951
Bill Gates says a 3-day work week where 'machines can make all the food and stuff' isn't a bad idea (www.businessinsider.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world
256 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Bill Gates says a 3-day work week where 'machines can make all the food and stuff' isn't a bad idea::"A society where you only have to work three days a week, that's probably OK," Bill Gates said.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 52 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Sounds great. Only question is how we get paid well enough to live. A question which went conveniently unasked and unanswered.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 20 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    We should stop measuring our productivity in hourly and need to go back to salary well paying positions, or everyone needs to share the costs with UBI instead.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Good luck convincing companies to change anything that won't make them more money. I think the only way it can happen is with UBI, hopefully funded by the hoarded assets of the few biggest companies and billionaires where all the money is getting accumulated.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [+] -9 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Salaried wages don't make sense for a whole lot of positions tho - like you'd have 0 manufacturing employees.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    "machines can make all the food and stuff"

    Don't see any reason why we couldn't have maintainence and repair robots as well, so what manufacturing employees?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] -2 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

    There will, for all of the foreseeable future, be a human element in every manufacturing or farming process.

    AI can beat replace repeatable behaviors. There will always be someone on-site to address outlier situations.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    Bill Gates supports higher capital gains taxes as well as EITC which is a form of Negative Income Tax, and in his hypothetical we're going to need a lot of engineers and mechanics to make it work. He also says a UBI could work if automation production increases in the coming decade or so, but he doesn't currently support it.

    You might think "OH BUT EITC DOESNT REALLY HELP THE POOR BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO HOLD A JOB" but the thing is for businesses to stay open more than 3 days a week they would need to start hiring more people for less hours per week.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •