I thought about it for long. I used to believe life without work was a goal, but I've revised the idea since.
I think the problem is what we today call work. IMO working comes from helping the group you live with, and it's not just work it's teamwork with the shared pleasure of partnering to insure survival. Ideally it's a lot more meaningful, you care about others, they care about you, you know why you do things it's a nice emotional flow.
Today, everything is cut into pieces and decoupled, we work for our economy, which is an abstract entity that doesn't even really bring back the energy into you.
We do like work, we all do, we all love to craft, whether it's clothes, furnitures, devices, landscaping, treehouses, visual arts, musical arts ... as we love to share and learn.
It's the disembodiment of it that makes it a pain.
In a society without hard requirement for work, we'd probably enjoy leisure for a while and then seek new ventures to explore. A form of soft competition would probably emerge too. Which is always "nice" since it tickles a lot of our emotions. And ventures + competition seems a lot like business.
That's clearly where many people find satisfaction, but when contemplating the future of work, please please don't overgeneralise. There's always been a group who find their satisfaction in (to a greater or lesser extent) "self-sufficiency". For me, the constant refrain of "team" is exactly the thing that makes the contemporary workplace taxing.
Sure, I didn't think about this much. One question: have you never found a pleasurable collaboration ? Let's say I'm a bit like you, and often had issues in workplace and was way more efficient when alone after colleagues were gone. I also fondly remember the best moments of college to be peer programming. We were sweating like musicians at a concert, a never ending relay of ideas and problems.
Back to the question, maybe an hybrid structure where everyone can follow its own ideas as independantly as he needs to but can also gather around to share once in a while. (sounds like research conferences :)
Yes, I've enjoyed collaboration -- but almost always when it's reasonably coarse-grained, i.e. split a problem up then go [at least] several days without constant re-synchronization.
But still think the biggest satisfaction for me comes from self-sufficiency.
Note that I'm into frugal/minimal self sufficiency quite a bit too. My brain enjoys having a clear and generic view on things, oherwise I often feel distressed by relying on trust and obscurity.
"Teamwork" meaning that the result of your work is appreciated and useful to others. Not necessarily that you actually did the work in a team, especially not the kind of BS "team" in modern office environments.
The aristocracy can be a great subject of study for a post-work society. In the majority of cases, they seemed to be perfectly happy living a life of leisure.
Prestige or social standing may be an important part of the formula as agumonkey says. There are native communities that haven't done well while getting large amounts of oil revenue (or basic income.) So being able to accord that may be more important than the money itself, for happiness. Once upon a time churches and monasteries were pretty good at this; not the only path but it shows it can be done.
Good point, very good point. One tiny point of potential disagreement, aristocracy may get pleasure from their social status. In a world where we're all aristocrats would it still be a pleasure ?
> I think the problem is what we today call work. IMO working comes from helping the group you live with, and it's not just work it's teamwork with the shared pleasure of partnering to insure survival. Ideally it's a lot more meaningful, you care about others, they care about you, you know why you do things it's a nice emotional flow.
I think this is a slightly myopic. It doesn't speak to life choices like becoming a modern hermit. Honestly, I prefer solitary contemplation much more than collaboration. Of course, I need socialization for feedback, but working with a team is less sublime.
This is a very nice description of Marx's theory of alienation. It is exactly the same idea.
I also agree completely, and have noticed that in the tech industry the stereotypical path is to find it absurd in your early twenties and accept it as obvious fact by the time you are in your mid-30's.
> It's the disembodiment of it that makes it a pain.
I think the problem is what we today call work. IMO working comes from helping the group you live with, and it's not just work it's teamwork with the shared pleasure of partnering to insure survival. Ideally it's a lot more meaningful, you care about others, they care about you, you know why you do things it's a nice emotional flow.
Today, everything is cut into pieces and decoupled, we work for our economy, which is an abstract entity that doesn't even really bring back the energy into you.
We do like work, we all do, we all love to craft, whether it's clothes, furnitures, devices, landscaping, treehouses, visual arts, musical arts ... as we love to share and learn.
It's the disembodiment of it that makes it a pain.
In a society without hard requirement for work, we'd probably enjoy leisure for a while and then seek new ventures to explore. A form of soft competition would probably emerge too. Which is always "nice" since it tickles a lot of our emotions. And ventures + competition seems a lot like business.