Temporada 4 · Autopsia de los Gigantes · JVV-T4-26
Post-work reloaded: basic income, ghost railways and feudal automation
I The old dream of compulsory leisure
In Inventing the Future (2015), Srnicek & Williams defended four axes: automate everything you can, cut the working week, hand out universal basic income (UBI) and build a politics of “post-scarcity”.
Eleven years later, half the programme exists… but fractured:
- Automation yes, but commanded by DAO-fiefdoms that rent out GPU-latifundia.
- Free time arrives in waves of logistical unemployment.
- UBI survives as a municipal patch (3 crypto-UBI pilots) and as populist loot.
- Post-scarcity runs into electricity prices and CO₂. “Post-work managed to be born, but was adopted by a feudal stepfather.”
II
Map of the “hollow economy” 2026 Domain
| Symptom | Dominant actor | Ethical friction | Logistics |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ghost railways: autonomous trains run at 8 % load | NFT-shipping consortia | They sack the drivers, pay a “dead track” tax | Attention |
| Platforms compete for 1.7 s of focus | Degenerate copwatch, 32× reels | The UBI goes on AI-stream micropayments | Factory production |
| Industrial tulpas negotiate a technical stoppage | Lords of the GPU castles | Human unions with no access to the PLC panel | Care |
| Geriatric robots pay for their own spares with edge mining | Geriatric-DAO | Affection measured in KPIs; mnemonic gerontophagy prowls | Formula |
Formula for the “hollow income” monthly state/DAO payment
- I_{\text{universal}}
- tribute in second-tier monitoring apps
- T_{\text{attention}}
- fees for using the GPU lord's infra
- C_{\text{latencia}}
- affective cost (anxiety, chronophages)
- \Phi_{\text{psico}}
- If the sum of the tributes exceeds 0.6 ·
, the UBI becomes a Ihollow income : money comes in to be sucked out by the very automata that replaced the job.IV
Three bridges from the hollow to the solid Strategy
| Srnicek-Williams approach | James VV's 2026 version | Trade-off | Socialise automation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public ownership of the bots | Mesh-Tulpas Cooperative | : open firmware, dividends in hash-rentYou have to hack the GPU castle first | Rich free time |
| Cut the working week | Tokenised | leisure pools : free hours redeemable for collective energy (festivals, care) | Risk of leisure speculation |
| UBI in kind | A cash transfer | UBI-in-kind: thermal credit + bandwidth + a food kit | Complex logistics, possible paternalism |
V The ghost railway as a case study
- Train M-47 runs Buenos Aires-Rosario with no driver, 12 containers at 8 % full.
- The energy is paid in the GPU feudal lord's stablecoins; public rails with no toll, “for development”.
- Ex-drivers get a UBI of 140 USDC/month, spend 90 USDC on mobile data, 30 USDC on quick-dark-kitchen food.
- Real net income: 20 USDC and a doom-scroll loop of reels.
The fix: a railway cooperative + a “Comunal-Km” token that redistributes the freight profits and gives the local population free travel—the prototype started in Santa Fe, June 2026.
VI Post-work ritualsafe
-
01
Time 30 min of pure leisure, no screen.
-
02
Log anxiety vs. pleasure at minute 0, 5, 15, 30.
-
03
Ask: freedom or hollow? Adjust the setting until the pleasure/anxiety curve crosses 0 within 10 min.
VII Coda
“Post-work without post-property is a bank holiday on somebody else's plantation.”
Making basic income solid means socialising the infrastructure that drains its value today— from ghost trains to GPU farms.
Srnicek & Williams thought in coalitions; James proposes tulpa cooperatives, kilowatt-DAOs and leisure pools as weaponry.
Post-work is no automatic party; it is a silent barricade of protocols and shared firmware.