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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

I'd worry this creates a large underclass where the people have no purpose and no point to their lives.

It's like what happens when we remove the need for physical labor. People's health declines. Some people join gyms to compensate, some engage in purposeless jogging, but not that many.

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Now for most people they have somebody who tells them what is useful to work on. This “purpose” is externally imposed and often people don’t really fully believe in the work they’re doing already. Better to have people educated and having time to think and set their own direction than the current system. In an automated society people’s purpose will change whether they want it to or not.

The purpose is survival itself. Following someone's instructions is just one means to that end. Just like your purpose in prehistoric times wasn't just to hunt down and kill a specific wild pig.

This will probably be a very unpopular opinion but I definitely feel that men innately need this struggle.

So you're in favor of eliminating inheritance? Obviously it is unfair how we're depriving rich kids of this struggle they innately need.

Why limit your snark to rich kids? Just rob everyone blind whether they earned it or not.

Either way though, it might impact motivation negatively.

I am, at least partially, via progressive inheritance tax.

Improving the chances for success for your offspring is an innate desire, removing the ability will affect people's motivation to contribute beyond a certain point. A tax on inheritances will allow you to improve your children's life while removing the wealth if a family chooses not to work for a few generations, thus motivating contribution beyond "I exist and I inherited money".

I dont think the majority of physicists or bankers are struggling to survive. There is more to life than survival. I think the need for struggle is better described as a need for burden, rather than survival. It opens up many behaviours that prioritize ideas above biological need to survive and reproduce.

Your opinion cant be removed, everything in life can be reduced down to biology if you accept to lose out on certain axioms.

There is also trying to get laid I suppose. Which motivates younger men at least to seek status.

But I rather like your "need for burden" theory as well.

I remember a newspaper article about a gent who had passed away at around 100. He had retired from running his own business, but needed a purpose and got a job as a Walmart greeter. He didn't need the money, but he thrived at this job, and did it for decades until he could no longer get up in the morning, and then passed away.

Having a job where you get up, go out, do something useful, and interact with others is good for the soul. Sitting at home by yourself watching TV is a recipe for decline and death.

No one ever says this about m/billionaires or their children. There are always going to be a few people taking advantage of a system, that shouldn’t be a reason to punish everyone else.

That’s because we call them trust fund babies instead and they are widely mocked and ridiculed.

You mean widely envied.

Envied? Sure. Respected? Nope. Such people often do have self-esteem issues because they know they didn't earn it, and so does everyone else.

Yes, they do say that about the children of wealthy people. The conventional wisdom is the first generation earns it, the second spends it, the third is back where the first started.

Wealthy people are well aware of this, and will often try to make their kids earn their things, send them to a military school, etc.

He's right, if not for working at McDonalds to pay rent, what purpose would people have to live?

When I take a month off work, towards the end I feel the need to be productive again, more than anything, even if the travels I'm doing are very exciting and satisfying.

Maybe the timeframes would differ for people, but I doubt many people would enjoy not working on _something_, whatever that may be.

I'm not saying people would enjoy doing nothing. It's just sick and a sign of our society's decay where we think the height of the human spirit and purpose is to slave away at a food service job serving food to others who will ultimately suffer for it. Like WalterBright in another reply says, there's probably some small amount of old people who benefit from working these kinds of jobs. The problem is, it's not only old retirees/people working those jobs. But tons of smart, capable people who are forced to do them in order to pay rent to some faceless landlord vacationing in the Bahamas or some shit.

Older people often take jobs so they have a reason to get up in the morning and a purpose. It keeps them active and engaged in life. Retirees without jobs and no purpose tend to die earlier.

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