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Comment by welanes | Hacker News Reader

If production is taken care of by robots, what's left is consumption and creation. The "average" human will be happy to consume endlessly as the proliferation of click-bait and video games shows.

And for those with an inclination to create, what better than all the time in the world to pursue a talent and bask in the talent of others?

For the vast majority of people, work provides a means, not a meaning. A world without cubicles ought to reduce rather than increase nihilism levels worldwide, so I imagine self-actualization won't be the primary concern.

Health and basic income will be our major challenges ahead.

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"The "average" human will be happy to consume endlessly as the proliferation of click-bait and video games shows."

So it seems, but I really doubt it. They are not really happy doing it, they just kind of gave up on success in the real world, and go for the cheap distraction/virtual success. And I think a good percentage of them would start become really productive, once they don't feel forced to be "productive" in a way and place they actually hate and unfortunately started to hate "being productive"..

I am not so sure. For me at least, it was much more difficult to be in the unstructured university environment than having a job. Routines make life easier for me, I like having micro-accomplishments every day in working life etc... I know many people are probably different, but still, a life of creative work is not so easy. The tortured writer or the procrastinating PhD student is basically a cultural cliché at this point, as well as the 3rd generation killing all the rich family wealth. If you gave me 100 million dollars right now, I have a real fear I would just waste my life doing nothing but hedonistic pleasure, while telling myself I'm still working on my next novel or political theory of justice or ...

In a sense we already have 'a basic income'. It's called 'social welfare state' and causes innumerable individuals to migrate across the globe. With that come tectonic shifts in culture and (we shall see) a loss of a lot of factors that made these systems work in the first place. Not quite unlike Ancient Rome, which too had a sort of basic income, triggering massive changes to its initial fabric of success. Don't get me wrong, I could see capitalism's endgame to be a form of utopia but I'd be curious to know how something like that would actually work and not destroy the generating forces of abundance unless it was introduced gloabally at once and / or in some form organically, I.e in a sustainable way that will not dislodge half the population of the planet.

"It's called 'social welfare state' and causes innumerable individuals to migrate across the globe."

Do you have facts to back this opinion up?

It seems like other factors e.g. not dying in a war, not being persecuted for various reasons, not having the opportunity to make money with your skills are today (and have been historically) primary drivers of immigration.

So why do you think "social welfare state" rather than "rule-of-law-based liberal capitalism" is the bigger draw? Is it because it's something you already want rid of?

Because when refugees are interviewed in Germany they say their parents sent them to collect 'all that free money' that they hear about from their neighbors and friends who came before. If it was just rule of law you don't have to walk across 10 other nations that all have rule of law but a less generous welfare system.

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