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Anyone who has spoken to me at length or has read my Poem (Let Me Off This Nightmare) knows that I'm a proponent of resource based economies (Venus Project). I ran into a very intelligent man yesterday that brought up a very interested hurdle that I never considered. He pointed out that life purpose for men especially is found in their work. That the death rate increases drastically when men retire. Thus it can be expected that death rates amongst men will increase in a resource based economy. I pondered on this for awhile and found it upsetting to think that men have been raised to find purpose in work and not in life. It's upsetting to think if you give a man complete freedom in his life that he would in turn find life pointless. When considering resource based economies I thought the largest obstacles we faced were personal ego and lack of technology. Turns out we have another massive obstacle.
Here is how I see resource based economies coming to forwishen. Technology has reached the precipice where it is no longer creating jobs, but eliminating them (Further Info). An estimated 8.7 million jobs in the US will be eliminated by 2021 through automation. What happens to those families that rely on those incomes to survive? What are the ramifications on wages, crime, suicide rates, the health care system, mental health and welfare? This is an insurmountable problem facing the United States and the world. The options I can see are that we allow those families to starve and die off, start a Universal Basic Income System, create pointless jobs or increase wages and decrease hours. Obviously the first option is not going to happen no one is going to let 8.7 million families starve and die. That leaves us with the other three options.
With a Universal Basic Income system we would run into the death rate amongst men increase scenario. Eventually we would find that there is no point to money at all and naturally would slip into a resource based economy, because we would realize the benefits to our environment and product quality. In a resource based economy there is no corporation that needs to survive, thus eliminating planned obsolescence. Products would be designed to last in order to minimize the use of resources. In short products would be a much higher quality.
Creating pointless jobs would have a massive mental toll on the population. Most pointless jobs are office work. Office jobs can make you 60% more likely to die early. link I don't think it's necessary to explain the mental toll of being away from your family working a job you find pointless. That would be worse than not having a job and you can already see what happens when men don't work. Now imagine they are working without purpose. That is true hell. I couldn't think of anything more torturous.
That leaves wage increase with hourly reduction. Although I don't like the increase in the time line before we get to resource based economies. This would be the best option. It would be similar to slowly wading into the water versus jumping in the deep end. With reduced work hours men would have to find something to fill their free time. I theorize that this would allow them to find purpose outside of work activities such as parenting, agriculture, arts or sports. We would still have an increase in the death rate, but it would be minimized. We could find ways to reduce this further by increasing availability of therapy and decreasing the stigma men have with therapy. As technology eliminated even more jobs decreasing the hours worked per week further and then eventually eliminating the need to work altogether. Then we would move into Universal Income and then slip into resource based economies.
Either way the next 20 to 30 years are going to drastically change the human dynamic and I personally believe that if we can envision a brighter future we can manifest it. We simply need to see the logical way to get there. Let's start now by releasing our egos and realizing we are no better than anyone and they are no better than us. Let's respect one another. Find unity in our suffering we call a human experience. Let's create Peace and Love on this rock and water covered space ship we call Earth.
I Love You All
Anyone who has spoken to me at length or has read my Poem (Let Me Off This Nightmare) knows that I'm a proponent of resource based economies (Venus Project). I ran into a very intelligent man yesterday that brought up a very interested hurdle that I never considered. He pointed out that life purpose for men especially is found in their work. That the death rate increases drastically when men retire. Thus it can be expected that death rates amongst men will increase in a resource based economy. I pondered on this for awhile and found it upsetting to think that men have been raised to find purpose in work and not in life. It's upsetting to think if you give a man complete freedom in his life that he would in turn find life pointless. When considering resource based economies I thought the largest obstacles we faced were personal ego and lack of technology. Turns out we have another massive obstacle.
Here is how I see resource based economies coming to forwishen. Technology has reached the precipice where it is no longer creating jobs, but eliminating them (Further Info). An estimated 8.7 million jobs in the US will be eliminated by 2021 through automation. What happens to those families that rely on those incomes to survive? What are the ramifications on wages, crime, suicide rates, the health care system, mental health and welfare? This is an insurmountable problem facing the United States and the world. The options I can see are that we allow those families to starve and die off, start a Universal Basic Income System, create pointless jobs or increase wages and decrease hours. Obviously the first option is not going to happen no one is going to let 8.7 million families starve and die. That leaves us with the other three options.
With a Universal Basic Income system we would run into the death rate amongst men increase scenario. Eventually we would find that there is no point to money at all and naturally would slip into a resource based economy, because we would realize the benefits to our environment and product quality. In a resource based economy there is no corporation that needs to survive, thus eliminating planned obsolescence. Products would be designed to last in order to minimize the use of resources. In short products would be a much higher quality.
Creating pointless jobs would have a massive mental toll on the population. Most pointless jobs are office work. Office jobs can make you 60% more likely to die early. link I don't think it's necessary to explain the mental toll of being away from your family working a job you find pointless. That would be worse than not having a job and you can already see what happens when men don't work. Now imagine they are working without purpose. That is true hell. I couldn't think of anything more torturous.
That leaves wage increase with hourly reduction. Although I don't like the increase in the time line before we get to resource based economies. This would be the best option. It would be similar to slowly wading into the water versus jumping in the deep end. With reduced work hours men would have to find something to fill their free time. I theorize that this would allow them to find purpose outside of work activities such as parenting, agriculture, arts or sports. We would still have an increase in the death rate, but it would be minimized. We could find ways to reduce this further by increasing availability of therapy and decreasing the stigma men have with therapy. As technology eliminated even more jobs decreasing the hours worked per week further and then eventually eliminating the need to work altogether. Then we would move into Universal Income and then slip into resource based economies.
Either way the next 20 to 30 years are going to drastically change the human dynamic and I personally believe that if we can envision a brighter future we can manifest it. We simply need to see the logical way to get there. Let's start now by releasing our egos and realizing we are no better than anyone and they are no better than us. Let's respect one another. Find unity in our suffering we call a human experience. Let's create Peace and Love on this rock and water covered space ship we call Earth.
I Love You All
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