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What Is the Point of Universal Basic Income?

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Re: What Is the Point of Universal Basic Income?

#41

Post by Treegarden »

austincheney wrote: post #17

That article isn’t about UBI in much the same way that capitalism isn’t about money. Capitalism is primarily about obtaining advantage and money is one measure among many. The supposed goals of capitalism are great: competition, innovation, refinement, transformation, and others. The problem is that those are goals they teach school children. They aren’t the primary goal that actually matters in practice. If capitali…

Im not sure I agree. These things are relative, and I would argue that "Capitalism" is an environment that is beneficial to "competition, innovation, refinement, transformation, and others" relative to other things. Im not sure about what the "thing" is. Rule system? Laws? Societal norms? But I hope you get the idea. Things are obviously not universally perfect, but what are they in relation to other comparable things?

Also, from my econ classes, isn't capitalism fundamentally just property rights and freedom of trade? Some argue that capitalism is more specifically about gaining rent (money) through capital alone, and they criticize that this is undeserved and to the cost of others. But in my view, such criticism ignores risk of loss and potential long term changes.

Re: What Is the Point of Universal Basic Income?

#42

Post by dpflan »

ZhuanXia wrote: post #15

If automation will truly do all jobs, then by definition we have human-level AI. As labour supply enormously limits economic growth, we would have economic growth that is unimaginably large in this scenario. Imagine how quickly a startup could scale if they could clone their best engineer. Now imagine that applied to the economy as a whole. We would get economic doubling times on the order of months. If we truly get…

I think a point to consider is that for jobs for "tasks only humans can do", the precise job/opportunity for employment may not exist, but I agree that some opportunity will be created that utilizes that human skill that hasn't been displaced yet. This lag between human-replaced and human-finds-job could be problematic to the structure of society (also, consider the current human-job-search). A UBI here could be a shim (also, government welfare/unemployment support) to help support society during the lag - a buffer against the unknown which can help with the necessities (imagine having to find a job and deal with the prospect or being homeless because your were replaced and couldn't pay rent, that will exacerbate the problem.)

Re: What Is the Point of Universal Basic Income?

#43

Post by [deleted] »

seibelj wrote: post #8

Is this AI revolution ever going to happen? Siri and Alexa still hear the wrong thing half the time, even when I speak and enunciate very clearly. What jobs have been eliminated by this revolution that I’ve been hearing about for the past decade? The self driving cars are not picking me up and not delivering my packages. I have a better solution than airdropping everyone welfare money so we can laze around all day -…

[deleted]

Re: What Is the Point of Universal Basic Income?

#44

Post by jrockway »

seibelj wrote: post #8

Is this AI revolution ever going to happen? Siri and Alexa still hear the wrong thing half the time, even when I speak and enunciate very clearly. What jobs have been eliminated by this revolution that I’ve been hearing about for the past decade? The self driving cars are not picking me up and not delivering my packages. I have a better solution than airdropping everyone welfare money so we can laze around all day -…

An AI revolution is not required to eliminate jobs. Robots are already doing the work of millions. You can see it everywhere you look. Was your laptop hand milled out of aluminum? Nope, a CNC machine did it. Do you see 12 cashiers manning 12 checkout lanes at the grocery store? Nope, 1 cashier is manning 12 self-checkout lanes. Do you have a secretary that schedules your meetings? No, you just use Google Calendar. That is what automation is. The 1970s sci-fi robot is just a distraction.

Re: What Is the Point of Universal Basic Income?

#45

Post by iso947 »

mdorazio wrote: post #27
RivieraKid wrote: post #12

The prevailing view seems to be: robots will take our jobs, therefore we will need UBI, which allows people to live without work. The way I see it, the main problem that UBI is solving is inequality, it's a rich to poor transfer. Excessive inequality is bad because the aggregate utility goes down (rich people don't gain much from an additional dollar, so it's more effectively used by a poor person). Transfering cash…

To your last statement, most proponents of UBI emphasize the "Basic" part of it. As in, it's meant to provide a subsistence level of income that a person could survive on, but not in comfort. I'm personally in favor of that level explicitly not being location-specific so that if you want to live solely on UBI, you have to live in a low cost of living area to do so.

So those in cheap areas with no jobs can never move to the areas with jobs?

Re: What Is the Point of Universal Basic Income?

#46

Post by washadjeffmad »

RivieraKid wrote: post #12

The prevailing view seems to be: robots will take our jobs, therefore we will need UBI, which allows people to live without work. The way I see it, the main problem that UBI is solving is inequality, it's a rich to poor transfer. Excessive inequality is bad because the aggregate utility goes down (rich people don't gain much from an additional dollar, so it's more effectively used by a poor person). Transfering cash…

Demotivated to work like retirees, spouses in single income households, and people who can live off the fruits of their investments like the wealthy?

Perhaps they’d produce art, or seek out experiences and education that wouldn’t otherwise be afforded to them. Maybe they’d take on risk and start that business they’d always dreamed of if they weren’t taking of their parent with dementia or having to work fewer days to watch their newborn.

Maybe risking their and their children’s health and educations because they might not be compelled to tirelessly feed their lives into a labor machine like they were once is too simple and dehumanizing a way to think.

I’m not for UBI yet because society is still too unbalanced in favor of rent seekers, but I could see it being the next target on the agenda within the decade, assuming a Sanders presidency.

Re: What Is the Point of Universal Basic Income?

#47

Post by imtringued »

Align incentives. Trickle down economics basically means that the more unequal society is the better society is off. This is trivial to prove wrong. When a business invests in automation workers lose their job while corporate profits soar. The success of a company isn't tied to how well it treats its employees. If one could reverse this situation and somehow make workers look forward to losing their jobs only then can we truly say that increasing inequality makes everyone better off. UBI is one way of achieving that. As a country's GDP grows so does its UBI.

Re: What Is the Point of Universal Basic Income?

#48

Post by meddlepal »

foolzcrow wrote: post #2

Fact: The plan is about replacing you with robots at work so they can rake in more profits. In return you get to go on welfare rebranded as UBI. Look it up UBI is about automation AI replacing humans for profit. (see geordie rose) So your 40k job becomes 10k to 15k welfare. MegaCorps pocket the rest of your wage as reward for selling you out to UBI and AI.

So invest heavily in the stock market and when these megacorps start automating all the jobs ride the likely massive gains?

Re: What Is the Point of Universal Basic Income?

#49

Post by silvestrov »

RivieraKid wrote: post #12

The prevailing view seems to be: robots will take our jobs, therefore we will need UBI, which allows people to live without work. The way I see it, the main problem that UBI is solving is inequality, it's a rich to poor transfer. Excessive inequality is bad because the aggregate utility goes down (rich people don't gain much from an additional dollar, so it's more effectively used by a poor person). Transfering cash…

Food is not enough. People also want a purpose with their life where they are important for other people.

Denmark has kind of an UBI: a single mom + one kid, no work for past 20 years, gets more than $2300 per month. Such a person has enough money for food, good apartment, etc. All what UBI wants to provide.

But many of these people end up depressed, inactive, feels like a failure, etc. Many just give completely up.

They don't feel "UBI" is like having a long vacation and a meaningful life.

budget: (notice that the mom can afford a $1000/month apartment) https://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/politik/danskpolitik/article...

Re: What Is the Point of Universal Basic Income?

#50

Post by mLuby »

ZhuanXia wrote: post #15

If automation will truly do all jobs, then by definition we have human-level AI. As labour supply enormously limits economic growth, we would have economic growth that is unimaginably large in this scenario. Imagine how quickly a startup could scale if they could clone their best engineer. Now imagine that applied to the economy as a whole. We would get economic doubling times on the order of months. If we truly get…

The number of human jobs will shrink over time as the machines approach human intelligence.

Fewer jobs with more people seeking them will drive wages down.

So the last gasp of human labor will look like a few excessively educated, qualified and well-connected people competing fiercely for the few remaining low-paying (but still paying!) jobs. The rest live on government benefits or rely on the charity of the trillionaires.

Those with pre-existing capital use it on automated businesses to multiply their fortunes. (And I bet they'll also automate personal security, a necessity when a trillionaire can still be killed by any of the other 10 billion humans. That's how you get private armies.)

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