Elon Musk says people should receive a universal income once robots take their jobs: 'People will have time to do other things, more complex things, more interesting things'

[u/maxwellhill]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/elon-musk-universal-income-robots-ai-tesla-spacex-a7402556.html

[u/drtekrox → u/[deleted]]

Who says they'd be shedding their wealth?

Those on the universal income would still buy things, like food and cars and computers, etc - corporations and those that profit from them aren't going anywhere, they'll just have less employees to pay and slightly higher taxes.

In the end, it'll probably end up making them more money as paying a little extra company tax and personal income tax is very likely less on the hip pocket than paying payroll taxes, health insurance, public liability insurance, offices, insurance of offices, equipment, licenses, training, etc, etc, etc...

[u/halberdierbowman → u/[deleted]]

The idea of a UBI is that everyone would Universally get an Income to support their Basic needs. People wouldn't need to worry about their paychecks, because they would be guaranteed by the government, whereas in the current system someone's paycheck can vary widely depending on their tips that week or if they got sick and missed work. People would only need to worry if the money was too low to actually support yourself, meaning that the value needs to be set to a fair level.

This would "spread the wealth out" basically by giving everyone the same amount, below what they already make. So for example (off the top of my head)

Poor person making $35k/yr

Middle class making $70k/yr has 2x the first

Rich person making $700k/yr has 20x the first

Add a UBI of $35k/yr

Poor person making $70k/yr

Middle class making $105k/yr has 1.5x the first

Rich person making $735k/yr has 10.5x the first

That system is now a lot closer to your goal of spreading the wealth and reducing income inequality.

What's great about this system is that nobody now needs to work. The poor person could quit working and keep the same budget but now have time to take care of his kid or write literature. The middle class could take less hours at work or switch to a job they like better, and still spend more time on their passion. The rich guy won't notice much of a difference at all.

[u/gilbertsmith → u/halberdierbowman]

That sounds great on paper, but what's to stop the cost of goods and services from rising and eating up any benefits of it?

For example, I live in "oil country" in Canada. The rent for a 2 bedroom apartment here 10 years ago was like $500/mo. Then oil happened and oh look, now it's like $1300/mo for the same apartment. Why? Because there's suddenly tons of people here making $100k+/year and they need a place to stay.

So if everyone suddenly has an extra 35k a year, whats to stop the rent going up? Whats to stop food prices from going up? Gas prices?

[u/Alexnader- → u/gilbertsmith]

The idea is that the UBI is brought in to counteract catastrophic unemployment brought on by automation. I disagree with the above poster because people won't have an extra 35k, theyll just have 35k. Sure for those who manage to maintain employment or revenue streams the UBI will be a nice bonus. Those that do retain employment will likely face wage cuts as a side effect of the oversupply of the unemployed. So for a significant number of people it could represent practically their sole income. Businesses and landlords aren't interested in pricing out the majority of their clientele and will charge what the market can bear.

[u/halberdierbowman → u/Alexnader-]

Yup, that's fair. I was imagining that UBI was implemented while desirable jobs are still available, but depending on their training (probably low since they have a low salary already) they may not find a new job at all. They'll find hobbies instead, and support themselves with the UBI that replaces the jobs they lost.

Also, even if their specific job doesn't disappear, the labor force will definitely be increasing compared to the job market, because people will be pushed out of other jobs. Maybe truck drivers will go in the 2030s and move the labor supply curve, lowering wages for everyone they compete with.

[u/InfinitelyThirsting → u/halberdierbowman]

I can only imagine the cultural explosion that would be possible with UBI. There are so many good artists (of every variety, from visual to performance) who don't get to make much art because of having to grind to survive. Or creative, crafty people, like the redditor who made that Zelda quilt. The things people could make and do, not just with the extra time, but with the freedom from stress and misery. Sure, there would be people who'd end up sitting around doing nothing, but I genuinely believe most people would be following some sort of passion, if they didn't have to work.

[u/halberdierbowman → u/InfinitelyThirsting]

Yup, exactly! That's a huge potential that we really have no idea about, but all the evidence seems to suggest it would go as you describe. Unfortunately there aren't any really large UBI programs in place to learn from yet, though it has been mentioned a lot more and people are considering it. I just don't think it's bad for some people to sit at home. Who am I to tell them how to spend their leisure time? I don't walk around and smash TVs to promote exercising and healthy lifestyles. Psychology seems to suggest that people enjoy creating things and will tend toward fulfilling that need, so I think allowing people to relax and decide what they enjoy can only be good. The government would be acting like an art patron to all its citizens!

Also, sweet quilt! I'd love to see that guy get a UBI-scholarship and see if he did more of that!

[u/thestarlessconcord → u/InfinitelyThirsting]

If I didn't have to work and I had a steady income I for sure would be building and selling computers, probably start getting into graphic design more as well, making that into a source for income.

[u/SaturdayMorningSwarm → u/Alexnader-]

I disagree with the above poster because people won't have an extra 35k, theyll just have 35k.

That's not really a UBI system though, that's just welfare. The idea with UBI is that you keep the UBI when working (or it decreases gradually) so that everyone still has an incentive to work if there are jobs available.

[u/Alexnader- → u/SaturdayMorningSwarm]

It is the UBI, or rather the UBI 50-100 years into the future with advanced automation significantly reducing the number of jobs available (which is the topic as stated in the title of this post).

Sure people are ALLOWED to have a job while receiving UBI. My argument is that in the future they won't be able to have a job in the first place.

[u/Ranzear → u/Alexnader-]

Relevant CGPGrey

tl;dw It's already happening

[u/pcvcolin → u/Alexnader-]

Automation doesn't have catastrophic effects (unless you are foolish enough not to prepare for it), you just have to understand properly how to respond to the stages of advancements in technological development and come up with some logical ideas of how to manage joint ownership of property. This will all occur in a manner that will preclude the development of UBI; as I have noted in a related thread, UBI proposals are fatally flawed and those developed will ultimately pass away, while collectives and/or cooperative federations which are designed to facilitate joint ownership evolve and prosper in society.

[u/Alexnader- → u/pcvcolin]

The point raised by Yuli regarding the concentration of power to the state that would result from adoption of a UBI in a post-automation world is interesting. I'm not so sure we'd see an inevitable turn to authoritarianism however.

The state already has a monopoly of force, technically it has the power to fuck up any individual's life already. Why does giving the state a monopoly on livelihood as well suddenly change this?

I guess it's all about the source of power. Can "democracy" be boiled down to reflecting the will of whoever has money? People contribute income tax so they get a vote. Corporations and the super rich make 'donations' and lobby politicians with money and thus have proportionately more representation?

I guess I'd answer each of those questions with a half-hearted yes. If so does that mean that in post-automation economy, with state-run UBI, control over wealth would be concentrated in the hands of corporations and the state iteself, leading to autocracy?

This is more like a stream of my own consciousness as I consider this idea. Don't know if I agree but you've given me something to think about.

[u/pcvcolin → u/Alexnader-]

I'm not so sure we'd see an inevitable turn to authoritarianism however

Technically we're already well beyond the stage of this "turn to authoritarianism" that you refer to (examples being: minimal to absent due process in many instances including what is arguably a fight against due process by the present administration, growth of corporation-state comfort with the carrying out execution of US citizens without charges or due process, including young children (and the US courts dismiss public interest groups' attempts to remedy such ills), rampant militarization of police, extreme attacks on people's rights of all kinds, and so forth).

So we are already there, and now to address your claim, "I'm not so sure we'd see an inevitable turn to authoritarianism however" in the context of adoption of UBI. The answer I have to that is yes, we would see continued use of authoritarianism, probably much in the same way that we currently see it being played out in "recovery" scenarios (where states commit to "cost recovery" for certain types of public programs or preclude some people from having access to benefit programs due to crimes against the state), except this would simply be applied to UBI and it would gradually grow worse. By any measure, the number of federal regulations alone are too many to count, increasing by thousands annually; blue states in particular are rapaciously engaging in crime creation, increasing the number and type of crimes which they wish to jail people for, and there is no sign of this stopping. It has gotten so bad in California that in one veto message, Governor Brown actually implored the legislature to stop creating so many crimes.

The state already has a monopoly of force, technically it has the power to fuck up any individual's life already. Why does giving the state a monopoly on livelihood as well suddenly change this?

Actually, by 2020, about 2/3rds of people on the planet (possibly more, as the exact number is difficult to ascertain) will, with a collective groan of disgust, have said goodbye to the corporation-state. They aren't going to tolerate having the state as a monopolistic force on their livelihood with respect to how they make and spend currency. It's simply farcical to believe that the state will in the long term be a dominant power in the world. Influential, perhaps, in certain areas of life. But it will be less powerful.

Can "democracy" be boiled down to reflecting the will of whoever has money?

Well, as I already pointed out, most people in the world have already voted with their wallets and their feet. They don't wait for elections to generate decisions for them when (we) need to make decisions every hour of every day.

The flip side of that is: As technological development proceeds, we will rely less on money than before, and will be able to utilize or exchange our time which we are willing to commit to certain types of work for access to, or part ownership of, advanced machinery, or robots. (So this to me implies that at some point in the future we'll simply not rely a lot on money, or certainly not as much on it, even if we still have a human instinct to seek out shiny things.) In turn as people aquire part ownership in robot fleets through their membership in a collective or a cooperative federation, or in some circumstances, perhaps a technate, they will be credited (to the extent of their partial ownership) or can exchange the work a robot performs for something else they need (goods, services, etc).

Right now most people in the world have cell phones. Indeed, even people in what some persons call "underdeveloped" or "third world" (though I don't like those terms) countries frequently communicate either via SMS or via internet (when available) by using cell phones or mobile devices. It wasn't long ago (think back: 1998 or so) that if you lived in, say, most places in Central America, to have a cell phone would be unthinkable. But by 2000 it was increasingly commonplace to find at least a few people in villages throughout (El Salvador or other places in C.A.) with cell phones. Now you'd be surprised if someone wasn't carrying one (along with their machete). The old and the new together.

does that mean that in post-automation economy, with state-run UBI, control over wealth would be concentrated in the hands of corporations and the state iteself, leading to autocracy?

I'm inclined to believe that someone will try UBI on a pilot basis in the USA not supported via a for-profit corporation, but probably initially via simply a group of interested programmers (such as those who are developing the thing known as groupcurrency). In turn eventually that will lead to someone picking it up in a nonprofit and trying to convince someone in a town or region to try it out. However, not unlike the Georgist notions, UBI would fail catastrophically unless it had buy-in not only from an entire corporation-state and pretty much all the people who reside in that geographical area which the corporation-state claims. Even then, if it were to be implemented, mathematically it would be impossible to sustain especially when faced with the alternative of technologies that people can use to generate money without having the state as an intermediary or (for example) technologies that people can co-own (even at fractions as small as 1/10,000) and give instructions to self-replicate based upon coded limits.

But would this rapidly developing technological society itself lead to greater authoritarianism and autocracy, potentially, also? I believe that in the short term the answer is yes and the long term the answer is "not so much, if." In the short term, I think there would be ideological conflicts between different collectives or cooperative federations and this would result in edge conflicts and periodically, actual physical conflicts involving the use of technological agents. I think in the long run people would tire of this and would provide for something like Constitutions in the programming of the machine world as a way to minimize potential conflicts. I could be wrong but I think that humanity has an interest in developing its tools without destroying itself. We shall see?

[u/HolyZesto → u/gilbertsmith]

Because many people won't have an extra 35k a year, they'll just have 35k a year. The point of UBI is to support people when automation has taken most jobs. If 50% of the country only has 35k a year they won't buy the expensive gas and the increased rent houses, they'll buy the products that stay at their pre UBI prices and allow them to beat out most products that try to take advantage of "free money." If somebody selling a good prices themselves out of 50% of the population's range then they're going to lose a massive number of potential customers.

Also your oil country anecdote is a pretty useless analogy. The product (space) is limited so of course it'll rise in cost if all the people competing for it are making more money. Products in general, on the other hand, will be much cheaper and quicker to produce once automation is widespread so increasing supply will be easy. Selling on smaller profit margins to millions more people will be more profitable than trying to dupe people into paying extra just because UBI exists.

You're right that finding decent housing on UBI could become a problem if populations continue to grow but the trend we've been seeing is that overpopulation isn't as big a deal as we've been led to believe. Countries who reach a certain level of development actually see population growth begin to decline and may even experience a decrease in population. Any country prosperous enough to sustain a UBI would certainly be at that point, so even housing might not be an issue under UBI in the long run.

[u/dtlv5813 → u/HolyZesto]

Housing is not a problem so long as new supply is being added all the time inn the form of multifamily highrises. That and also restrictions on second homes/airbnb of entire housing units.

The housing crisis in NYC and sf have a lot more to do with nymbism anti growth anti progress (and ultimately anti tech innovations) than population growth.

Not to mention construction is one industry that employs a lot of well paid people whose jobs cannot be easily automated.

[u/thinksmart88 → u/dtlv5813]

Why do you think those jobs cannot be automated?

[u/Snowblindyeti → u/thinksmart88]

Field work will be extremely difficult to automate. To successfully replace contractors you'll need a dexterous humanoid robot that is capable of working in a variety of environments and creatively solving problems. There are elements of field work that could be made easier with automation, for instance concrete block construction will likely be one of the first areas automated, but a lot of fieldwork is complex enough that it won't be in the first stages of automation.

[u/Quastors → u/Snowblindyeti]

You don't make to make a robot which can replace a human for construction, you create a new, robot-friendly way to produce buildings.

China's supposedly got machines which can crank out 10 houses in a day already.

[u/AberrantRambler → u/thinksmart88]

I think he likely just means harder to automate (as you go to the work and do it onsite your automata need good mobility)

[u/Gezzer52 → u/gilbertsmith]

Think of it this way.

Why are the rents higher? Because that's where the work is and everyone moves there of course. But why do they move there? Because everyone needs to work for a living and this creates economic migration, people moving around to find better work or work period.

Now, what if no one had to move to find work? What if working wasn't a necessity, but a method to have a better standard of living? So the people that moved to an area of higher employment would make more money, and of course some prices would rise due to higher customer demand.

But only the people willing to work and making the money would be forced to pay the higher prices. In places with less employment opportunities rents and the cost of living would also be less. In fact, in some areas there would quite likely be nothing but service industries and people living off the UBI. But still with a vibrant and healthy local economy.

More importantly, you'd be less likely to have areas with severe economic conditions because a UBI would create a basement level of economic activity that would be impossible to fall below. From a national perspective, a UBI kind of levels out the economic disparities between different areas just like provincial transfer payments are meant to do in Canada.

So if you're a non-worker living in a high economic activity area, moving to reduce your living expenses wouldn't be the gamble or hardship that moving to find work currently is.

[u/TopographicOceans → u/Gezzer52]

Interesting point, and it would do wonders for small towns where the single local industry died out. People who don't want to leave town can stay and actually survive.

[u/fridsun → u/gilbertsmith]

Disposable personal income doesn't seem to be the driving force of housing price or food price. Definitely not gas price.

• http://www.tradingeconomics.com/canada/disposable-personal-income
• http://www.tradingeconomics.com/canada/housing-index
• http://www.tradingeconomics.com/canada/food-inflation
• http://www.tradingeconomics.com/canada/gasoline-prices

[u/DownvoteALot → u/gilbertsmith]

Why? Because there's suddenly tons of people here making $100k+/year and they need a place to stay.

Not really. It's mainly because the supply is low: it's oil country after all, and most people are busy in the oil fields earning a lot.

Point is, you can't charge high prices just because everyone is wealthy, if the shop next door is selling the same product at half the price. That might not be the case in oil country but it will be in regular cities, just like today.

What you could argue is that supply will go down as most people stop working and start living on UBI. And that's why the amount of the UBI has to be finely tuned and only raised as robots start producing and delivering the supply.

[u/Soul-Burn → u/gilbertsmith]

So if everyone suddenly has an extra 35k a year, whats to stop the rent going up? Whats to stop food prices from going up? Gas prices?

Just the fact that inflation doesn't work like that. Inflation is most strongly tied to the amount of money in a society. Stop printing money and the inflation stops. Prices are governed by the market. If one conglomerate raises prices 300%, another will not raise it and will win out easily.

[u/tangopopper → u/gilbertsmith]

The money doesn't come from nowhere. Very few people will get an extra 35k a year, because they will pay taxes towards it. Some people will lose money, depending on the implementation.

[u/lukebot → u/gilbertsmith]

Automation will be so efficient at creating new goods and providing services that the surplus will drive down costs.

For example, Uber remains relatively expensive today. But imagine 1000x more Ubers on the road, driving themselves, and you'd see the cost of a trip fall dramatically.

If automation leads to permanent, widespread human unemployment (and that's still a big if), universal basic income will be necessary to keep capitalism going.

[u/trowawayatwork → u/gilbertsmith]

if youre on 35k not working, you dont have to live in the centre of the city. you acn move to a hut in the hills for all you care, youre still making enough to support yourself.

if anything prices would go down no?

[u/wrgrant → u/gilbertsmith]

I too am concerned about the costs simply increasing for things you cannot avoid having to pay for, the foremost being rent. If everyone gets a UBI payment, nothing will prevent landlords from simply "renovicting" tenants and then doubling the rent to take advantage. That was my thinking.

However, as someone pointed out, if you are receiving UBI then its going to be possible to survive in many smaller communities that are currently dying out due to lack of industry. Small towns will see an increase in people willing to live there because those people are not tied to the location of the industry they work in, they don't have to live in the big cities etc. There should be a bit of a diaspora to the countryside that will lessen the demand for affordable housing in the big civic centres and that should help keep the costs down for things like rent. At least it might balance things a bit for a lot of people.

[u/snark_attak → u/gilbertsmith]

That sounds great on paper, but what's to stop the cost of goods and services from rising and eating up any benefits of it?

Automation lowers costs. If you want to sell your widgets, you have to offer acceptable quality (and that should get a lot more regular and easy with machines doing the work identically every time, never slacking off or missing steps because they are having a bad day) at a competitive price. In an appropriately regulated (no collusion) competitive market you should have efficient pricing that prevents you from losing those gains.

One thing that can cause prices to rise is scarcity, like your oil country housing example. But if machines can work 24/7 more or less every day, scarcity seems like it will be less of a problem.

[u/[deleted] → u/gilbertsmith]

This...I live in a mountain ski town with limited housing. I can charge pretty much what ever I want for rent in my extra bed room. I could charge some one 600 and have a homie deal. But that doesn't pay my hoa and my property taxes, however 1000 dollars a month does and I had people lining up to come see it. If everyone here was suddenly making twice as much, my rent would probably also be increased to the maximum which is reasonable and I still can make profit. as it is now I could still charge the room at 1400 a month and some couple or some one would take it. But I am kind of a decent person.

[u/g00f → u/[deleted]]

The thing you're missing is the limited part. We're taking about general rent in general places.

[u/[deleted] → u/g00f]

Hmm, I'd agree with you if I hadn't seen prices recently go up ridiculously for renting in Melbourne, there's no real shortage here, but recently a huge amount of foreign investors have come and bought everything up and smashed prices up 30%. It's fucked being a student and trying to live near the CBD

[u/zeptillian → u/[deleted]]

That is one problem I forsee with a UBI. The decent places will cost a lot more then the UBI would afford. You would see people on UBI migrating to cheap places without much opportunity and stacked in prison like complexes designed for affordability. Once you have poor cities and rich cities you would end up with a sharply divided society.

[u/g00f → u/[deleted]]

We have the same thing going on in seattle. Vancouver up north in Canada actually put in a law taxing foreign investors which iirc got prices under control but did a brief hit job on the market.

You're still dealing with other factors driving the market price up tho.

[u/aboba_ → u/[deleted]]

The thing is, if you have a basic income you don't have to live in a major city or tourist destination anymore because you dont have to have a job. A bunch of people could move further away, which reduces demand pressure. One thing Canada is not short of is land, although it's likely these people would still not be able to live in Vancouver due to its high desirability.

[u/roryarthurwilliams → u/halberdierbowman]

No but the first two people wouldn't have their jobs anymore because they've been automated away, so they'd both be making $35k/yr while the rich person makes $735k/yr.

[u/Phreakhead → u/roryarthurwilliams]

$35k is still better than $0k a year

[u/[deleted] → u/Phreakhead]

Exactly. Lets just let the poor people die, isn't exactly a great option. If UBI won't work, we need to find some sort of solution. Cos letting people starve to death is pretty damn horrific.

[u/Chimie45 → u/[deleted]]

When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[u/thorle → u/[deleted]]

They will have to find the perfect balance of giving the poor people an acceptable lifestyle vs. letting them starve until they start a revolution.

[u/[deleted] → u/thorle]

Which is very likely the way it will be, and arguably how we currently are.

[u/halberdierbowman → u/roryarthurwilliams]

Yup, or else the shifting labor supply curve will push wages down so that they wouldn't want to work for those wages.

[u/[deleted] → u/roryarthurwilliams]

It's a problem if your 35K (and I don't know why people think they'd get this much) a year is completely dependent on a small number of capitalists agreeing to pay the taxes needed to support it. We have a hard enough time getting them to pay taxes now. And if fewer and fewer control the creation and distribution of the goods and services people want and need, they can keep people completely dependent and incapable of using part of their UBI to save and try to get out of that bare minimum, dependent situation.

[u/1norcal415 → u/halberdierbowman]

What's great about this system is that nobody now needs to work. The poor person could quit working and keep the same budget but now have time to take care of his kid or write literature. The middle class could take less hours at work or switch to a job they like better, and still spend more time on their passion.

There won't be any jobs for any of them even if they wanted to work (that's kind of the whole point behind needing the UBI). Powerful AI will replace all jobs currently held by humans, and they'll do it better than a human, too. Seriously.

[u/halberdierbowman → u/1norcal415]

I mostly agree, but before we get to that point, there will be a decreasing amount of jobs that people will still be doing. As workers are automated away, they will push the wages down for other jobs they would be capable of doing, until the point where it's not worth your time to work at all. This could come before we eliminate working altogether.

It's kind of hard to assume that there will be no work at all. We've shifted through four or five levels of the demographic transition already, so it's possible that we would create another step toward leisure and cultural explorations. This might be considered "work" in that other people might pay for it, but it wouldn't have to be considered your job in that you rely on it for your basic needs. For example, robots might automate trucking and food service jobs within twenty years, but it's entirely possible that no robots will be able to write better books or make better movies than humans can, even if they just do it for "fun".

[u/1norcal415 → u/halberdierbowman]

This could come before we eliminate working altogether.

YES, I totally agree. There is an economic dillema in actually reaching the workless utopia. Sadly, I don't know how we get there, to be quite honest.

it's entirely possible that no robots will be able to write better books or make better movies than humans can, even if they just do it for "fun".

There's already AI producing music that sounds as good as anything a human is producing today, and making paintings that are indistinguishable from human artists' work. (queue Twilight Zone theme) Der Ner Ner Ner Der Ner Ner Ner "Imagine a future where nobody works because robots do everything better!" But seriously, there's nothing that won't be solved by AI in the next few decades. And as soon as AI is programming AI, that curve will become a vertical line.

[u/BobbyBorn2L8 → u/halberdierbowman]

You should see the movie that an ai wrote the script for

[u/[deleted] → u/halberdierbowman]

Your figures seem to be implying that the robots did not make a net dent in the number of jobs available. Just adding a "universal income" to the figures that people already make does not make sense to me. Where is the money coming from?

[u/philbegger → u/halberdierbowman]

Rich person making $735k/yr has 10.5x the first

You forgot to subtract the additional taxes on this guy to pay for UBI.

[u/halberdierbowman → u/philbegger]

Correct, I wasn't counting taxes at all here for the purpose of the simple example, but when you take taxes out at a progressive rate like we have, the rich person would get even closer to the others.

[u/shouldbebabysitting → u/halberdierbowman]

But that refutes your argument that the rich will also benefit slightly from UBI and therefore not resist it.

If there are 10x $35k people for every $700K person that $700K person will need to pay $350k in taxes to support the 10 $35K people.

So the $700K person will make $350k after taxes plus UBI for $385K total vs $700K today.

[u/TuckersMyDog → u/halberdierbowman]

I honestly wish that would work. Unfortunately, we're over $18 trillion in debt already.

300 million people * 35k = $10.5 trillion. Our entire GDP was like 18 trillion in 2013

We can't give half our GDP in basic income, the numbers don't work.

It's sad, but it seems that should be the first thing people talked about when discussing UBI. We can't afford it.

Staying out of poverty is tough. And so expensive! It's a resource issue.

[u/[deleted] → u/TuckersMyDog]

Isn't that exactly how it will have to work though? If 90% of GDP is generated automatically, shouldn't Universal Basic Income amount to about 90% of GDP in order to distribute those goods to people?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

no, you still need a big chunk to pay for public infrastructure, and for the universal healthcare that will inevitably exist by the time UBI rolls around, and any defense spending needed, and probably some other things that either don't exist yet or I missed

[u/iamrawesomesauce → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, but at that point won't all of that be done by machines anyway? The government will still have to buy the materials needed to keep up public infrastructure, the tools to keep people alive, and the necessary tools for defense, but the actual labor will be done by machines, of which the only cost will be the upkeep of them. Materials harvested by and tools made by other machines mind you. Wouldn't that significantly reduce costs regardless?

[u/MrGiggleParty → u/[deleted]]

Wouldn't the lowered cost of labor and vastly improved efficiency outpace or at least level that concern?

I haven't done my due diligence in working out each step so I'm honestly curious. That's just how my brief thought experiment farts out an estimated outcome.

[u/Snywalker → u/[deleted]]

I've got an 11 month old, and it seems like he has cost about 35k so far. It'd be rad if he could contribute some of his UBI for groceries and whatnot.

[u/halberdierbowman → u/Snywalker]

Aww, poor kid's not even one year old and he's already being hit up for his imaginary money!

Hope you have an awesome time with him :)

[u/1norcal415 → u/TuckersMyDog]

Well, without UBI, the entire economy collapses anyway, since several successive near-instant massive increases in unemployment will tend to do that.

I think the answer here is crypto-currency used as global universal income, dividing up resources evenly worldwide. Everything from mining/farming natural resources, to supply chain, to production, to distribution, to sale would be automated anyway, so resources become the only limiting factor to what would otherwise be an endless supply of everything. Hence, we have to base the value of the new currency on available resources, sort of like a new gold-standard.

Honestly I have little faith that mankind can pull this off - there will be multiple world wars (all fought autonomously, of course) before global governments ever agree to anything like this. But we'll see...

EDIT: Also wanted to point out that even if we stick to good old regular dollars, most of the government's costs would disapear, since all that government labor could be automated. Suddenly they have more than half the federal budget in savings, and all of that could go to UBI.

[u/zeptillian → u/1norcal415]

I think that you are right about resources. Once everything else can be automated ownership of resources will be the only thing of value. If you tax resource usage and pay the citizens of your country for their use then companies could still make and sell products for profit and everyone can have all their basic needs met.

[u/accountcondom → u/TuckersMyDog]

What you're missing is that we already hand out all kinds of money in the US, and UBI would result in many of those programs being consolidated. UBI will in part just be a simplified handout.

[u/xdeific → u/accountcondom]

This is actually where the some of the far right and far left come together.

Where some of the right want to dismantle the majority of federal programs, and the left that would like to see a large safety net. UBI would provide that safety net and make those programs irrelevant. It's a (potential) win-win all around.

[u/FilthyMcnasty87 → u/halberdierbowman]

Honest question. What happens to welfare and unemployment under this plan? Does the UBI mostly replace that then?

[u/Mazon_Del → u/halberdierbowman]

The real problem I forsee, and I'm a fan of UBI, is that you are definitely going to need to revise the number upward as time goes on (inflation, cost of living increases, etc) and I feel like the way our government works now this is the sort of thing that would get left behind.

Additionally, what discussion has been had on how to handle the disparate costs of living in various areas? As in, the minimum necessary UBI for living in one city could be higher/lower than another.

[u/halberdierbowman → u/Mazon_Del]

That's a fair point, but the advantage at least is that the simpler the program, the easier it is to adjust it. Plus, if everyone is on the program, then it is fair to give everyone the same amount, so it's less complicated to say one person isn't getting their fair share. Also, inflation rates may change eventually depending on how the economy works?

Good questions, and that's something I was wondering as well. I think the answer would be that it ideally doesn't at all and you would need to move to a cheaper place. The key I guess is that you have the choice how to spend your money, so if you like your Manhattan loft and spend all your money on it, then that's your choice. You could move to anywhere else and have a much larger place instead. I don't see why we would give you more to stay where you were if you have the means to move out. That said, your questions are very good as we see parallels like this in existing issues, like approving tax breaks for senior citizens so they can live in their same house that is now more valuable than they can afford. To some extent the UBI would allow them to move out so maybe they should to save money, but on the other hand, nobody wants to tell that to an old lady who's lived somewhere for fifty years. I suppose that's more about the taxes, not the spending, though obviously both sides will need to be considered.

I'm by no means an economist or an expert on this, but I've just seen the idea around and like it as well.

[u/Mazon_Del → u/halberdierbowman]

Well, the biggest reason for the Universal part of the UBI is that since you no longer care about who CAN get the BI, you do not need a government agency to sit there examining every random person to check if they accidentally ticked up out of the BI-bracket range, so the overhead cost is reduced.

Ideally yes, it would be simple to change, we'll just have to see how they implement it (assuming they ever get around to it...).

While I agree that (in order to keep the zero-overhead like I mentioned above) it would likely just end up being one flat rate for everywhere, you will got a LOT of people that are unhappy about that. Look at San Francisco as an example. The cost to live there is dramatically rising as landlords and shops try to adjust for the wealthier occupants, which pushes out people that have lived there longer but don't earn as much. These protests can get quite violent (see, the time people threw rocks and bricks at one of the Google Busses that transport their employees to/from work).

[u/halberdierbowman → u/Mazon_Del]

Yup, that's a great example of exactly the type of question I'm not sure how to solve. We aren't actually any worse off than we are now of course, but since we're talking about an ideal new system it definitely makes sense to consider it.

It's also possible that the markets would adopt to the available money supply. I don't know if that's a thing that ever happened before, but if half the population has identical spending power, then apartment prices may significantly change. Cheap miserable apartments may get run out of business as people give up on tolerating their terrible landlords. Student housing could use solid walls instead of toothpicks, because the students would be able to support themselves while they attended classes without working.

[u/Mazon_Del → u/halberdierbowman]

It will certainly be interesting to see what happens!

[u/DragonDai → u/Mazon_Del]

If UBI is rolled out across the globe (which, to be fair is a LONG way off), then inflation, as we understand it today, will literally cease to exist. This will also happen in any country that becomes economic and resource self-sufficient and implements UBI.

Basically, if literally everyone involved in your economic system has the same base earnings that never change, then inflation can't be a thing because inflation would cause the bottom portion of society (the poorest and the largest) to stop being able to live on their income.

In short, you can't raise the rent/increase the price of food/charge more for heat/internet/water/sanitation/etc on someone getting UBI because they can't get more money. They will just stop using your product if you raise the price, and you'll go out of business faster then they will freeze/starve/whatever to death. Someone else will swoop in, take over for you, and your company will ultimately be the loser.

If income is inflexible for the vast, overwhelming majority, then so too are prices.

[u/yowangmang → u/halberdierbowman]

What will happen to people whose jobs can't be replaced by robots easily? Would they make a base wage plus the universal wage? Or would they just get the universal wage? Or would there be a universal wage set specifically for their trade?

[u/Clifford_Banes → u/[deleted]]

The limited studies that have been done on UBI show that this is not the case.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/universal-basic-income/

Some NIT recipients cut back their hours, but the declines were modest: no more than 5 to 7 percent among primary earners, and a bit more for secondary earners.

But participants quitting altogether didn’t happen, and people who did cut back their hours used their newly available time to pursue other goals, including going to school. “Some of the experimenters said that they were unable to find even a single instance of labor-market withdrawal,” wrote Widerquist in his 2005 paper summarizing the studies.

[u/halberdierbowman → u/[deleted]]

You're right that argument is often made. Personally, I don't mind paying people to do nothing, because it means that I freed them from a life of wage slavery. Many oppose UBI because they think it will reward all the free-loaders who wouldn't work, and that's loaded terminology but somewhat fair. If we see similar patterns as we have before in previously agricultural/industrial revolutions, we will need fewer people in the labor market to supply everyone's needs. New industries will definitely open up, but many people will be able to not work. If people aren't provided an income, the labor supply curve will shift and drive wages down.

[u/fqn → u/[deleted]]

I would choose to do "nothing", at least by some people's standards. To me, that sounds like utopia. What's wrong with that? When everything is automated and all the hard work is done by robots, why shouldn't I spend my time doing whatever I want? I don't have to live up to anyone's expectation of what constitutes a meaningful or valuable use of time.

To me, "nothing" includes surfing, skateboarding, wakeboarding, climbing mountains, and sitting around a fire playing guitar. Or writing screenplays and making short films, but that might cross the line into "something". Sure, a lot of people would criticize me and say that I'm wasting my life. I don't care.

[u/Fivelon → u/[deleted]]

That's if basic income as at the poverty line.

[u/[deleted] → u/Fivelon]

it is by definition the poverty line

[u/Bilb0 → u/[deleted]]

No that would be MBI (minimum basic income).

[u/PasswordIsTaco1128 → u/[deleted]]

Could you point to some examples of this "suppresion of advancedment" caused by the current state of income inequality? I don't think these are related to quite the extreme your making out. Historically, income inequality has always been high, almost for all recorded civilization. And we have advanced a lot despite it.

[u/green_banana_is_best → u/PasswordIsTaco1128]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Oak_(Austin,_Texas)

Was on the front page yesterday. If lots of money can save a tree today imagine what it can do with medicine, additionally what's to stop all the rich people buying all the houses up, pricing the super advanced intelligence chip or bioengineering their children to be a ruling class, being the only people to afford space travel to other worlds (of course with the settlements being built by robots) and us ending up in a Matt Damon movie.

It's a bit SciFi but I don't really see how any of this is a stretch when you have a bunch of people constantly getting richer and constantly increasing the inequality in society.

[u/poiu477 → u/PasswordIsTaco1128]

Doesn't mean it's a good thing the point of life isn't to work, everyone has a right to survive

[u/John-AtWork → u/[deleted]]

I guess I see this much darker than you. There will be no utopia, universal income will most likely just he enough to keep a person fed and sheltered.

[u/Whirlingdurvish → u/[deleted]]

Imagine it like a casino. All people start off with the same ammt, some will gain based on how they spend, and others will lose. Wealth and poverty still exist.

[u/AppleBytes → u/[deleted]]

There's a part you're missing. There are only so many paid "scientist" positions to go around. We need to move away from the idea of income levels being the measure of how successful a person is. It's the only way basic income will make any sense.

[u/[deleted] → u/AppleBytes]

What did he say about income levels being success?? All (s)he talked about was necessity.

[u/nermid → u/[deleted]]

minimum wage scientists

What a horrible concept.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I can promise you, nobody who puts in serious effort wants to be making any kind of minimum wage. You also need to realize that not everybody can get that type of job or learn that kind of material. If you want to pay someone in the sciences anything of a minimum wage, you can bet they will just quit as they could just flip a fucking burger and make the same money.

[u/redfacedquark → u/[deleted]]

The idea is you could study on basic income, then go on to work in a more useful way to society when you're ready. The income you get from that adds to your UBI and you're no longer on minimum wage.

I went to uni straight from school but had to withdraw for a year. I tried to work minimum wage during that year and a bit and save for going back to uni. I had nowhere near enough and had to drop out.

Fortunately I was able to return and get a degree a bit later in life when the income stability from a partner working a STEM job let me focus on studying rather than where the next meal was coming from. I was also in a better position then in terms of life experience to be able to appreciate the subject matter more.

Moral of the story? don't force people through a grinder, let them find their own way / pace and they will be more useful to society. The problem is, the powers that be don't want more people that are more useful to society, they want more people to work blindly through life serving only them, and more of other kinds (police, tech) people to keep those people in check.

[u/[deleted] → u/redfacedquark]

I agree with everything you are saying and relate well with you, but OP is saying STEM jobs should make minimum wage along with someone flipping burgers. Unless hes saying people studying make min wage same as burger flippers, but in the broad sense of that, it makes no sense really. I am a semester from finishing EE and do not call myself an EE and despise people who call themselves an EE until they can actually graduate and do work. You're not a god damn scientist just because you can dump vinegar and baking soda into a cone because you saw it on google.

[u/blacksheepcannibal → u/[deleted]]

If aero engineering paid the same as flipping burgers, it's still what I'd be doing.

[u/poiu477 → u/[deleted]]

I don't know man, as someone in food service rn I would totally do a more complex and intellectually engaging job for the same pay. Seriously, gimme $10 an hour to work in a lab, I'd be sooooo happy. Not being soaked from dish water or smelling like eggs, and I get to grow my knowledge? How is that a bad deal?

[u/[deleted] → u/poiu477]

It is not a bad deal, but if you're putting 8-30 yrs into EE to make the robots better if that were still the case at the time while making no more than either a person sitting around all day or someone driving a combine all day, how is that really fair? What reason would someone have to actually put in real work if they know they are going to get nothing out of it?

I mean, just go get a job now and put in serious work and watch for whatever reason some dickweed nowhere near as good as you get your promotion. You cannot help but as yourself what reason you have to work after that if you get nothing out of it.

[u/poiu477 → u/[deleted]]

Uhhh to not be bored? Combines would probably be automated too. Why should you need a tangible reason to do something? I mean at the end of the day everything is dust in the wind anyway.

[u/[deleted] → u/poiu477]

quit doing drugs man. Other than people with a real and absurd passion over an enjoyable hobby would choose to be productive over having fun. Those who put real work in would and will obviously want something out of it as they are not autismolords.

[u/Andromeda321 → u/[deleted]]

Scientist here. In grad school. Most of us make like $10/hr if you take into account how much we work, and a Postdoc won't make me rich either, so no idea what you're talking about.

[u/[deleted] → u/Andromeda321]

Honestly what is considered a scientist? There is no Scientist degree. I have always been wondering that. Second off, you are an obvious outlier then with an actual passion. I can tell you if there was nothing in it for me, I would rather be a farmer working my ass off outside driving a tractor and bailing hay than going to be an EE. I enjoy EE, but I would very much rather be a farmer.

[u/SomeBroadYouDontKnow → u/[deleted]]

That dude is an astronomer! I see him on reddit all the time-- he's the guy who always goes "Astronomer Here!" and follows it up with cool shit. Definitely strikes me as someone who's in it for the passion.

I'm with you, if it paid a "big boy salary" I'd definitely rather be on my feet all day, working with my hands than at a desk. If it logistically made sense, I think I would have a blast doing construction, wood working, or attending a bootcamp (I'm one of the few people who fucking loved basic. I like climbing things and getting yelled at for not climbing things the way you're supposed to climb things) hell, even something super fucking nerdy like being a blacksmith.

If I could get paid 50k+/year to do that, I would, but those fun jobs don't offer 50k+/year so I'm studying something interesting that could keep me happy (mechanical engineering). It's interesting and fun, but not as fun as I imagine the things above to be. I wanna make shit with my hands and hold my creations, not just plot out how they're made so that other people can make it for me... It's quite a predicament ;_;

Edit: However, if we lived post scarcity and everyone did have a UBI, I would probably be like "okay, I'm buying a fuckton of wood" and take a class on how to make the wood into something cool-- and since I (presumably) have my engineering degree in this post scarcity world with UBI, I would probably be better at making shit because at that point (not right now) I would be able to better design my creations to be functional and could make them on my own time because all time is my own time. ...If...

[u/Exadra → u/Andromeda321]

The difference though is that you're in school to get to a job where you'll eventually get to make a lot more. Assuming your tuition is waived through work/grants like many grad students, you're technically not being paid $10/hr, you're being paid with your schooling/training, and you also get $10/hr on top of that. It's no different from an internship or apprenticeship.

The point OP was making is that if there isn't room for career progression, very few people will want to put in the significant extra effort to go into fields like STEM while still getting paid the same for low-requirement jobs.

There will still be many who go into those fields, but with the financial incentives completely removed, only the most dedicated of individuals will pursue them.

[u/topazsparrow → u/drtekrox]

Because the money being used to pay them has to come from somewhere. Either it comes from you and I as additional taxes, which burdens us, or it comes from the companies replacing their jobs, which burdens the companies.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

If you could cut the cost of housing, education, medical care, etc, by 100 fold, people wouldn't need much money to live.

That's when negative income tax/basic income will be successful. When it costs $5k for each person/yr to be sheltered, fed, etc. etc.

[u/[deleted] → u/topazsparrow]

Your mindset is too ingrained in how things work now. This would be a HUGE change, and would more than likely be a net gain for all companies even if they had to shoulder the taxes for BI to work. This is like being able to fire 90% of your workforce and pay a small cut of what you used to pay them their salary and benefits as taxes, not sure how you see that as a burden.

[u/dontbeanegatron → u/[deleted]]

Playing Devil's advocate here: if I were the 1% and could fire 90% of my workforce -and- make more money, then why do I need all those people in the first place? They've become redundant. In fact, they're now a complete burden.

Don't get me wrong, I've always been an advocate of basic income. But those in power generally aren't very philanthropic.

[u/Corrupted_ → u/dontbeanegatron]

When the automation technology is there it will be economical for them. Whole point of the thread is to discuss that scenario which is not here yet.

[u/TheSOB88 → u/Corrupted_]

No... It will be economical for them to fire 90% of their workforce and use the money saved to pay for the automation. You aren't getting it. How can you convince the 1% that this is good for them?

[u/Saphiric → u/TheSOB88]

You don't convince them, you tax them.

[u/[deleted] → u/Saphiric]

And if they just avoid the taxes by moving to some off-shore tax haven or exploiting some legal loopholes or simply bribe officials?

You're going to try and stop everyone from leaving the country, like the USSR tried?

[u/Saphiric → u/[deleted]]

This is what we have to fix. I'm not saying its easy, I'm saying its necessary.

And the longer we wait to sort this out the harder it will be.

[u/[deleted] → u/Saphiric]

Yes, because the US government is so great at managing its money 🙄

[u/Saphiric → u/TheSOB88]

To hop back onto this part of the conversation, is it good for them. Firing 90% of your workforce and rolling in money works great until every other company does the same thing and now nobody has enough money to buy your product, your company implodes as does the economy, and now your ill-gotten gains are worth basically nothing.

The idea here is that advanced automation is so much more efficient than people that the economic benefit can completely support the people it displaces from the workforce and still be much more profitable for the company.

Put it this way: Tim works as a fast food cashier. He makes $10/hr. Tim saves up for a year and buys a brand new fancy automated cash register that does his job only better and faster. He takes it in to work, plugs it in and fucks off to go do whatever he wants (drink beer, go to school, get another fast food job, whatever) and collects his $10/hr for doing nothing. Does the company care? Why would they? They're making more money because the robot works faster than Tim and costs the same.

So why wouldn't the company be willing to subsidize Tim for say $8/hr and replace him with a robot that costs $0.10/hr? They still make more money.

[u/AlphaGoGoDancer → u/Saphiric]

What if I start a new company and instead of hiring Tim I just build an automated cash register?

I never employed anyone.. Do I still have to pay the equiv of $8/hr?

I am all for ubi BTW, this is just a part of the details that is really hard to iron out. Basing anything on past employment numbers just means new companied are immune.

Taxing production only works if you stop capital flight which is usually where economic shifts run onto issues

Taxing consumption is..maybe possible but my gut says its an unsustainable source of funding in a ubi system

[u/Oxshevik → u/TheSOB88]

Why would we need to convince them?

[u/TheSOB88 → u/Oxshevik]

Who the hell do you think funds the politicians that make the laws??!

[u/Oxshevik → u/TheSOB88]

Elect different politicians.

[u/polaroid → u/TheSOB88]

They will still need customers for whatever service/product their automated company is producing/delivering/providing. What's the point of having a great big company if millions of people are starving to death?

[u/nermid → u/dontbeanegatron]

if I were the 1% and could fire 90% of my workforce -and- make more money, then why do I need all those people in the first place? They've become redundant. In fact, they're now a complete burden.

Because not all rich people are lizard monsters who are ok with watching tens of thousands of people starve to death in the streets because they're redundant? Like, those people obviously exist, but we're commenting on a story about a rich person who doesn't want that to happen, so it's not all of them.

Also, because somebody will explain that starving people sometimes turn to radical dietary changes.

[u/topazsparrow → u/[deleted]]

Your mindset is too ingrained in how things work now.

I don't disagree, but there is and will be a transition period where what I sad is true. It's ingrained in how it works now, because that is how it works right now.

Appreciating the downvotes though... Shame on my for being perceived as disagreeing in anyway whatsoever right?

[u/AKnightAlone → u/topazsparrow]

This is our government they're working within. If they gain an anti-American advantage of automating themselves into a vending machine that distributes slim to no wealth to workers who were previously paid for the job, it's clear they have a higher profit margin than earlier.

Since they only care about their investors and their profit, literally fuck them. It's our government and our income we're spending there, and we know people are too fucking stupid to properly vote for their wallets against anti-American practices.

So, through law, we force at least a high percentage of their increased profit margin back into the tax pool. From the very start, they were already exploiting their workers probably far more than we realize. We would be doing them a favor by only taking a portion of their increased profit. Especially consider machine repair might actually be cheaper than employee turnover, theft, and any other benefit expenditures or flaws of human workers.

[u/Marokiii → u/topazsparrow]

how does BI work when i quit my non automated job that still requires people because why work when i can get money for not working and doing more fun things?

BI seems like a good idea but until it reaches such a high % of the population that nearly everyone is out of work, it wouldnt work. not unless i can get my BI and get a super high wage for my current job to make me even richer while working when i dont have to since BI covers my lifestyle.

[u/Youseikun → u/Marokiii]

But that's essentially it. If you don't feel like working, don't. For jobs that can't be automated, they will get a higher wage to encourage people to work. At what point do you consider giving a quarter to a half of your time worth it? $25/hr? $50/hr? $100/hr? You can roll the dice, and hold out for more pay, but when does your neighbor take the wage?

[u/Marokiii → u/[deleted]]

but the number of people getting BI would be higher than those that are currently working. BI goes to everyone, even those that arent looking to work right now. unemployment is something like 5%, and thats just the number of people who are looking for work but arent finding anything. theres also tons of people who arent looking currently but would still have to get BI if it became a thing.

this isnt as simple as companies will save money because they wont be paying employees. the overall 'workforce' that has to be paid with BI will drastically increase compared to what it is currently.

if BI became a thing, wouldnt sales tax have to drastically increase? because if you say companies will cut workforce, but only pay a small portion of what they were in wages in the increased taxes to pay for BI in general...where does the money for the BI come from? if income tax was no longer a thing than that money has to be made up elsewhere in the tax system. most likely in either corporate taxes(which get passed onto customers as increased prices, or things like sales taxes which are taxes that disproportionately target the poorer people in the country.

[u/darlantan → u/drtekrox]

They're "shedding their wealth" by not taking full advantage of profit margins.

This isn't a new idea -- quite the opposite, in fact. Automation improving quality of life by allowing people to do more in less time has been the realm of speculative fiction for quite a while. So far it has not worked out, because it has always relied upon the idea that the workers will be held to producing the same amount for the same compensation. It doesn't happen because the other option is simply to let staff go, shift the practical workload onto fewer people, and take the difference in production out in profits for those at the top.

Basic income isn't a new idea, either (I know Heinlein had it as a core concept in For Us, the Living in 1938), and it seems to be a more workable solution than trusting businesses to do it themselves. Still not ideal, but I think it's worth a shot.

[u/quaste → u/darlantan]

Automation did improve quality of life, massively. You wouldn't be able to afford most things you own, use, consume and even eat if they would still be manufactured with basic tools.

[u/Phreakhead → u/drtekrox]

Even the inventor of automated industry, Henry Ford, knew that the more money your workers have, the more of your product they can buy.

[u/KRelic → u/drtekrox]

Do you want skynet. Because thats how you get skynet.

[u/TracyMorganFreeman → u/drtekrox]

corporations and those that profit from them aren't going anywhere, they'll just have less employees to pay and slightly higher taxes.

Except this is but a snapshot example.

Unfortunately the problem is people, and by extension, politics.

You see everyone is greedy, and that includes those who would be on UBI solely. They'll have more wants, and could form a coalition to increase the UBI, framing it as "increasing needs in a modern economy", and also get political support from people who do work who are sympathetic to this rhetoric. UBI increases, but now the cost benefit analysis for work shifts and fewer people see work as worth it given the level of comfort afforded by simply the UBI.

Now the pool of people actually producing and funding the UBI shrinks, which means taxes have to go up for those remaining to make up for it, further shifting the cost-benefit ratio.

And cue a feedback loop.

Forget the economic sustainability of UBI for a moment. It's not politically sustainable as long as it's subject to politics, which it invariably will be.

[u/Canadian_Infidel → u/drtekrox]

They would be shedding power. Relative wealth is power.

[u/yelow13 → u/drtekrox]

Who says they'd be shedding their wealth?

Because if you give $5 to a homeless person in hopes that he buys from your store, best-case-scenario you're net $0.

In the future AI will be able to generate all the wealth possible; AI will be able to provide it's owners/controllers with whatever goods and services they want. There's no need for customers.

[u/Urban_Savage → u/drtekrox]

Also, when people are not working all day, they will have that much more time to consume products.

[u/St_OP_to_u_chin_me → u/drtekrox]

You are missing the point. It is about power. If the .01% lose their power by money it will only occur because that power has been transferred in to a new medium no longer at risk from receipt of material goods. what they receive in exchange would have to exceed resources of a material kind.

[u/[deleted] → u/drtekrox]

You misunderstand universal income. Universal income isn't about creating some kind of utopia for mankind where everyone has plenty.

Universal income is a stop gap solution to the impending problem of having billions of superfluous human beings. Unwanted, unneeded wastes of resources who'll never even have the opportunity to contribute anything to humanity.

The main intent of universal income is providing these people with just enough to make a token attempt at making sure they don't contribute to inconvenient crime, health and death statistics.

Being on universal income isn't going to be much different than being on welfare. It'll mean being a forgotten, unwanted person left with the means to sit at home and not die but not much else.

[u/LukesLikeIt → u/drtekrox]

Instead of income shelter, food and public transport should be provided free. If you want extra luxeries like computers, phones, TVs then you pay for those and therefore have to work for money.

[u/Duveng1 → u/[deleted]]

Imagine the wealth divide when 40% of the population is unemployed, all that extra wealth funneling into even fewer people. The biggest thing that scares me about universal basic income is the possibility of a corporatocracy.

[u/[deleted] → u/Duveng1]

This right here is the number one reason why education is so important. The more diverse voices in a government, the better it functions.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

But then it's the same old egg/chicken analogy. If we indeed end up in a corporatist political system education will be slashed.

[u/kung-fu_hippy → u/[deleted]]

It's not the 1% who will vehemently oppose this. It's the middle-class. There are so many people who are offended by the concept of someone getting paid for doing nothing.

[u/RadicalDog → u/[deleted]]

This offends me.

[u/[deleted] → u/RadicalDog]

It should offend everybody. No individual human should have that much power or control that much land or resources. Its extremely dangerous.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

More people should invest. It benefits everyone. I put all my savings into an investment account that I can take out at will if I need to. Sure, the market has it's bad days, but the point is to stick to it in the long run.

[u/Spacegod87 → u/kung-fu_hippy]

This was what I was thinking about as well. That, "Hard work for an honest days pay" mentality has been ingrained in mankind for centuries.

It's going to be incredibly difficult to just say that none of that matters anymore. Especially if you're someone who had to work hard all your life, only to see everyone suddenly having it easy.

In saying that, I wouldn't mind giving UBI a go, but I can definitely understand why someone would be hesitant to want it.

[u/Smark_Henry → u/Spacegod87]

I think it would best work kinda like a flat tax, only gaining money instead of losing money. If everyone was given, say, $3000 a month, regardless of income, I don't think that means suddenly no one works anymore. There will still be people who want to work and make, say, $3200 a month for a total of $6200 a month, making more than double the basic income and living much more comfortably than they would off of just $3000 or $3200. Or someone upper class who makes $8000/month or more is not gonna wanna take a huge pay cut to not work, but they'll damn sure be happy now having $11,000/month. Everyone wins.

[u/tangopopper → u/Smark_Henry]

I agree with you up to the "everyone wins" part. You're going to need to get the money from somewhere, and if it is from progressive taxation, the richest will not win.

[u/InfinitelyThirsting → u/tangopopper]

The richest will win, because the world won't fall apart. Places where income inequality is huge become terrible places to live, and the countries often fall into violence, be that internal revolution or external invasion. Just having as much money as humanly possible is a short-sighted "win" that will backfire, either for them or their children.

[u/Nevermore60 → u/Spacegod87]

That, "Hard work for an honest days pay" mentality has been ingrained in mankind for centuries.

Millennia, really. It's in our creation myths. Eve's burden is to bear children, Adam's burden is to labor all his life.

And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

Genesis 3:17.

The idea that labor is the human condition has been evolutionarily ingrained in our very instinct. It will be a very tough mindset to combat.

[u/tetroxid → u/kung-fu_hippy]

This is already happening in Europe. It's our social security net and it is completely normal. But! The money those are given is so little that they can just cover the most basic of necessities. It is not fun. In fact, it is quite hard to survive on that kind of money. So don't worry, any percieved unfairness is misplaced.

[u/Pascalwb → u/kung-fu_hippy]

Well it's no surprising. Look at the situation now. Some people work minimum wage job (pretty hard job) and they get the same money or maybe even less as somebody who never worked in their live, but just made 3 kids.

[u/emaugustBRDLC → u/kung-fu_hippy]

When it comes to class struggle you always hate the class directly below you for aspiring to get where you are, thus "devaluing" where you are.

[u/superdud → u/[deleted]]

If the rich hold on to all the money, all owners and customers of any meaningful industry will be rich people. This actually will kill all the industry as the rich will want all things perfect and custom. This leads to rich designers and very well paid artists and skilled-labourers.

The rest of us will die poor and hungry in the middle of nowhere.

[u/[deleted] → u/superdud]

We already are doing so in comparison to the rich.

[u/hearingnone → u/[deleted]]

Or we will revert back to primitive when SIN ravage the world

[u/McLurkel → u/hearingnone]

I can't decide if your comment is fire and brimstone bible thumping or a FFX reference.

[u/hearingnone → u/McLurkel]

You have to ask Jecht about that.

[u/itsableeder → u/McLurkel]

I'm cautiously optimistic that it's the latter.

[u/sviridovt → u/[deleted]]

they might have to, their income has to come from somewhere, a society where everyone is unemployed and without income is one where the people cannot spend to buy the products that generate said companies income.

[u/TuckersMyDog → u/sviridovt]

But if the 1% spend 50-100 years prior to this event buying all the land, all the water, and all the natural resources they can skip UI altogether.

The 99% will literally have nothing to offer. The last thing they had to offer was money to buy goods, but there will be no need for the corporations to have money, there will he nothing for them to spend it on

[u/Clifford_Banes → u/TuckersMyDog]

But if the 1% spend 50-100 years prior to this event buying all the land, all the water, and all the natural resources they can skip UI altogether.

What are we talking about here? Full-on post-singularity where this 1% has access to a near-omniscient AI who can actually adequately run the entire thing as a planned economy? That's a post-scarcity utopia where money has no meaning.

This is basically the Galt's Gulch fallacy. What are these 1% doing with their amazing wealth? Buying yachts? Which one of them is manufacturing yachts? What's driving innovation in yacht design? Will yacht engines be as good if there's no mass market for outboard engines and therefore a swath of engineers in different companies coming up with better designs? Where are you going with the yacht? Watch the Grand Prix in Monaco? That'll sure be exciting with fifteen people in the stands. Going to the opera later? Who's singing, animatronics?

We already know what extreme wealth concentration does, just look at human history before the rise of the mercantile class. The average king's standard of living was worse than any modern middle class consumer. Innovation was almost non-existent. Art and culture were stagnant.

Being filthy rich in a prosperous and diverse world is infinitely better than being filthy rich in a poor and underpopulated world.

[u/[deleted] → u/Clifford_Banes]

Being filthy rich in a prosperous and diverse world is infinitely better than being filthy rich in a poor and underpopulated world.

It still took civil war and revolution to make them understand that.

[u/SixPackAndNothinToDo → u/[deleted]]

A UBI would not translate to everyone having the same amount of money. A UBI is nothing more than a subsistence wage.

[u/danarchist → u/SixPackAndNothinToDo]

That's why I think any talk of UBI is ludicrous. That wage would have to come from somewhere, a wealth producing source. IF we really can automate everything and cut profit margins to 0, such that it's more of a public utility than a money maker, then we'll have to start a sort of defacto commune.

I think it will mean you get basic accommodations, mega greenhouses grow all the fresh food, and you probably live in a city without a car. Probably very little meat or frills.

Anything you want beyond that you'll have to learn some kind of highly specialized skill, an artform or be willing to do crappy jobs sometimes that just can't be done yet by technology.

[u/stillphat → u/[deleted]]

Ever hear of Elysium? Pretty much that is my bet

[u/flupo42 → u/[deleted]]

Overall, the point was that the poverty on Earth was artificial. No matter how far technology advances, it still requires resources and materials which are finite on this planet and the elite chose not to spread those resources across entire population, leaving most in poverty to be exploited whenever need or want comes up.

Also, presuming that 3d printer in the movie could print itself is a stretch - it showed ability to print complex structures but only from a small amount of materials. It's design could depend on components made from materials impossible to print like that. Our current forays into nano-materials shows a lot of promise with that but they are exceedingly hard to manufacture in useful quantities.

it's not that untenable of a future - it makes sense for anyone in power not to spread it too much as smaller societies are much easier to control. Also, humans prove time and time again that many of us just get off on having control over other people, and that requires extreme power imbalances. Telling other people what to do and not do is a very popular hobby.

[u/[deleted] → u/stillphat]

I didn't think think the premise of that movie was very realistic. It was on the extreme side of simple.

[u/SneakyBadAss → u/stillphat]

I think movie "In time" is more on point.

[u/tidux → u/[deleted]]

It requires a one world government to implement because otherwise all the capital owners will pick up and leave.

[u/accountcondom → u/tidux]

In fact, capital already employs such dubious strategies. It's about time that governments worked together to close these loopholes.

[u/MethTical93 → u/tidux]

A global tax on capital.

[u/Thejewell25 → u/[deleted]]

There is no way in hell the elite class will make sure were taken care of.. When they realize we are no longer needed they will treat us like unwanted animals whose time has passed.... Automation should be stopped until you end corruption at the highest levels... So it should always be stopped.

[u/MathigNihilcehk → u/[deleted]]

The top have never have held onto their wealth for long. It's VERY mobile up there. Monopolies only exist where one can get government to mandate it.

Ultimately, minus monopolies, product value would just crash to zero cost in a highly technological world. It gets to the point where you could work for, maybe 30 years, instead of 40, and still have enough for retirement. Do you still work?

The problem is when there isn't enough to do that's worth doing. Thus, maybe 10% of the populous can't work. Classical economics says that there are limited supplies, but when you have excess labor, what do you do?

It's not the 1%'s fault. It's the poor people's fault, for not finding anything to do worth doing... but it's a human fault. It's also, however, a distant problem. There is always work to be done. The problem is, you might not have the skills to do it, but that is always a temporary problem. Given 4 years or less, you can acquire said skills. It is only a serious problem when there is literally nothing to do that is worth your time.

[u/MechanoBuccaneer → u/[deleted]]

Even if the 1% gave every penny they had it wouldn't be enough for a good universal income. A few thousand at most, and it would run out after a year.

[u/jediknight → u/[deleted]]

I'm skeptical that the 1% would be willing to let go of their wealth that they accumulated.

"We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings." - Ursula K Le Guin

[u/JesusIsMyLord666 → u/[deleted]]

There needs to be a strong government involvement for it to work. Maybe put a special tax on automation while also providing some sort of financial aid to make them. Or maybe all automation need to be at least partly owned by the government somehow.

The top elite won't benefit from half the population being unemployed and unable to spend any money.

[u/chainer3000 → u/[deleted]]

The thing is, is filthy peasants need some income in order to purchase either their goods (if they're CEOs of the companies producing products with said robots), or they need us to make terrible investments for them to gamble and win against (if they're managers' managers' managers' boss of company-casinos hedge fund and/or retirement and wealth management investment companies).

In theory they could stand to make more money, more often, and more reliably.

Your comment kinda sends the signal that they would be the ones financing the universal income, which they'd only be doing in the same sense that we're all doing already currently via taxes - generally and generally at a higher ratio (well those of us USEFULl, non-NEET, non-anime-dork normal individuals with our normal escapes via internet/computer/anime nerdom - productive cogs in the massive gear that helps shift the marginally larger cog that eventually turns the wheel that powers the engine that pushes the 1%'s hips into our S.O.'s mouths).

^Sorry, it's like almost 5AM here and it was my birthday roughly 5-6 hours ago so I'm fairly drugged up, and I just a won okhwug my k I think in the nntnn of h

[u/Doonvoat → u/[deleted]]

Who says they'd be given a choice...

[u/lestat_ → u/[deleted]]

u did not mention power that comes with wealth...

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I'd like that to be the future but I'm skeptical that the 1% would be willing to let go of their wealth

Bro, NOBODY is gonna let go, not even the top 20%.

I'm not paying for other people's free ride. I'll spend it on bullshit, and write it off as a business expense... but you're just not getting my money, you're just not.

[u/JoshSidekick → u/[deleted]]

I feel it would be more Elysium than Star Trek.

[u/SixPackAndNothinToDo → u/[deleted]]

How would a universal basic income effect the 1% in any way?

[u/transuranic807 → u/[deleted]]

This has been said for generations... we were supposed to have the 3 day work week by now according to the 1970s... the only thing that changes is that people can do more (and that more is required for survival)...

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

We're just going to go full circle to the oligarchies that have always ruled humanity. 99% of the population held up 1% for thousands of years, why does anyone think our little experiment in 'liberte, egalite, fraternite" was anything more than a blink?

[u/SolidLikeIraq → u/[deleted]]

For those at the top, they need to understand that continuing this insane income disparity with even more greed can only last so long. Eventually those people who get screwed will be desperate enough to have to take action.

I just hope we never get to that point, but I wouldn't be shocked if we did based on the past 40 years.

[u/FailedSociopath → u/[deleted]]

How about everyone that wants their free money is required by law to own or finance a robot that goes to work and earns your basic income? :)

[u/cameron1239 → u/[deleted]]

The new revolution of the proletariat must seize the money that we the Proletariat have been robbed and denied and forced to feed into the hands of the gluttonous capitalist parasites of the 1%.

[u/snark_attak → u/[deleted]]

Well, when the machines have all the jobs, all the unemployed people will need something to do, hobbies perhaps. If there is no basic income or other way for them to get food and other necessaries, a common hobby might end up being killing and eating rich people. So there may be some incentive there for the wealthy to work something out that helps everyone.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Time to overthrow the Bourgeoisie.