For us, the living
by Robert A. Heinlein, Robert Hein lein · first published 2004
42% recommend58% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Heinlein's early, long-unpublished satire of a future society. Readers like its political and economic ideas, including a post-scarcity world with basic income, and its frank take on public versus private life.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
SciFi - Originally written in 1938-9 but never published, RAH's first novel is a raw work filled with themes used throughout his career. Perry Nelson, a Navy flier, is killed in an auto accident in 1938; he awakens in 2086 and spends the novel contrasting reality of 1938 with the semi-utopian 2086.
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…Though I've never read the traditional "cut" version, I've talked with people who have read both and I'm sold on the unabridged version. As an aside, if you enjoy Heinlein, then I also recommend reading "For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs." It was Heinlein's first book, but was never published (until recently, of course). It's not polished, but it is very interesting to see how he had already formed in the 1930s a…
on “Ask HN: What book did you read in 2016 that was so good you gifted it to others?” ↗This reminds me of "For Us, The Living", by Robert Heinlein. Where he discusses a very similar society and explains the economics of how it might work: http://www.amazon.com/For-Us-The-Living-Customs/dp/074349154...
on “Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income” ↗I like Heinlein's use of this in "For Us, The Living", he breaks out the Public and Private spheres and addresses how anything done in the private sphere is effectively heavily tabooed to inquire about, and could even become a criminal penalty. Politicians…
on “In California, a Champion for Police Cameras” ↗Read Heinlein's For Us The Living. Robots make all essential goods, and everyone has a minimum basic income. People only work to get extra income for nice things. That is a societal wide post scarcity society- no one who desires a basic…
on “Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality” ↗'For us the living' is also another interesting book by him. Sorta the anti-Atlas Shrugged.
on “Ask HN: Recommend any good business/hacker fiction?” ↗…4 hours a week. You can work more of course if you want but you get the same paycheck. The rest of that time you can do whatever you want, spend time with your family or do art or whatever. Also, in For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs by Robert A. Heinlein there are some very interesting ideas about American social economics, including a social credit system. Which I believe is a pretty old fashioned idea that…
on “Working fewer hours would make us more productive” ↗Another perspective on BI: "For us, the living." Written by Robert Heinlein in the 1930s IIRC.
on “We Need a Basic Income Guarantee” ↗This public/private dichotomy reminds me sharply of a novel I read at one of those late teen-age formative periods, For Us, the Living[1], by Heinlein. In that story, it was a norm that you could declare "private sphere", and journalists et al would have to ignore the ensuing events until going "public" again. In that world, it had…
on “The 2016 Election” ↗…don't think it was ever going to get fleshed out. You see him put much more thought into political systems and economics in other books like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Stranger in a Strange Land, or For Us, the Living.
on “Service members deserve the right to repair” ↗Robert Heinlein proposed something like that in his "lost" novel For Us, the Living: instead of declaring war, Congress would authorize a war referendum, in which only those eligible for military service could vote. The catch was, everyone voting "Yes" would thereby automatically sign…
on “Palantir Wants to Reinstate the Draft” ↗…freely as a bird that we would be horrified at, but I don't think the intrinsic need for privacy will leave society on some level (for a host of reasons). Maybe this will manifest into something like "For Us The Living" with a public sphere and a private sphere. Go outside and you are 100% monitored by thousands of sources, but in your home or private dwelling things turn off. Social mores evolve slower than technology,…
on “A 33-Year-Old NPR Story Convinced Me Google Glass Will Stop Looking So Dorky” ↗Robert Heinleins For Us, The Living describes this kind of society. Everyone gets a "dividend" which is enough to live on and people do what would be a low wage/non-job such as being an artist for part time fun and high wages.
on “Robot Workers and the Universal Living Wage” ↗…the book is a long fast roller-coaster. Has anyone else noticed the similarity between DD Harriman (The man who sold the moon) and Elon Musk? Also he had a version of the internet thought out in 1938 "For us the living" which relied on an intercontinental series of tubes. Maybe Ted Stevens got his information from that. That book has many of his major plot lines jammed into one book. Not the best, but interesting to…
on “Sci-Fi Novels You Should Read” ↗…libertarian side of Socialism. Social Credit was the American party killed/disrupted by the red scare that believed in a UBI and universal health care. His posthumous published but first written novel "For Us, The Living" is even a wonderfully naive paean to UBI and credits a Social Credit party for its enactment and ensuing utopia. Heinlein formally disowned some of those ideas, but did so under the duress of the McCarthy…
on “Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)” ↗