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In the future, we will all be on permanent vacation

Here is an intriguing question: what will the world (and the economy) look like when there simply aren't enough jobs to go around? When we have a 50% unemployment rate due to the fact that the majority of the workforce has been replaced by robots or automated kiosks?

Well, today the world economy is built around the fact that you get paid when you work, and that pay is spent to get food, housing, stuff, pleasure and entertainment.

So what happens when you don't work, or get fired? You don't get paid. At best, you get some sort of welfare until you find a new job. What then if there simply are no jobs around...

Marshall Brain has written an interesting essay, describing a world where the workforce mainly consists of robots. We will get there, it seems inevitable. The benefits are apparent:

If you think about it, robots are a very good thing. Human beings should not be driving trucks, flipping burgers or scrubbing toilets. These activities represent a massive waste of human potential. The question is: what will these tens of millions of people do to make a living when their tens of millions of jobs evaporate? What will happen to the economy when the unemployment rate reaches 30% or 40%?

Looking at it from the perspective of the employer, having staff that never argues, never complains, always do their job with the same efficiency... ...twentyfour hours a day, seven days a week for zero salary... Yeah, it is inevitable.

We better build those nanotechnology food collectors building food out of thin air that Joe Haldeman describes in his excellent Forever series so we can provide free food to those that can't find a job.

Robotic Nation, by Marshall Brain