Many think that they will pick up hobbies, do the things they never had the time for before and travel and the like, but going on the evidence of most people's current use of free time, this is not the case at all. Most people when given space and opportunity with limited capacity, they use it to consume the work of others. Gaming, Youtube, TV, shows, books, social media and all types of passive activity fill the space of opportunity. What happens when that space is a lifetime long?
Yes, what do "most people" do on their free time? Where's the evidence? Sure, gaming, television, shows, books and social media exist. What do you know about "most people's" use of free time? How does your wife use her free time? Your in-laws? Friends? How passive a use of time is reading a book really? How much do we engage in passive forms of spending our free time because were too tired to do anything else because of our work and family obligations?
Every major civilization in history has had a leisure class. It's not a complete mystery as to what happens when a group of people have the opportunity to do what they please with their time. Some waste it, others find meaningful pursuits.
My wife spends far too long scrolling FB and instagram and her friends are worse. Her parents do sudoku and listen to the radio after working their entire lives til they retired.
The entertainment industry is massive yet, most of the people who spend their money in there are unable to find the time to learn about investing, economy or politics.
US in trillions.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/237749/value-of-the-global-entertainment-and-media-market/
In general, people don't use their resources well which gives room for the AI anyway. Once they have more resources, I don't see te average person changing their habits much. Depression in the world is growing, prescription opiod abuse in white middle class americans is in epidemic proportions as are their deaths with some 17,000 dying from it in 2016. I don't see thses things as indicators of health.
The problem is that we don't actually look at this, we take our own experiences without factoring in what others are experiencing. What people call poor in Finland is very wealthy somewhere else. When 70% are out of work? Things are going to break in ways unimaginable.
One way things may break is women's preferences for mates. For eons, they have valued men as protectors and providers. In advanced civilizations, the protector role is gone. When work is no more, so does the provider role. With time on their hands and robots to help them in all the domestic chores including childcare, women may not need men even for that too much. Men will only have pure entertainment value to them. From what I can tell, most men are pretty terrible in that department from their wives' perspective. lol
One thing we haven't yet discussed is AI-powered virtual worlds. To address all the concerns we can see unfolding before our eyes or can infer virtual worlds of every conceivable description could be created. That's whole another level of possibility (or threat).
Yes. we can see a problem now.
Millenials are having less sex than gen-x. Sad.
random article:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetwburns/2016/08/16/millennials-are-having-less-sex-than-other-gens-but-experts-say-its-probably-fine/#5dcd65ecd958
Many don't want to have sex, they are fulfilled (for the time being) by whatever else they are consuming. They are less socially capable and in worse physical condition. Given that thy have access to the best education, food, resources and information at any time in history, it is pretty appalling.
One thing we haven't yet discussed is AI-powered virtual worlds.
I have written a little about them and is a likely step after augmented reality. advances far enough. Gamified life.
That people don't want as much sex as they used to is appalling? That's exactly what the world needs. Less sex and relationships = fewer babies. The world is very badly overcrowded as it is. Add 4-6 billion and we're going to drown in our own filth.
Women have never been too crazy about sex compared to men. What's driving the non-sex revolution is men. Increasingly, young men want to have nothing to do with sex and relationships for a host of reasons one of which is how they have seen their older relatives or friends get shafted in divorce court. The detrimental effects of consumerism afflict women particularly badly. In the past, women and their gatherer instincts were put to excellent use in a forest close to home. Acted on in a modern shopping mall, they do little but get them to incur debt and add to financial pressure felt by the main breadwinner (still the man in most cases) in search of the next item advertisers have convinced them they must have. Add to that the ever-present media imagery, gossip magazines, the meat market style dating culture and you will get women with their natural hypergamy turned into overdrive. This is particularly horrible in Japan where between a third and a half of young men have totally opted out of relationships. Men are responding to incentives in western countries, too. Through my hobbies I've known guys who are 10-15 years my junior and noticed how much smarter they are about this than my own age cohort was at their age. They're not stupid horndogs or obsessed with any notions of externally defined manliness (they're not without virtue, though) that control them but smart guys with an independent spirit capable of doing cost-benefit analysis.
"They are less socially capable and in worse physical condition. Given that they have access to the best education, food, resources and information at any time in history, it is pretty appalling."
This is appalling. So smart yet, so unhealthy. Look at the numbers of 18 year olds who can't make it through basic army training these days. I am not saying army is great, I am saying that an 18 year old should have some level of physical ability considering their access and means.
This often comes down to social ability also, not just the law. People with low level social skills don't tend to make wise relationship decisions nor handle relationships or breakups as the case may be well either.
THe technological revolution has made social connection a numbers game, that has nothing to do with ability to understand people or, build social relationships. The increasing divorce rate isn't about freedom in my opinion, it is about poor decision making at the outset.
I don't think relationships were any better in our parents' or grandparents' generation despite they did not have Facebook to ruin their social skills. They just couldn't divorce as easily even if they had spouses from hell because of the social stigma of divorce and their lack of economic means.
And have the social skills of the young really been ruined? I seriously doubt that. In some ways, I think, young people have better social skills than my generation. They're more tolerant of individual differences, drink less, and are less violent and criminal.
You think it's just because people marry the wrong people? And that's because they don't bother to get to know their prospective spouses before they tie the knot? I don't think so because cohabiting for years is very common before marriage.
Sexual relationships are a very special kind of social connection. That thing is and has always been much more acutely instict-driven than most of our other relationships. I think the divorce rate is simply a product of longer life expectancy, more freedom and wealth and the fact that we have never been a pure monogamous pair-bonding species. We're somewhere between a tournament and a pair-bonding species. We used to have cultural institutions in place that forced married couples to stay together no matter what but now those institutions have weakened to a great deal. Nature is rearing its head.
I don't think so because cohabiting for years is very common before marriage.
Perhaps they have commitment issues ;)
Just dropping in to say that you had a fascinating discussion :D
The leisure class has the means to do as they choose, that isn't likely to be possible for everyone. Not all can ravel even though they may want to, not all can live on a beach, even though they might want to. The leisure class has wealth, being provided for doesn't necessarily mean access to wealth, just time.
in 20 16, the average for TV per day in the US was just over 5 hours a day. The average for social media was 2 with 45 mins on youtube. consume what others create is what most do with the free time they have it seems. not everyone, but many. When all they have is free time, do they change their behaviour?
That's a good point, although wealth is a relative thing. An unemployed person in a rich country today has a pretty material high standard of living compared to a member of the upper class many hundreds of years ago.
That's an unanswered question. I don't any society has ever seen anything like 80-99% structural unemployment. By the way, I have a little difficulty believing that the average American watches television five hours a day on average on top of using social media for almost three hours. When are Americans supposed to sleep, cook, clean their home, run errands, shop for groceries, look after their children, be present at PTA meetings, take their kids to hobbies and commute to work? Something's off with those numbers. The TV may be on five hours a day in a home with nobody actively watching it most of the time but there simply aren't enough hours in a day to do all that. Kids have school. Americans have very short holidays. And I don't think pensioners watch TV non-stop to bridge the gap.