The current system will just lead to a continued and ever more absurd growth in the service sector. In the end 95% of the population will be cutting each others' hair and saying nice things to each other for money. With the most detail and attention dedicated to the 5% that actually does useful stuff, then trickling down. It does sound absurd, doesn't it? But we're already getting there. Does your kitchen really need a marble counter top? No, but you want to feel important/worthy enough to have a luxurious lifestyle, and a luxurious lifestyle includes a marble counter top, so you get one. Replace "kitchen" and "marble counter top" with whatever you want to.
The two great expanding economic sectors of the future I foresee is conspicuous consumption (luxury cars, clothes) and emotional prostitution (massages, photoshoots, personal trainers). Indeed, prostitutes are a great example of this. High-end prostitutes earn as much as doctors and lawyers, all for providing emotional support for their clients/johns. They are the ultimate modern workers, in my opinion, and most of us will be following in their footsteps soon enough.
> In the end 95% of the population will be cutting each others' hair and saying nice things to each other for money. With the most detail and attention dedicated to the 5% that actually does useful stuff, then trickling down.
Your claim here is based on the utterly false dichotomy that says that helping someone's self image (cutting their hair) and improving their emotional state (saying nice things to them) are not useful.
These things are all useful, it's just that the ones you decry are higher up on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. That's a good sign: it means that our lower needs are already being met so we can focus on higher desires and aspirations.
Personally, a world where most people spend their "work" helping other actualize themselves instead of scraping rocks out of mines or digging up food and barely subsisting sounds like a pretty good improvement to me.
> The two great expanding economic sectors of the future I foresee is conspicuous consumption (luxury cars, clothes)
As prices tend towards zero, it's no longer conspicuous consumption. The whole point of conspicuous consumption is to show your wealth by throwing it away. You can't be a conspicuous consumer of Taco Bell, and if automation leads us to a world where granite countertops cost as much as a fast food burrito, then choosing one is just a matter of personal preference and self-expression.
> and emotional prostitution (massages, photoshoots, personal trainers).
You say that like it's a bad thing, but you could also lump therapists, psychiatrists, counsellors, and many clergy-members in there too. What's so bad about a job that helps someone's emotional well-being?
Paying for someone to say nice things about you is pretty similar to paying to a prostitute to sleep with you ,and eating junk food instead of eating decent food.
We as a society should aim for more, and not diminish ourselves to satisfy the market.
>Your claim here is based on the utterly false dichotomy that says that helping someone's self image (cutting their hair) and improving their emotional state (saying nice things to them) are not useful.
I do think they're useful, it's just that a universal wage would be better. The useful/useless thing was just hyperbole. Sorry.
>As prices tend towards zero, it's no longer conspicuous consumption.
Then you get servants and an entourage. Point still stands.
> In the end 95% of the population will be cutting each others' hair and saying nice things to each other for money. With the most detail and attention dedicated to the 5% that actually does useful stuff, then trickling down.
To me, it will be more like the 0.001% who controls the robot-making-robots and their 0.099% sidekicks/enablers ripping off the 0.9% who control the robots doing actually useful stuff, and deflecting towards them the anger of the other 99% once the tricking down does not show up.
Oh wait... no need to have any robots in this tale.
