Are there too many 'useless' people in the US?

I think eventually our great great grand children will be using this model or something similar when almost all the productivity in the world is performed by machines and there are very few human inputs. But I don’t see how you can pay for it right now.

I think the term is post-modern-neo-Marxist.

Huh. I was a bit of a cunt back then. Then again, I still am. I suppose that’s OK ?

I’m the guy. Fucked my back up long ago, my employer knew it when they hired me. My employer pays 100% of my insurance, and I’m not a special case because I hadn’t had any medical treatment on my back for 18 months prior to employment (it was actually a lot longer than that, by a decade or so, but 18 months is what put it past pre-existing).

My salary is about 300% what it was on the job where I fucked my back up - not counting benefits, and I don’t work overtime.

We actually have a robot (as well as some CNC machines that can be programmed to do similar but different parts easily), but the vast majority of the work is still done by hand - too many one-off parts. Robots are great doing the same part over and over, that’s what ours does, but re-tooling them for an entirely different process is a PITA unless they have a menu of tasks in their repertoire. It can weld roofs to car frames day after day, for instance (we don’t build cars), and you can set it up to weld the roof on a different model next month, but setting it up to do roofs one day and chassis construction the next and bumpers the next isn’t where it’s at. But our guys can do just that, metaphorically.

I said all the work that “needs to be done”. There is always work that CAN be done, if anyone is willing to pay for the labor. Are you? How much are you willing to pay to have Detroit cleaned up, or nice new bridges?

Construction you say? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k74rb7xl3aY

Get rid of minimum wage and lets see what the market says. I guess the sticking point is need. What are needs really?

Is mental illness considered to be lazy and entitled when they live off of the govt. and others? Many people that are not homeless but would otherwise be without some form of assistance from others have some form of undiagnosed mental illness. From depression to dependent personality disorder or other social disorders.

Should we be so quick to judge others without knowing anything about them nor their lives? You cannot just flip your brain like a light switch and think differently so don’t expect people that cannot prioritize or suffer from anxiety, depression…etc to be able to magically flip a switch and become independent. It doesn’t work like that. If laziness is a choice for you, then you are likely to be independent.

And from I’ve seen in my experience, some “useless” people are simply terrified to go out in the world and do something useful. One woman I know actually got a job, then stood outside the building the first day, totally terrified of going in there. She just couldn’t do it.

I do not know how to fix that problem.

Yes.

A sociopathic AI whose goal was maximizing the GPD may euthanize the poor and elderly and irradiate states which are net consumers of federal money, though maybe there would be other factors. For example, poor people might serve as a warning to the working stiffs about keeping their nose to the grind stone. J.K. Rowling was a single mother on welfare before she wrote Harry Potter, which probably contributed something to the economy. There are many other rags to riches stories. Maybe the economy would be depressed because people are bummed out that the AI just killed grandma because she made too many hospital visits.

Reminds me of the old quote, “what good is a newborn baby?”

I think you dudes are right, Yes, we should put all these "useless’ people in a special place, let us mark them clearly with a Black Triangle. And if they work, they get to be free.

I think you conflated GDP and federal money

What are you talking about? You don’t think it’s fair that people contribute to society as they can?

Arbeit macht frei, right?

:confused:

Octopus doesn’t read parseltongue. Write plainly and in English.

“Work sets you free, right?”

Next time, do your own work. Don’t count on others to find a translator online.

People don’t look up death camp phrases and imply you advocate them for no reason. I’m curious as to what DrDeth means precisely. Not that running coach can find google translate.

Godwin’s Law strikes again.

Something we are missing here is the impact of automation. Unless there is a major civilisation collapse in the next hundred years, the vast majority of industries will need few employees. Are we to force people to do make-work tasks just to ‘contribute to society as best they can?’ There is a limit to the number of hand-thrown teapots we can use.

It seems to me that both socialism and libertarianism struggle with the concept of abundance; both philosophies believe in the concept of ’ a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay’, and both excoriate ‘non-contributors’; they just disagree on who the ‘non-contributors’ are.

In a hundred years or so most people will be ‘non-contributors’- perhaps then we can get on with living our lives.