I don't see what high horse you are talking about. The point is that having to work in order to survive is not inherently a desirable situation for a human to be in. A more desirable situation is to have your needs such as housing, food and healthcare already taken care of irrespective of what you spend your time on. Historically such a life has been possible for a select few in the aristocracy, and they seem to have had a great time - usually at the expense of serfs, slaves or other less privileged classes. Hopefully, eventually we'll all be able to live a life like that, with robots or software instead of slaves. So when someone says that we shouldn't consider jobs to be inherently valuable, they are pointing out that what is valuable is not our labor, but the fruit of our labor. That we should seek to improve results rather than effort. 150 years ago, ~70% of the population in western countries needed to work in agriculture to ensure the food supply - today it's less than 5%, and that's great! So yes, currently human work is still needed to keep society running, and for that reason we have created social norms around it being ethical to work and unethical not to, in order to get everyone to pitch in. But the truth is that there is nothing inherently unethical about not working, as long is it's not at the expense of someone else having to work even harder. As such, if you want to put on the tin-foil-hat a bit, you might even consider that it could be that the class that already lives a life where they don't need to work - the upper class (who make their living by owning things) has over-sold this whole notion of 'work == good' to the middle class (who make their living by working) in order for them to feel better than the lower class (who are unemployed) and ensure any anger is directed downward and those two classes will fight it out instead of questioning the world order.

> A more desirable situation is to have your needs such as housing, food and healthcare already taken care of irrespective of what you spend your time on.

What you are describing is already a reality for our house pets. I don't find becoming a house pet to some AI/automated machine to be desirable in any way shape or form.

So you're saying the aristocracy were the pets of their slaves and serfs? Got it, thank you for adding to the debate.

> So you're saying...

> Got it, thank you for adding to the debate.

How about don't be such a dick?

You aren't addressing his main point.

The point is that the aristocracy did not engage in "work" as many would define it, but seemed to be pretty happy about that.

It worked for them. Why not for others?

Hey, there's no need to resort to name calling. You didn't address my main point, but instead just put up a strawman argument by equating the autonomy of not needing to work with the massive lack of autonomy that comes from being someone's pet, a perspective that my comment had already given a counterexample of with the aristocracy. So yes, I called out your comment for being a one-line, low effort, strawman argument, that didn't actually add to the debate by 1) actually addressing any of the points raised or 2) seriously making and backing up any points of its own. If you have something substantive to add, or any actual counterarguments, I'd genuinely love to hear them.

It doesn't makes a difference.

If I had a job I might not want to continue if it was undesirable, if it was desirable I would continue anyway.

If I didn't have a job I would still like my basic needs covered (living in a country with good social security means that that would actually be so), and if nobody else had to pick up my slack I'd want more than the basics.

And then I want that for everyone. Any of the situations given above is true for someone in my surroundings, colleagues, friends, neighbors.

My perspective is coloured by the country I live in of course. Nobody will be on the street, hungry or without healthcare if they lose their job here, there is plenty of annual leave by law. And it's great, I gladly pay taxes for that. But imagine, it could be even better!

Why do you think the question matters?

I don't think anyone inherently needs what we think of as jobs. What we actually need is a way to provide for our own and our families' livelihoods, and the currently in-fashion way to do this is with "jobs".

If everyone were magically able to live without jobs, some would still go off and do things productive out of an innate desire to be productive, but many wouldn't.

Try say this to someone without a job though? Because I'm pretty sure in this utopian idea of "I don't need a job because my basic needs will be met" is complete fantasy in 2020.

Millions have recently lost their jobs so I'm sure its' easy enough to find someone who can tell you how it feels.