehand, give a trully world class massage. Just ideas from the top of my head. I’m sure you can come up with even better ones.
All of the things you list are, in the hypothetical scenario, better done by robots. Therefore, they don’t serve any purpose by truly serving anyone or adding any value to society etc. Most people don’t ascribe any deeply satisfying meaning to mere personal enjoyment, so in this scenario what is the basis for extracting meaning from any human labor?
If you really want to get philosophical about it, what's the point of you serving someone else or adding value to society? Society, after all, is other people just like you. If you're trying to make them happy, why wouldn't you want to also make yourself happy? And if it turns out that we're at a technological point where everyone can keep themselves happy without any effort, why shouldn't we collectively just embrace that as a society?
Once it gets to a point where you can focus all your time on that, what happens?
I can see it already happening in the USA.
Having other people have to rely on each other somewhat holds racism back, for example.
How come? How is “going to a book club” going to be “better done by robots”? It is not an activity where there is an objective quality metric. If you enjoyed reading the book, and then enjoyed talking about the book, and had a good time then you did the book club right. Even if we have a robot which reads the book faster, extracts deeper meanings from it, and has a more engaging conversation about it you can still enjoy the act of doing it yourself.
Same with sailing. It is not necessarily the most efficient, fastest, or optimal way to get from here to there. It is on the other hand a challenge to your mind and body and that gives you satisfaction as you do it. Even if robots are faster, better equiped, or safer sailors they are not you. Only you yourself can can create the experience of sailing by yourself.
I do hobby jewelry. I design my pieces and then cast them, polish them, and gift them to friends. I don’t do it because it is cheaper than buying jewelry (it is very much not). I don’t do it because I’m better at it than others. (Very much not.) I do it because i enjoy the long walks while I’m thinking about a new design. I enjoy the challenge of figuring out how I can make a certain piece. Then i enjoy fidgeting with it until it casts just perfect. Then i enjoy polishing it, patinating it, polishing again, engraving, attaching gems. And finally I enjoy very much putting it in a neat little box and then meeting with a friend and gifting it to them. I also enjoy telling the story of how each piece was made, what things worked and what didn’t. It is a bucket of fun! But here is the thing. Even if robots were obviously better at it than me, i wouldn’t care. Wouldn’t change my enjoyment even a bit. How do i know? Because there are already right today othere who are better at it than I will ever be. Professional foundries make jewelry faster and cheaper I can ever hope to. Amazing and legendary jewellers design designs i could never dream of. Excelent crafters share their stories better than I could. So like why am I doing it? Because i enjoy doing it!
> Most people don’t ascribe any deeply satisfying meaning to mere personal enjoyment
I recommend you work on that. That is all I can say.
If I get to choose between the status quo, where I have to work for 30+ years to have a chance at an uncertain retirement, or spending the rest of my life exploring the question of what to do with my time, I know which I'd pick.
Dark. Very dark.
Look at neighborhoods where nobody has anything to do. They aren't places you would want to live, or even spend 5 minutes in.
It will be strange.
There can be pleasure in being a spectator, but being a performer, at least to me, is 1000 times more fulfilling. I don't care if someone else can do it, even a robot... I want to do that myself! A society with more space for personal ambitions and less need to hustle for food sounds great to me.
Likely a humanoid robot will be able to play guitar 1000x better than hendrix, then what's the point in you becoming as good as Hendrix, so you can play guitar for yourself in your basement?
The difference between today and the future is, today there are still things humans can do better than machines and robots, when there isn't, it will be weird.
Think of your favorite food. Now, replace eating that food with watching someone else eating it. Is that as enjoyable? Now fast forward to 1000 years in the future where robot humanoids are eating your favorite food and turning it into their form of nutrition.
I mean agree to disagree and stuff, but I just cannot for the life of me understand why someone or (some entity) doing something removes from your own pleasure of doing it yourself, your way.
My last attempt, cooking for my family. Let's say a robot can make a 100x better dinner than I can, why would my family want me to cook them food, even though I like it?
See what I mean? It's nice you enjoy it, but you're going to be 1% as good as what you could have, so it's likely not going to be worth doing the things you like doing, even if you like the journey?
I think this is an unhealthy world view. I've certainly learned thus after years of therapy. Others derive self-worth from self-validation.
We'll never be fast at math as calculators, yet their exist people who enjoy doing head-math. Doing a jigsaw puzzle has no inherent worth, yet people love doing so. Those people exist so it's a good idea to try to understand their perspective.
Not everyone's idea of fun is "Creating value for others"
Guns are great for hunting, but people still learn archery, because it's fun to shoot an arrow.
Another aspect is human connection: I would prefer eating an average meal made by someone close, rather than an amazing meal made by machine. Machines can't add the special ingredient of love :)
I would love to learn blacksmithing, for the sole reason that forging a sword from an iron/steel ingot is so fucking metal and awesome.
Why do people still play video games? And not only that, but do crazy stuff like speedruns or self-imposed limitations that make it borderline impossible to win?
50 years ago a single income family being able to afford to own their home, at least one car in the driveway, school their children, and comfortably save for retirement was the generally accepted definition of "middle class". I honestly can't be bothered to even look up what passes for a more modern definition given regardless of where those goalposts get planted someone's going to argue anything north of abject poverty is "middle class". After having sat a few hundred iterations of that debate I think I can feel my soul trying to leave my body at the mere thought of doing another lap.
One of the things that freaks me out the most about this kind of cognitive-dissonance-fueled shit flinging contest is I am deeply mystified by the notion that there's even anything controversial here. Rural America is not ok. The average cost of a house and a medical degree in the US are approaching parity. The current rise in populism also didn't spontaneously arise, it's a reaction to economic pressure (among other things). How much worse does it have to get before the conversation pivots from "is there a problem" to "k, maybe we should work on some of this"?