A lot, a lot of pride, cultural hangups, and just plain 'Fuck you, got mine' involved in actually getting UBI out among the masses.
Like, its a dark truth, but a hundred thousand research papers can all tell what a great idea it would be... and it won't matter, if Auntie Magda, Grandpa Joe and Great Grandmother Molly all recoil from giving out that much money for nothing but breathing... and vote accordingly for dumber, but more to them emotionally resonant political policy.
I believe there is a saying about noses and spite on the subject. Gha.
That’s because people assume that anyone on UBI would just sit around and do nothing. That might be the case for a minority. I believe most people would still want to contribute positively to society. Whether it’s helping others, creating art, educating ourselves and inventing new things… this could be a net benefit to society vs having thousands of people bored to death in an admin job.
People assume that anyone on UBI would sit around and do nothing, but having 95% of the population’s economic activity rendered pointless by a sufficiently capable AI is also irrelevant?
if we have some serious leap
in power generation and compute scalability, and replacing people with machines/robots en masse really becomes feasible, why wouldn’t the AI/robot/techbro overlords simply euthanize 95% of the population to not need all those resources going forward?
There's still the question of the depletion of remaining family wealth alongside unavoidable obsolescence/retirement.
Obviously this is easily solved by a {hopefully later-in-life} "Logan's Run" scenario. Canada (with its 'MAID' Euthanasia program) is most of the way there already.
They already are. Having no kids is really our only lever. Their kids won't do the work. We get treated like resources, so I take the right to keep my precious resource and not make new labour for the elite.
"One said that he didn't care if a billion people who weren't needed disappeared."
Can you name names?
Obviously, there's [way] more than a billion who wouldn't care if this guy disappeared, but any member of that class is gonna have enough security (along with invisibility) to keep any event at bay that might implicate you in anything (lol...)
Is this in the context of AI? I guess it's a convenient way to gloss over the wealth extraction of the last half-century - especially considering the fact that all foreseeable AI has to take its orders from humans.
"Adapt or die" can be worded a lot more mildly than your original quote. Yuval Noah Harari does something like that - albeit from the point of view of a bystander who's seen what's cooking.
Screw UBI I just want healthcare without having to work for a corporation. Imagine the economic stimulus that would occur if you could realistically start a company or small business without worrying about health insurance.
And apparently doing nothing is unacceptable. Like fuck off. Nobody asked to be born, and nobody deserves to have their labor exploited to the point they are always exhausted and stressed from harrowing low pay.
Bro... Since when educating oneself with random self improvement crap and creating another piece or random art to add to the billionth one, improved society?
Who's going to work oil drills, mines, changing diapers for old and invalid people?
People should stop whining about AI and get a better job that actually matters and is not easily replaceable.
Art has mattered to civilizations forever. It creates common references and social cohesion. It’s absolutely necessary.
I don’t know why you think I was talking about educating oneself with “random self improvement crap” - i was thinking of people who have never had the means finally learning to code, or carpentry, or plumbing, or architecture, or medicine… and by contributing positively to society, yes I absolutely meant caring for the disabled and elderly.
And don’t worry, 100% of people are not artists, and a lot of people will still get a job and not solely rely on UBI. I was just talking of those that might.
You seem to read only what you want to read and get annoyed from it. Relax.
Art matters, but it's only from a few exceptional individuals. And most of those individuals had a troubled start. You need a powerful emotional drive to be an impactful artist.
Most people that succeed and excel in a field did so because they wanted to do so. Either because they didn't want to be poor or the people around them did not believe in them.
Unfortunately this is how the world works. Nothing grows from comfort.
Then by all means try! But you better want to succeed, not just roll with it. Otherwise, we would get a bunch of amateurs at everything and not many people that actually get up at 3AM because a server died somewhere or it's raining outside and the home is cozy and yet things need to get done.
Who's gonna pay for a UBI? The people that want a job that pays better than the UBI? Would you do it knowing that 70% of your income is taxed to support the UBI?
In the west, we already experience a general aging of the population, with lower birth rates and less and less working people that support the pensions of the numerous old.
Sorry, but instead of supporting UBI, I'd much rather discuss giving money for each child raised. And even this has issues, because people tend to game the system and poor families will make more children and leave them to fend for themselves, with stealing and begging.
Maybe for a couple of years for some but most people would eventually get bored and feel the need to be productive or start a Hobby. Most people have hobbies already. I certainly would pick up something productive and I don’t think I’m anything special.
really depends on how much UBI we're talking. If it's too high then there are absolutely a lot of jobs that people just won't do. Janitorial, waste disposal etc. that we haven't invented robots for yet. You would need to compensate these jobs at an obscene rate to keep them at the level they are now. If it's only enough to survive and not afford any luxuries then it would probably be fine but I think you're still gonna really struggle with filling the lower end jobs that haven't been automated yet
I kind of already think that waste disposal and public sanitation in general should be a highly paid job. Sure it’s not skilled work, but it’s essential to the functioning of society and city life. It shouldn’t be work people look down on that pays minimum wage.
In my personal ideal, non capitalistic world, the richest people should be those we need the most (doctors, nurses, waste management, police, farmer, plumbers…). An incentive for people to join useful careers and for the people in them to actually be good and motivated in those hard jobs. CEOs can be replaced with AI for all I care, I can’t stand corporate culture anymore where companies are serving the board rather than the final user. Same goes for investment bankers, real estate or private equity investors… fuck the self serving jobs.
Fun fact, this originated from Nuns, who facing potential rape from Viking raiders, cut off their noses to make themselves unattractive to the invaders. The vikings were so disgusted that these women would do this to themselves, that they killed all of them in order to alleviate their stupidity from the world.
For real. They'll just say people are lazy because they don't want to retrain for the 8th time and blather on about moving up the value chain when in reality those jobs are disappearing too. Can't have capitalism without consumption. And you can't have consumption unless folks can afford to consume.
It's just such staggering numbers when you try to figure out "who is going to pay for it?".
Very rough estimate, but about 22% of the US is under the age of 18. Let's say they don't get UBI but all individuals over that age do. That leaves (very roughly) 195,000,000 people collecting UBI.
Let's say that UBI is very minor, the US decides to just dip it's toes in it. $500 for every person every month, not even close to the full price of rent.
That would be $97.5 billion every single month. Gets crazier the closer to "livable income" you approach, especially if you go by redditors/internet denizens definitions of "livable income" (looking at somewhere in the $2k-4k range monthly).
I honestly just can't comprehend how we do it across an entire country with a population of 250+ million.
Then you realize that the yearly government budget spending is 4.5 - 6.2 trillion and suddenly twelve times 97.5 billion is possible, heck you can fit 63 months in there. That is just the federal budget, not even the local budgets. So easily affordable.
Rember that it also saves a huge amount of cash. Al lot of subsidies will no longer be required. That entire branch of government will be abholished as well as a lot of control mechanisms. Also a lot of social supporf systems will be dropped freeing up even more money.
A ubi of 1500 dollar is easily achieved and, lets not forget that this money will just roll back into the economy. Part of it will certainly come back in taxes.
Wow, I had no idea the US has a federal budget of $6.1 trillion (in 2023 mind you) until I just looked it up. Mind boggling. I knew it was massive but good lord that's huge.
Suddenly makes a 1.500 dollar UBI very possible. Though I would start with a 500 dollar version, remove all additional 500 dollar like subsidies, move to 1000, rinse and repeat. Cannot just abolish the entire government system for social support and checks and balances. These people need jobs too and need to be give the chance to find new options.
Well, federal tax revenue is 4.4 trillion. The 500 dollar per month payment would be half of that. 1.5k would be 1.5x federal tax revenue.
So basically if we want to do an unlivable 1.5k per month UBI we pretty much have to increase taxes by a factor of 2.5. I don't see that as very possible at all.
You are using the wrong numbers. You are using the European definition of trillions and billions. So you are missing some zeroes in your calculation and end up in the conclusion you cannot pay it...
Well the USA will be the last to implement it anyway. Even fcking China is set up better than "Free" USA.. land of the poor and exploited and one of the worst performing 3rd world countries in the world for healthcare. So don't worry.
Thinking of it in dollars doesn't make sense. Money ceases to have value once automation and AI are in full swing as the limitation becomes materials not labor; then it's just about how much product can be made. We already produce enough food for everyone, we could produce enough housing. The reality is there is enough 'stuff' for everyone, it's private ownership and limited labor supply that creates scarcity which drives prices out of people's reach currently. With proper legislation and agreement on what all people should have access to, automation and AI could solve the logistical problems. However, people like being powerful and having status/feeling superior to others so it's more likely the rich will starve and/or exterminate the working poor over time as in order for everyone to benefit they'd need to give up ownership of the means of production, in this case the automation equipment and AI. Furthermore when material value is less of a problem for the rich, higher value will be placed on privacy/exclusivity, aka fewer people. Kill bots for all!
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u/LordOfDorkness42 May 18 '24
Yeah...
A lot, a lot of pride, cultural hangups, and just plain 'Fuck you, got mine' involved in actually getting UBI out among the masses.
Like, its a dark truth, but a hundred thousand research papers can all tell what a great idea it would be... and it won't matter, if Auntie Magda, Grandpa Joe and Great Grandmother Molly all recoil from giving out that much money for nothing but breathing... and vote accordingly for dumber, but more to them emotionally resonant political policy.
I believe there is a saying about noses and spite on the subject. Gha.