Dear Producer,

I do accept the fact that my phone service over copper wires is provided using digital technology, I'm just very unhappy about it.

<<however should be required to do something meaningful for it, for a prescribed amount of time.>>

Required? Here you introduce coercion, now someone is required to judge whether what another does is meaningful or not.

(P.S. I say that sabotaging the fibre-optic cables and digital exchanges is an extremely meaningful activity!)
(P.P.S. I say that writing on OLO trying to convince others to abandon digital technology is also an extremely meaningful activity)

To try soften this bitter pill you write:

<<Most importantly these activities should be controlled and tailored at local level>>

So someone else is still to control our activities (over a prescribed amount of time), perhaps our local kolkhoz committee?

<<The size of the productive pie is directly linked to productivity and will go up and down.>>

With due respect, this is a circular definition. Who is to say what's productive? Is making more electronic gadgets that beep and flash at you a productive pursuit? The less you need those, the less you need to worry about selling off to either China or America.

I share your sentiment about professional sportsmen, politicians, advertisers, lawyers, etc., but this particular discussion is about people who live on the dole, hardly Gina Rinehart’s. One could say "if they hadn't received those payments without having to work, then they could have become farmers or build roads", but by the same token, they could have become lawyers and advertisers in shiny sports-cars...

Living frugally, willing to just have a simple roof over one's head, eat simple food, wear simple clothes (washed by hand), not owning a car or travelling, etc. is much more valuable to society than productivity. Not needing a car is better than producing a car. The best contributors to society are not those who produce more, but the ones who reduce demand, especially those who teach, preferably by personal example, how to live with less, have materially less, yet find inner riches.

Yes Producer, the name suits me,

But please don't bother trying to join the Royal Order of Hasbeens old fellow.

You see, to be a hasbeen first you have to be a someone, something, judging by your posts, you are very unlikely to achieve.

Hasbeen - Short of response you would expect when one is unable to respond intelligently or logically!

unemployment has solutions but disguise unemployment has not.

http://www.pivot.edu.au/