From the post...
> the key insight that the Noah Smiths of the world seem to be missing is that, in today’s world, we artificially elevate labor demand to keep people employed.
To me one learning of COVID and lockdowns is that we're fully capable of meeting all our basic needs with less than 20% of the workforce (which sadly tends also tends to be the lowest paid). In short we don't need everyone to be working for food, shelter, healthcare etc.
Unfortunately, if we take the climate as an example for how we handle a complex and challenging topic like this, we're going to completely fumble UBI and the role work plays in our future culture and society.
It's an incredibly complex problem, simply considering individual vs. national perspectives. And our collective response to the topic is far too reactive and prejudiced to even begin studying it in a sensible way.
We live in a world where businesses have already realised incredible value from the Linux operating system, which was begun by a student living in his mums house, being subsidised by Finnish social security. He then went on to create git, leading to GitHub, which now manages the code for 90% of Fortune 100 companies.
The opportunity is clear but I can't see us being able to untangle this effectively.