We're talking about idling the populace for half their time, then denying them the resources to take advantage of the slack.

Look, I'm not arguing for forbidding people from doing work they enjoy, the idea is rather to put slightly different incentives in place. It seems much better for people bored to death at work for it to be socially acceptable to work less, especially when half the population would be working full time and the other half not having a job at all. And we have to encourage people to find fulfilment through other means than 40-hour a week employment.

I think ideas such as these have a lot of promise, laying the foundations for a much more flexible job market where people can work more when they're able and there is work to be done, and less otherwise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v22SdEMzxO4

But considering we're basically making everyone take half a job - purely because we want there to be enough jobs to go around - means that actually applying those skills is going to become a sticky issue.

That's not what I'm saying. Artificially making sure there are enough jobs to go around makes no sense, then we might as well hire people to dig holes and other people to fill them. I just think we should curtail over-consumption and actually let people enjoy the fruits of the record high productivity that automation brings. A lot of people work way too much currently, grinding themselves down instead of investing in themselves and leading sustainable lives, by spending more time on learning and growing as human beings. We have the resources to do better.