Yea I guess its a lack of vision for some. Resistance to doing anything different... I'm open to moving from the status quo if there are enough benefits to society as a whole. Some things are unsustainable or just plain outdated.
Universal Basic Income
- Thread starter esmufc07
- Start date
What could be a more noble goal than for everybody to be able to not work and let machines do everything?
Seems to me we have some people speaking of UI for the here and now and others for some utopian future where robots wipe our arses for us.
That’s because UI is pie in sky in the here and now so people have postponed it until AI does all the Labour and stimulates our prostates while we jack off.
What kind of research are you looking for and what devil should be in the details?
There are some projects that tried to test UBI on a small scale but for obvious reasons they can only be of limited insight. As far as I'm concerned the two biggest issues with this are a.) finances and b.) people's willingness to work after UBI is enacted.
To come up with an okay-ish solution for the former is not that hard, the problem is that premises will start to shift after you have put an UBI in place, so there is a degree of unreliability in the nature of this thing - for the better and the worse. AFAIK there is decent research on the latter saying that people still would want to work (for socializing, meaning in life, more money) but again it's not the same saying this to some research assistant vs. actually doing it in case of an UBI.
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That's a future I understand.
Is that what you took from the conversation so far? I guess you won't use a driverless car, or a vending machine, or a drone delivery service, or a Hoover? Etc...
There's loads of jobs and hobbies that people can and will do to help maintain and push society forward, and actually it will be the large companies pushing automation and AI service/building management not the people. We are just discussing something that ca maybe help.
Automation and AI progression is happening regardless because its being backed/pushed by big business and the military not just a bunch of utopians/commies/futurists/etc. So let's actually look at what that might entail and prepare for it. In light of that.... Any better ideas?
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For instance how much the full UBI would cost compared to the cost of the welfare programs it is replacing? It is true the numbers have to add up and depending on how much more taxation would have to be devoted to cover the difference between UBI and current levels of welfare spending.
Personally I have no concern about the conservative idea that it "removes the incentive to work". To the contrary I think it would increase the incentive for citizens to be productive for society by freeing them from having to waste time on pointless work. so on that level I am not worried.
Wankers.... That's where your mind went when thinking of utopia
It’s the dream.Wankers.... That's where your mind went when thinking of utopia
Welfare spending would go bye bye. No means testing, no job centers and most SS jobs eliminated. Everyone would get a set amount for UBI. Maybe a smaller amount for kids, and a larger amount for one adult living alone. People that work would pay more tax so anyone above a certain salary would pay all their UBI back in tax.
Times two? Curious, any links?
Enron is plain Fraud and Countrywide is bribery. We are talking legal rich people here. I'd not mix that in with the fraudsters.
How does HFT come into this discussion? If pension funds don't want to invest in a firm involving HFT, then surely they can opt out?
Are you really arguing that we are failed as a society because we do not give enough handouts?
Times two? Curious, any links?
Enron is plain Fraud and Countrywide is bribery. We are talking legal rich people here. I'd not mix that in with the fraudsters.
How does HFT come into this discussion? If pension funds don't want to invest in a firm involving HFT, then surely they can opt out?
Its not something to quantify but its very apparent when you look at collective data. Do you really think the the top 15 doesn't massively benefit from the current system far more than they pay into it?
Every aspect is geared to benefit the richest people. The judicial system - corporate lawsuits take up the bulk of resources and the entire criminal justice system is geared to benefit the wealthy from the whole phony "war on drugs" that just locks up poor people to the benefit of private prison owners. The rich get away with murder while the poor go to jail for shop lifting and non-violent pot smoking. Here are some more discrepancies in criminal justice
Just look at the differences in penalties between cocaine (rich drug) and crack (poor drug)
Now look at the fact of how much the richest actually benefit from tax breaks.
Now who really benefits from all that military spending? Its not the middle class. Its the wealthiest defense contractors who literally steal an awful large amount of US tax payer money but because they know how to manipulate the legal system they "legally" rob millions.
https://www.sanders.senate.gov/news...raudulent-defense-contractors-paid-1-trillion
Then You get into the lawmaking power of the economic elites that is already linked by berbatrick:
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites...testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf
Add it all up and I think the richest 1% get far more value for their "taxes" than they deserve.
Are you really a believer in Capitalist Morality (IE the rich deserve to be rich by sheer fact that they are rich and the poor deserve to be poor)?
You used that moral word "deserve" and you haven't really defended that use of that term.
Are you really arguing that we are failed as a society because we do not give enough handouts?
The US gives too many handouts already...to the rich and powerful! that's the problem you don't seem to see.
Why do the poor not deserve some wealth redistribution? Why do all the wealthiest "deserve" all that money to you?
Are you really arguing that we are failed as a society because we do not give enough handouts?
I'm clearly not. Although I do think we are a failed or failing society not because we don't give handouts, but more because we value the creation of wealth far too much in society over peoples actual wellbeing.
Also rich people get far more handouts (in terms of ability to influence policy and tax breaks) than anyone that is poor
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Oh and @Edgar Allan Pillow High frequency traders I brought up because they illustrate a key point. They are parasites and leeches on society that literally contribute zero to human civilization. They steal money by skimming off the top due to arcane and obscure rule sets that they themselves influenced solely so they can skim profits without actually contributing anything to society.
To traditional Chinese society they are literally the lowest of the low because they do nothing positive but steal money off the top by simply manipulating rules.
To traditional Chinese society they are literally the lowest of the low because they do nothing positive but steal money off the top by simply manipulating rules.
Somehow, people that contributes a lot to society, like teachers or the people that keep the streets clean, for example, are always paid peanuts.
But some guy that help his boss to avoid paying taxes, get paid fecking good.
Sick society, en route to a global disaster. As usual, the wealthiest has the control over how as society we gonna deal with it. If they don't change nothing, we have a French revolution in the making.
Keep the people happy, and they can rule as long as they want. Quite easy option if you ask me, but sadly, history has been repeating itself since forever... not much faith from my part the current "elites" can solve shit.
Well, they did earn it. Can you tell me that Zuckerberg or Buffet or Gates have not earned their wealth?
I don't get the public need to play Robin Hood at all. You are now linking UBI with a Wealth Cap, which are two different concepts.
Don't we have minimum wage, benefits and welfare currently? If you are saying they are not effective and needs to be tweaked, it's a different discussion and I think one worth discussing in detail.
The focus should be on empowerment. Enabling people to not depend on society for their basic needs. Create Jobs, proper skilling etc. I don't mind giving a helping hand for those in need, but that's an interim measure to get them back on their feet. Noting further than that.
You've just bucketed all of stock and financial markets under that statement. The latest craze on BitCoin serves as an example of how something as worthless as a virtual currency makes fortunes. Be it shares, stock, currency or commodities...money is made purely in these exchanges. There is no "contribution to society" from any of this.
That's the point. They haven't contributed to society in any way so how can you make moral superiority claims like they "earned it" or "deserve" it while other people like the working poor don't "deserve" more than what they have got?
And no Gates, Buffet and especially Zuckerberg did not "earn" anything. They got lucky really. Bill Gates was not remotely the most important coder of that generation. Bill Joy "deserves" more money than Bill Gates or Steve Jobs IMO but the eccentricities of the current system doesn't reward profits based on merit. Zuckerberg got luckier than any WSOP winner by stealing other people's ideas and then timing. Friendster, Myspace. Who knew Facebook would luck into the correct timing. And it was luck more than any innovation or foresight. The current world capitalist system that privatizes profit and socializes risk rewards based on the eccentric manipulating of rule sets not contribution to society.
Going by your argument, nobody "deserves" to be wealthy. Whoever gets money needs to shell it out so some others can get it without working.
And I doubt having an UBI is going to change any of those you mention above.
So you aren't going to defend the fact you are the one who brought the moral judgement of "deserve" into the conversation?
You tried to ask if the "poor deserved" UBI or what not. How are you defending that?
Do you believe that everyone who obtained money "legally" deserves it?
that the working poor don't deserve it?
And not sure what your bold even means.
If there is a deficit, then the wages will increase, and people will flock to it. As there becomes an overabundance of labor, the wages will decrease, things will find a balance. The only people who lose money in this are the ultra wealthy. People who have been skewing the cost of living in their favor for a nearly a century now. Everything costs more now relative to what they earn, and the corporations and big business are what have benefited and even driven that.
The Finns are testing it out aren't they? How is it going so far?
I also believe "deserved money" is just an emotional statement that can never be a practical concept. There can never be a definition of what 'deserve' is so we have to equate it with legally earned. I can't think of a way any legally earned money can be taken away as "undeserved", so there you go. If it's legally earned, it's deserved.
I never said, working poor don't deserve money. I just said nobody deserves any money just for free and trying to get something for nothing is one of the ridiculous ideas of pseudo-socialism that keeps popping up. Get a job, ensure minimum pay is enough for basic necessities. If unemployed, then you get welfare till you get a job again. Only very special segment of people with disabilities, veterans, elderly etc can look to getting benefits by default.
What do you do for a living?
In 20 years, in 40 years, in 60 years, I can pretty much assure you, that whatever you do, doesn't matter. Your job will be done by a machine or a computer. I doubt you're an entertainer. Are you confident that you will be in the top 1% of the top 1% of the top 1% of performers in the few administrative/creative jobs that remain in the coming decades? There is going to be a time, a lot sooner than we all think, where it isn't just dumb labor type jobs that are gone. It will be middle management. It will be everything but entertainers (actors, athletes, musicians), extremely high level administrators, and creative thinkers who design the robots and computer programs that do 99.999% of the jobs in our society.
Society on earth is going to go one of two ways in the next century. Either unrestricted capitalism wins, and we end up with Blade Runner as our future. Or some form of socialism wins, and we end up with UBI and some form of egalitarian future. Either, you won't have a job, or a UBI, and you will be living and dying in the gutter of some polluted shithole, or you will have a UBI and you will do what you want.
That's not sci-fi. That is what is going to happen. You're a real estate agent? Uh, nope. That job won't exist. You're a truck driver? Nope that job won't exist. You're a mechanic? Nope that job won't exist. You're a teacher? Probably won't exist. You're an insurance agent? Adjuster? Nope Nope <insert job here> Nope. All done by a computer program or a machine. Unless you're writing code, designing software, writing books, dunking on dudes from the three point line, or acting, nope nope nope. Your job is going to go by by. It's not if, it's when.
So what then? What would future you do, and or think, if he was facing the reality that a computer program written by a 16 year old is now going to make all the decisions you make, or a machine made by some corporation is going to do whatever labor you do, and it's going to do it better, faster, without sleep, with more efficiency?
I for one hope we as a society elect to go Star Trek, and not Bladerunner, but that's just me. I'm not a Koch brother and I'm certainly not a billionaire! If I was, my opinion might be different, as I lived in my sky tower, pissing on the rest of society from 2 miles up, above the pollution and filth of all the disgusting common people, tut tut!
But you brought up "deserve" into the debate.
And I disagree that all "legally earned money" whatever that ambiguous concept really means is all it takes for wealth to be "deserved" (which is a moral judgement).
Because the rich are actually those that make the laws, which in turn favor them.
How does HFT come into this discussion? If pension funds don't want to invest in a firm involving HFT, then surely they can opt out?
If there is an invention of a mankind that doesn't help the society in any shape or form, in fact, it actually destroys the economy for the only reason of giving the extremely rich people a way of getting even richer, while they can have their play of who has the bigger dick is finance in general, with HTF in particular. It removes money from economy (when the stuff is actually make and majority of people work) and puts them in some obscure game when only a few selected ones have actually the means of playing.
Sure, it is legal. So was slavery, so was killing people in Africa and America, not long ago. It is actually destroying society though, and making the difference between the rich and poor higher every day, to the point that a large part of middle class is becoming lower class.
What do you people have against HFT specifically?
What do you people have against HFT specifically?
Contribute literally nothing to society. Only exist because of illogical arcane rules that allow people to profit by simply skimming off the top in ways the lawmakers either don't understand or don't care (bribed). They are parasites and leeches to the economy because everyone would literally be better off without them except them.
They literally make millions off of actions that are 100% negative to society. They haven't "earned" a penny yet scam millions.
Because it is a way of taking money from economy (when stuff happens), to the hands of a few very rich people. A zero sum game created to get money from middle class and to put them in the hands of ultra-rich. Zero contribution to human society, a lot of harm.What do you people have against HFT specifically?
During the economical crisis of the last decade, when everyone who wasn't super-rich became poorer, the super rich became even richer just because if that. Sure, you might work on that, but it is a disease to human society.
Automation might create a lot of problems, but at the same time will fix a lot of things and if done right, can send humanity in the golden age. Finance doesn't fix anything and destroys everything. But some banking found gets a few hundred extra billions while a few millions people lose their houses. And taxing those people in order to give food to the other 'freebies' is such a bad thing to do, cause those people deserve that money. Cool stuff!
Is that what you took from the conversation so far? I guess you won't use a driverless car, or a vending machine, or a drone delivery service, or a Hoover? Etc...
There's loads of jobs and hobbies that people can and will do to help maintain and push society forward, and actually it will be the large companies pushing automation and AI service/building management not the people. We are just discussing something that ca maybe help.
Automation and AI progression is happening regardless because its being backed/pushed by big business and the military not just a bunch of utopians/commies/futurists/etc. So let's actually look at what that might entail and prepare for it. In light of that.... Any better ideas?
Eh? I want full automation. I wasn't being sarcastic.
Oh right. My bad. Join the other wankers then.
A machine will do the wanking
Will it stick something up my butt and massage my prostate at the same time.....if yes I am in.
I'm assuming killing the lazy and poor is what you have in mind?
I don't have the numbers for the UK and lack the datasource-knowledge to do the math in a reasonable amount of time. Re your second point: I have the same outlook.
What is this?
Reading your posts I got a strong inference that you believe that the poor are that way as a result of them not working hard enough.