Post Labor Economics Livestream
In a Nutshell
The 2030s demand intense preparation for the "Don't Die" phase before the Singularity, focusing on physical health (e.g., Brian Johnson protocols), psychological resilience through stages of grief toward acceptance, and navigating worsening societal tensions via rapid global communication absent in past revolutions like the Industrial era. Post-labor economics will dismantle work-based identity and security, enabling garden-like lifestyles with indefinite lifespans, optimal walkable cities, and decentralized coordination via crypto/DAOs for great civil works, while addressing wealth inequality, synthetic foods via AI-driven precision fermentation/genetic engineering, and human fulfillment through tribes, mastery, and status games. Fears of eugenics or uselessness fade with AI democratization and the great decoupling from labor necessity, shifting humanity to self-determined pursuits beyond production-consumption codependence.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Question on X about if things are getting worse before they get better. Everyone talks about 2040 or 2050 Singularity where everything is solved, but the 2030s—the preparing the 'Don't Die' part, dealing with things getting worse before better—is harder to predict and less explored. Worth discussing despite less fun than post-labor economics lifestyle like living in the woods. If we achieve longevity escape velocity and live thousands or hundreds of years peacefully, immense effort needed in next 10 years.
Getting from here to there: technology solves problems, no law of physics prevents hyper-abundant future in peace and perfect health. Human factor is key concern: how bad will it get between now and then.
Europe's sophistication brought tension between Old Guard (monarchists, religious hegemony) and Republicans wanting democracy—French Revolution, economics and changes. Industrial Revolution: smog-covered London, children maimed in unsafe factories, squalor. Now next Industrial Revolution: fears of losing livelihoods, civil war possible.
All that remains in the cards; question is likelihood and avoidance.
Major difference: communication. Past revolutions (French, American, Industrial, Civil Wars) had limited communication—literacy issues, no letters/telegraphs. Now Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, social brain of Western world and most global with internet access (40% of audience American, rest global, weighted English speakers but huge in India, Germany). Ideas spread at light speed. Enables coordination for better outcome.
Recent Substack on reaching better attractor state: better information key, not just transparency or elites' secrets, but resolving disagreements.
Not a guarantee, but structural difference to navigate to better future.
Civilizational level agreement, but likelihood low for total World War. Substack on power laws for LEAP (longevity escape velocity?). Individual level: Brian Johnson on health, Bitcoin, but missing power laws for living to Singularity/protecting from bad things.
Audience focuses: feeding family (logistics). Governments handled massive unemployment for thousands of years—ancient Rome grain dole, 1960s-70s England dole. Won't starve unless much more goes wrong. More Brian Johnson vibes: chronic disease, economic catastrophe from post-labor economics/crypto.
Physical: stay alive/healthy, straightforward. Missing: psychological aspect. Substack 'AI is Survival Kit'—stages of grief:
- Phase 1: Ontological shock—everything about to change.
- Phase 2: Denial—fake, imaginary; AGI centuries away.
- Phase 3: Anger—shoot the messenger, paradoxical anger at hope or fear it kills everyone.
- Phase 4: Bargaining—stochastic parrot, mimicking, simulating intelligence (brain simulates too).
- Phase 5: Existential dread/depression—nothing can be done, bad outcome.
- Phase 6: Acceptance and hope—new normal, possibilities.
- Phase 7: Processing/integration—identity/worldview updated, back to work.
Psychological emergency break-glass kit; posts link in X/YouTube chat.
From Russia, living in Europe. People not scared to lose jobs, can't imagine transition from full-time job to indescribable post-labor economics.
In America, private health insurance loss means losing security. Jobs give economic agency—control to take care of self, not subservient to government/corporate handouts. Also identity: meaning, purpose, focus, self-esteem. Rugged individualism: livelihood makes feel safe/secure/man.
Personally walked away from corporate job, feels adrift—sharing opinions online 'not real job,' but adds value.
Humans simple to make happy: good food, sleep, outside time, tribe, hobbies.
Psychological: used to work world, can't imagine different. Educate on transition. Status games: know what game to play.
Hard to predict individual transition. Became content creator unintentionally, hopes it sticks.
Videos to help imagine daily life. Not retirement. Historical leisure class: aristocracy ancient Rome/Greece/medieval Europe didn't work for money; Sparta forbade aristocracy jobs—they debated, poetry, dancing, hunting, soldiers.
AI better at poetry/warrior/everything, but tribe important—met wife at sci-fi writing group, do for own sake.
'Rivers in the Garden' article: current life river—school, job, marry, kids, retire, die. Flip to garden with indefinite lifespan (200 years, more tech advances): space explorer. Live day-to-day, not tomorrow/next year. Take dogs to park because feels good/interesting.
Even cheap houses ($1000 via material science) via Home Depot: does ultra-capitalist wealth consolidation continue?
'Altered Carbon' (book/Netflix, ignore season 2): Earth trajectory with longevity—billionaires collect money forever, dynastic power. Neoliberalism: reward money-makers with privileges for more (Elon, Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg). 'Why Nations Fail' book recommends—nations resist/lean into change, democratic policies needed.
Wealth inequality likely persists; optimal for innovation/progress vs. entitlements/quality of life. Technology increases quality of life long-term—99/100 prefer today over 2000 years ago.
Great civil works: pre-dynastic Egypt pyramids—workers had food/beer/families, voluntary (disagreement: backbreaking, conscripts, teams competed 'Squid Game' style, e.g., 'Friends of Khufu').
Coordinate for big things: cult of personality (pharaoh/Elon Musk). SpaceX vs. NASA (10% federal budget 60s/70s). Great works need capital/money, so
You need capital and labor and a way of organizing them. Currently, corporations are considered the best way to organize capital and labor, replacing empires or kingdoms. Post-labor economic theory, developed with Julia McCoy, explores better ways using cryptocurrency, blockchain, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). Infrastructure and technology need to mature to build this new operating system, enabling great works without empires or corporations—a third option.
If given unlimited resources in 10 or 100 years, build a large city twice the size of Paris, designed from the ground up as the optimal human habitat: lots of green spaces, completely walkable, optimal for children and dogs, not built around cars or work. Historically, cities concentrated labor; in America, they prioritize automobiles for efficiency, not thriving. With a trillion dollars, buy a million acres to make the best city on Earth. Many billionaires pursue similar ideas because current habitats make humans sick, isolated, and miserable.
Building a civilization on Mars requires nuclear fusion for dense energy to power oxygen recycling, indoor agriculture, and heavy habitat equipment—making it much easier.
If automation allows personally owned everything printers, economies of scale will still favor mass production due to physics and engineering. Local sourcing and shorter supply lines reduce energy for transporting goods. Not everyone will have personal printers; instead, local mega-factories like Amazon hubs will produce for a 500-mile radius, enabling more customizable products.
Politicians won't support ending work due to lobbies, corporate money, and voters favoring short-term interests—the paradox of democracy, as Socrates noted with mob rule. Representative democracy hires politicians for electability, so they maintain narratives like AI creating jobs (e.g., JD Vance at Paris conference). Corporations prefer zero employees as humans are dumb, slow, expensive, injury-prone, and litigious—robots avoid HR and lawsuits. Companies lay off to trim fat; Elon Musk and Trump apply this to government. No politician will say "destroy all jobs" until a viable alternative like UBI emerges and public will shifts from status quo.
Transition: status quo, then stagflation where jobs don't return, forcing new incentive structures.
With AGI this year or next and ASI soon (optimistic due to Microsoft quantum improvements), concern arises if growth no longer needs labor or population—could inhumane incentives emerge against useless consumers, like Nazi eugenics by powerful actors before AI democratization?
Great Decoupling: Humans currently useful as producers and consumers. AI/robots eliminate production utility, leaving only consumption, breaking the paradigm. Current codependence: companies hire humans out of necessity, workers toil out of necessity—both misaligned. Post-labor principle: anything done out of necessity is a moral/ethical bad.
Power cabals (e.g., Georgia Guidestones' 500 million population cap) deeming humans useless could pursue robot utopias like Ayn Rand's Galt's Gulch or Elysium—elites exodus elsewhere. Earth remains for billions; technologies like AI, blockchain, robots enable coordination. Democracy (demos=people, kratos=power) naturally emerges as humans coordinate (e.g., strangers on an island or million on a continent). Evolutionary pressures ensure states form for coordination—possibly AI overlords, but substrate is humans. Governance shifts with tech but retains ancient roots (Athens, Rome); upgrade democratic OS with paper ballots still used. Superintelligence wouldn't need scorched Earth. Open source AI democratization prevents bad actors.
Common response to post-labor: "What do I do with all that time?" Many will pursue knowledge/experiments (doers), but majority may consume and fulfill vices, leading to doers vs. consumers.
More than two classes: lifestyle paradigms like leisure classes historically (e.g., Bridgerton parody of party/drama-focused elites operating on primate social systems—relationships, invitations). Jersey Shore or Kardashians lifestyles if fulfilling. Others seek different status games (e.g., writing for public visibility).
From first principles, humans are simple: hobbies, good friends, decent home suffice—video games, sports, beers. Some get bored, seeking challenge.
- Self-Determination Theory (SDT): Connection, mastery, autonomy as baseline drives.
- Mastery: Get good at hard things (Dark Souls, violin, carpentry, writing—language endlessly flexible).
Maslow's hierarchy famous but less useful; Spiral Dynamics descriptive, not prescriptive. Biochemical rewards (dopamine > serotonin, contra Yuval Harari) partial; fulfillment often from misery (ultramarathons, Mount Everest—months of suffering).
There's a lot more to status and social rewards than basic biochemical mechanisms; it's a very complex topic. Recommended big books: The Status Game by Will Storr and Liquid Love by Zygmunt Bauman (corrected from transcription).
Rob Paul on a podcast mentioned many billionaires anticipate human needs being met post-labor, but a lack of sense of belonging and tribe. Billionaires are investing in sports teams to provide an artificial sense of belonging, marrying tribalism with capitalism. This idea might surge in coming years.
Artificial tribes like sports teams exist, but people really need to live with extended family for happiness. Biologically, humans' natural habitat is groups of 6 to 24 people—optimal tribal unit historically over 2 million years. Very few cultures still live that way, but those who have report highest happiness.
AI Alchemist raises concerns about precision fermentation and lab-grown meats replacing food supply. Used since 1970s in makeup, but replacing proteins from ruminants and micronutrients is different. Labs making milk in Europe; ground meats developing and sold in some places. Question: Can AI account for micronutrient imbalance in fermentation?
Speaker defers to questioner's knowledge, offers educated guess. Analyze from supply and demand sides. Supply: Can lab-grown food equal or surpass organic (e.g., cow/chicken providing complete protein, micronutrients in right ratios)? Debates on vegan vs. carnivore; omnivores thrive on paleo or Mediterranean diets close to nature.
Long-term, with AlphaFold, AlphaProteo, etc., ability to synthesize any molecule or genome. Can design fungus tasting like beef but more nutritious.
Demand side: Change human body via gene mods, e.g., liver synthesizing missing micronutrients. Humans (like few mammals) don't synthesize vitamin C—likely because diet was rich; could engineer liver/pancreas to produce it.
Long run: Genetically engineered organs handle deficiencies, optimize intake. Still need trace minerals like iron, selenium—easy to supplement. Raw building blocks are hydrocarbons (H, C, O, N, Mg, P)—chemistry solvable via engineered food and selves.
Easier via transgenic gut microbiomes/probiotics synthesizing needs—gut already does much. People taking stool capsules for conditions will appreciate. No first principles physics/chemistry barriers; AI accelerates to within years.
Thanks for questions. Top of hour; time for dog park. Fun stream; cheers.
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