If we lived in a Star Trek style utopia with replicators I wouldn't sit around eating burgers all day and watching TV, but at the same time I wouldn't do the job I currently have.
There is no actual need to work, or at least not in the way we understand it. It's that our society is built around the concept of generating wealth in a pyramid-style of increasingly smaller people who exploit those below them. People call MLM a scam but at least MLM understands what it is. The so-called economy is an MLM scam as well, where the people at the top bleed everyone else to increase their wealth.
I mean there is a small percentage of people who genuinely enjoy the rewarding work they do and look forward to waking up every morning to embrace the day.
But I do agree - sitting around getting drunk and high watching television all day long gets old REAL quick.
For me, the biggest shift from the pandemic was to realize just how much my hate for work was tied up in the fact that I had to go to work, rather than the work itself.
Even my last job before my current one, if they would have let me work remotely (a 100% feasible option, although my ultra conservative boss wouldn't have ever entertained the idea), I could have probably worked there forever, trading upward mobility for complacency and comfort and flexibility.
If I had a say and was doing my career in a rewarding way I’d probably do 5-10 hours a week on average. Just making shit, trying to figure stuff out. And I’d be making everything I design publicly available