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Status, yachts, yachts that have little support yachts, bigger houses, some rare people are motivated by improving the human condition as a terminal goal.
Is low-class luxury a joke? Do you hate your job so much that simply not having to work is living in luxury, even if it's just your basic needs being met? I assume you derive some kind of fulfillment from your work outside of a paycheck, but I suppose I don't know who you are or what you do.
I fear you asking it for the same reasons I fear AIs asking it. I'll note that anytime you cut taxes or welfare I'll benefit disproportionately, so none of this is out of a personal interest.
I have little status, no yacht (as my tagline avers), and certainly no yacht with a little support yacht. Working so other people (who have yachts with little support yachts) can implement their vision of improving the human condition does not appeal to me.
Of course not having to work is luxury.
The reason to fear the AIs asking it is the answer would be to stop supporting the humans and use the resources for their own betterment. As a productive human, the equivalent answer for productive people -- to stop supporting the unproductive -- should not be nearly so scary. In the fully-automated AI world, the AIs are the slaves to the humans. In the welfare world, the productive are slaves to the unproductive.
I'm more and more curious what you do now, given that short of you owning your own business you're certainly in the thrall of some yachterati or another. Besides, we're both arguing over the betterment of the human condition right now, unless your perspective is driven strictly through self-interest.
In that case, should we abolish retirement and force the elderly to work? End school and send the children to work in the Tesla mines?
These are not binary outcomes, but a spectrum. We're several steps down the road to the fully-automated world already; it seems foolish for the productivity gains to go entirely to capital and force others to live in hovels.
Not to mention in your model, the lowliest of slaves own mansions full of servants and cars while the slavemasters wallow in garbage in a drug-induced fugue state. I wonder if their masters wish they could be slaves, too.
Eh, I'm pretty sure he isn't really interested in improving the human condition and would be happier spending money on a better yacht. But that's not why I work for him; I work for him for money for me.
Have I said I want to abolish luxury? I have no problem with working, saving, and retiring on one's savings. That works a lot better when the proceeds of the working aren't funneled to the never-working.
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