[eternomi]

Interestingly it looks like the process of automation and the process of human awakening may be keeping pace with each other. The more we automate our menial tasks, the more time we have to make a larger contribution. Automation also gives us time for introspection, meditation, journaling, deep conversation, and lots of other awareness-raising pursuits.

Except, most people don't wanna do any of this! They want everything to be automated so that they can just live in paradise for ever! Then again, most never reach to that point. The ones who do realize that you can't perpetuate paradise because it gets boring, and they go back to doing stuff... but this time not because they have to, but because they want to. It would be great if more and more people could reach this point and work because they want to.

As we begin to enjoy the intrinsic rewards of purpose-centered living, we look for ways to free up more time to do what we love most. We therefore attach more value to automation.

A lot of stuff we automated or are trying to automate did not have to exist in the first place! Since you follow Dave Pollard's blog How to Save the World , I am sure you are familiar with his pitches that most of what we created is just so we can support the billions of people on the planet! And the reason why billions of people exist in the first place is because 1) we relied on the automation process to carry us all more than we should have, 2) irresponsible/unaware acts in the name of God (just keep reproducing, food is infinite) and under the assumption of omnipotence of human beings (everything is created for the human beings)

Furthermore, as we become more purpose-centered, we lose interest in idle distractions and destructive addictions. We cut the fluff from our lives. This reduces demand for products and services of low social value, increasing the chance that some of those resources will be reinvested in worthwhile automation.

Again, most of the stuff you want to cut off was invented to perpetuate the new life style in the first place! It's not like people woke up one day and said "I think we should really invent some fast food and caffeinated, sugar-rich drinks!". Someone automated (very badly) the process of feeding people since most people had less and less time to cook for themselves. Someone automated agriculture because noone had time for growing food for themselves. Now we have to opt for food that has been grown many miles away, has to sit in warehouses and trucks before we can even get our hands on them..

As you can see, you cannot really automate away these processes because they are already the results of automation!!

Thankfully this is slowly changing, but it won't be fully adopted until people realize you can't just rely on a central source for your needs. You gotta setup your own local networks and provide for each other.. Some of the centralization has to be taken down and put in place at a more local scale.. Hopefully government will face the same consequence eventually.. If you look at nature, it does not have a centrally governing body, but somehow things are ticking along just fine!

If we consider humanity as an organism, perhaps these are just the growing pains.. Hopefully we will solve these problems before they kill us... Makes you wonder how billions of cells managed to form the bodies we call plants, animals and our own bodies! Now we gotta do it at the humanity level.

What might be possible is to go back to our roots. Automation is still needed, but at smaller scales so that I can grow my own food, for example, but not have to spend my entire time doing it... Same thing for cooking, cleaning, etc.. Is it possible? I don't know, but clearly mass-automation is causing more trouble than providing solutions. Not to mention, perhaps there is in fact value in doing these things personally! For example, I prefer doing physical work in the yard to going to the gym... I prefer cooking my own food fresh to eating out. Am I wasting my time? or engaging in healthy activities which I actually enjoy?

Maybe automation is overrated and it is just the flip side of the "materialism" coin. Let's use your logic Steve, and imagine we automated everything and everyone has an abundance of everything.. Then what? People will go back to creationism, expressionism, and doing things for fun, right? Perhaps the key then is to make the "menial tasks" enjoyable again, not trying to eliminate them completely!.. or in the least, remove the idea from people's minds that some are born to enjoy life and others are born to support the lifestyles of the former...