---
title: "Work in a Post Scarcity Utopia"
date: 2023-12-18T03:05:19-08:00
tags:
  - snippets
---
Another snippet from Iain M. Banks' wonderful "_Use Of Weapons_", detailing the adventures of the mercenary called Zakalwe within and around the interstellar post-scarcity AI-led super-high-tech Culture. Here, we see a flashback to his cultural adjustment period after being recruited.
<!--more-->
> He walked for days, stopping at bars and restaurants whenever he felt thirsty, hungry, or tired; mostly they were automatic and he was served by little floating trays, though a few were staffed by real people. They seemed less like servants and more like customers who'd taken a notion to help out for a while.
>
> '_Of course I don't have to do this,_' one middle-aged man said, carefully cleaning the table with a damp cloth. He put the cloth in a little pouch, sat down beside him. '_But look; this table's clean._'
>
> He agreed that the table was clean.
>
> '_Usually,_' the man said, '_I work on alien - no offence - alien religions; Directional Emphasis In Religious Observance; that's my speciality...like when temples or graves or prayers always have to face in a certain direction; that sort of thing? Well, I catalogue, evaluate, compare; I come up with theories and argue with colleagues, here and elsewhere. But...the job's never finished; always new examples, and even the old ones get re-evaluated, and new people come along with new ideas about what you thought was settled...but,_' he slapped the table, '_when you clean a table, you clean a table. You feel you've done something. It's an achievement._'
>
> '_But in the end, it's still just cleaning a table._'
>
> '_And therefore does not really signify on the cosmic scale of events?_' the man suggested.
>
> He smiled in response to the man's grin, '_Well, yes._'
>
> '_But then, what_ does _signify? My other work? Is that really important, either? I could try composing wonderful musical works, or day-long entertainment epics, but what would that do? Give people pleasure? My wiping this table gives me pleasure. And people come to a clean table, which gives_ them _pleasure. And anyway,_' the man laughed, '_people die; stars die; universes die. **What is any achievement, however great it was, once time itself is dead?** Of course, if_ all _I did was wipe tables, then of course it would seem a mean and despicable waste of my huge intellectual potential. But because I choose to do it, it gives me pleasure. And,_' the man said with a smile, '_it's a good way of meeting people. So; where are you from, anyway?_'

\[Emphasis mine\]

---

God I love this. It reminds me of a classic Tumblr exchange:

![I Simply Do Not Dream Of Labor](/img/do-not-dream-of-labor.jpg "If you think that you do not dream of labor...")

![Yes You Do](/img/dream-of-labor.jpg "...it may be that you have just never experienced a way in which labor can be productive and rewarding")

I am a _sucker_ for frame challenges and for re-evaluating the actual sources of issues - "_The problem is not X - X can be useful, helpful, and desirable. The problem is the context in which X currently exists negates its beneficial effects._". Plus, y'know - Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism, always and forever the goal ✊🏻
