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The Future of Not Working

nytimes.com

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Re: The Future of Not Working

#211

Post by nrdwavexe »

Why is "defining a problem called 'not working'" not called "massively manipulating the economy"? From the point of view of the people who work hard to make Kenya's economy work, this can't possibly be helpful. It sounds like an evil, abusive psychological experiment.

Forget about "fake news", the New York Times is literally evil news. It is literally promoting views that proliferate evil. Injecting this level of disorder into an economy and lying about it is a level of deception that goes into moral perversion.

Let me make this clear: I am directly accusing Annie Lowrey of promoting excessively morally corrupt views. She is responsible for promoting evil. This is a person who wakes up in the morning and works hard to promote evil.

Think about that.

Edit: I was down-voted without explanation or rebuttal. If you disagree with what I have written, don't attack my anonymously. I want my karma to be a healthy score, and I don't appreciate people (or bots) decreasing my karma score, and I consider it a personal attack against my reputation.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#212

Post by scruple »

dorfsmay wrote: post #196
zouhair wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know why people in rich countries don't have a lot of kids? It's because when you give people everything they to have a decent life they start to think about other things than just having tons of kids, kids are the retirement fund for poor people, give them enough to have a decent retirement fund and suddenly they will stop having ton of kids. Overpopulation is not the problem in itself, the problem is that peopl…

Or is it because bringing up kids responsively in industrial countries is really expensive?

This has been my wife and I's experience. It's very common among the majority of our friends and family who are, like us, childless well in to their 30s (mostly in the pursuit of "career").

Re: The Future of Not Working

#213

Post by eli_gottlieb »

zouhair wrote: post #194
dorfsmay wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money has worked really well to share limited resources in a fairly peaceful way. Making decisions about how to share limited resources in a post-work world is one of the most difficult problem we are going to face, and yet it isn't discussed. Instead, we'd rather claim that Basic Income pixie dust is going to solve all problems.

You know why people in rich countries don't have a lot of kids? It's because when you give people everything they to have a decent life they start to think about other things than just having tons of kids, kids are the retirement fund for poor people, give them enough to have a decent retirement fund and suddenly they will stop having ton of kids. Overpopulation is not the problem in itself, the problem is that peopl…

>You know why people in rich countries don't have a lot of kids?

Because we can't afford a spare bedroom to put them in.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#214

Post by arkades »

zouhair wrote: post #194
dorfsmay wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money has worked really well to share limited resources in a fairly peaceful way. Making decisions about how to share limited resources in a post-work world is one of the most difficult problem we are going to face, and yet it isn't discussed. Instead, we'd rather claim that Basic Income pixie dust is going to solve all problems.

You know why people in rich countries don't have a lot of kids? It's because when you give people everything they to have a decent life they start to think about other things than just having tons of kids, kids are the retirement fund for poor people, give them enough to have a decent retirement fund and suddenly they will stop having ton of kids. Overpopulation is not the problem in itself, the problem is that peopl…

And here I thought it was because people with better socioeconomic outcomes want the same/better for their children, and therefore have to accumulate far more significant financial resources before procreating than someone who doesn't really plan on devoting much resources towards their offspring.

Turns out kids are just a pain in the ass not worth having if you don't need 'em to fund your retirement. I'll tell my wife; thanks.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#215

Post by marmot777 »

jimmywanger wrote: post #69
marmot777 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, my knowledge of this was not detailed enough to catch that threshold. So in this Kenyan Village it's still $10k to $20k threshold?

I don't know if there's a threshold per se, but the X-axis on the graph you cited is demarcated as 10k per line. 250 dollars a year is about 1/40th of each unit on the X-axis. And that graph seems to apply to people all over the world, I don't see why this Kenyan village would be any different. The fertility reductions really only seem to matter once you get to 10k or 20k of annual income a year. I agree that if you…

Yes, you make some sound points here for sure. What is your position on the concept of universal basic income, setting aside beta tests for now.

And what do you think it's viable, what would it take to make it viable. Maybe consider a few scenarios say how it might work (or not work) in different parts of the world, including both developing and developed.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#216

Post by cannonpr »

powertower wrote: post #186
cannonpr wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you honestly suggesting there is anything other than education preventing them from it ? That asides, research mathematics is only a small subset of mental tasks available to humans. There are a lot of areas that could benefit from "computation" Laws, philosophy, literature, sociology, psychology. We seem to have forgotten how much of our society is based on how our thought is applied to knowledge. Thought rather…

> Are you honestly suggesting there is anything other than education preventing them from it? Yes. The aptitude of higher abstract thinking varies greatly among different people and groups. If you are really curious, check out the IQ test about pulling info from a sports column. After that, your question becomes similar to asking why every short person can't be taught/trained to do well on a professional basketball t…

I don't really want to divert this thread into a full discussion on the validity and value of IQ tests, but I do find the view you are espousing to be very depressing and I had hoped that they had died along with Ellis island and phrenology.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#217

Post by ci5er »

jakewins wrote: post #33
chrispeel wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The doc [1] below agrees that there are about 700m in extreme poverty now, which it defines as living below $2/day. If we gave each of those people $2/day, we'd need $550billion/year. So yes, $66b seems low for the $2/day threshold. I wonder if this $66b is for those who are below $1/day. Looking at the plot in [1], we can guess that the number at $1/day is much lower; $66b would give 181 million people a dollar a da…

You need to take into account that these people are not living on absolute nil - they have some level of income, be it $1 or $.50 - so you don't need to give each of them $2/day. The OP article noted the amount needed in the village in the beginning was $22/month, so $.75 a day, give or take 10c.

And the system for means-testing at that level would be expensive enough to run, with opportunities for graft, false-positives, and false-natives, that means-testing would be a losing proposition. Just pick a level and make sure no one is double-dipping.

You still have the problem of regional thugs that will come round every "pay day" for their taste. Or beat you up. A pretty simple variation a protection racket, but I'm not sure how to protect against it.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#218

Post by karmakaze »

Sounds like a great programme with little reported short-term negative effects. By no way is this a beta test to anything other than reproducing this in other similar cultural conditions, which may also require having seen previous aid attempts fail.

The worst-case scenario I fear is that UBI given without also providing outlets for activities that actually get used will result in an adult version of problem of otherwise well-off of suburban youth.

Re: The Future of Not Working

#219

Post by prestonpesek »

In order for this to work, you have to define "universal" in the context of how automation affects the global economy, not just the US or any national economy. Example: are we going to send a stipend to Bengali citizens who are displaced from textile manufacturing jobs by robot factories in the U.S.?

Re: The Future of Not Working

#220

Post by chillwaves »

temp-ora wrote: post #91

we do not use money because it makes sense. money exists in the form it takes today because of human nature. we think someone has to earn their food. we think a homeless person deserves a handout because they look like they are at least trying to get on their feet (or not when they dont). machine intelligence is not the only problem that our wealth distribution system is facing. we have faced massive inequality befor…

> the automation of jobs will result in the smartest and fasted humans owning the vast majority of wealth and influence while the rest of us sit in mud.

So you are arguing the rich are rich because they are the smartest? I would tweak your assessment. The rich are rich because wealth perpetuates the capture of wealth at a rate greater than the expansion of the economy.

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