61–70 of 108 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's meant to be rhetorical; of course being born makes you worthy of survival! But what if working doesn't provide you enough sustenance? And what if you don't even have the opportunity in the first place, once the demand for human labor is low enough?
... and that's when you reach for the pitchforks along with the others.
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Again, I get where you are coming from, but then there is this: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hU7LNS3S3F0/UgQM8LZeTuI/A... It shows Shanghai in 1987 vs 2013 From a humanist angle, those buildings are outrageous monstrosities and monuments to human egos. However, they were built from wealth generation that probably gave farmers in paddy fields the opportunity to be elevated out of relative poverty to positions wh…
China has been aggressively industrializing since the 70's and their work is paying off, while America has been aggressively deindustrializing, shipping all the work overseas, gutting the middle class, all so the upper class can benefit from the cheaper labor. The global economy means nothing to me when I can't get a job. If globalization doesn't help everyone of a country, it will lead to widespread disdain for glob…
Yeah I'll buy that, but the global economy is what gave you the computer that you are using to type that message on and it makes your groceries cheaper when you go to QFC.
We certainly do need to find a better way of doing it, because we can't all be big data scientists, drone operators and bartenders. Thumbs up to that
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Again, I get where you are coming from, but then there is this: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hU7LNS3S3F0/UgQM8LZeTuI/A... It shows Shanghai in 1987 vs 2013 From a humanist angle, those buildings are outrageous monstrosities and monuments to human egos. However, they were built from wealth generation that probably gave farmers in paddy fields the opportunity to be elevated out of relative poverty to positions wh…
China has been aggressively industrializing since the 70's and their work is paying off, while America has been aggressively deindustrializing, shipping all the work overseas, gutting the middle class, all so the upper class can benefit from the cheaper labor. The global economy means nothing to me when I can't get a job. If globalization doesn't help everyone of a country, it will lead to widespread disdain for glob…
Yeah I'll buy that, but the global economy is what gave you the computer that you are using to type that message on and it makes your groceries cheaper when you go to QFC.
We certainly do need to find a better way of doing it, because we can't all be big data scientists, drone operators and bartenders. Thumbs up to that
Earlier quoted context omitted.
... and that's when you reach for the pitchforks along with the others.
And get crushed by drone strikes. The old methods of overthrowing power don't work any more!
Drone strikes have failed to "crush" any insurgency thus far and there is a strong argument that they've inflammed the situation wherever they've been used as weapons.
Moreover, "pitchforks" come in many forms.
As usual the chorus will be something along the lines of: "Nothing to see here. We've had these shifts before and more jobs will be created than lost and people will transition to new jobs etc..." To which the response is, yes that's true, however never have we seen it at such a pace. Shifts are now likely to happen multiple times in a single working lifetime, as opposed to once a generation (1960-2000 - Solid State…
This would change your figures to around 2 generations for the current automation revolution, and industrialization to between 4-6 generations.
> UBI reduces the incentive to work, and risks stranding millions of people in a subsistence living trap, able to just about get by, but cut off from the opportunity for upward mobility, as this essay details well. The claim is prima facie false, so I looked at the source provided ("this essay" is [1]) and it doesn't support that claim AT ALL. [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601499/basic-income-a-sel...
If you give 100k people each 10k$ each month, chances are that some of them stop working because they consider it enough.
The same holds for 1k$ but to a lesser extent.
Still, UBI reduces the incentive to work.
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They don't pay anything like jobs of the past used to. There used to be a large middle class that could afford things like housing, new vehicles, vacations, and hobbies on a regular basis. Service jobs generally don't provide that quality of life.
I think you are looking at the past a bit optimistically. First off, many houses in the past were MUCH smaller. I know people of the WWII generation that raised their families in working class Detroit neighborhoods. They were considered middle class but raised a family of 7 in a 900 sq. foot house. Yes they went on vacations, but they drove and didn't go out to eat. They had usually only a single car. My point is tha…
I cook every meal, and I can tell you, food prices are starting to look iffy to me. I can only imagine someone on a fixed/restricted income. Let alone having a spouse or a kid or two.
I also think you over estimate the average person's ability to save, even if you're not buying a bunch of extravagant crap. In the "middle class" there isn't as much spending going on as people think.
Also, sure you may be able to buy that type of home in Detroit for that little (which i argue really isn't that little... especially if you have no savings and shot credit), but if it's in the city proper, you have increased food costs, lack of public transportation, deficient police, fire and ems, high taxes as Detroit tries to recoup loses... etc. If you live in the suburbs (which most people do in Detroit, which eroded their tax base and caused their current problems), you have the issues I highlighted above.
Combine that with little job mobility and lack of a viable path to increase income... the "middle class" is taken for a ride... the poor are screwed.
God forbid you have student loans.
We need to do better as a society.
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> Um, yes? That's easy to say with no resource scarcity.
There is no resource scarcity. 6 men own as much wealth as the poorest 50% of the _planet_. This is a crisis of capitalism and wealth distribution.
I'm totally onboard with UBI if it is actually needed. The problem is people PROJECTING that it will be needed. In the current world human labor is very much in demand. Maybe people won't be able to use the specific degree that they went to school for but that just means a bit of retraining and/or a bit of mindset shift. If there is a massive outflux of jobs in America, then there are many questions that need to be a…
You couldn't get the new deal passed during the roaring 20's. Society has to actually realize that the old way no longer works. Radical change never happens without a great need already being present.
And we can't even really begin to guess how our society would be altered by this. Trying to predict the issue and fix them seems folly.
> UBI reduces the incentive to work, and risks stranding millions of people in a subsistence living trap, able to just about get by, but cut off from the opportunity for upward mobility, as this essay details well. The claim is prima facie false, so I looked at the source provided ("this essay" is [1]) and it doesn't support that claim AT ALL. [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601499/basic-income-a-sel...
I think the reasoning goes like that: If you give 100k people each 10k$ each month, chances are that some of them stop working because they consider it enough. The same holds for 1k$ but to a lesser extent. Still, UBI reduces the incentive to work.
I get lost somewhere in the reasoning.