who needs a cash register job anyway

[blackjedii]

Amazon Go: We’re All F**kedIf you haven’t heard, Amazon just launched a promo for a storefront that sells meal kits and grocery basics with no checkout lines. It’s based in Seattle and currently open to Amazon employees, with the public launch set for early 2017. While Amazon hasn’t explained their “Just Walk Out” technology that powers the

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[amw]

Personally I kind of like the idea of national service. Not because I believe in nationalism (in fact, I am aggressively internationalist), but the idea of doing some kind of work for the community as a part of education just feels right to me somehow. It should be seen as an extension of civics or social studies. I also think organizations like the Peace Corps are fundamentally a good idea. But there are definitely risks and there is a strong ideological argument to be made against any kind of state-sponsored national service.

Unless you are the coldest, meanest libertarian, however, I don't think there is a compelling argument to be made against Universal Basic Income. It is coming.

When I visited Namibia earlier this year it struck me how clean and tidy the place always was. Then I noticed there were several people employed to do a job that in more developed countries would not even be a job at all. Stuff like raking dirt by the side of the road into nice little furrows. I am sure these sorts of jobs are created with the best of intentions, but at the end of the day it is just busywork.

But it's not just in developing countries that you see this. I have worked for 15+ years in the tech industry in several economic powerhouse nations. There are countless jobs - there are even entire companies - that produce nothing of any tangible value. They just push paper around for some other companies to push paper around so that some paper can be pushed around. A huge chunk of the white collar world is just capitalism eating itself.

We have taught generations of people that they are worthless if they don't have a "real" job, and in some countries like America people are even taught to feel guilty if they take a sick day, or a vacation, or maternity leave, or whatever. Part-time workers are seen as less-than, even if they are on their feet all day providing tangible services to the rich. But a full-time white-collar worker is respected, even as he produces absolutely nothing of value to anyone. This is total insanity.

At some point the other shoe is going to drop. Forcing human beings to do work that we don't need to do because technology got there 50-100 years ago is some kind of wackadoodle idea of progress. The only solution to avoid the complete collapse of society is going to be the Universal Basic Income. Imo it is not a question of if any more, it is a question of when.

I read a fairly interesting article that is related a few days back: https://aeon.co/essays/what-if-jobs-are-not-the-solution-but-the-problem

[mutive]

Agreed with all your points.

And a lot of countries do have mandatory national service. Honestly, it seems like a great idea on a lot of levels. Teens get job training, typically, and are forced to branch out in a way they might not in their normal environment. (One of my MBA classmates did his national service in a Holocaust museum in the US where he perfected his English, which I suspect helped him in his later very international career in SE Asia. Needless to say, he picked up a number of other languages along the way.)