# Possibility of ending the need to work for a living? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 24, 2002, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525 "2002-11-24T20:51:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2025, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/101 "2025-04-11T18:06:23Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I mean how much work people do is “needed”? Most (or at least a whole lot of) people don’t hunt, farm, fish, or work in jobs that apply to the building and maintaining of infrastructure or critical services. And ironically those jobs that are most critical are often the crappiest and lowest paid. I think you underestimate the number/type of jobs needed. Accounting, banking, and a large degree of IT work are all needed unless we want society to collapse (which I guess some really wouldn’t mind). > [@](#): > > I think it’s more a question of how do humans find purpose if we don’t have to work for a living. To be honest, I’m pretty sure I could find fulfilling ways to occupy 8-10 hours a day not sending emails and sitting on meetings. I agree with that part. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2025, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/102 "2025-04-11T18:46:36Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That reminds me of the old story _The Midas Plague,_ where everyone was required to consume more and more as production increased; except for the rich who were allowed to live simple lives. By Frederik Pohl, first published in Galaxy in 1954. They solved the problem by inventing robots to consume the surplus, for instance robots would drive extra cars until they fell apart ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/103 "2025-04-15T03:29:50Z")
> [@Tzigone](#): > > > [@msmith537](#): > > > > I mean how much work people do is “needed”? Most (or at least a whole lot of) people don’t hunt, farm, fish, or work in jobs that apply to the building and maintaining of infrastructure or critical services. And ironically those jobs that are most critical are often the crappiest and lowest paid. > > I think you underestimate the number/type of jobs needed. Accounting, banking, and a large degree of IT work are all needed unless we want society to collapse (which I guess some really wouldn’t mind). It’s not like we don’t need banking and accounting, but so much of those jobs are just pushing numbers around spreadsheets and databases and generated reports on those numbers and layers of management overseeing the people generating reports and whatnot that it’s not hard for me to envision most of them just being replaced by a black box. It’s like the old joke of the modern factory consisting of two employees - a man watching the machines and a dog preventing the man from touching them while they work autonomously. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/104 "2025-04-15T03:41:03Z")
You know, it would be rather funny if we _did_ reach the point of a fully automated company with no human in charge, and the result was actually _less_ ruthless, cruel and destructive than the human-run version because it’s only concerned with profit, not personal power, cruelty, ideology and power games. Amorality \> Evil. > [@msmith537](#): > > It’s not like we don’t need banking and accounting, but so much of those jobs are just pushing numbers around spreadsheets and databases and generated reports on those numbers and layers of management overseeing the people generating reports and whatnot that it’s not hard for me to envision most of them just being replaced by a black box. Yes; after all, computers are nothing if not good with numbers. I expect that a lot of the management and accounting jobs _could_ be automated, expect they are the ones making the decisions and so they won’t fire themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/105 "2025-04-15T13:09:09Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > It’s not like we don’t need banking and accounting, but so much of those jobs are just pushing numbers around spreadsheets and databases and generated reports on those numbers and layers of management overseeing the people generating reports and whatnot that it’s not hard for me to envision most of them just being replaced by a black box. Tell me you’ve never worked in Accounting without telling me you’ve never worked in Accounting. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/106 "2025-04-15T14:06:23Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I think it’s more a question of how do humans find purpose if we don’t have to work for a living. To be honest, I’m pretty sure I could find fulfilling ways to occupy 8-10 hours a day not sending emails and sitting on meetings. It’s a bigger question to me. If we get to the point where humans don’t need to work, it means someone or something else is doing the work. And because making decisions is a type of work, it means something other than a human is directing our future. I don’t really find that to be an attractive prospect at all. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/107 "2025-04-15T21:21:57Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > > [@msmith537](#): > > > > It’s not like we don’t need banking and accounting, but so much of those jobs are just pushing numbers around spreadsheets and databases and generated reports on those numbers and layers of management overseeing the people generating reports and whatnot that it’s not hard for me to envision most of them just being replaced by a black box. > > Tell me you’ve never worked in Accounting without telling me you’ve never worked in Accounting. Is Deloitte an accounting firm? I forget. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/108 "2025-04-15T23:11:27Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > You know, it would be rather funny if we _did_ reach the point of a fully automated company with no human in charge, and the result was actually _less_ ruthless, cruel and destructive than the human-run version because it’s only concerned with profit, not personal power, cruelty, ideology and power games. > > Amorality \> Evil. > > > [@msmith537](#): > > > > It’s not like we don’t need banking and accounting, but so much of those jobs are just pushing numbers around spreadsheets and databases and generated reports on those numbers and layers of management overseeing the people generating reports and whatnot that it’s not hard for me to envision most of them just being replaced by a black box. > > Yes; after all, computers are nothing if not good with numbers. I expect that a lot of the management and accounting jobs _could_ be automated, expect they are the ones making the decisions and so they won’t fire themselves. My cynical side believes that if enough of the real work and responsibility for actually generating a profit is automated, that would then free up the humans to focus on increasing their personal power, promoting their ideology, and playing power games. At least that’s how a lot of Corporate America appears to me at the middle management levels. A lot of them seem to be people who are largely removed from both the strategic decision-making of the company and the day to day execution of the work that actually adds value - designing, building, and selling the products and services. Case in point - my current client, one of dozens of “executive vice presidents” six levels down from the C-suite appears to serve no other purpose in the organization besides summarizing various meetings that we attend to provide high level updates to her five bosses and trying to appear to be actually accomplishing anything. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/109 "2025-04-16T06:21:54Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > If we get to the point where humans don’t need to work, it means someone or something else is doing the work. And because making decisions is a type of work, it means something other than a human is directing our future. I don’t really find that to be an attractive prospect at all. Eh, its not like having some other human making decisions for the future is better. No matter what happens the direction of the world will be decided by something other than ourselves. Human or not. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/110 "2025-04-16T08:14:51Z")
Well I like to think that the direction of the world is decided by the collective decisions of humans and accepting both the rewards and the consequences, rather than people just mindlessly doing things because “computer said so”. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/111 "2025-04-16T08:29:47Z")
Instead they mindlessly do things because the Boss/CEO/President/Priest said so, which is no better and possibly worse. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/112 "2025-04-16T08:57:31Z")
Boss/CEO/President/Priests are held accountable. Maybe not always, but enough. As are the people who choose to follow them mindlessly. It’s a bit harder to hold people accountable if they are just acting on instructions from a black box. All that aside, a society where no one needs to work for a living would probably be weirdly isolating. A lot of human interaction is the result of people working together or conducting various business transactions throughout the day. We already live in a society where much of those transactions are now handled through web sites and automated workflows. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/113 "2025-04-16T09:57:08Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Boss/CEO/President/Priests are held accountable. Maybe not always, but enough. As are the people who choose to follow them mindlessly. It’s a bit harder to hold people accountable if they are just acting on instructions from a black box. I disagree. Humans are tribal apes at heart, with an instinct to obey the leader of the tribe. Not an instinct to obey black boxes. Or to refrain from smashing them, if it comes to that. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/114 "2025-04-16T10:18:25Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I disagree. Humans are tribal apes at heart, with an instinct to obey the leader of the tribe. Do you obey the leader of a tribe? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/115 "2025-04-16T11:33:29Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Do you obey the leader of a tribe? If I don’t I get thrown in prison. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/116 "2025-04-16T11:44:03Z")
> [@Hazel](#): > > So, what do you think, Dopers? Can we escape the necesity of holding down a job any time soon? People don’t just work for money. They also work because there are a myriad of jobs that have to be done to keep society moving. So, until we can become fully automated in every facet of life, and I mean FULLY, there are jobs that have to be done by people. Besides, economics has always been part of the makeup of human society going all the way back to the first caveman trading his hatchet for the other guy’s spear. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/117 "2025-04-18T08:24:45Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > > > Do you obey the leader of a tribe? > > If I don’t I get thrown in prison. That’s not the same thing. Most people follow laws because they are law-abiding people. I don’t get a sense you follow some charismatic leader because you believe they are the embodiment of your core beliefs or those of the people you identify with. > [@Jasmine](#): > > People don’t just work for money. They also work because there are a myriad of jobs that have to be done to keep society moving… The need for those jobs to keep society moving creates demand such that someone is willing to pay money to have them done. People also work because they feel a sense of fulfilment, accomplishment, or identity from the work they are doing. Many companies try to instil that tribal or cult-like mentality into their employees. Last year I was working for a client (that I hated) where there was a team who as far as I could tell, their entire job was to put together a management report for some mid-level executive. They were very proud of their ability to create this report each month. The thing is, it seemed like such a pointless and useless (and time consuming) exercise. I couldn’t tell how senior any of these people were because they all had big titles like “sr vice president” but they were all the same level with few or no direct reports. The report was manually cobbled together from exports out of an old project tracking system and notes from the various project managers and used to update some Powerpoint slides. Each month, this report was presented to a group of more senior executives, but there never seemed to be any planning, decisions or actions that came out of these meetings. It seemed like the most pointless, bureaucratic exercise to me. Forget AI. This entire process (such that it needed to exist at all) could have been accomplished with a Tableau or PowerBI dashboard, some APIs and better discipline entering project status into these systems. But these people had a weird sense of pride about doing it. I wonder with so much real tasks being automated, the corporate workplace will become even more of a tribal, cult-like construct. A sort of “bullshit jobs” factory where the “right sort of people” are selected to participate in performing various tasks and rituals to demonstrate loyalty and like-minded thinking that have little to do with the design, manufacture, and sales of the actual products (such as the company even has them). ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/118 "2025-04-18T10:46:50Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > All that aside, a society where no one needs to work for a living would probably be weirdly isolating. A lot of human interaction is the result of people working together or conducting various business transactions throughout the day. We already live in a society where much of those transactions are now handled through web sites and automated workflows. This is true. There’s already something of a “loneliness epidemic” and I can tell you as someone taking a career sabbatical, it makes a big difference. I have been doing as many social activities and vounteer work as I would likely do under a UBI, but I am not making nearly as many personal connections as I did when I was doing a 9-5 and had to speak to clients, and obligatory pub after work etc. Not that I’m feeling lonely; I’m not really wired that way. But it is a consideration for wider society. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525/119 "2025-04-18T12:06:11Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Automation would certainly be necessary to remove the tyranny of work entirely, but it’s not the whole answer. In a world where nobody had to work, there would also be a lot of people doing productive work. People need not only a livelihood, but also a vocation. If people didn’t have to spend so much time on their livelihoods, they’d have more time to spend on their vocations. > > Now, granted, a lot of people would choose to pursue various forms of art, that don’t meet the lower tiers of human need, but we don’t really need that much of the lower tiers of need. And even there, some people will still meet those lower needs, just because they want to. Right now, there are already people who do things like grow vegetable gardens, not because they’d starve without them, but just because they like doing it. And if people were free from need, more people would do that. This is my feeling also and one of the reasons I think it would be useful to start forming more collaborative type message boards and social media groups. Advocates and teachers would have a special place in society. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-of-ending-the-need-to-work-for-a-living/138525.md?page=5)