alt Hacker Newsa new paradigm of 3 day work weeks. share the salary of the days off with those less automatable, and work to automate everyone. I wish some sort of dicussion like this could happen where the workers of the world get to see some of the gains of a new technology more immediately. If "the state" wants to maintain legitimacy and protect its citizenry (one of the primary promises of a state) to avoid a period of social unrest, the likes of which has been unheard of for several generations, I think something like this should at least be a part of the discussion.
I don't think it will happen. For one thing, it hasn't in the US since the introduction of the forty hour work week in 1940.
But beyond that, I don't think most people want a three day work week. They would rather work five days and get the extra money. I worked at a company that did government contracting. We had a couple quarters without much in the way of orders, so instead of laying people off like you'd normally see in that situation, the company decided to go to a four day week, with a commensurate cut in pay.
I was thrilled, as a young single guy, to get Fridays off. I rented a room in someone's house and hit my monthly nut in about two weeks. But most of the people I worked with hated it. Some of them quit. A lot of them both needed the money and also had no idea what to do with themselves on that extra day.