# Why Do We Still Work So Much Despite Automation

- Original post: https://www.twitter.com/i/status/2118457664078508158
- Source account: [@AlviGunilla](https://x.com/AlviGunilla)
- Source language: English
- Duration: 1:06
- Published: 2026-11-07
- Canonical URL: https://www.translate.mom/transcript/fVuUvUgpIwmG/en/why-do-we-still-work-so-much-despite-automation

## Transcript

[0:00](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/fVuUvUgpIwmG/en/why-do-we-still-work-so-much-despite-automation) What really gets on my nerves is when you complain about having to spend the majority of your life being a wage slave and people respond with, "That's life."

[0:06](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/fVuUvUgpIwmG/en/why-do-we-still-work-so-much-despite-automation?t=6) George Bernard Shaw once wrote that all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

[0:10](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/fVuUvUgpIwmG/en/why-do-we-still-work-so-much-despite-automation?t=10) Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world, whilst unreasonable people are the ones that change it, and we often confuse being rational with being conventional.

[0:17](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/fVuUvUgpIwmG/en/why-do-we-still-work-so-much-despite-automation?t=17) What is rational about spending the majority of your life working for someone else and only having freedom once you're too old to use it?

[0:22](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/fVuUvUgpIwmG/en/why-do-we-still-work-so-much-despite-automation?t=22) Of course, society needs people that are happy in conventional careers.

[0:25](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/fVuUvUgpIwmG/en/why-do-we-still-work-so-much-despite-automation?t=25) The problem is that one way of living has become the standard by which everyone else is judged.

[0:29](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/fVuUvUgpIwmG/en/why-do-we-still-work-so-much-despite-automation?t=29) Especially in an age where so much work has become automated, where are those freedoms that those automations were promising us?

[0:34](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/fVuUvUgpIwmG/en/why-do-we-still-work-so-much-despite-automation?t=34) Historical estimates suggest that English medieval laborers were working only up to 165 days a year.

[0:40](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/fVuUvUgpIwmG/en/why-do-we-still-work-so-much-despite-automation?t=40) In fact, in 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that technological progress would allow us to work just 15 hours a week by 2030. We've got four years to go.

[0:48](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/fVuUvUgpIwmG/en/why-do-we-still-work-so-much-despite-automation?t=48) How's that looking? A lot of people are aggressively critical of other career options.

[0:52](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/fVuUvUgpIwmG/en/why-do-we-still-work-so-much-despite-automation?t=52) I would know, being a so-called influencer.

[0:54](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/fVuUvUgpIwmG/en/why-do-we-still-work-so-much-despite-automation?t=54) I want people around me that challenge my ideas but also people that are capable of imagining a life beyond the life that they've chosen for themselves.

[1:00](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/fVuUvUgpIwmG/en/why-do-we-still-work-so-much-despite-automation?t=60) One of the most dangerous things you can do with your life is mistake another person's lack of imagination for your lack of potential.