Fully automated luxary communism

Fully automated luxury communism or FALC is aiming towards replacing humans and having machines do the work instead. In Erik Brynjolfsson's view "A world of increasing abundance, even luxury, is not only possible, but likely... Many of the things we consider to be necessities today- phone service, automobiles, Saturdays off- were luxuries of the past." The essence of Brynjolfsson's statement is that our society will continue to technologically advance its inevitable. I agree that our world will continue to technologically advance because of how many technological advances we have as of 2015. Take cellphones, for example, as time has passed they have developed into something so technologically advanced that, as Brynjolfsson points, is something we use to see as a luxury, but in today society is something we need to have. As time passes technology is something that will continue to grow and advance, and the thought of having robots that do the work for us is something I can see happening.

Fully automated luxury communism is the belief that machines take over the work force and do the hard work while employment no longer exists. Bastani says "There is a tendency in capitalism to automate labor, to turn things previously done by humans into automated functions." Meaning everything a person can do a machine built can do better than a human and eventually replace him or her. I agree that everything done by humans has been turned into an automated function because now a days you don't even have to type you just speak and the computer or phone does it for you.

smart, lazy humans

"the robots are coming for our jobs" this is one of the sentence that most caught my attention in the article "fully automated luxury communism", in my opinion, the meaning of this, is that we humans, have advanced in technology so quick that when we expect the least, that same technology that we've created, is going to take control over all the things we use to do, for example, our jobs. Now a days, we see and use technology almost on everything, new computers, new phone, new everything. All of this creations are intent to help us out in our daily basis, in other words, to make our lives easier, but the biggest consequence we are getting out of our hard work, is that we are becoming lazy, and in the future, we are not the ones that are going to control the world, our new machines are.


Another thing that terrifies me, is that humans are going to be useless, we are all going to cut our hours of work to maybe 10-12 per week, because a machine is going to be doing our job, having said this, I do not know where are we going to get the money to sustain our families from, or what is going to happen with our lives; yes maybe we are going to have more free time, but as where I know, humans are not used to that.

 

I Fame

I really believe in this article, we are depending too much on technology, we are lost when the power goes out because even our houses are nothing but technology. Nobody uses gas stoves anymore and that is not good when it comes to power outages, to be able to use anything everyone needs a plug for just 8 hours of life when batteries give you months of life. Our greatest creations will be the end of us, and we need to get back out there and stick with what we know. We can't rely on jammed mechanical pencils we need to rely on wooden pencils, we can't rely on the flashlights on our phones we need to rely actual flashlights. We are advancing so fast that when it comes to needing to use a house phone nobody is going to know how.

Lazy Luxury

The online article discussed the problem with the want for luxury versus the reality of what you already have in life. People are becoming lazy as time goes by and I believe this is because the people who are discovering new ideas and producing new technologies are not thinking about how their decision will impact the newer generations to come up. Robots are becoming more common in the world and they are placed in every available field that is open. A hover board, for example, is making people lazy. People who own one of these is more likely to ride down a ramp or an elevator rather than taking the stairs. They are less likely to get the exercise they need but will continue to use these hover boards because of the temporary fame and praise of the object. In luxury, people will expect more but perform less depending on how they feel about their job. They will let the machines do all the work and sit back until the machine needs to be restocked or a jam has occurred. 

IRobot

Brian Merchant, a senior editor of Motherboard and VICE science and technology channel had a goal in life. In my opinion what Brian Merchant tried doing is just taking away job opportunities for the blue collar workers. In this article it says, "The robots, they say, are coming for our jobs." Knowing that the robots can't work a white collar jobs and the technically speaking most blue collar workers are not as wealthy as the white collar workers. Therefore, if robots do take over our jobs it'll be the blue collar workers. At the the same time it can be helpful, but also it can be a controversy about the robots taking away our jobs. Even though Brian is trying to make our society easier, but he has to be universal and think more outside the box.

Quote Sandwich

Brian Merchant, a senior editor of VICE, wrote an article about Aaron Bastani’s view of work being done by non-humans. Merchant talks about how Bastani and other luxury communist see a post work society, “where machines do the heavy lifting not for the profit but for the people.” (Merchant). In other words, Bastani believes that this technological development of machines working for humans is a perfect vision for a post work society. He believes that replacing humans with machines will reduce the amount of work that is required by humans to do. Although I agree with Bastani up to a point I cannot accept his suggestion that automation will replace wage labor in society, especially those who are hard driven and motivated to work hard their long hours.

Compare and Contrast

The Futile Pursuit of the American Dream by Barbara Ehrenreich and To Work Better, Work Less by Cody Delistraty both represent having similar ideas. For example, Ehrenreich writes in her essay about the American dream and how much people work in order to live out this so called dream. They work long hours and work all the time just to have this certain lifestyle. As is the case with Delistraty in his essay he talks about how some people work long hours just so they can say they work long hours. Some even work these long hours and have theses jobs because it makes people perceive them a certain way. For instance, "Busyness implies hard work, which implies good character, a strong education, and either present or future affluence." Although both authors could agree on that aspect they both have differences as well. For example, in Ehrenreich essay she works undercover to attain this "white collar job" in order to see how it really is, and how it has changed over time. While Delistraty is arguing that for people to work better they must work less. In the end, both authors can agree on some concepts, but both have very ideas or points they are trying to make.

In the essay, The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, Barbara first discusses how poverty is almost become common and how people who are hardworking and even well educated still have to face this struggle. She talks about her own personal story and how she had to handle being unemployed. Unemployment rates seem to increase daily and it is a constant struggle for anyone. It not only affects the basic standard needs of living but one's pride as well. In the essay, Everything That Rises Must Converge, is about a woman who once was considered wealthy to then becoming poor. She had to adapt to not having the same luxuries or live in the same house and have the same lifestyle. This change, changed her. She wanted to continue to feel as if she was better and above everyone else although she was now in the same economic state as most of the people she encountered.

The pursuit of the American Dream, and  Your lifestyle Has Already Been Designed, go together. Graff Birkenstein the Author of The Pursuit of the American Dream tells us about the struggle of some trying to reach this so called American Dream. Birkenstein has researched and gone undercover through the white and blue collar work force. Birkenstein's first thought of course the white collar work class would be less physically demanding, but also less stressful. This differs a lot from his final thought in his novel "As it turns out, I was wrong on all counts". Graff sees now that the white collar work requires a lot of off the clock work. Now in, Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed we read from David Cain and see how actually our whole life is set up. He explains the normal work day for a 9-5 employee, and the struggles of them. Cain understand the hard work week and what it requires as does Graff, however maybe its because of Graff's explanation on why we do the things we do leads to the unhappiness of the white collar workers. Everyone thinks they get the job they need and work the 9-5 however they don't think about all the extra hours that is required. So in our mindset through our begging of ones life is we go and do what is needed and then all we need to work is a simple 8 hour day. However after reaching the point of getting the job reality kicks in and this invisible curtain is removed from sight. Now the white collar worker sees how much work is actually needed and becomes depressed because we believe our life is going to be designed a certain way due to past accomplishments, however that always inst the case.

compare and contrast

Both The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream by Barbara Ehrenreich and the essay "To Work Better, Work Less" by Cody Delistraty are both very similar in some aspects. For example, both essays talk about the overworking hours just to make in in life. Delistraty says "Some low-income workers are forced to work long hours or multiple jobs just to make ends meet." I personally know people who work long hours just to have food on the table and a roof over their head. Ehrenreich says "...Americas intractable level of poverty...on the chronically low wages offered to nonprofessional workers.". Even though both have a similarity on talking about the high working hours, both essays have a lot of differences. Delistraty's essay is talking about how people work long hours because its more of a culture in the U.S for us to be working long hours to benefit ourselves. But in Enrenreich's essay she is talking about how her experiences going undercover as a college graduate is completely different than what she remembered. Both essays are very powerful and gave me a reality check of the things i could encounter when i graduate from college.

Work Life

I believe that in the essay The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream and To Work Better, Work Less both have similiar comparisons of some points within of working long hours. There are multiple reasons for working long hours and some of us are known to overwork themselves and never have time for leisure time at home. Cody Delistraty, explains why people overwork themselves and some causes of that. He states, “…as focus simply cannot be sustained for much more than 50 hours a week…. Of course, some low-income workers are forced to work long hours or multiple jobs just to make ends meet.” We don’t often choose to want to work long hours although because of needed the money we would do what it ever it takes to get what we need. In the essay The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream by Barbara Ehrenreich she oversees a reasoning why some over work themselves by “overemployment”. She states of another author, Juliet Schor, “stressed-out white-collar employees who put in ten-to twelve-hour-long days at the office, continue to work on their laptops in the evening at home and remain tethered to the office by cell phone even on vacations and holidays.” She stresses that even when one needs or has a day off we are always connected to our job, for the need to be on top to get a higher pay with the current job. No amount of hours are enough to be in the place that they need to be at to have the necessities needed.

Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (comment)

I agree that we live in a society that leaves us wanting more because my life experience confirms it. In David Cane's view "We've been led into a culture that has been engineered to leave us tired, hiugnry for indulgence, willing to pay a lot for convenience and entertainment, and most importantly, vaguely dissatisfied with our lives so that we continue wanting things we don't have. We buy so much because it always seems like something is still missing." In other words, Cane believes that the society we live in makes people spend money on things we don't need and value materialist things. When we should spend our time enjoying life, and on things that bring meaning to our lives.

Time Consuming

Reading this article by David Cain, he expresses his own real life experience. He mentions a lot of himself. Being away for a really long period of time and coming back to work again is a challenge to get back to the working environment. One of the paragraphs mentioned forty-hour work week. The average is about thirty hours. Myself, I worked twenty three hours and still complained. David says that people who works forty hours a week doesn't quite have the time for social life. “I’ve only been back at work for a few days, but already I’m noticing that the more wholesome activities are quickly dropping out of my life: walking, exercising, reading, meditating, and extra writing.” People need exercise, chill days, and more importantly they need time for themselves.

Money is a Drug

After reading this article and thoroughly thinking about the topic my first thought was, money is a drug. Isn't it? people make money then want to make more money in any way we can. Money can be a negative and positive factor in everyday life. It can give you money to take your family and or friends out to have fun or you can be so worn out from working all day that all you want to do is sit down and then do nothing to just get back up again to go back to work to make more money. Is this really what makes the world go around? The addiction to money? the desire to want more? I believe that we were put not his earth to leave it better than we found it and if money is overtaking that factor then what are we all doing here? I personally agree money is great, but you can't take it with you when you are gone. Even when people leave this earth the memories remain. Memories that you make with the people you love in everyday life. You can not make these memories if you work your fingers to the bone everyday to make money to save that you will never spend. Money is the source to most evil. People kill, sell drugs, and will do unforgivable things for money. But at the end of the day i think the real question is why does money mean so much to all of us?

Who actually thought about it?

Reading this article really opened my eyes to something that I never payed attention or saw. The author talks about people doing all these things like spending money without even really thinking about it. I do all these things and I know everyone around me that works does it too because if we have time and money to spend, we will spend it. Its almost a natural reaction because when people go to hangout with their friends, they spend money like its nothing. The author also said, "While I was abroad I wouldn’t have thought twice about spending the day wandering through a national park or reading my book on the beach for a few hours." Most people don't want to do any of these things after a long day of work and school because they would rather just sleep. Most people would think of that as a waste of time and instead of actually walking around and reading, we would rather go out with friends to go out and eat, resulting is shedding out money.

Time Will Tell

In the text, Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed, I noticed that the writer states a lot of reasons why we spend money the way we, Americans, do. We are trying to fill in empty spaces with things we don’t need because the sources are available to us and we have the money to get what we want when we want it. The author talks about how we are also given a lot more time than we need in order to finish a task that could be completed in possibly half of the given time. He states the Parkinson’s Law and says, “the more time you’ve been given to do something, the more time it will take you to do it.” If I am given a week to wash five loads of clothes I would maybe take my time and do one load a day instead of finishing all the clothes in one day even though the task is possible to complete in less than a full day. 

Does one work better, if they work less?

In the Atlantic article by Cody he discusses the unique ways of Parisian people and how they take off for an entire month whereas Americans would rather work overtime. Now there has been many experiments tested around this idea of working less for instance if an individual has homework for several subjects they give themselves a time limit for each subject, so that they won't get tired and find themselves slacking off instead. I also understand why this idea should be past down into the work force since it would benefit the employees, the owners, and the consumers that use the product. Sadly I don't see this idea passing off well in the United States mainly because people in this country don't mind overtime because the extra money especially for those living paycheck to paycheck. Also if employees were to riot for this type of change businesses could easily fire them all and find workers for cheaper through globalization. So yes people do work better if they work less and it can lead you to not working at all.

I disagree with the essay because I too believe as in what the article says "busyness implies hard work, which implies good character, a strong educator, and either present or future affluence." I think if we were to take time off work we would then become lazy and not discipline ourselves. The article suggests that if we were to get technology to do our work for us we can work less but the problem is you would screw yourself over by giving up your job completely to a computer because it can do a faster and efficient job than you. I believe working builds character and working overtime can benefit you to succeed.

I do agree with this essay. A lot of people not only hate their jobs but work too much, and I think that working too much can make you hate your job. Like this quote from the text, "work less, and you'll tend to work better", its stating that taking some time off or working part time can make you enjoy your job more and do better at your job because you are not over worked. If you over work yourself you will tend to become tired or working of course, and start disliking you job even if it is something you've dreamed of doing since you were young. People should work at a moderate paste to continue to enjoy or at least not dread their jobs.

i work a lot

The title of this article: “to work better, work less” is pretty self-explanatory, it talks about how the time you spend working relates to the quality of the work you do; also the productive you are in between those hours. I personally liked Parkinson’s Law which states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion; if one wants to get the work done fast, and get tired quickly, one needs to realize that even if they finish early, they still need to cover the same amount of hours finding something extra to do, this is why, one should work less and work better. In my case, when I am at work, I already know the tasks I have to complete in certain amount of hours, it is my decision to choose a working rate. On the weekends, I work 8 hours shifts, from 1 pm to 7 pm, I start with a lot of energy, but after doing the same thing over and over I get tired and the only thing I have in my mind, is leaving the place and go home and rest.

The article also emphasizes the big percentage of people who overwork shifts without a necessity, and the reasonable explanation for this, is that they feel lost without the structure of work to support their daily lives. This in when one chooses work over everything else, and it is understandable if one really loves their job, and don’t mind spending hours after hours on it, but we also have to make sure that we are doing the best on it and being productive, because when one person spends more than 48 hours a week working, they start causing errors, as professor Anders Ericsson states.

Comment Only

I agree with the values expressed in this article regarding the concept that if people worked less then we would work better and be more productive. Delistraty made an accurate statement that others and myself can often relate to when he mentioned, "working long hours often leads to productivity-killing distractions. I personally find this to be true because at times while I'm at work I tend to get bored and turn to my phone. Social media and text messages quickly catch my attention as my focus is now on that instead of being productive to my duty at work. Another thing Delistraty mentions is that working too much leads to "disengagement at work". I agree with this because after working long hours we tend to lose interest in what we are doing and not being engaged causes productivity to diminish. The amount of time we work affects the quality of work.