I've been thinking about Chesterton's fences a lot lately, too, and the overall de-skilling of humanity. It's one reason it bothers me so much when the left, supposed opponents of capitalism, say you shouldn't "be productive" in your time outside of paid work. I think they fail to understand where that feeling comes from, why we feel bad (though clearly some of us worse than others) when we're unproductive. This isn't to say there should be no leisure time, because I don't believe this, but I take the admittedly old-fashioned view that your leisure time should be mostly about the development and exercise of skills -- mental, physical, and social -- and as little as possible spent in passive consumption. Even saying this in public, I feel a little anxious that people will think me kind of an arrogant jerk. Idk, maybe I'm an arrogant jerk, so be it.
One of my favorite phrases is 'the most revolutionary things you can do with your life is to become a producer, rather than just a pure consumer.' The industrial and technological revolutions have systematically devalued human-scale production. But if we actually do achieve "fully automated luxury communism" or whatever through advanced AI and robotics, what else will there be to do? Just sit around and consume content all day? Sounds miserable and unfulfilling. We need to reinvigorate the importance of small-scale, everyday, household production: gardening, carpentry, knitting, art, music, writing, etc., etc.
I've been thinking about Chesterton's fences a lot lately, too, and the overall de-skilling of humanity. It's one reason it bothers me so much when the left, supposed opponents of capitalism, say you shouldn't "be productive" in your time outside of paid work. I think they fail to understand where that feeling comes from, why we feel bad (though clearly some of us worse than others) when we're unproductive. This isn't to say there should be no leisure time, because I don't believe this, but I take the admittedly old-fashioned view that your leisure time should be mostly about the development and exercise of skills -- mental, physical, and social -- and as little as possible spent in passive consumption. Even saying this in public, I feel a little anxious that people will think me kind of an arrogant jerk. Idk, maybe I'm an arrogant jerk, so be it.
One of my favorite phrases is 'the most revolutionary things you can do with your life is to become a producer, rather than just a pure consumer.' The industrial and technological revolutions have systematically devalued human-scale production. But if we actually do achieve "fully automated luxury communism" or whatever through advanced AI and robotics, what else will there be to do? Just sit around and consume content all day? Sounds miserable and unfulfilling. We need to reinvigorate the importance of small-scale, everyday, household production: gardening, carpentry, knitting, art, music, writing, etc., etc.