Post: #51

(10-21-2014 05:45 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

(10-21-2014 05:21 AM)ElBorrachoInfamoso Wrote:  As others already mentioned, it would be worth trying if and only if it was accompanied by immediate elimination of all other welfare state programs and agencies.

An interesting and creative idea-- there is the minor problem that it would quintuple the poverty rate among the elderly if you count social security.

How would it hurt the elderly is they're suddenly getting the same amount of money under another title?

Post: #52

It's simple most people don't have the critical thinking or creative skills to contribute.

I see how many useless people have been at every job I've had. This is without robots yet.

If you are a bright individual you have noticed the same.

We cannot all contribute. There is a point of diminishing returns being hit quickly from human labor. It isn't a conspiracy wages will get much worse without forced redistribution.

Most jobs are bullshit. If a program or simple robot can do it, in 30 years it will be gone.

This includes large swaths of the "safe" jobs that can't be outsourced easily such as accounting and law.

How many of those guys are spreadsheet and document monkeys?

Almost all.

Post: #53

(10-26-2014 07:57 PM)Travesty444 Wrote:  It's simple most people don't have the critical thinking or creative skills to contribute.


We cannot all contribute. There is a point of diminishing returns being hit quickly from human labor. It isn't a conspiracy wages will get much worse without forced redistribution.

Most jobs are bullshit. ...

Yes - most jobs are bullshit now and they could start firing way more people.

And no - we can ALL CONTRIBUTE. Albeit it has to be under a different economic system.
20% being employed in production, agriculture & administration
40% in art & design
10% teaching
30% science & exploration

Such a system could exist in an advanced society.

Example - shoe production. A few large factories could produce shoes in highly automated production facilities. But millions and millions of people could be supplying designs. Some designers would be more popular, but plenty of people would be busy doing those activities. The same goes for other fields. In an advanced society you could also have several jobs - each for 10-20 years to become an expert in it and explore and contribute more.

Even less intelligent people could specialize in patient zen garden design, old people care etc. Everyone can contribute, but sooner or later we will have to think of a new economic system, reduce population or decide to subjugate different civilizations. Those are the 3 options for a technologically advanced society.

Post: #54

(10-21-2014 05:32 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  That's right, over 99% of the money companies and workers pay INTO SS COMES BACK OUT IN CHECKS to participants.

That's not the problem. It's when the system is scheduled to pay out 200% of what people have paid in that it becomes an issue.

Post: #55

(10-26-2014 08:54 PM)DarkTriad Wrote:  

(10-21-2014 05:32 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  That's right, over 99% of the money companies and workers pay INTO SS COMES BACK OUT IN CHECKS to participants.

That's not the problem. It's when the system is scheduled to pay out 200% of what people have paid in that it becomes an issue.

Also, 99% payout is not that impressive for a retirement portfolio. A Vanguard target date fund charges 0.17% as a management fee, for example.

https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/s...IntExt=INT

Post: #56

(10-26-2014 07:57 PM)Travesty444 Wrote:  It's simple most people don't have the critical thinking or creative skills to contribute.

I see how many useless people have been at every job I've had. This is without robots yet.

If you are a bright individual you have noticed the same.

We cannot all contribute. There is a point of diminishing returns being hit quickly from human labor. It isn't a conspiracy wages will get much worse without forced redistribution.

Most jobs are bullshit. If a program or simple robot can do it, in 30 years it will be gone.

This includes large swaths of the "safe" jobs that can't be outsourced easily such as accounting and law.

How many of those guys are spreadsheet and document monkeys?

Almost all.

Harsh, true words.

I think people can do other things though. One of my female colleagues was an always unmotivated, silent girl who just showed up because she needed to get paid. I ran into her a few years later in a different setting and noticed she was actually a funny, charming person. She had skills, but sitting behind a PC receiving, working on & sending emails wasn't one of them.

This is true for many people: we do highly specialized work which doesn't suit our best skills. A GBI could help people to not stay in such BS jobs and do something they like & can contribute in.

Post: #57

When I say contribute I don't mean to human happiness.

I.E., the "40% in arts and design".

I am sure everyone can help contribute by taking kids to finger painting classes, playing chess with old people, and creating knick-knacks that people exchange.

That is all fluff we trade back and forth because we are bored as people and we need to do feel-good work and make knick-knacks to trade because the people at the top that desire huge amounts of money and power need this to happen.

When I say contribute I mean doing things that are necessary to improve society in more concrete terms. Providing cheaper energy, cheaper food, more infastructure, automating soul killing processes, better medicine, more efficient transportation etc...

These jobs are engineers, researchers, scientists, inventors, and the people with the management and financial skills to bring it all together.

I bet in a society with 40% of the people doing arts and crafts and feel good jobs you could suspend the vast majority from their jobs and it really wouldn't be noticeable, those people would just be taking it easy spending their GBI hah.

People can all contribute but let's say this:

The longer we go the larger that gap will be in how valuable those contributions are in concrete terms. When you give motivated bright people the cheap and accessible tools to create what they want, they will need less and less grunts at their disposal and this is exactly what is happening.

Just like liberal arts majors that make minimum wage at a coffee shop after graduating are being exposed for their lack of value and skills are now... this isn't going away it will get much much worse.

Post: #58

(10-27-2014 08:20 PM)Travesty444 Wrote:  When I say contribute I don't mean to human happiness.

I.E., the "40% in arts and design".

I am sure everyone can help contribute by taking kids to finger painting classes, playing chess with old people, and creating knick-knacks that people exchange.
....

Ay - sooner or later there comes a time - even with our current technology, where most people are not needed to produce, create and explore new frontiers. All goods and services could be done by a small part of the population.

If energy would be free (which it would be if it were not for profit motives & control of the matrix), then even more processes would be automated.

To advance and upkeep civilization I estimate that only 20% of the work-force is really needed, if you take into account that many appliances could be made to last decades or longer easily.

Then what should the rest do? Well - our current dictatorship has decided for long-term depopulation. They did not ask for volunteers, but went ahead - most of it done via toxic food, deadly mostly ineffective medicine, feminism, sexual liberation, LBGT agenda, some wars (the least part honestly) etc. So that little unemployment issue is being taken care of.

If someone cannot serve the plutocracy, then there is no use for that person. We are truly the only species who absolutely must serve the 0,001% in order to justify our existence.

Thankfully life itself serves a different purpose than catering to them. That's what was so unique in Christianity back then, because it said that EVERYONE was valuable and divine - in a time where the powerless were enslaved and had no rights at all.

That is why some kind of GBI will have to exist sooner or later, but there are ways to do it, so that people still serve society. If the current political system is pushing it, then it will have major nasty conditions attached to it - have no doubt about it. Plus - it will be based on our usual system of compound interest.

Post: #59

New industries will build. It's just a matter of time.

Hopefully soon we'll attack space. The only issue is we need ridiculous amounts of smart people for that to happen and most people seem to be getting dumber.

And most smart people go after the money, rather than do good for humanity. I still imagine there are thousands of world changing people saddled by student loan debt.

Post: #60

If we're operating under the premise that GBI would mean the abolishment of various alphabet agencies (and all their associated employees, subsidies, tax breaks, etc.) within the context of the current welfare state, then I would say it's highly unlikely to happen.

Post: #61

(11-01-2014 01:41 PM)jake1720 Wrote:  And most smart people go after the money, rather than do good for humanity. I still imagine there are thousands of world changing people saddled by student loan debt.

Same thing. Unless someone stole their money, then the fact that they earned it means they produced something of value for another human. I call that doing what's best for humanity. People need to get rid of this primitive notion that somehow earning a profit is not good for humanity.

Post: #62

Damn straight.
Whenever I hear someone talk crap about profits I immediately give them my 'a profit means the company output was more valuable to people than the input' speech.

Post: #63

(11-03-2014 04:38 AM)ElBorrachoInfamoso Wrote:  Same thing. Unless someone stole their money, then the fact that they earned it means they produced something of value for another human. I call that doing what's best for humanity. People need to get rid of this primitive notion that somehow earning a profit is not good for humanity.

The difference is for example, you have a a finite supply of Louis Pasteur level chemists in the world. If 80% of these chemists are working on haircare products, or fast food composition (or similar) they may be making a profit commercially, but realistically they're wasting their talents.

It would be far better for humanity to have them working in less financially profitable (but better for society) fields such as disease prevention. If earning a living wage wasn't an issue for the scientists they would be far more likely to take the intellectually/socially rewarding career path than the monetarily lucrative one.

Post: #64

Zelcorpion Wrote:If energy would be free (which it would be if it were not for profit motives & control of the matrix)

Care to explain this bit?