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> There's no doubt taxes would need to increase to fund such a program, of course. Who would pay them?
Workers? It's not like everybody would stop working. The number of people content with $1,000/month is going to be pretty low.
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> I disagree. Humans tend to create new market segments in response to this problem. You can disagree if you like, but you're relying on the past to make your presumption that humans will just create more markets; the future of automation isn't like the past, future automation will include AI and is already doing so. AI changes the game, the future is not like the past, humans won't just do something else. Labor base…
Haha. Well, let's cross that bridge when we get there.
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One question I have about BI is if it replaces other forms of social welfare (food stamps, unemployment, etc...), what happens when some percentage of people inevitably make decisions and still cannot afford the basics of what BI should cover? Will a new set of social welfare programs replace the ones that were previously removed?
If BI isn't enough to replace existing welfare systems, then it isn't enough. You can't half-ass something like this.
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Haha. Well, let's cross that bridge when we get there.
That way lies pain, we have to cross that bridge as we get there which we currently are already on; hence the structural unemployment. Self driving cars are going to cause mass unemployment, we're already getting there.
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If BI isn't enough to replace existing welfare systems, then it isn't enough. You can't half-ass something like this.
I'm more speaking to what I believe is the inevitability of some people making bad decisions (like buying a bunch of powerball tickets or betting your money at the racetrack or something.) with the money they receive and then not being able to afford the basics. There would obviously be many people who are benefitted by BI, but my question is more wondering what happens to the percentage of people that end up still n…
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The people who receive checks from the government every month are already preselected for failure. You don't get a government check at random, you get it for being disabled, for being too old to work, for being incapable of holding down any sort of job, etc. Looking at them to see how the population at large might react to basic income is not going to be informative.
Right, so the new check recipients will be people that were otherwise capable of sustaining themselves, as those who aren't are already accommodated. I suspect that the 'human capital' liberated by basic income will mostly find its way to level 400 World of Warcraft Death Knights and 40 000 word critiques of Breaking Bad episodes. Should the legions of working folk try to actually use their new liberty for anything w…
How many people out there have a way to improve their lives and move forward, but which requires more free time than their minimum-wage job allows? I suspect it's a lot.
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If BI isn't enough to replace existing welfare systems, then it isn't enough. You can't half-ass something like this.
I don't think you've captured the nature of the question. If you give everyone a cash handout, some percentage of them might spend all of their allowance on alcohol and lottery tickets, and not have enough left over for food or rent at the end of the month, leaving them hungry and homeless. Under BI, is this situation acceptable, because it is their own fault for "wasting" the money?
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>Except that there are strong social incentives for anyone who is capable of getting a paying job and going off welfare to do so Debatable. In the US, many welfare programs are designed to cut off anyone who actually gets a job...even if that job pays less than what you'd get from welfare. This problem gets even bigger as you factor in the fact that multiple welfare programs exist, making it nigh-impossible to preven…
One question I have about BI is if it replaces other forms of social welfare (food stamps, unemployment, etc...), what happens when some percentage of people inevitably make decisions and still cannot afford the basics of what BI should cover? Will a new set of social welfare programs replace the ones that were previously removed?
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On the other hand, those 5 million additional people probably aren't going to sit around doing nothing. That's not how human nature works, either - most people are happier doing something rather than nothing! Self actualization and all that. So are they going to contribute as much to the sovereign wealth that funds the basic income as the citizens? And is the basic income extended to guest workers / temporary residen…
On the other hand, those 5 million additional people probably aren't going to sit around doing nothing. That's not how human nature works, either - most people are happier doing something rather than nothing! Self actualization and all that. This is really the core assumption behind Marxism; perhaps not so much the sclerotic centrally-planned dictatorship of the proletariat 'Marxism' we saw in the 20th century as the…
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> he idea behind basic income is to remove day-to-day struggle from people's lives. If only they didn't have to worry where their next rent check is coming from, then potentially a huge groundswell of human capital could rise out of nowhere and carry us all into a new age. That is not at all what basic income is about. The point of basic income is not as a means to enable anything; it's a natural byproduct of and sol…
Perhaps it's a step along the road to a post-scarcity economy.