> Why would I even bother with a hobby when a robot can do everything 10x better?

Because you enjoy doing it. It is about the journey, not the destination. It always was and will be.

> what the future looks like when we literally have nothing to do

Human life is about finding meaning. Go to a book club, learn sailing, dance at a beach, practice blacksmithing, learn to draw the best circle you can freehand, give a trully world class massage. Just ideas from the top of my head. I’m sure you can come up with even better ones.

> Human life is about finding meaning

All of the things you list are, in the hypothetical scenario, better done by robots. Therefore, they don’t serve any purpose by truly serving anyone or adding any value to society etc. Most people don’t ascribe any deeply satisfying meaning to mere personal enjoyment, so in this scenario what is the basis for extracting meaning from any human labor?

> the hypothetical scenario, better done by robots

How come? How is “going to a book club” going to be “better done by robots”? It is not an activity where there is an objective quality metric. If you enjoyed reading the book, and then enjoyed talking about the book, and had a good time then you did the book club right. Even if we have a robot which reads the book faster, extracts deeper meanings from it, and has a more engaging conversation about it you can still enjoy the act of doing it yourself.

Same with sailing. It is not necessarily the most efficient, fastest, or optimal way to get from here to there. It is on the other hand a challenge to your mind and body and that gives you satisfaction as you do it. Even if robots are faster, better equiped, or safer sailors they are not you. Only you yourself can can create the experience of sailing by yourself.

I do hobby jewelry. I design my pieces and then cast them, polish them, and gift them to friends. I don’t do it because it is cheaper than buying jewelry (it is very much not). I don’t do it because I’m better at it than others. (Very much not.) I do it because i enjoy the long walks while I’m thinking about a new design. I enjoy the challenge of figuring out how I can make a certain piece. Then i enjoy fidgeting with it until it casts just perfect. Then i enjoy polishing it, patinating it, polishing again, engraving, attaching gems. And finally I enjoy very much putting it in a neat little box and then meeting with a friend and gifting it to them. I also enjoy telling the story of how each piece was made, what things worked and what didn’t. It is a bucket of fun! But here is the thing. Even if robots were obviously better at it than me, i wouldn’t care. Wouldn’t change my enjoyment even a bit. How do i know? Because there are already right today othere who are better at it than I will ever be. Professional foundries make jewelry faster and cheaper I can ever hope to. Amazing and legendary jewellers design designs i could never dream of. Excelent crafters share their stories better than I could. So like why am I doing it? Because i enjoy doing it!

> Most people don’t ascribe any deeply satisfying meaning to mere personal enjoyment

I recommend you work on that. That is all I can say.

What people consider deeply satisfying is very much culturally engrained. Our society conditions us to define our own value mostly in terms of how much value we contribute to others, and to treat personal enjoyment as at least somewhat suspect. But this isn't a universal set of values, not even in our own societies historically.

If you really want to get philosophical about it, what's the point of you serving someone else or adding value to society? Society, after all, is other people just like you. If you're trying to make them happy, why wouldn't you want to also make yourself happy? And if it turns out that we're at a technological point where everyone can keep themselves happy without any effort, why shouldn't we collectively just embrace that as a society?

Because what makes you happy might not be what makes others happy. Spending all day indulging in racism for example. Some people enjoy that.

Once it gets to a point where you can focus all your time on that, what happens?

I can see it already happening in the USA.

Having other people have to rely on each other somewhat holds racism back, for example.

What do you do now when there is nothing you have to do? Are all hobbyists doing it to be "better" than someone else?

If I get to choose between the status quo, where I have to work for 30+ years to have a chance at an uncertain retirement, or spending the rest of my life exploring the question of what to do with my time, I know which I'd pick.

Society is imposing the 30+ year working requirement on us. It's not really required nor as it been for basically ever. We don't need advanced robots to stop that madness.

People still play chess even though computers have been better at it for quite some time now. You could say the same for woodworking or other crafts, people don't start these hobbies to become the best in the world at it, you will probably never be better than someone who has 20 years experience on you but people enjoy learning and building something with their own hands regardless

> what the future looks like when we literally have nothing to do.

Dark. Very dark.

Look at neighborhoods where nobody has anything to do. They aren't places you would want to live, or even spend 5 minutes in.

Selection bias. There is no such thing as "having nothing to do". The "doers" are just preoccupied.

Can't you just enjoy things you like doing? Not everything needs to be a grind or a side hustle.

I do, but I also enjoy the fact I'm making something, what is the point of making something when I can have something else make it. It's similar to deciding to dig up my front yard by hand to build a new garden rather than use a machine. You can do it, but you know it's pointless. Now imagine when EVERYTHING is like that?

It will be strange.

Isn't this the case already? As most people, I don't have the best opinion on contractors, but you can always hire somebody better than you for the job, if you have the money.

I'm into woodworking and carpentry, I don't usually don't hire carpenters because they'll do a better job than me I hire them because I don't have the time to do the job myself.

Fair, but how will robots change that?

Ostensibly there won't be any carpenters to hire because they've all been bankrupted by automated contractor services. This seems like a pretty big change to me.

But how does that change the calculation in the grandposter's reply? You can still do it yourself if you want, or you can hire the automated contractor if you don't have the time or effort.

Clearly it doesn't, but why should I care about, much less prioritize discussing, an individual's DIY proclivities when a potentially much more potent issue is available?

I don't get this feeling... wouldn't you want to play soccer like Messi? Or play guitar like Hendrix? (etc..).

There can be pleasure in being a spectator, but being a performer, at least to me, is 1000 times more fulfilling. I don't care if someone else can do it, even a robot... I want to do that myself! A society with more space for personal ambitions and less need to hustle for food sounds great to me.

You very likely don't have the talent to do those things that well. And now you'll have the time to prove it to yourself beyond any doubt.

"Focus on the journey, not the destination"

I know all this, it's basic common sense, but when you REALLY think about what you're saying, it's still strange.

Likely a humanoid robot will be able to play guitar 1000x better than hendrix, then what's the point in you becoming as good as Hendrix, so you can play guitar for yourself in your basement?

The difference between today and the future is, today there are still things humans can do better than machines and robots, when there isn't, it will be weird.

A robot today can play most video games much better than I do, which is why we have that whole anti-cheat thing for aimbots etc.

Why do people still play video games? And not only that, but do crazy stuff like speedruns or self-imposed limitations that make it borderline impossible to win?

Let me try again, just because I find it almost comical that we so cannot understand each other lol.

Think of your favorite food. Now, replace eating that food with watching someone else eating it. Is that as enjoyable? Now fast forward to 1000 years in the future where robot humanoids are eating your favorite food and turning it into their form of nutrition.

I mean agree to disagree and stuff, but I just cannot for the life of me understand why someone or (some entity) doing something removes from your own pleasure of doing it yourself, your way.

We just see it differently.

My last attempt, cooking for my family. Let's say a robot can make a 100x better dinner than I can, why would my family want me to cook them food, even though I like it?

See what I mean? It's nice you enjoy it, but you're going to be 1% as good as what you could have, so it's likely not going to be worth doing the things you like doing, even if you like the journey?

Your comments imply that you derive self-worth from external validations, i.e, my effort has no worth if someone else can do better.

I think this is an unhealthy world view. I've certainly learned thus after years of therapy. Others derive self-worth from self-validation.

We'll never be fast at math as calculators, yet their exist people who enjoy doing head-math. Doing a jigsaw puzzle has no inherent worth, yet people love doing so. Those people exist so it's a good idea to try to understand their perspective.

Not everyone's idea of fun is "Creating value for others"

Guns are great for hunting, but people still learn archery, because it's fun to shoot an arrow.

Another aspect is human connection: I would prefer eating an average meal made by someone close, rather than an amazing meal made by machine. Machines can't add the special ingredient of love :)

I would love to learn blacksmithing, for the sole reason that forging a sword from an iron/steel ingot is so fucking metal and awesome.

Hobbies are something you do for yourself not others. If you are attracted to cooking then it could be fun to try to recreate the amazing food the robot gives you for free just as a challenge

Inbetween the current world full of labor scarcity, and the philosophical dilemma "what do I even do" post-scarcity utopia, is a world similar to our current one with much less labor scarcity and much more quality of life. That's what we're aiming for right now. What comes afterwards we can worry about then.

Quality of life for who, though? That's kind of the point of all this back and forth isn't it? Because if prior examples are anything to go on the likeliest outcome is we're talking about further increasing QoL for a small minority of individuals who least need it at the expense of basically everyone else.

The ever expanding middle class of course.

According to the Pew Trust (and my own personal observations) the middle class has been shrinking more or less steadily for the last 50 years. Through what mechanism is eliminating existing jobs expected to reverse this trend?

Fairly confident that that was sarcasm.

It was not. Maybe measured in relative terms the middle class is shrinking due to income inequality, but in absolute terms I am fairly confident it is at worst stagnating in America and western Europe. In many parts of the rest of the world there has been an amazing growth of a middle class that didn't exist before in the last decades. Eastern europe and asia of course.

I'm not certain what you base your confidence on given trackable economic and social mobility markers don't support it. Its fascinating that apologists default to some combination of postmodern argle-bargle over defining the term "middle class" and pointing to modest economic successes in what until recently were unambiguously 3rd world countries when a discussion of the middle class in America comes up. I honestly do not understand the perceived relevance of economic outcomes in ex-soviet countries in this context, unless the goal is to provide some kind of cover for neoliberal economic theory, which also seems nonsensical unless one is some form of pundit or politician.

50 years ago a single income family being able to afford to own their home, at least one car in the driveway, school their children, and comfortably save for retirement was the generally accepted definition of "middle class". I honestly can't be bothered to even look up what passes for a more modern definition given regardless of where those goalposts get planted someone's going to argue anything north of abject poverty is "middle class". After having sat a few hundred iterations of that debate I think I can feel my soul trying to leave my body at the mere thought of doing another lap.

One of the things that freaks me out the most about this kind of cognitive-dissonance-fueled shit flinging contest is I am deeply mystified by the notion that there's even anything controversial here. Rural America is not ok. The average cost of a house and a medical degree in the US are approaching parity. The current rise in populism also didn't spontaneously arise, it's a reaction to economic pressure (among other things). How much worse does it have to get before the conversation pivots from "is there a problem" to "k, maybe we should work on some of this"?

You know, it doesn't really matter to the original point. If the middle class is doing okay or if it's struggling, either way household androids and more generally less labor scarcity are exactly the kind of thing that will improve the situation.

Except it will do literally no such thing. The working classes exist because of scarcity of labor, not despite it. Adding labor to the pool dilutes the value of a unit of labor (supply and demand). Only the tiny minority of individuals who own and control capital are positioned to capture any benefits accrued by increased availability of labor.

You can pick up any hobby now and there'll be someone who's 10x better then you at it.

interestingly chess has made a huge comeback recently even though this was a widely-held attitude for a while after Deep Blue.

Engines have reached the point where the best human in the world would be lucky to score one draw and 99 losses in a hundred-game match, but the game isn’t solved (and very likely never will be). I think that if it had been solved, it would have gone the way of checkers. People don’t mind it so much if computers are better than humans at a game so long as the game itself isn’t “trivialized” by being solved.