This article is an excerpt from my ongoing novel "The Human Code". The content is as follows:
This article is an excerpt from Noam Freund's book "The Hidden Worries of a Non-Productive Human Society" (2042 edition), Chapter 2, with significant deletions, and is authorized for reproduction.
The era of humans as producers has passed, and the core reason and symbol of this is that machines have significantly replaced humans in most production activities. In the chain of economic activities, humans have lost their value as producers. As a result, the traditional economic cycle of exchanging labor for consumer capital has been broken. However, human social structures have long been prepared for this, and the solutions are readily available, namely the universal basic income guarantee system that has been gradually established and promoted since the 2020s.
Universal Basic Income (UBI) refers to the guarantee of unconditional income for all citizens.
In fact, UBI and similar concepts or policies have been mentioned sporadically throughout the history of human civilization, and we can call it an ancient and simple ideal. In the 16th century, the utopian socialist Thomas More mentioned a similar concept in his work "Utopia". In the centuries that followed, many philosophers, politicians, and utopians have thought and discussed this topic. For example, Bertrand Russell wrote:
By the scientific organization of production it is possible to keep modern populations in fair comfort on a small part of the working capacity of the modern world.
——In Praise of Idleness
However, effective policies were not implemented until the widespread application of automated production in the 21st century. In 2026, Switzerland became the first country to effectively implement UBI policy, allowing any Swiss citizen to live a decent life without any labor.
Today, the UBI system in most regions of the world is actually a system parallel to currency, with consumption points and currency coexisting:
- Consumption Points: Each citizen receives a certain amount of consumption points per period (usually a week). These consumption points are fixed and refreshed per period, which means that if citizens do not use or exhaust their consumption points, these points will disappear in the next period. It is important to note that the current implementation of the consumption points system specifies the proportion of consumption points allocated to food consumption, which means that a certain percentage of consumption points can only be used for food and cannot be freely decided by citizens. To ensure this, only specific food merchants with permission can accept food consumption points. In each settlement period, merchants who accept consumption points can exchange them for currency from the government.
- Currency: The collapse of the US dollar system a decade ago essentially marked the end of all fiat currencies. The current currency system is mainly supported by several major cryptocurrencies, with Bitcoin being the core, and Ethereum, Cardano, and Monero also occupying significant market shares. The current currency system is a completely globalized market that is not subject to political regulation. The unprecedented and worsening wealth gap caused by this has exceeded the limits that human civilization can cope with. It can be said that the proletariat has given up.
Obviously, this "dual-track" design will inevitably give rise to a black market for the exchange of consumption points for currency, but this is not the focus of this chapter. For specific discussions, please refer to Chapter 6, "The New Economic Model".
In the process of gradually implementing this system, an increasing proportion of the population has completely withdrawn from productive economic activities and become pure consumers.
This is not only a major change in socioeconomics but also a significant test for the biological structure of humans. The human brain, after millions of years of evolution, has already formed a fixed pattern as a productive brain. It is not difficult to understand that without such a brain, humans would have a hard time surviving, let alone reproducing. Fortunately, the brain itself is an organ with strong adaptability and will automatically search for ways to adapt to its new way of life. Like almost all choices made by humans, human choices in this regard follow a normal distribution (of course, many choices are not mutually exclusive).
The largest proportion of the population has immersed themselves in the virtual world, where their productive instincts have been transformed into construction work in the virtual world. As a result, construction-based games have always been the highlight of the gaming industry, and the things that players build in the virtual world are sometimes even more magnificent than imagination. With the powerful capabilities of computers, people can always find the virtual world that suits them best.
The second choice is to become an artist. Art has become a way of life, and the most common form of art is performance art. One important characteristic of this type of art is subjectivity and privacy, and even extreme cases have emerged: art that is only meaningful to the artist at the present moment, and the artist themselves will not care about it or record it, causing it to be quickly forgotten.
Some people choose to return to nature and become travelers, hermits, outdoor enthusiasts, etc. There are many reasons for this, but a common idea is that they believe that humans are not actually adapted to the lifestyle of modern industrial civilization. They believe that modern industrial civilization has alienated humans. Another common idea is that machines have surpassed humans in all aspects, and the lifestyle of humans in modern civilization is equivalent to that of a low-capacity machine. Therefore, in order to maintain the uniqueness or dignity of humans, returning to nature is the only choice.
The resurgence of mysticism and religious beliefs is also a phenomenon worth noting. In this era, religion is also customizable. People can choose any existing or self-made gods and practice spirituality in any way. As a result, various temples, churches, altars, and places of worship have emerged, attracting the attention of some people.
In addition, there are other niche lifestyles, such as asceticism, antiquity imitation, hedonism, self-harm, and body modification.
From this simple classification of lifestyles, it can be seen that as pure consumers, humans are generally engaged in non-industrial constructive activities and have built a very large cultural consumption market. It is well known that the prosperity and decline of such markets are more difficult to predict. Sometimes, an internet meme can drive a consumption wave that lasts for weeks, while a celebrity scandal can be enough to destroy a small subculture industry.
At the same time, this market model also poses existential risks to human civilization. As the famous new modern socio-economist Wang Haoxin wrote in his monumental work "Cultural Economics in the Age of Automation":
Humans cannot be without culture, and without culture, there is no civilization. But if everyone eventually only has culture, human civilization will lose its foundation, which is equivalent to abandoning its own future.
That being said, the future is yet to be determined, and anything is possible. Perhaps humans will see new opportunities in the future and achieve a future beyond everyone's imagination.