The question is not really "how to not be useless".
If you make society about being useful to the top 5% of the population, then the rest of the population is always going to be left in the dust unless you turn to geneticaly modified workers ala Gattaca.
The question is, how do you create a society where everyone can make a living?
It is ingrained into modern society thinking that in order to make a living, you need to be useful to someone else that has the money, power, and natural resources that you don't have simply because of age, luck, or someone being naturally smarter.
But what if everyone was guaranteed land to live in and produce their own sustenance? In a different type of society, or perhaps far into the future, this may be a possibility given population control.
In this manner, people are guaranteed to at least make a living. The tendency for riots will be greatly diminished when basic needs are met. Everyone else who wants to create more wealth and enter the monetary exchange will be free to do so.
The fundamental flaw with this line of thinking is that you need to be useful to others because to maintain any sensible standard of living you will need to trade.
Q: What do you trade? A: Things that others find useful.
Even if you give people land they will need tools, supplies, medicine, housing, plumbing, fuel, electricity, roads, computers, phone/internet, etc. They will need to trade, they will need to be useful.
One can easily move to the middle of nowhere montana/north dakota/alaska and live off the land with a little bit of planning. Most don't want to.
Not all people feel the need to consume as much as people in richer countries to feel the same amount of happiness.
There have been studies documenting this. Here is a short story from Tim Ferriss which sums this up where he realizes that a Mexican fisherman really has a very high quality of life.
I've never respected the pure capitalist prod of "work or die, whether we need you or not". But subsistence farming is probably the least attractive alternative ever known. Every sweatshop is full of people who think it's better than the farm. Serfs had to be kept farming by force of law--and some escaped, preferring life as a criminal in a disease-ridden city. People will do just about anything to stay out of that life.
The reason why people don't like subsistence farming is because current society doesn't allow people to farm very well.
Most of the arable land has been concentrated in the hands of a few, and the technology needed to generate sufficient harvest to weather downturns such as drought or flooding are out of reach for everyone in 3rd world countries.
That's why you can't look at 3rd world country farmers and just say that no one would be able to live "off the grid" comfortably.
If you make society about being useful to the top 5% of the population, then the rest of the population is always going to be left in the dust unless you turn to geneticaly modified workers ala Gattaca.
The question is, how do you create a society where everyone can make a living?
It is ingrained into modern society thinking that in order to make a living, you need to be useful to someone else that has the money, power, and natural resources that you don't have simply because of age, luck, or someone being naturally smarter.
But what if everyone was guaranteed land to live in and produce their own sustenance? In a different type of society, or perhaps far into the future, this may be a possibility given population control.
In this manner, people are guaranteed to at least make a living. The tendency for riots will be greatly diminished when basic needs are met. Everyone else who wants to create more wealth and enter the monetary exchange will be free to do so.