/wiz/ - Wizardry★

Because humans are not rational machines but an ape species who thrives on status competition.

Google what a Veblen good is. There will always be demand for a 23 carat gold version of a product that can be fully functional if made out of wood or aluminum.
There will always be demand for a 100% cashmere sweater over a 100% polyester one.

Or a very intricate luxury car like Rolls Royce, when a simple Tata Nano would "do the job" just as well and move the person from point A to point B.

Differentiation and displaying economic status is what drives neurotypicals.

>Why isn't all work designed to reduce work?
But your work IS designed to reduce your boss' work ;)
In seriousness, you answered your question. It's about power, social status, etc.

I would even go as far as saying people have spiritual needs that they're unaware of, but they feel like something is missing, so they try to compensate with materialism.

>>222707 (OP)
> Who needs a 50000 dollar watch when a watch for 5 dollars can operate the exact same function?

If you're a NEET, all you need to be happy is a room, instant noodles and video games, but most people have a very basic need to fit into society and to be respected. The watch is just a status symbol, people don't want the watch, they want everyone to know that they have a high position in society, the watch is just a way to comunicate that.

The need to be respected by society is almost as primal and important as the things you mentioned, food, water, sleep, etc.

>>222708
>>222710

this.

do you think someone commissions a $200 million superyacht just because they like sailing?

no, he doesn't even pilot the thing himself or know anything about sailing. the point is displaying superiority and showing the losers with $500,000 boats are nothing compared to him.

this is humanity in a nutshell

>>222707 (OP)
I think like you said it's in large parts just social comparison / status chasing. But I also have the thought that in a weird way all these technological innovations and progress often doesn't even free up that much work capacity, it just shifts it somewhere else.
In order for technological progress to occur, some amount of the work force has to be delegated to that. These inventions also always have a complex, 6 continent supply chain behind them. Sure maybe someone here invents a computer that gets rid of a building's worth of administrative paper pushers but in order to build the computer probably an equal amount of workers have to dig up the resources, fabricate it and ship it back to where you are. And all of those things also require tools and machinery and those require more people to do the legwork for acquiring/putting together the materials again. It's just an endless loop that becomes more and more complex and interwoven as technology progresses.
That being said I fully agree that, if each nation or continent were to just focus on making itself as habitable with the resources it has naturally and if we would stop constantly trying to invent new things that solve no real problems beyond material safety and a base level of comfort, none of these problems wouldn't exist. Same with climate change, overpopulation etc.
In the end though, I suppose it's in most people's nature to blindly keep chasing some new shiny fancier thing that they hope will finally bring them fulfillment.

People become bored if not working and become destructive.

>>222707 (OP)
You're missing a key component in your understanding:

(Killing people and) taking people's things is _always_ a better return on investment in a given subject's lifetime than their own limited capacity to produce anything, unless coerced to do otherwise by the mob.

Just from an entropy standpoint consider the calories required for some guy #1 to gather a basket of apples compared to some guy #2 braining some guy #1 and taking his apples. Now factor in time and opportunity cost savings. Scaling this to the modern world is not hard.

Attacking and despoiling is *always* cheaper than exclusive investment in production when the attacker has invested more in their weapons than the defender - by virtue of investing all their resources in production. The Mongol Empire stood testament to this for centuries, turned back solely by forcing *more people* with *more resources* to compete on their level.

Even "senseless" destruction has its use - Destroying someone's orchard means the same demand for apples with a lower supply and thus higher ROI on apple theft. Destroying the value that can be created by workers outside of a slave state in turn drives up the value of the slaves, without any need to invest additional time and motion.

Adam Smith was teaching about this in 1770, it's not like it's news.

As for the billionaire bracelet, the mob can be manipulated, through $50,000 watches, $20,000 suits, and assistance from $500/hr marketing men who know the mob's handles and how to pull them. The tipping point when the return on this expenditure beats the return on hard work at scale I leave to you to calculate.

So the answer to your question is; it is - but not yours. You are a resource to be consumed
by a system (entropy economics) that stretches back thousands of years. Your picking of apples and eventual consumption of your life enables someone else to not spend time and motion picking apples, and instead - for example - developing robotic apple pickers, a problem that is probably within 5 years of being fully solved right now.

When machines fully replace all human efforts, what - exactly - does the system need humans for ? Why then should it optimise to accommodate them except when obliged to do so?

>>222711
It's also a tax break

>>222715
All intelligent and ambitious men in history built wealth and families by marrying someone richer, or stealing from someone richer.

The useful idiots who toiled away in coal mines have descendants that still toil away in coal mines.

>Who needs a 50000 dollar watch when a watch for 5 dollars can operate the exact same function?
The rare 50k watch holds its value and is most likely some sort of collectors item which can and will increase in price.
meanwhile if the rich guy held the 50k dollars in his wallet they would slowly become worthless thanks to inflation.
that the expensive watch can also tell the time and can be used to brag in front of others are just a bonus.
>it needs to be a 100 dollar watch, or 1000, but they know they'll never be able to afford the 50000 dollar watch, so then what's even the point to go in between.
the point is the same, your 10000 dollar watch will most likely retain its value. but if you are poor this is probably not something you should worry about.
these things and many others like cars or other items are investments.
>and they don't give a fuck about the billions of people suffering and being forced to live
they do give a fuck about them and what the rich jew ruling class wants is an overall reduction of the population. once they got fully automated AI factories and dont need the labor of humans anymore, what are these billions of useless eaters good for? nothing, they will be genocided through all kinds of population control mechanisms like vaccination, sterilization, poison, wars, famines etc. and we see these things already happening today.

>>222717
You can see it in fine detail in England - they have the same *names*, occupy the same estates and go to the same schools in an unbroken line for some 800 years.

The Norman Invasion and its consequences … are responsible for Industrial Society.

Marx said you regards.