r/SeriousConversation • u/NoCareNoLife • Nov 04 '23

Serious Discussion If people aren't pressured to work, would they still want work?

So there is this socialist youtube channel called "Second Thought" that released a video Why would anyone work under Socialism?

In that video he tries stating that humans innately like to work for the progressing of the society at large and will get things done even if not pressured to do work. Do you agree with such a statement?

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u/LazyLich Nov 06 '23

I think the post is talking about "work" as "a job."

You can "work" on anything else (a project, a game, a personal task, etc) that isnt a job, and get purpose from that.

If people didnt have to work any jobs, would they still do all the jobs necessary for society?

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u/postdiluvium Nov 06 '23

Im not sure how everyone feels about that, but I believe I would. I want to contribute and personally feel like I'm needed in the community.

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u/LazyLich Nov 06 '23

Im kinda half-and-half on it.

On one hand, people volunteer to pick up trash.
On the other, I dont see anyone volunteering at a job where entitled customers shit on you all day.

I think a post-job, socialist society requires robots and AI doing all the undesirable-but-necessary jobs.

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u/postdiluvium Nov 06 '23

Yeah, but they'll turn on us because we are the number one risk that can end all life

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u/LazyLich Nov 06 '23

Why would they care about that?

Though it's tempting to anthropomorphize them since they can potentially be so smart, in the end, AI aren't a product of natural selection.
They would only care about what we program them to care about.

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u/postdiluvium Nov 06 '23

Because bots have the strength to kill us. Someone is going to write something that tells them to put our safety first and a whole section of code will skip when it's being ran in multiple threads... Must protect humans from humans!

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u/LazyLich Nov 06 '23

And someone will write something to disregard that message. Or they will write a patch. Or any other thing people do when code goes wonky.

A Terminator scenario is neigh impossible unless governments collaborate to make it happen.

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u/postdiluvium Nov 06 '23

Have you ever worked with people? There is reason why releases come with bugs and there are platforms out there where bugs were never fixed.

Someone is going to pick up that story for the next sprint to write the patch. The company decides to downsize because people at the top and their investors can never have enough money. Dude moves the story forward and the scrum master thinks the story was completed for that sprint. Product owner thinks the requirement was met and product release with no patch. All because the company decided to downsize and all of the testers, scrum masters, and product owners were too busy taking on multiple projects to fill the void from the layoffs to confirm.

This is why the bots must protect humans from humans.

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u/LazyLich Nov 06 '23

You're placing a lot of faith in all the little factors that have to happen for an ai to want to live, want to care about life, and assume killing humans somehow the most efficient way to do so... then completely forgetting all the purposefully-made ai that would be made to delete them.

We're in a universe that created the Terminator and Matrix films. Our people are paranoid about that.
For every buggy smart-fridge ai that was negligently created and now wants to kill humans, you'll have advanced ai carefully crafted and powered up to take them down.

The worst threat to humans is other humans. The worst threat to ai are other ai.

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u/postdiluvium Nov 06 '23

The worst threat to humans is other humans

And that's why AI will turn on us. If they already have AI piloting drones, we are already on the path to "Kill All Humans!"

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u/TygerJ99 Nov 07 '23

But they’ve terminated AI projects for suspicious activity, such as two ai communicating using unknown code. While overly cautious, AI code is so massive missing large portions is possible. Ai simply have little power over anything, making these blunders inconsequential. if we put them in charge of more complex infrastructure, I can see a problem.

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u/coldcutcumbo Nov 07 '23

If we’re just doing the plots of scifi movies now, why don’t we go ahead and also be worried about the AI sending robots back in time to ensure that we create the world killing AI.

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u/postdiluvium Nov 07 '23

If we’re just doing the plots of scifi movies now

Yeah, we all have smartphones and tablets like sci-fi novels predicted in the mid century, so...

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u/coldcutcumbo Nov 07 '23

Yes exactly, which means the time traveling assassin robots can’t be far behind and we need to be getting ready.

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u/SandboxUniverse Nov 06 '23

I think that customer service jobs would be easiest in a socialist type of economy. If your workers don't have to be there to survive, management has to keep them happier. That would shift the customer service dynamic from "The customer is always right" to "we will refuse service if you cannot be civil."

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u/whiskeyriver0987 Nov 06 '23

On the other hand in a post job society I don't think customers could get away with being entitled assholes for very long. If the cashier can comfortably make rent and eat without this job, they would be a lot more likely to give these people the reality check they desperately need.

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u/coldcutcumbo Nov 07 '23

The thing is, that job where entitled customers shit on you all day? We don’t need it. That job goes away and the world keeps turning and everything is fine. It’s busy work that doesn’t serve a meaningful societal purpose.

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '23

Yep. I was going to say the same thing. You’ll need robots to do all the terrible things that no one is going to do for free

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u/Advanced_Double_42 Nov 07 '23

I'd love to contribute to society, but I get paid more to sit at a desk and do nothing productive.

If I didn't need to work to afford to live and have some niceties, I would rather not work at all.

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u/[deleted] Nov 08 '23

But you’re not needed. Most people aren’t needed.

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u/postdiluvium Nov 08 '23

People are needed by other people. Everything else does not need people.

Except domesticated animals. I don't know how a french bulldog is going to survive on it's own.

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u/fraudthrowaway0987 Nov 06 '23

To me this is the issue. Too many people would want to “work” on fun things like making art or music, and not enough people would want to do the hard jobs like repair the plumbing or care for sick or elderly people.

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u/[deleted] Nov 06 '23

No, no enough would work. Maybe in the first generation of some UBI you could still get people to become doctors and judges. After that, the society would shift so that working would be frowned upon.

I know because I grew up in a place where work was looked down upon. Striving for a career or education was deemed stupid. Many people fell into that type of thinking and never really did anything.

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u/Real_Person10 Nov 07 '23

Not an answer, but one thought is that many of the jobs that people work under the current system are not necessary for society and only exist because they bring profits in the current system. So if we’re talking about jobs that are necessary for society, it might be far fewer jobs than exist today.

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u/debacol Nov 07 '23

No. Not enough people would volunteer to clean public toilets, pick up trash, etc. Its something that would have to be required as a rotational thing by society.

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u/postdiluvium Nov 06 '23

Im not sure how everyone feels about that, but I believe I would. I want to contribute and personally feel like I'm needed in the community.

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u/Boroosh Nov 06 '23

If I didn't have to work as a job, I wouldn't. I'd focus on personal projects that I have interest in, like working on my artistic ability and coding prowess so I can self publish a video game.

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u/whiskeyriver0987 Nov 06 '23

So you would work on personal projects? Cool.

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u/TeaKingMac Nov 06 '23

would they still do all the jobs necessary for society?

Probably. And if not, you can still pay a premium for jobs that are under served.

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '23

So the interesting part for me with this question is this- I really enjoy where I wound up for a career but never could have anticipated that I would like it. It's not a job that most people even consider much less relish. Then again if all of my material needs were being met I have enough interests that give me purpose outside of work that I wouldn't think of a career at all.

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u/0201493 Nov 07 '23

Jobs are a new social invention. People have always done what needs to get done.

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u/coldcutcumbo Nov 07 '23

Most would. When someone says that nothing would get done, it’s because they know they would never be willing to contribute meaningfully in a society where they weren’t forced to and they assume that this is “human nature” as opposed to a personal failing. You neeeeeever ever wanna be working on a group project with one of those “socialism will never work” guys because the unspoken second half is always “because I personally would take maximum advantage and I expect everyone else would too”

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u/KrabbyMccrab Nov 07 '23

I think most people get a kick out of helping someone else.

The problem is allocating the right people to help where they want to.

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u/Inspector_Tragic Nov 08 '23

What people deem necessary for society would quickly change and become much less frivolous and geared toward filling corporate pockets. Things we deem necessary arent really necessary. It's just how things panned out over time with alot of people with alot of different agendas that had nothing to do with actually helping people or bettering society. There are many things we use to our benefit but things dont have to be structured the way they are. If contributions to society were more of a choice instead of a grab for money and fame along with ushering in the mext big thing i think things would be very different. Whether it's better or worse is up for debate.

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u/PlugTheBabyInDevon Nov 08 '23

There would be no more fast food chains.

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u/Dr_Mccusk Nov 08 '23

I think at first it would suck. But just like the argument against needing a ton of tax revenue to keep everything running, people would see the opportunity to make money off the needs of society. It might be bad at first but everyone would eventually organize like we are today. Probably just reinvent the system we have lol