What happens when all of the production is automated to the point we don't NEED 'Men to work'?
What do we do with them? What mischief do they get into when they have idle hands?
Imagine working 40 hours a week then seeing that the machine both prepared more product and made fewer mistakes than you, or feeling like you're doing work just because someone (the government) pities you enough to force some jobs to remain non-automated.
Working with more complex, higher-skilled work that makes you feel like you're improving the lives of others is what our brains crave, not repeating menial tasks over and over again.
The Ballad of John Henry is Civil War era, but even he was a century or two after the Luddites started wrecking automated weaving machines. It's actually been a feature of the Industrial Revolution for awhile, but I think the effects are more pronounced now than ever.
There's NOTHING wrong with the occasional menial task, and there's nothing wrong with being unmotivated, so long as it's not a net negative drain on society.
Once everything is automated away, I suspect it won't be the Star Trekian Utopia we'd like.
The Star Trekian utopia grew out of a 21st century devastated by a world war that saw a third of the Earth's population wiped out so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I feel like some people will gravitate back towards self sufficient activities. There are a lot of people on this site doing stuff like building their own furniture, gardening, etc. Of course I do think there will be a subset that use their time for more destructive things, as happens even now.
Or to us.
unfortunately there isn't a profit motive for those things, so the work in those industries tends to be low paying and requiring a high level of education.
there is definitely still a ton of work to do in the world, we just don't have anyone willing to pay for it.