"Class bias" is a really weird word to use here to talk about that. It's class bias to assume that blue-collar workers aren't intrinsically lazy and that they might find meaningful activities to do if they had the time/energy to do so?
This is the first time I've ever seen "people need work for meaning, and they literally don't have the inclination/drive to find meaning in their lives unless they're forced to work under the threat of losing their livihoods" represented as solidarity with the working class. I don't think most people would consider that perspective to be synonymous with class consciousness.
I think it's coming one way or another.
For an increasing number of us, the costs of automation will be lower than the cost of living. It will happen quickly. We absolutely need a serious safety net or it will be chaos.
And we need to discover another way to find meaning in what we do, or else it will be a mental health catastrophe.
I have thought on this long and hard and am confident I can find meaning in my life even if a computer can do what I enjoy more productively. It will take getting used to. It won't be comfortable. It is necessary.
It will be very bad if only a tiny fraction of people have financial security.
You want to see what people get up to when they have endless free time, just see what idle young men get up to.
Adding on what the sibling comment said, meaning and fulfillment aren't just about the work one does, its about the social role that work facilitates. You may hate your job yet derive meaning from being a provider, from being the man of the family, being a hard worker, and so on. We're already in the process of destroying social connections with ones community and we're seeing a widespread crisis of loneliness as a result. Take away the meaning that work provides (regardless of job) and you basically destroy whats left of meaning in a good portion of people's lives.
Again, I want to remind the context of this: the context is that you're saying we need to force people to work under the threat of losing their livelihood or they can't be fulfilled.
And you're phrasing this as if I'm coming in and colonizing blue-collar workers or pushing my ideals on them. I don't think "benevolence" is the right word to use here, I just don't think there's anything noble about forcing people to work and saying that it's for their own good. It's an interesting turn of phrase to write about this like it's a "culture" when -- again -- the conversation is about whether or not people in blue-collar positions are too lazy and unmotivated to find meaning unless they're forced to work.
I just... it's wild to hear that phrased using the terms you're using. And I wonder if those blue-collar workers would agree that guaranteed income would be "taking away" their purposes, because most of the blue-collar workers I know are much more engaged in social institutions than the white-collar workers around them, and are therefore probably more prepared to find meaning within their communities and families outside of work than the average programmer on HN is.
> You want to see what people get up to when they have endless free time, just see what idle young men get up to.
This is me imposing my culture on other people? Pointing out that you're basically comparing blue-collar workers to lazy youth? Come on.
We derive tremendous value from blue-collar workers that hold up white-collar jobs and allow society to continue to function, even though they're often paid significantly less than us for what is arguably more important work. The least we can do is not pretend that this arrangement is somehow created for their benefit. This has all the energy of the proletariat complaining that the rabble can't take care of themselves and how the actually offensive thing is suggesting that they can.
If only HN could get out of its bubble and empathize more with the average worker, then it would realize that the average worker is lazy and unmotivated and needs to be managed /s
/s
Wait, no actually from what I've seen gpt4 might be more empathetic to the idea that people deserve to find their own meaning in life without their betters giving them a purpose.
"Idle young men", oof. So, so patronizing, like people who think fast food jobs are only for high school kids.
That's one (bad) way to frame the context of the conversation. The better way is that the need to work is intrinsic to our psyche and core to our self-worth, but the ability to self-actualize is not. The need to constantly work has been a steady feature of our environment ever since we left the trees. Self-actualization, on the other hand, has not historically been a part of this. Meaning in human lives has largely been external, deriving from one's place in the social hierarchy. And work was a key facilitator in securing ones social status.
It should be a given that drastically changing the environment away from the historical baseline will have serious psychological ramifications. The progress of technology has had strong impact, but the social environment overlaid on the technological milieu has largely remained constant. So people got by mostly just fine. The internet has changed this calculus and we've seen widespread psychological damage as a result. AI stands to explosively accelerate this transformation.
What I am asking is whether people as a whole will be better off without necessary work being a driving force in their lives. People like you take it as axiomatic that a post-work society will be better, and offer misplaced moralistic arguments in favor of it. All I am saying is that its absolutely not axiomatic and should be considered directly on its merits and demerits. We've already seen many of the problems I'm talking about materialize.
>And I wonder if those blue-collar workers would agree that guaranteed income would be "taking away" their purposes
For gods sakes, this has nothing to do with the blue collar, white collar division. It's a division between the self-actualizers and non-self-actualizers. I used "class" as a generic grouping term. Although I expect the non-self-actualizers to be overrepresented among blue collar workers. That is, people who don't have the skill or the interest to engage in intellectual pursuits, but just want to make an honest living and take pride in their work.
>The least we can do is not pretend that this arrangement is somehow created for their benefit.
That's obviously not what I'm doing. Spare me these silly moralistic arguments. We need to be willing to discuss this issue as plainly as we can, not be hamstrung by misplaced political correctness.
