alt Hacker News> we should not have to work to eat
It takes time and effort and resources to produce the food you eat. If you aren't expending that time and effort and resources yourself, either to produce the food, or to produce something you can trade for it (or trade for money you use to buy it), who will?
If the answer is "other people", why should other people have to work to produce the food you eat while you don't?
If the answer is "machines", then it takes time and effort and resources to produce the machines, and we're right back to the same question.
There are no other answers.
There is no magical way to let people eat (much less have all the other things besides food, clothing and shelter that we all want to make our lives richer, such as the medium in which we're having this conversation) without work being done. Ignoring that fact of life is a recipe for disaster.
Replies
You give the answer then skip past it.
We are looking at a foreseeable future where machines do all the work.
You are saying all the benefits from those machines should go to those who invested their capital to create them, forever. And those without capital to invest in those machines will have nothing.
Why is that a good system?
Fair enough, we are no where near post-scarcity levels of automation yet despite what frontier lab marketing says.
But still, there are more people on the planet than necessary for all of the "meaningful" work of providing for society. It would be a good thing, with the proper safety nets and protections in place (something like UBI) to have a lot of the "bullshit" jobs automated away. That leaves us into a situation like I said that "no, not everyone has to work" nor should we just force everyone to work my effectively making up roles. If half or more of the population finds themselves unemployed due to AI/Automation, the answer shouldn't be make-work "dig a ditch then fill it back up" it should be use our new found productivity and surplus to just take care of everyone's needs without it being tied to employment.