I’ve been thinking about this for some time now.
With automation comes the reduced need for human workers (besides repairs, etc. which can be done by relatively few people) which then begs the question: What does the rest of the population do to pass the time in our increasing life spans?
I have no idea but Wall-e comes to mind.
Watch "American Idle."
* Care for other people, something we’re reluctant to give to machines
* Care for infrastructure, like fixing sewers, picking up trash, repairing buildings
* Remedial education, from literacy to math skills to teaching English to adults
* Scientific research, from private space flight to genetics to proteomics to finding news species to archeology
* Entertainment, because that is an area without end
* Building power generation and power distribution networks
* Cleaning up a lot of brownfield sites
* Artisinal food, home made food, raising your own food
* Teaching first world skills to the third world - literacy, computer usage, hygiene, mid-level industrial skills, building institutions that support freedom and rights
* The next green revolution, to build up what Norman Borlaug started, to breed in genetic resistance to diseases and pests, improve nutritional content, and reduce fertilizer usage; anything that lowers pesticide use or fertilizer usage will dramatically help the world
* Discover the next generations of antibiotics, so that we still have some. All these frogs and weird fish are proclaimed as having medicinal value as antibiotics and antivirals - we need whole armies of researchers developing these substances to the pharmacist’s shelf so that we don’t relapse to the Dark Ages where getting sick meant suffering through it or dying
* Find solutions to the next wave of shortages, from phosphorus to water, then deploy those technologies
Does anyone else have ideas to add to this list?