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The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

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Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#91

Post by dllthomas »

dragonwriter wrote: post #88
bayesianhorse wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see a way to get there, for most nations. Big nations would have the most trouble introducing this. And what about immigration? Immigration can't be effectively regulated by any means available to a moderately democratic state. Should immigrants receive the BLS? If yes, you go broke. If no, the immigrants are essentially second-class citizens who have to work for an extremely low wage (because they would have…

> Immigration can't be effectively regulated by any means available to a moderately democratic state. That's debatable. But lets assume it for the sake of argument. > Should immigrants receive the BLS? If yes, you go broke. If no, the immigrants are essentially second-class citizens who have to work for an extremely low wage (because they would have to pay indirectly for the BLS). I think this claim is overly simplis…

I could see, for 3, granting the stipend paid for by a tax on remittances.

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#92

Post by dragonwriter »

randallsquared wrote: post #65
saticmotion wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A solution - though extremely unlikely in this day and age - would be to abandon the notion of nations. Especially in the far future, if we are ever to meet aliens. Imagine having to explain that you only represent one of 196 nations. Seems a bit silly to me.

Imagine having to explain that you represent some people only because you told those people you represent them. What with all the independence movements, the direction of the world seems to be toward a million nations, not world government.

There are trends in both directions, toward government at levels beyond traditional nation-states (this is particularly visible in European institutions and things like the International Criminal Court, a permanent international court with jurisdiction over persons rather than nations), and toward smaller nation-states. Its not hard to imagine an end state where a narrow range of basic functions were handled by a world government (or a collection of function-specific, separately-constituted, global institutions), but where the unit below that was a set of governments (which might be characterized as "national") over regions smaller than today's nation-states (at least, the medium-to-large nation-states of today.)

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#93

Post by jfoutz »

tomjen3 wrote: post #73
jfoutz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not completely clear i understand the distinction. With basic income, you just get cash (or a tax deduction if you're making money - the original proposal was around 2x the deduction vs cash). you can do whatever you want with it. like eating steak more than having a large living space? Do that. I get the impression you're wanting to provide standardized essentials, a room, 5 shirts, 5 pants, government cheese. T…

It is true that the market is efficient in getting people what they want and that the government is not. However that is not desirable in this case since it makes it too easy to live on government money with little incentives to take whatever job you can. If you lived in a government room, got your government clothing and ate in your government chow hall/mess tent/whatever then you could get a benefit out of shovelin…

Which is the point of the deduction. Any work at all is better than sitting around doing nothing. - I'd suggest you check out Friedman's original position. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM It's elegant.

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#94

Post by dragonwriter »

grinnbearit wrote: post #89
guizzy wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because centrally planned economies have been notoriously unable to predict and meet demand. Adequately meeting demand is important, especially considering how fresh and healthy food is for the most part perishable. Perhaps one day, when/if something like Soylent can be supplied as a utility this would work.

This isn't a centrally planned economy, its a centrally planned expense. Once you know how many people you need to provide for, how much it costs is simple multiplication. Mass manufacturing and predictable consumption will help reduce costs even further. Basic Income is harder, how much do I pay to prevent people suffering? Will people still die if I provide 10k$ how about 20k$? What if they're really bad at decisio…

> Will people still die if I provide 10k$ how about 20k$?

People will still die whatever you do (and whether you do it by BI or whether you do it by central purchasing of common goodie baskets) -- probably more in the latter case than the former, for a given expenditure level, because the overhead costs are higher and people's needs differ.

> What if they're really bad at decision making and gamble it away or get robbed?

People can -- and do -- gamble goods when they don't have cash, and get robbed of goods as well; those aren't problems unique to cash, nor are they problems that central purchasing of common baskets of goods makes any easier to address than distributing cash does.

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#95

Post by dragonwriter »

tomjen3 wrote: post #73
jfoutz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not completely clear i understand the distinction. With basic income, you just get cash (or a tax deduction if you're making money - the original proposal was around 2x the deduction vs cash). you can do whatever you want with it. like eating steak more than having a large living space? Do that. I get the impression you're wanting to provide standardized essentials, a room, 5 shirts, 5 pants, government cheese. T…

It is true that the market is efficient in getting people what they want and that the government is not. However that is not desirable in this case since it makes it too easy to live on government money with little incentives to take whatever job you can. If you lived in a government room, got your government clothing and ate in your government chow hall/mess tent/whatever then you could get a benefit out of shovelin…

> However that is not desirable in this case since it makes it too easy to live on government money with little incentives to take whatever job you can.

The incentive to take whatever job you can is that even if a job pays very little, that's on top of the basic income.

> With government money you would have to check that that person wasn't working under the table

No, the whole point of basic income (vs. traditional means-tested welfare) is that you don't have to do that, and that its counterproductive to do it anyway. All you have to check is "are you a citizen [1]". If you are, you get the benefit.

Working under the table is a tax problem, but its a problem that you already have to address for the tax system, not separately for the benefit system since its not relevant to benefit calculations in a BI system.

> When we truely have human level AI we can make the Culture and nobody has to work.

With BI at the level that can be maintained without utopian level productivity of that type, people will both need to work and be incentivized to do so; there's no need for an explicit stick, relative deprivation is itself a motivator (sure, not everyone will work, and progressively fewer will work as productivity increases through technology and sustainable BI levels increase. But not everyone needs to work, and BI lets market forces drive that.)

[1] or "citizen or legal immigrant" or whatever the status-based qualification is. Income, etc., isn't part of it.

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#96

Post by jcromartie »

tomjen3 wrote: post #71
jcromartie wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you imagine government-issue food, clothing, and shelter? That's destined to be some horribly depressing Soviet-type shit right there. With a basic income, even the people who are not working can participate in the market and drive the competition and innovation of people who are producing goods and services.

Exactly. The point is to make it so that you can survive like that but you always have incentives to work, even a little. If you don't you will walk around in clothing that is obviously provided by the state (manufactures of clothing will work hard to make sure their clothing doesn't look like that), living a state area, eathing state food (may be pretty healthy, actually) - so everybody will know you belong on the b…

Shame is a terrible motivator. Instead you'll probably get even more stratification and ghettoization, while the "haves" operate in their own bubble. You have concocted a perfect setup for a cyberpunk dystopian future, and honestly it would make a pretty good plot.

I'm imagining the urchins living in identical concrete boxes that make up the under-city dwellings, lining up in droves for their government pants.

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#97

Post by grinnbearit »

dragonwriter wrote: post #94
grinnbearit wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a centrally planned economy, its a centrally planned expense. Once you know how many people you need to provide for, how much it costs is simple multiplication. Mass manufacturing and predictable consumption will help reduce costs even further. Basic Income is harder, how much do I pay to prevent people suffering? Will people still die if I provide 10k$ how about 20k$? What if they're really bad at decisio…

> Will people still die if I provide 10k$ how about 20k$? People will still die whatever you do (and whether you do it by BI or whether you do it by central purchasing of common goodie baskets) -- probably more in the latter case than the former, for a given expenditure level, because the overhead costs are higher and people's needs differ. > What if they're really bad at decision making and gamble it away or get rob…

"because the overhead costs are higher and people's needs differ."

I don't understand how the overhead costs are higher with more predictable results and mass production (or are we defining costs differently?). Isn't the goal to provide basic living for people who can't provide for themselves instead of letting them die on the streets?

I'm proposing unlimited baskets of goods purely for predictable cost reasons, it doesn't really matter if they gamble them away, although I find it unlikely they'd find any takers since everyone has access to the same baskets.

Welfare is a cost, basic income doesn't seem like it would satisfy that cost in the most efficient way.

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#98

Post by grinnbearit »

dragonwriter wrote: post #95
tomjen3 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that the market is efficient in getting people what they want and that the government is not. However that is not desirable in this case since it makes it too easy to live on government money with little incentives to take whatever job you can. If you lived in a government room, got your government clothing and ate in your government chow hall/mess tent/whatever then you could get a benefit out of shovelin…

> However that is not desirable in this case since it makes it too easy to live on government money with little incentives to take whatever job you can. The incentive to take whatever job you can is that even if a job pays very little, that's on top of the basic income. > With government money you would have to check that that person wasn't working under the table No, the whole point of basic income (vs. traditional…

> The incentive to take whatever job you can is that even if a job pays very little, that's on top of the basic income.

The goal isn't to provide largess (is it?) its to provide the basics with no strings attached free of charge, anything beyond that should require satisfying the desires of other humans.

> "citizen or legal immigrant"

I understand the reason this check is necessary, I also think you're going to end up with a lot of dead illegals. This is a moral problem we're trying to solve right? Why should specific people starve?

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#99

Post by dragonwriter »

grinnbearit wrote: post #98
dragonwriter wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However that is not desirable in this case since it makes it too easy to live on government money with little incentives to take whatever job you can. The incentive to take whatever job you can is that even if a job pays very little, that's on top of the basic income. > With government money you would have to check that that person wasn't working under the table No, the whole point of basic income (vs. traditional…

> The incentive to take whatever job you can is that even if a job pays very little, that's on top of the basic income. The goal isn't to provide largess (is it?) its to provide the basics with no strings attached free of charge, anything beyond that should require satisfying the desires of other humans. > "citizen or legal immigrant" I understand the reason this check is necessary, I also think you're going to end u…

> The goal isn't to provide largess (is it?) its to provide the basics with no strings attached free of charge, anything beyond that should require satisfying the desires of other humans.

The goal, in my view, of Basic Income is to mitigate the fundamental structural inequity of capitalist markets (particularly in the way that money/commodity exchanges work as a proxy for value/utility), to wit, that such markets weight present utility experienced by market participants by past wealth accumulation, and thus are progressively distortive in terms of distribution of utility.

Providing a basic, no-strings-attached allowance is a means, not an ends.

> anything beyond that should require satisfying the desires of other humans.

As it does in BI -- you have to gain income from market exchange to realize utility beyond that attainable with the BI alone. The difference between BI and your "basic welfare" where the government provides a standard-issue basket of goods and services is that BI is simply additive with other income, whereas the limited exchangeability and substitutability of the standard basket of basic welfare goods and services means that it takes a large additional income to get a small additional benefit, which reduces the incentive to provide additional value since, over some range at the bottom.

> I understand the reason this check is necessary, I also think you're going to end up with a lot of dead illegals.

BI serving its purpose does not preclude other programs serving people present in the jurisdiction of the nation that aren't subject to it. Nor does the example of potential classifications mean that BI couldn't have a different eligibility rule ("everyone physically present in the national jurisdiction" is also a possible rule.)

> This is a moral problem we're trying to solve right?

There are many moral problems. Not all of them have the same solution.

> Why should specific people starve?

I don't recall arguing that anyone should starve.

Re: The New Luddites: What if technological innovation is a job-killer after all?

#100

Post by bayesianhorse »

dragonwriter wrote: post #88
bayesianhorse wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see a way to get there, for most nations. Big nations would have the most trouble introducing this. And what about immigration? Immigration can't be effectively regulated by any means available to a moderately democratic state. Should immigrants receive the BLS? If yes, you go broke. If no, the immigrants are essentially second-class citizens who have to work for an extremely low wage (because they would have…

> Immigration can't be effectively regulated by any means available to a moderately democratic state. That's debatable. But lets assume it for the sake of argument. > Should immigrants receive the BLS? If yes, you go broke. If no, the immigrants are essentially second-class citizens who have to work for an extremely low wage (because they would have to pay indirectly for the BLS). I think this claim is overly simplis…

All this actually presupposes that you can get rid of illegal immigrants, otherwise anyone who does not get the BLS (for whatever reason) will essentially earn a fraction of the money the recipients get. Why? Well for one thing his wages by means of taxation have to pay the BLS to everyone else. Secondly if he has children, they probably don't get BLS either, and he has to pay for them out of a minimum wage, too, which a BLS recipient doesn't need to do.
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