Actually, most people don't hate work at all. I hear they love it and they couldn't even imagine life without work and the satisfaction (also spelled "exhaustion") it gives. At least that's what everyone says when I make it known that I hate work. Still, even though everyone loves to work, I can't get anyone to pay for my survival. (In fact, there are those who condemn welfare leeches because that makes them have to work more!)
But seriously, are these romantic articles doing us any good? I expected something a bit more cynical with a title like this. Instead, all I got was more you-can-do-it peptalk, telling me that there's a wonderful job somewhere over the rainbow where I won't even notice the restrictions, responsibilities and captivity inherent to jobs.
Admittedly, I'm making the same mistake as the author of the article by conflating doing work with having a job. Doing work can be great; I absolutely love programming. However, there are no jobs where you can do whatever you want all the time. It's no use to pretend otherwise.
Perhaps if we admit that jobs suck, we can find alternatives. (And I don't think founding startups is it.)
Somebody's got to dig ditches and handle sewage. Until we invent robots to do the manual labor and put nanomachines in the toilet to treat the sewage in-situ, there's no real replacement for the job in our society.
Yeah, somebody has to do that. But it doesn't have to be one person. I wouldn't mind digging a ditch or handling some sewage every once in a while. If everyone did a little of everything without commitment or paperwork or whatnot, I bet we'd be much better off. Utopian, sure, but I'm certain it could be made to work. (Even the worst slackers would start doing things when there's no blame, expectations or obligations.)
Also, I'm afraid that when the robots finally do everything, we the people will still be left with paper-shuffling jobs. As robots gain ground, jobs will be lost and new pointless jobs invented for the sacked. That's been happening for decades now. It's like boiling a frog: we won't even notice when we get to the point where robots are doing everything and the only reason we're still working is because we're keeping each other's artificial jobs going.
Kind of hard to explain this point. Think insurers insuring managers who manage insurers, only more widespread and complex. Think circular references in a reference-counting garbage-collected environment: objects that are completely unnecessary but things have gotten so complex that it's hard to see it.
Then of course there's the question of who owns the means of production: if corporations had to pay for the robots, they won't just make them do everyone's work for free. Quid pro quo, right? And this doesn't take malice: the frog will be boiled very gradually.
(I know you can't boil frogs like that. That's not the point.)
But seriously, are these romantic articles doing us any good? I expected something a bit more cynical with a title like this. Instead, all I got was more you-can-do-it peptalk, telling me that there's a wonderful job somewhere over the rainbow where I won't even notice the restrictions, responsibilities and captivity inherent to jobs.
Admittedly, I'm making the same mistake as the author of the article by conflating doing work with having a job. Doing work can be great; I absolutely love programming. However, there are no jobs where you can do whatever you want all the time. It's no use to pretend otherwise.
Perhaps if we admit that jobs suck, we can find alternatives. (And I don't think founding startups is it.)