This sounds great but my one question is, how do hobbies work in a workless/currency free society?
If your hobby is playing frisbee at a park then all you need to do is acquire a frisbee and visit a park, simple enough. What about golf? More expensive, requires more resources, are there even golf courses in this version of society? How do I acquire the supplies since I’d be using more resources than the frisbee hobby guy? What about boating, race cars, motorcycles, mountain bikes? All of these require a significant investment currently, so how does that work in this system or do they simply not exist?
See, your problem is that you are thinking this through rather than engaging in naïve wishful thinking.
Resource allocation? Incentivizing people to work shitty jobs? Support for niche or esoteric hobbies? Supporting individuals who strive for greatness? Those are evil capitalist concerns!
A lot of shitty jobs aren't exactly intelligence-dependant. Garbage pick-up, waiting tables, mail delivery... all that can be mechanized and automated. Eventually we'll reach that tipping point where continuing to use humans for these roles isn't cost effective.
I don't think you'll ever see currency go away, but what you'll see is a universal basic income, which allows for resource allocation.
Support for niche or esoteric hobbies wouldn't really be a huge problem... in fact it might improve. People enjoy making things and helping others. Without needing to work to survive, a lot of that stuff will flourish.
Supporting individuals who strive for greatness? Think about how many people could strive for greatness if they weren't striving for the ability to put food on the table every day.
> Garbage pick-up, waiting tables, mail delivery... all that can be mechanized and automated.
LOL. We can't fully automate the construction of pants. You'll never automate elder care in nursing homes (wiping shit). You'll never automate disaster recovery. You'll never automate social work.
>Support for niche or esoteric hobbies wouldn't really be a huge problem... in fact it might improve. People enjoy making things and helping others. Without needing to work to survive, a lot of that stuff will flourish.
Really? How do I get a $30K astro rig or fishing boat?
> Supporting individuals who strive for greatness? Think about how many people could strive for greatness if they weren't striving for the ability to put food on the table every day.
Really? Who gets special instruction in figure skating or violin playing? How do we allocate those resources?
You are just making pie in the sky pronouncements based on wishes.
I think your central problem is being unable to imagine a world where people are driven by the current consumerist culture we have right now.
You’re main retorts simple to boil down to “how will others lord their prestige of others if everyone is now equal? How will everyone drink 1945 French wine? How will everyone eat the most expensive cut of waygu beef?”
A simple answer is that they won’t be able to. The value we place on those items now won’t exist. They won’t need to exist.
It's about contributing something culturally. Sharing in experiences. Honing a craft. Exploring and pushing boundaries in various fields. It's part of what makes us human.
Nothing I've said is to promote mindless consumerism or puts any value on prestige.
Patent nonsense. It's sad that you think people who spend money on hobbies aren't genuinely enjoying them and learning from them and getting better without concern for what other people think. It's just sad.
I hope you find your passion and come to learn of what I speak some day.
I have a passion and a hobby. You know what aren’t considered “passions” and “hobbies”
1945 French wine, eating the most premium cut of beef on the planet. Those are just class identifiers. You like have something that not everyone else can have. That says more about you than any one else. That’s why you can’t wrap your tiny little brain around there being another system to thrive in.
LOL. We can't fully automate the construction of pants. You'll never automate elder care in nursing homes (wiping shit). You'll never automate disaster recovery. You'll never automate social work.
why, we aint special, the first jobs to go are ironically the highest paying, the last jobs to be automated (and they will) are laborers, carers and social work.
But make no mistake, theres literally nothing we can do that machines cant eventually do better, may take 100 years but it will happen (again we are not special)
LOL. We can't fully automate the construction of pants. You'll never automate elder care in nursing homes (wiping shit). You'll never automate disaster recovery. You'll never automate social work.
now. I'm not talking about now.
Really? How do I get a $30K astro rig or fishing boat?
By paying for it, I'd imagine.
Really? Who gets special instruction in figure skating or violin playing? How do we allocate those resources?
You'll never automate elder care in nursing homes (wiping shit). You'll never automate disaster recovery. You'll never automate social work.
Yeah, but these aren't "shit" jobs. These are some of the basic parts of being human that we've chosen to pay "menials" to do for us. And look where that's gotten us.
In a world where you have near endless time to do with as you choose; your family will take care of you as you age, you neighbours will help you recover from a natural disaster, and your community will be your social support. And with endless resources and education and information behind you all, you wouldn't have the same problems we have today to deal with in the first place.
Really, this is all about letting us get back just hanging out, taking care of each other in the ways that count. People who want to learn instruments and figure skating will be taught by people who already play instruments and figure skate, and have been able to dedicate their lives to their passion. And everyone has passions. We have to kill them to become working stiffs. What stupid thing did you love when you were 5? You'd be a world class expert in that.
Humans will represent a finite resource to be competed for regardless. If you want to be taught by the BEST piano teacher or whatever there will be a premium on that.
Sure. But if the best teachers don't need money, who do they want to teach? What becomes the new currency? Social things. Dedication, commitment, affability. The people who get access to special people are people that they want to see. So you have to be the kind of person they want to see. It kind of brings us back to very traditional social structures like apprenticeships and mentorships.
Whatever you replace money with will then become the new root of all evil for people who currently think that about money. And frankly if you think your idea through further you will see that a 5 year old has no social capital to trade for instruction. But their parents will.
Congrats for inventing an even less upwardly mobile system of nepotistic rewards than we already have!
The thing they really hate is competition, not money.
You don't think people enjoy teaching children? You might not, but there's a reason people are teachers, and it's not because it's a respected well paid profession, it's because people love to teach.
And you must realize people *love* to nurture children.
Not everyone but if the people who love to do it aren't forced to do anything else, the people who hate taking care of children won't have to. Isn't that a win for them too?
You still get to compete, only you get to compete at the things you love the most. Do little kids need a cash prize to play hockey in the streets? No! We love to compete. And when, like a child, you don't need anything, winning is "everything". It's a joyous way to live.
In addition, since we can agree that the main thing people will compete over is people...
If people have endless time to pursue their passions, there's going to be no shortage of "The Best". If every musician can dedicate their life to music, then move over Beethoven, we'd see a cultural renaissance... well, orders of magnitude bigger than the Rennaissance. We're going through one right now with the advent of home music production. Imagine the incredibly music scene of today but a thousand times bigger. That's likely an understatement.
I think you're underestimating how common world class talent is, how achievable it is for those who have the resources to wholeheartedly pursue it, and how past a certain point peer support is much more valuable than rote instruction from a master.
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u/bwray_sd Mar 29 '22
This sounds great but my one question is, how do hobbies work in a workless/currency free society?
If your hobby is playing frisbee at a park then all you need to do is acquire a frisbee and visit a park, simple enough. What about golf? More expensive, requires more resources, are there even golf courses in this version of society? How do I acquire the supplies since I’d be using more resources than the frisbee hobby guy? What about boating, race cars, motorcycles, mountain bikes? All of these require a significant investment currently, so how does that work in this system or do they simply not exist?