Post: #51

I worked in the field of industrial digitalisation. They say in the future 18 to 40 % will redundant in Germany for example and the remaining ones demand a higher skill. You see it already in the lower education classes where jobs are outsourced to cheaper countries. Productivity rise and rise and technology in the last 50 years did improve faster then in the 500 years before. Exponential grow is not made up in our brain. I don't share the idea that all jobs are redundant, but a strong industrial country like Germany can be able to produce lot size 1 by digital automation. Just assume 18 % of the now working population is redundant. What to do with all those people?
Put them on the fight for survive on the last remaining jobs and call them low performers? The idea of UBI brings together two different views of mankind. One say, all people are lazy and need control and some push to improve. If not they just become lazy social welfare suckers. The other one say, yes a few will always be lazy but most people want to do something in their life and maybe it something different then a boring job but they can't because they need the money.

When robots and machines do the production and responsible for productivity, why not tax them? Now you tax the workers. What means by the tax system, less money to spend for the workers and in Germany, high social cost for the employers. The profit of companies rise but not the wages. Now the state give away social welfare money and all the bureaucratic system need resources as well. When you give every citizen at a certain age it reduce those cost. Of course some will ask, how does it work but it depends on the calculation. Some say UBI will never work, others day different. They use different ways of calculation because its all theoretical, there is no practical experience.

For me, thats he future. With the freedom people gain, the natural desire for rise social, improve and so on will not vanish. The new system has to educate the people to use their potential and the jobs that are still in demand will gain higher social status and will bring you also more money. It will mostly only work in high developed societies that have a high rate of industrial production. When a society is not very productive or is more based on a service society, they will have problems to finance it. Tax productivity and cut all other social welfare programs. Also the production of goods will be a way cheaper and more people have money with UBI that they can spend. In the long run, with less work for everyone, its the only solution if you don't want to have fights and wars about distribution of the few jobs and resources. It all has to come with a certain education that promote self improvement and give the remaining jobs a high social status.
A few years back I read a book To have or to Be? from Erich Fromm. He did ask the question and had no answer. When people have to work, they are always relay on the jobs to live. If they don't need to work, how to they fill their life with purpose? Work helps to improve, let lazy people get up in the morning and competition is necessary. Still to much competition where most people will lose will destroy a society as well.

Post: #52

I can give you another example of a real life UBI experiment.

Canadian indians/aborigines on reservations. They get free housing, utilities, education, health care and a monthly allowance. As long as an indian stays on the reservation they have no need to provide for themselves. What is the end result?

- Massive suicide, drug and alcohol abuse
- fertility rates through the roof...native indians are the fastest growing canadian population...why not. Nothing else to do but drink and bang all day.
- Utter dependency on the government, while blaming their problems on it at the same time
- Destruction of infrastructure and property. These people have no sense of ownership. Their homes and infrastructure and vandalized and neglected because they are 'free' as a result they have to be evacuated all of the time and are huge black holes of infrastructure costs. They trash their own homes on a regular basis.

UBI for Canadian indians/aborigines have created ghettos with dark age living conditions. I would go with Philosophical Recovery's prediction on a global scale if it were implemented.

Post: #53

^ That is not a good example.

Aboriginals and Natives are groups who were fucked WAY before that.

That'd be like me making the case that weight training doesn't work because a 400 pound obese dude couldn't get in shape using weights.

I don't think the average person is a latent drug addict waiting to happen.

Post: #54

Ive skimmed through the thread, however can someone explain this to me like im 5?

So is this basically a guaranteed stipend for every adult American?

If so, I can truly see this being the beginning of the end.

Post: #55

I understand the concerns over large swaths of the population being unemployable due to technology advancements and what to do with all these people, but is giving free money the answer? Will human curiosity and ingenuity be killed by a life of indolence, laziness and entitlement? Will we explore the cosmos and expand our mind and consciousness or will we kill ourselves with cheap food, cheap entertainment and cheap drugs? I don't know what the right answer is but I really hate this idea.

When I was a kid I had the vague idea the future of mankind would be something like this

   

   

   

   

But this is closer to reality

   

Sad

Post: #56

I was thinking more like this

Post: #57

Putting aside any theoretical musings about the potential effects of UBI, I remain firmly against it. The only thing one needs to look at is how the current welfare experiment is turning out so far (hint: it's a massive failure) to see the glimpse of how this one will do as well. I'm firmly against this UBI thing.

Insisting on it is eerily similar to when feminists claim that the current societal problems exist only because the society is "not feminist enough" and "we need more feminism to solve it".

Post: #58

Hey, if current Americans want to prevent demographic Muslim takeover, how about giving native born citizens more vacation time for two parent households that have kids, like another week a year of paid vacation a year per kid. One poster complained Native Americans are having too many kids because of liberal welfare, non-native Muslims are doing the same thing but aren't going to stay on a reservation.

Post: #59

(06-07-2016 06:55 PM)Fortis Wrote:  ^ That is not a good example.

Aboriginals and Natives are groups who were fucked WAY before that.

That'd be like me making the case that weight training doesn't work because a 400 pound obese dude couldn't get in shape using weights.

I don't think the average person is a latent drug addict waiting to happen.

Come on now. Its a great example. The oldest treaties in Canada go back to the 1870s, that is a great span of time to show how UBI can screw a population up. I don't think that the indian's genetic vulnerability to alcohol can be blamed either as its drugs and pills that are the distraction du jour on reservations now.

If it wasn't indians addicted to alcohol it would be white people on meth or black people on crack if they were the ones on the reservations. Its the lack of a need to survive or exist that does it.

I'm sure the first generation indians that signed the treaties were like "fuck yeah, we are set for life, we can just hunt and fish, get paid by whitey and have them leave us the fuck alone" 1st generation treaty indian life would have been glorious, just like 1st generation UBI folks would think they had it made.

2nd, 3rd and subsequent generations though? Totally fucked and think that their life is entitlements. The same way that people in the UK think that have grown up on council estates/housing and the same way that blacks and white trailer trash alike treat their foodstamp benefits, medicare and the holy grail "disability" income.

Last, lets assume that people on UBI are still allowed to vote. Every campaign will be to elect the candidate that promises to increase UBI the most. Thats going to be a disaster.

Post: #60

Did any poster against UBI come up with a good solution of what to do with all the people that aren't talented enough to contribute?

90+ million in the US unemployed for people like HCE isn't that 4 times the size of your country?

The people against this don't have an answer because there isn't one.

Imagining getting everyone to work for feel goods tingles in the heart is like wishing all girls were dedicated loyal virgins that number 1 aim was to please a man. Will never happen.

Post: #61

The only saving grace that I've seen in Ontarios plan is that they will scrap many other welfare programs, the 12k a year or whatever it is will be far less than what current tax payers are ponying up. Also, with the introduction of $15 an hour minimum wage, inflation will take over and 12k a year will be substantially below the poverty line.

I'm always going to do more, just take your basic income and invest it unlike everyone else.

Post: #62

I think the UBI will be the future eventually (assuming no collapse) as technology moves us into a post-scarcity society. How long that will be is anyone's guess.

Still I think there needs to be a strong and powerful culture shift so that people who don't do something to contribute to society with their time are shamed.

Even then there will be a large percent of the population happy to live on the outskirts of society in a life of hedonism with new degeneracies such as VR addiction.

Post: #63

I hate this term: post scarcity society. There will never be a post scarcity society ever.

You can't make more land and it still takes limited resources to make goods humans consume.

Post labor society is a better term.

With that said, a universal basic income take should be a given only if the government eliminates the minimum wage and kills off the paper pushing bureaucrats who inefficiently staff the various welfare offices used to determine who is eligible for benefits.

The government is far too large and needs to be massively shrunk down and re-org to eliminate redundant offices.

The only thing I fear is, if this is instituted what incentives would there be for people to work or grow food? People still have to pick our food. The machines aren't able to do that yet.

Post: #64

(06-08-2016 09:22 AM)Travesty Wrote:  90+ million in the US unemployed for people like HCE isn't that 4 times the size of your country?

How dare you disparage my country!




...
Just kidding, it's more like 20 times

Well I am not denying at all that at some point there will have to be some sort of solution for the permanently unemployed. However, at this point:

A) Welfare (a milder form of UBI) seems to be hurting them more than helping, based on the results so far
B) Ramping up welfare seems more like a recipe to overwhelm the productive elements of society than to help the unproductive ones
C) The reduction in the amount and quality of jobs seen so far is much less due to technology and more due to a globalist world order
D) Even while taking the reduction from C into account, the exploding cost of welfare is also heavily influenced by social degeneracy and weakening of high-trust societies

Introducing UBI seems to me like attempting to fill a bottomless hole from a finite one. Demand, hedonism and degeneracy might have no limits, but production, order and harmony have plenty of them.

If we knowingly go down that path while being aware of the above factors, the question of "What could possibly go wrong?" will very soon stop being merely rhetorical.

Post: #65

The Beast have you ever flown over America?

Have you ever seen Wyoming or driven through it?

We have insane amounts of land.

People can be a complete complete fuck up and easily survive in high fashion in first world nations.

This is only possible because of excess resources.

Without resources these people would have been eaten by wolves or frozen.

If anyone notices the anti UBI posts are based on strong feelings and not solutions.

Post: #66

Fuck it, I'll bite. Some of these 'post-scarcity' mutterings make me laugh though. It's like I'm on answers.com or 4chan or something. Apparently as long as you don't understand the world, it works according to wonderful magic. I think one guy even said "we should tax the robots" .

(06-08-2016 09:22 AM)Travesty Wrote:  Did any poster against UBI come up with a good solution of what to do with all the people that aren't talented enough to contribute?

90+ million in the US unemployed for people like HCE isn't that 4 times the size of your country?

The people against this don't have an answer because there isn't one.

This has all been said before. What will happen to the switchboard operators and the (professional) computers after technology? What will these dumb slaves do if they are released and no longer have masters? No-one made redundant can ever get work again!!!11 OMG1!11!





People are only just starting to be made redundant and it's going to accelerate into oblivion! AHHGHG!!



They'll get a different job -- regardless of if you know what it will be or not. Human wants are infinite, and as long as a human wants something, a human will have to work to get it. All this robot fear comes from nothing other than a misunderstanding of what a robot or a factory is. It is a lever. It is a hammer or a spanner writ-large.

People failing to get another job is a symptom of regulation only. You see what happens whenever someone invents something new: Uber and Airbnb. Every government worker pounces on the opportunity to get in it's way; to block it, bar it, interfere in it, limit it, ban it, restrict it, tax it. Technology is opening up swathes of new opportunities, and government is strangling and chilling people from moving into the those spaces with its "that's different! you can't do that!" anti-social dickhead attitude, and begrudgingly loosening its grip only after it gets amply bribed over several years.

Japan has factories of robots building robots with the lights and air conditioning off because there are no workers. The unemployment rate is 3.5%. The average income of a worker is $2,500/month. Mechanization never caused systematic unemployment, doesn't cause it now, and will never cause it in the future. This fear attitude is unbecoming of humans full stop. Humans are separated from the rest of the animal kingdom by their use and ownership of tools, and anything that bemoans the growing pains of using ever sophisticated tools is to nostalgically long for the cave and cudgel.

All this "what will they do next!" fear mongering is nothing more than fear of the unknown, which is not becoming of a steady, strong-in-himself man. 10 years ago, a "search engine optimizer" wasn't a job. Could you have predicted that coming into existence? Few people could. Doesn't mean we should get all scared because we can't see what's coming next.

How many coffee baristas are there now versus 100 years ago? Scuba diving instructors? Dog groomers? Mobile car mechanics? Restaurant & cafe/bar owners? Entertainment industry workers? Office window cleaners? Interior designers? Dudes paid $4M to play friggin computer games on youtube?

A 'universal basic income' is pure communist fantasy. It's a rehash of exactly the same thing: the idea that machines are just "there", owning them isn't really legitimate, and their products should be distributed evenly to everybody by right. It's just communism, the same old anti-social bullshit that will produce the opposite of what it claims to.

Technology, privately owned, is the only damn thing that has gone right in the whole recent western world, and we should cling on to it as the only thing separating us from the 3rd-world hell-holes.

Post: #67

(06-08-2016 10:56 AM)Travesty Wrote:  The Beast have you ever flown over America?

Have you ever seen Wyoming or driven through it?

We have insane amounts of land.

People can be a complete complete fuck up and easily survive in high fashion in first world nations.

This is only possible because of excess resources.

Without resources these people would have been eaten by wolves or frozen.

If anyone notices the anti UBI posts are based on strong feelings and not solutions.

True, I did not offer solutions.

I'd be willing to think about UBI with required social service. The displacement of volunteer labor and increased basic services isn't going to hurt anyone.

Either that or offer negative UBI like an extra $500/year for people that voluntarily get sterilized. That would weed out the mouth breathers pretty quickly vs. the reverse incentive now to pop out 10 kids in order to maximize your household size and thus your welfare check.

Post: #68

Lots of bad Libertarian assumptions in this thread which are easily refuted:

Quote:You can't make more land and it still takes limited resources to make goods humans consume.

False. You can make more land by learning how to transform different environments into livable ones. Why can't we eventually live underwater, or in outer-space?

Resources aren't limited either. All resources are a product of human ingenuity. If we suddenly discover how to operate fission power, we'll have unlimited power running on H2O.

Quote:Human wants are infinite, and as long as a human wants something, a human will have to work to get it.

Wants may be infinite, but human needs are not - food, water, healthcare, shelter. Our ancestors got by with 1/10th of what we have today.

Most of what people want are luxuries, but human needs are finite and are easily satisfied. Once a maximum threshold of needs are met due to technological surplus, UBI will need to be instated due to a lack of jobs.

HOWEVER, if people want luxuries, then they'll need to get a job and compete for it.

If guys want the hottest bitches, and travel around the world for fun, etc, they will need to work and they will work. But they won't need to worry about going homeless or hungry if their plans fail either because things like food, housing, and healthcare will be so common and easily produced it will have similar scarcity as internet porn.

So ultimately, I don't see UBI destroying society or anything like that, no more than technology already has. Lots of people fear tech, but I trust God: "The truth shall set you free," which means greater technological achievements will lead us to better things than ignorance will.

Post: #69

(06-08-2016 11:04 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  How many coffee baristas are there now versus 100 years ago? Scuba diving instructors? Dog groomers? Mobile car mechanics? Restaurant & cafe/bar owners? Entertainment industry workers? Office window cleaners? Interior designers? Dudes paid $4M to play friggin computer games on youtube?

Unfortunately most of those jobs are low end bullshit now called the "gig economy." Translation: part time semi or non-skilled work for which you did not need that overpriced degree and will never qualify you for a mortgage - or retirement.





We are quite simply running out of things to do, especially worthwhile things. Yet another reason to call into question the need for boatloads of illegal and semi-legal (H1-B) labor.

That said, I do not think UBI is the answer since government will fuck this up six ways to Sunday, just like every other gibsmedat program they've ever attempted.

Post: #70

(06-08-2016 12:47 PM)SlickyBoy Wrote:  That said, I do not think UBI is the answer since government will fuck this up six ways to Sunday, just like every other gibsmedat program they've ever attempted.

No, this is not what will happen. We already know what will happen because history provides us with the answer.

The answer is, WHOMEVER offers UBI first will become the most popular organization in the world. Doesn't matter if the UBI is offered by the US Government or Google. Whomever can say, "Pledge your loyalty to me, promise to fight in my army if I need you, and I will give you a wage for life," is going to win.

Now, they need to actually be able to walk the walk - but if they are technologically advanced enough to sustain a UBI, then they will have unlimited political power and the loyalty of millions of men who will fight to protect that UBI wage.

The fact is, we're much closer to UBI than most people on here realize.

Governments have been using surplus labor to fund massive armies for thousands of years. Human societies have been remarkably efficient going back to the Roman times. How else could huge ass armies be sustained? Lots of armies were sustained on conquest, and obviously Rome needed fresh conquests to sustain itself which is why it died when it could no longer conquer, but look at Europe as recently as WWI.

Millions of men died in WWI and were provided wages and weapons using the surplus labor of each European state... there is obviously a tremendous amount of surplus in the world today. Although it is usually wasted on bullshit, like wars, bailouts, or allowing trash women to have 5 kids from 5 fathers, it cannot be denied that we still have a lot of surplus to make everything happen as we do.

The main problems with the UBI are political, the technological problems will be solved within the century.

Post: #71

(06-08-2016 10:14 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  I hate this term: post scarcity society. There will never be a post scarcity society ever.

You can't make more land and it still takes limited resources to make goods humans consume.

There is effectively infinite land and resources. Just not on Earth.

UBI and post scarcity is an inevitability. The only thing that will stop it is Armageddon.

Post: #72

(06-08-2016 12:59 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

(06-08-2016 12:47 PM)SlickyBoy Wrote:  That said, I do not think UBI is the answer since government will fuck this up six ways to Sunday, just like every other gibsmedat program they've ever attempted.

No, this is not what will happen. We already know what will happen because history provides us with the answer.

The answer is, WHOMEVER offers UBI first will become the most popular organization in the world. Doesn't matter if the UBI is offered by the US Government or Google. Whomever can say, "Pledge your loyalty to me, promise to fight in my army if I need you, and I will give you a wage for life," is going to win.

Now, they need to actually be able to walk the walk - but if they are technologically advanced enough to sustain a UBI, then they will have unlimited political power and the loyalty of millions of men who will fight to protect that UBI wage.

The fact is, we're much closer to UBI than most people on here realize.

Governments have been using surplus labor to fund massive armies for thousands of years. Human societies have been remarkably efficient going back to the Roman times. How else could huge ass armies be sustained? Lots of armies were sustained on conquest, and obviously Rome needed fresh conquests to sustain itself which is why it died when it could no longer conquer, but look at Europe as recently as WWI.

Millions of men died in WWI and were provided wages and weapons using the surplus labor of each European state... there is obviously a tremendous amount of surplus in the world today. Although it is usually wasted on bullshit, like wars, bailouts, or allowing trash women to have 5 kids from 5 fathers, it cannot be denied that we still have a lot of surplus to make everything happen as we do.

The main problems with the UBI are political, the technological problems will be solved within the century.

It sounds like you are advocating this to get surplus labor together to accomplish something. Unfortunately that's the last thing on the minds of both those proposing it and those supporting it:

Quote:Olivier, a 26-year-old carpenter who works on construction sites and runs a small business designing and building furniture, said he voted "yes."

"For me it would be a great opportunity to put my focus on my passion and not go to work just for a living," he said.

The last thing on that entitled Eurotrash douchebag's mind is building the equivalent of Roman engineering feats. Hell, he's already got what sounds like a decent skilled job and he'd rather just not do anything and let someone else pay for it.

Post: #73

(06-08-2016 12:20 PM)Samseau Wrote:  Most of what people want are luxuries, but human needs are finite and are easily satisfied. Once a maximum threshold of needs are met due to technological surplus, UBI will need to be instated due to a lack of jobs.

No it won't, no there won't be. This is a nonsense statement, which bizarrely followed my last post rather than preceded it. As usual you are just conjuring up concepts about how the world works out of thin air. The tone you say things in is always "Samseau says it so it's obviously gospel". You think starting off a paragraph with a dismissive "oh all of this is easily refuted" will make it a refutation. There's two ways to win an argument, being right -- using dispassionate and observational stance towards the facts, and attrition.

(06-08-2016 12:47 PM)SlickyBoy Wrote:  We are quite simply running out of things to do

No we are not, I've already refuted that clearly. You don't get just just say 'we are quite simply X' when the facts and the real world say the opposite. I guess as long as one scrolls past the "robots building robots but 3.5% unemployment rate" it doesn't exist and you can sit comfortable in your opinion.

Post: #74

(06-08-2016 01:25 PM)Phoenix Wrote:  

(06-08-2016 12:47 PM)SlickyBoy Wrote:  We are quite simply running out of things to do

No we are not, I've already refuted that clearly. You don't get just just say 'we are quite simply X' when the facts and the real world say the opposite. I guess as long as one scrolls past the "robots building robots but 3.5% unemployment rate" it doesn't exist and you can sit comfortable in your opinion.

I did not scroll past your robots building robots maxim, but that sanguine assurance that it isn't a big deal is already about to become seriously outdated with general purpose robots versus the specific purpose robots you are referring to.

Neither did I see much refuting other than an article of faith that more jobs will come, because after all, they always have in the past, so why would the future be any different?

This cornerstone of Libertarian economic thinking which has been true for so many years and parroted by the likes of Schiff, et. al. is about to run smack into a roadblock. Freeing people up to do other things only works when there are more productive things in the economy for them to do - evidence indicates the expected supply of productive tasks will run dry, and a lot sooner than we think.

Have a look at the 2:55 mark of the Humans Need Not Apply video (which you really should watch in its entirety - it sounds like you did not) and you will see the reality of the barista job, which you cited. It's headed the way of the dodo.

In fact, with the possible exception of scuba instructor, every other job you suggested is at risk - even interior designers. And the trend towards franchising and corporate ownership (love it or hate it) in the restaurants has already been reducing the number of restaurant owners for the past few decades.

Before you once again insist that "more jobs will come," consider the mechanical as well as mental tasks taken over by the machines as demonstrated in the video, then realistically reflect what kinds of jobs they cannot do. The best case scenario will be low end "gig economy" jobs where it is not - or at least not yet - feasible to replace the human with a machine and/or computer. Remember that no business big or small hires you because they want to, they hire you because they need to. If they could get the job done without you, or at least with fewer of you, they would do so in a heartbeat. The advancements discussed in that video are a peek at what's coming and in some cases already arrived - a paradigm shift unlike anything we've witnessed before.


As to Samseau's post, I think he is correct in that it really takes very little to simply get by with a pulse nowadays, as detailed in this ROK post. Not exactly the best way to live, but if this is what the UBI advocates have in mind to replace, it's as depressing as it is marketable to the masses who would support it.

Post: #75

(06-06-2016 07:33 PM)Samseau Wrote:  I do wonder if UBI is implemented in the USA if people will just move out to rural parts. 10K is actually quite a bit in places like South Dakota boonies. Combine it with ever cheaper shipping thanks to stuff like drone delivery, and we may have a real revolution on our hands here.

I'm worried that this will be coupled with an environmental agenda meant to combat urban sprawl, slow population increase, kill rural economies, and drive people to a jobless existence in densely populated cities. Productivity is well and good for the average persons well being and happiness, but leads to expansion and consumes raw materials. Hopefully I'm just being paranoid.