Conservatives furious at PM’s ‘naive’ meeting with Musk ahead of last Westminster session before election
“I despair at No 10’s naivety,” said one senior Tory. “People are worried about their finances, climate change, pandemics, war in Eastern Europe and the Middle East and now the PM has provided Elon Musk with an interview platform to say, sometime soon, that they and their children will not have jobs, a life without meaning.
“For crying out loud, we have a general election inside a year and the PM is offering the electorate dystopia. Thick, thick, thick.”
😂
If a job is the only thing that gives your life meaning, then you have a problem.
Agree, but I think the converse is true too - if you don’t get any meaning from your work then you also have a problem.
People like to feel productive, like they’re accomplishing things with their time - it’s why a lot of people find the transition to retirement tough to begin with. Our jobs are where most of us spend a big share of our waking hours during the week from our early 20s to our 60s - you’d better hope it’s something that can give you some meaning. A huge number of friendships and romantic relationships start off in the workplace. I know multiple children who exist because their parents once sat a few desks away from each other. So if the only value someone gets from their job is the pay cheque, then that person probably isn’t in a very good place either.
Anyone, that’s not my point in posting this. My point was to laugh at the useless Tories.
Jobs should provide all of that, unfortunately they probably don’t. The vast majority of employees are stuck in jobs that make them feel incredibly undervalued at best, and downright exploited at worst. And they deal with this, safe in the knowledge that their hard work guarantees them…maybe enough money to pay their mortgage, if they’re really lucky.
Make pottery, craft things from wood, go fishing for food, look after animals etc etc.
Imagine that you could do anything you wanted. Sure, many will be happy putting their feet up or doing their favourite leisure activities full time. But some will still be driven to work on this or that.
Honestly, I hate the Tories, but I find the repsonses here intellectually dishonest. They’re not saying that “there will be no work”, they’re saying that you won’t need to work.
Pay me the salary I’m on now to stay at home and I’d quit today!
Why would anyone pay you?
Because you’re producing artisan goods rather than the same old mass produced bollocks. People will always be willing to pay for a human touch.
Besides, in a world where you don’t need to work, it’s not always going to be about pay. For some people, work is their passion.
Yeah, I get that. From my perspective I’m laughing at the total political naivety of Rishi’s Musk interview more than anything else.
I certainly dream of a post-scarcity Star Trek future where we all work for personal passion and societal advancement rather than because we need to pay the bills - but the point of that future is that we still chose to work, because sitting on our arses all day for months on end is not something that healthy humans tend to do. We need things to keep our minds occupied, but I get that we feel differently about doing these things out of choice than out of necessity.
A job gives us money. We need money to pay for all the tax breaks the billionaires are getting.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Tory MPs have accused Rishi Sunak of “offering the electorate dystopia” after an appearance with Elon Musk in which the billionaire warned that artificial intelligence could take everyone’s jobs and leave them searching for meaning in their lives.
“People are worried about their finances, climate change, pandemics, war in Eastern Europe and the Middle East and now the PM has provided Elon Musk with an interview platform to say, sometime soon, that they and their children will not have jobs, a life without meaning.
It comes at a crucial moment for Sunak before a highly political king’s speech in which he plans to cause trouble for Labour over net zero goals and also launch a battle to be seen as the party for homeowners and renters.
However, Sunak’s appearance with Musk, in which the billionaire said AI would eliminate the need for all jobs and raise the question of how we “find meaning in life”, has frustrated many Tories, as they return to Westminster still trailing Labour by a significant margin.
But it’s a medium-to-long-term issue, when what we need is a build-up to a good autumn statement following an ambitious, imaginative king’s speech.” Another veteran MP said: “I think accentuating how it benefits public services would be more productive.” Some MPs saw the Musk interview, and the attention on AI as a whole, as more evidence that Sunak was indulging in policies that matched his personal interests – such as a ban on smoking and the axing of HS2 north of Birmingham.
The agenda is set to include pro-car policies and commitments on oil and gas exploration, both designed to wrongfoot Labour.mKeir Starmer, the Labour leader, is expected to respond that the Tories have failed working people after 13 years in power and now only offer “division and more of the same”.
The original article contains 839 words, the summary contains 303 words. Saved 64%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
