The context of your quote (note no ellipses because I'm not eliding anything, the context is literally the preceding sentence): > The rate at which individ

The context of your quote (note no ellipses because I'm not eliding anything, the context is literally the preceding sentence): > The rate at which individuals can create wealth depends on the > technology available to them, and that grows exponentially. In what sense does technology grow “exponentially”? I think the context makes clear that the author means "In what sense does technology grow the rate at which individuals can create wealth “exponentially”?". It's not a rhetorical device where he "pretends" to not know about Moore's law. He is in fact baldly claiming that the results of Moore's law haven't "trickled down" to the common man. > The wheat example seems weak as well The author merely presents it as less weak than an allusion to Moore's law, which it is. > proponents of "Basic Income" seem to also be relying on ever increasing technology productivity to replace human jobs A well-credentialed economist, who I assure you has no interest in "post-scarcity" fantasies, asserted to me that a negative income tax bracket is considered by mainstream economics academia to be the best way to foster socioeconomic mobility, and the only opposition to its implementation is political. The reasoning presented to me was sublime: government programs for wealth redistribution like food stamps, education grants and loans, Medicaid, commodity subsidies, etc, which are widely accepted, are typically based on income anyway, but they all have independent standards and techniques to determine who gets how much aid, and consequently are rife with abuse (commodity subsidies going mostly towards large, profitable corporations; education grants filling University of Pheonix's coffers; etc). Consolidating them into just a negative income tax would be much more efficient, maximizing resources and incentives to prevent abuse.