Sorry, I’ve fixed the typo… I hope.
You’ve correlated paid employment with labor. But the fruits of one’s labor do not require being “employed” – ask any homemaker or volunteer.
kamal’s point is that our civilization may in the future be in a situation where many people don’t have to perform paid labor to enjoy life. See WALL-E as one example 
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Or is it called Socialism?
Sign me up to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, read poetry in the evening… and be happy living out of other people’s taxes forever. Wow! Is this lifestyle going to be allocated by lottery? Or do I need to be part of some specific organization to hit the jackpot?
If workers are replaced by robots and artificial intelligence to the point where enough people can’t find paid work (because the robots are cheaper or more productive, for example), the choice will probably be between socialism and anarchy. Capitalism hasn’t been very good at solving poverty.
You can probably do that now. Move to Alaska or somewhere where they let you homestead or pay you to live there. And with low enough income you’ll get federal and state assistance.
I guess it depends on what you mean by poverty. If being poor is the bottom 10% of the income distribution (and roughly the current “poverty rate” in the US as they classify it), well, as was said a couple millennia ago,
“for ye have the poor always with you”
On the bright side, capitalism has made the life of a poor person in the US vastly better than it has been in almost any time in human history. We’ve come a long way from “continual fear, danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” to having the knowledge of the world at our fingertips and minimally acceptable levels of housing, food, and healthcare provided for anyone who asks. Compare this to the famines under non-capitalist systems in Russia or China last century and things are looking pretty good.
I think to reach a utopia where work would not be required and nearly all time could be given over to leisure would require a fundamental change in human nature, even aside from whoever maintains the hypothetical robots who might be doing most of the work people do now. It’s no simple thing to banish greed, lust, and envy from the human heart, and as long as those persist, people will not be satisfied with what they have. If they can’t get ahead by working, they’ll get ahead by violence or crime.
My choices in this election were between someone whom I didn’t want to vote for because I know what he does to the civic discourse and to the social contract, not to mention his inept handling of the pandemic, who is faithless and has the worst personality, cult of personality attitude, morals and affinity for cultivating blatant lies that I’ve ever witnessed in a US president.
My other choice was a Catholic like myself but someone whom I didn’t want to vote for because he will push for a host of socialist and ultraliberal policies I’m against (some that we already have seen like student loan forgiveness or the bloated third handout stealing from future generations) but looks to be an infinitely more decent a human being and less likely to cause insurrections, racial tensions, or make himself rich in the presidency. I was counting on GOP keeping the Senate to keep the worst of these policies from happening and unfortunately they did not. For the record, my vote did not get Biden elected since I’m from a state which voted for Trump by a comfortable margin.
In hindsight, I’d probably still do it. I’ll simply never vote Trump as I know what I’ll get with him guaranteed and the alternative is almost guaranteed to be less bad whoever it is. Hopefully the currently unrecognizable GOP fractures between the Trump fanatics and the old GOP for those like me who want conservative policies, dignity, integrity, and moral higher ground but without a faithless cult-like supreme leader who thinks and acts as if they were more important than the country.
Your report doesn’t make sense to me. You liked the idea that Biden is a Catholic. I’m not of your faith. But what I know about your religion, Biden is certainly not following practices.
You mentioned other unsightly policies of Biden that most Americans do not go for. But he’s your & my POTUS now for the next 4 years. (impeachment is the popular new word)
The Trump policies during the past 4 years were fantastic. Too many to point out here. You show enough intelligence to understand what I’m speaking of. We all know his good results.(millions of us) Trump made great promises to Americans & he accomplished most of them.
So you say you’d do it again. That’s to bad. Biden has started this administration on the wrong foot. He is following a manuscript set from the far, far left. Just a flick of the pen… Thousands flooding the border (soon), here to stay. Thousands of Americans already losing those good paying Union Jobs.
In hindsight, you’d do it again… So sorry, look what you have now. 
Many persons of the Catholic faith, Shandril being an example, are among the very best we have remaining in the USA at this very challenging time. But not all Catholics qualify. Cafeteria Catholics do not, for example. And Biden is a cafeteria Catholic.
I’m actually very sympathetic to a portion of Shandril’s thinking. Of course I would rather have the genuine anti-abortion guy instead of the phony, even though he professes Catholicism. You lose fewer babies my way.
And I would opt for someone who genuinely put America first. This over another candidate who does not think it important even to LIE about putting us first. In my view we have, right here at home, far too many poor and disadvantaged American citizens, a country already in bankruptcy, and a frickin’ pandemic to boot, to be able today to worry about Central American peasants and other foreigners fleeing for economic reasons. You want to help everyone, of course. But charity begins at home and far too many American citizens are in real trouble right now.
I loved President Trump’s ability, pre-pandemic, to get black and Hispanic unemployment down to 3.5%, an historic low. Biden will never equal that number because keeping black and Hispanic Americans poor is a must for Democrats. When people, regardless race, become self-sufficient they no longer need Democrats.
But Shandril could not vote for President Trump because he is a skunk with a messed up personality. This, for her, overwhelms all of his policy successes. I wish for Shandril’s sake, and for my own as well, that we Conservatives could have found an equally effective champion with a less abrasive personality. The only such person in my lifetime was President Reagan, possibly President Eisenhower as well.
But for certain people like George H. W. Bush, the “read my lips” liar, his war-loving son, McCain (ugh!), and Romney were no Conservatives. And when we finally elected a POTUS willing to hew the Conservative line he turned out to have a flaky personality. Bad luck.
Still America is better for Trump’s four years. But we are now instead plunging headlong into socialism, which is a catastrophe. Pray for Joe Biden. If we lose him the descent will accelerate. Because when Shandril voted for Joe she also elected Kamala. And Kamala is no Mike Pence.
Lel ignore the huge deficits and handouts to the wealthy. Didn’t count as socialist if it only goes to the rich?
Anyways, ready for Yang/Pete 2024?
I appreciate this powerful story shinobi. Written so beautifully & actually quite partisan.
should read nonpartisan. sorry shin
Alan Dershowitz, who served on former President Trump’s impeachment defense team during last year’s trial, blasted attorney Bruce Castor for his opening remarks during today’s impeachment proceedings, telling Newsmax, “I have no idea what he’s doing.”
No worries
Perhaps. But:
That’s Socialism, not Capitalism. These minimum acceptable levels are determined and provided by the government (i.e., the people), not by corporations or their ultra-wealthy owners.
I never said anything about leisure. I was talking about “trading in” paid labor for unpaid labor. Homemaking and volunteering is still work, not leisure.
Yeah, that’s why the rich and powerful have been using religion to quell the poor for thousands of years 
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This is my conundrum. On economy, I could live with Trump’s legacy aside from disliking his tax cuts at a time when we did not need to add to the deficit at the expense of the debt ballooning even worse than during Obama. GDP growth was not stellar during his term, and his presidency saw 3 of the worst trade deficits in history. Deficit with China decreased by deficit elsewhere were way worse. Not exactly a great score card.
His foreign policy was not better. I like his getting out of constant wars going nowhere. The US does not have a duty to police the rest of the world. But he also messed up a lot of our relationships with long-term allies for very little gains. The world view of the US has degraded and so did our soft power. That vacuum really played into China’s hand which for many countries now looks like a more reliable ally than the US which is really sad considering how messed up and imperialist the Chinese foreign policy is.
Immigration. I had only minor issues with it. My State does not see huge influx anyway so not very high on my list of concerns. The wall was idiotic and I’m glad that this useless expense is now over. It’s costly and ineffective anyway since most immigrants don’t cross the border that way anyway. The handling of immigrants was also not good enough for who we are as compassionate people. Family separation is not excusable and could have been avoided while implementing more effective policies (some of which were). Either way, it’s not moving the needle for me since I’m largely unaffected like most of the midwest.
But his handling of the pandemic was simply not good enough. He denied that the virus was bad for way too long downplaying it to a seasonal flu (which has now killed in 1 year more Americans than WWII), had mixed message about preventing spread and did not go all in until it was out of control. Credit for limiting flights from China but that meant very little when the virus was already spread through the world. And the poor handling in terms of limiting spread and cases, PPE distribution, collaboration with CDC and health officials, forced the economy into a slow down that we’re still dealing with. Setting up Warp Speed was the only redeeming aspect of his handling but ironically he probably won’t get much credit for it. And even that operation is leaving a lot to be desired and leave most people frustrated.
And then there’s the civil discourse in the US. Without a doubt, it got hugely worse through his presidency. In my opinion, the US is resilient enough to withstand anything if we’re united but there was no question that he was not qualified to accomplish any semblance of unity. Split between Dems and GOP is way wider now than it was 4 years ago. Racial tensions are now higher than any time during the last 2-3 decades. As commander in chief, the buck stops with you and thus he bears responsibility for it. It’s definitely not an easy task for any president but no question it can be done better than Trump did.
I’m not getting into his personality because the book is already written on it. But it’s a fact that it does not help. Many of his voters even wished it were better.
As concerned as I am about Biden opportunity to shove socialist policies down our throats at least for the next two year, not much in Trump’s record warranted a second term in my opinion, especially not his constant barrage of bragging that he deserved my vote because he was the best ever at everything when he clearly had many mixed outcomes in his first term policies.
So as I’ve said before, you are a very skillful writer. Your facts are inaccurate. IMO
We have Biden now, & you helped put him in office. Be proud, because his type of government is on the start to put Americans last.
Trump wanted to Make America Great. We will have to listen to Biden try to pull us down.
Biden put his show on the road for Unity before election. Do you see unity now?
Posting: I’m going to give shinobi an A (outstanding) & Shandril D (democrat). Both great writers!! 