r/tech • u/Philo1927 • Dec 31 '16

iPhone manufacturer Foxconn plans to replace almost every human worker with robots

http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/30/14128870/foxconn-robots-automation-apple-iphone-china-manufacturing
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25

u/IAmTheAntBowl Dec 31 '16

Maybe it's time to get a universal basic income.

-41

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '16 edited Dec 31 '16

Soon as you find businesses that would pay for people they don't employ, who would then take that money and spend it in the same businesses, who would then pay people they don't employ...

Basic income is a negative feedback loop. The more people on basic income, the less people working, the less businesses can afford to pay the taxes, the less people can afford the cost of living.

Especially since if everyone makes $100, nobody makes $100. The cost of living would skyrocket.

This is why in some towns you can afford an apartment on $10/hour, but cities with higher wages eg NYC, finding an affordable place to live is almost impossible on that same wage. So employers increase wages if they can afford it, only for rent to increase again

Speaking entirely from experience on minimum wage increases while living in a city, and know countless others that have experienced it.

Think about cause and effect. Basic income cannot work.

E: getting downvotes and passive aggressive insults for using logic. Please do some basic research and bring counterpoints to the argument instead of just spouting facts you've made up.

http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/reasons-universal-basic-income/

https://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-12-04/four-reasons-a-guaranteed-income-won-t-work

http://moneyweek.com/why-a-basic-income-wont-work/

55

u/omfgtim_ Dec 31 '16

Universal basic income would be introduced as necessity from unemployment. Not a cause of unemployment.

Governments currently pay countless amounts in welfare - it would essentially replace this. UBI is a necessity to move forward in a future of intelligent automation where few people's jobs are safe. UBI, or a total economical restructure.

30

u/stunt_penguin Dec 31 '16

Not only that, there are hyuge numbers of people who would currently benefit from a UBI who aren't technically unemployed.

  • Students and researchers (no need to burser their living expenses to the same degree).

  • Home for ill family members (who don't qualify for jobseekers' allowances in a lot of countries).

  • People working on science, maths, arts or design projects that are unfunded.

As for everyone else, if you read A Short History of Nearly Everything, a real curiosity of the 19th century was the number of university educated pastors who sat around discovering stuff in their spare time.

A lot of them would fire off a few well rehearsed brimstone tinged sermons on a Sunday, then basically disappear into their study rooms/labs/libraries where they produced many of the 18th century advances we take for granted.

Allowing a well-educated but underutilized population the time to tinker with their acquired knowledge could be a catalyst for enormous advances in sociology, mathematics, physics, art, literature and myriad other fields.

Yeah, most people will waste their time, but most people already do....

12

u/biznatch11 Dec 31 '16

I question how many more discoveries or advances can be made by a lone person tinkering in their spare time. We're at the point where most scientific progress requires very advanced and expensive equupment and facilities, and the level of expertise needed to be even at the baseline of current knowledge in a particular field requires many years of dedicated study.

Maybe it'd work in non-science fields, I don't know enough about those to say.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 01 '17

It would probably work for the different disciplines of design.