“Get a job” is such an interesting American insult It’s an alternate version of “loser” - the worst thing you can be in the US, home of the Dream - and implies that your worth is connected with the function you fulfill in society Unless you work, most Americans simply refuse to believe you have value, and that work must be intelligible in a social sense (flaneuring and languor and cultivated leisure are definitely out). This is why even writers, who almost by definition tend to be somewhat bohemian types, often explain themselves in a way that reflects the production of words as akin to clocking in every morning at the job site. You are expected to present as if you are productive every waking hour Other countries don’t really do this. I don’t think you can insult a Pakistani or a Russian by saying “get a job”. They won’t understand. What do you mean, “get a job”? I have to get a job; I have to work. I might starve if I don’t. Life is hard. Work is mandatory. But almost everyone is poor and work says nothing about you as a person. It’s just a necessity. In the US, the land of money, where more than anywhere else the country could probably afford most people to not work, the system has done a very clever thing and raised work to a test of moral character. The American internalizes the need to strive. Whereas in other countries, impoverishment in one’s external circumstances is the primary motivator This has significant implications for AI in America. In the Congo or Egypt if AI makes jobs obsolete I’m not sure anyone will care. Society there doesn’t center on the transcendent importance of The Job. But in the US, without work, what’s left?