How should we reconstruct the world when everything is digital, when robots and computers do ~100% of human labour. If the 100% sounds insane to you, please make note that computers are now generating paintings, music, and text with almost human like levels of quality . Those who thought that they were safe because they are “creative” can be rest assured they are just one trained neural network away from replaced, like the engine replaced the cart puller.
Lets discuss what’s we have to fix: The economic system: If machines farm the land and produce the output, we have get back to the system of commons. Because of our small footprint compared to the earth, tribes could just spread out and forage different areas . We need distribute economic gains, and not distribute, but pre-distribute. Why should money trickle down slowly from a central bank to corporations to people . Let it trickle up from people to businesses to banks. UBI is of course the way out.
The work-day: We don’t have to work 8 hours or at all. This modern notion of the 9-5 for everybody has become a bit too popular. So what should people do? Well whatever they please! Having enough to live doesn’t mean the end of desire, we wouldn’t get empires and business and monumental works of art if people stopped doing things when they had enough to feed themselves . We design days around flow. 2-3 hours of deep work, 1-2 hours of grunt. Ample time for family, leisure, self-improvement, hobbies. Days with a lot of variance . People living like farmers instead of hamsters.
Organization: In recent times, we only think of business as the primary type of organization, with some corporations today exercising wielding power over states. With lowered financial constraints, we can allow people to associate for more than just their livelihoods . R&D groups, art collective, Movie marathoners, you name it.
Self-conception: What was your quirky hobby can become you and your job becomes your quirky hobby. They become indistinguishable. The taxonomised existence where you are known by a profession because that’s how we decide how much taxes we collect from you, ceases to exist . Back to fluidity and illegibility.
Conception of corporations: With most intellectual property living as code, it needs much less upkeep. Once you hit product market fit, barring pressure from market evolution and game theoretic competition, you can just let it be. DAOs will form the majority of businesses in the world (by number), not services . Because a DAO is autonomous by definition, maintenance is minimal, and you are free to do other things. Changing the very notion of labour. Even todays tech companies are fundamentally modelled on factories producing output, when they can be labour freeing pieces of stable code.