① People have speculated for centuries about a future without work. Today is no different, with academics, writers, and activists once again ____1____ that technology is replacing human workers. Some imagine that the coming work-free world will be defined by ____2____: A few wealthy people will own all the capital, and the masses will struggle in an impoverished wasteland.
② A different and not mutually exclusive ____3____ holds that the future will be a wasteland of a different sort, one ____4____ by purposelessness: Without jobs to give their lives ____5____, people will simply become lazy and depressed. ____6____, today’s unemployed don’t seem to be having a great time. One Gallup poll found that 20 percent of Americans who have been unemployed for at least a year report having depression, double the rate for ____7____ Americans. Also, some research suggests that the ____8____ for rising rates of mortality, mental-health problems, and addiction
③ ____9____ poorly-educated, middle-aged people is a shortage of well-paid jobs. Perhaps this is why many ____10____ the agonizing dullness of a jobless future.
④ But it doesn’t ____11____ follow from findings like these that a world without work would be filled with unease. Such visions are based on the ____12____ of being unemployed in a society built on the concept of employment. In the ____13____ of work, a society designed with other ends in mind could ____14____ strikingly different circumstances for the future of labor and leisure. Today, the ____15____ of work may be a bit overblown. “Many jobs are boring, degrading, unhealthy, and a waste of human potential,” says John Danaher, a lecturer at the National University of Ireland in Galway.
⑤ These days, because leisure time is relatively ____16____ for most workers, people use their free time to counterbalance the intellectual and emotional ____17____ of their jobs. “When I come home from a hard day’s work, I often feel ____18____,” Danaher says, adding, “In a world in which I don’t have to work, I might feel rather different” – perhaps different enough to throw himself ____19____ a hobby or a passion project with the intensity usually reserved for ____20____ matters.
