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There is so much work out there to be done, it's laughable that we are talking about paying people for doing nothing. Think about all the elderly retiring peop

There is so much work out there to be done, it's laughable that we are talking about paying people for doing nothing. Think about all the elderly retiring people that will need to be cared for. All the working moms who struggle to find people to care for their kids during the day. All the litter and graffiti all over our cities and roads. Countries like Japan are freaking out about their aging demographics and how they will support them. The solution is definitely not to decrease the amount of people working. Instead of basic income, why not use the money instead to give a generous wage subsidy to people at the bottom? So that even a street sweeper, caretaker, nanny, or preschool teacher is well financially rewarded? FWIW, the Scandinavian model, which has some of the highest equality and well-being in the world, requires people to work and has some of the highest labor force participation rates in the world.

deleted 11y ago
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ZenoArrow 11y ago
> "There is so much work out there to be done, it's laughable that we are talking about paying people for doing nothing." If automation continues to expand as expected, the majority of tasks humans do could be replaced by machines/AI. At this point, the total volume of work may be high, but the total volume of work only humans can best fulfil may be much lower than it is today. The question becomes, when we can apply automation to most jobs, what will human society look like?
- surfmike 11y ago
  Let's worry about that when it happens. My point is that it's premature to talk about introducing a UBI when there's so many needs out there. Also, caring for children/elderly is not something that is necessarily desirable to automate...
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    > "Let's worry about that when it happens. My point is that it's premature to talk about introducing a UBI when there's so many needs out there." The point of talking about an UBI now is to iron out any issues with it before it's needed. Furthermore, whilst the need for it isn't as strong as it might be later, there are certain benefits it could bring to simplifying and improving welfare even in today's society. If you're suggesting there's a risk people will not work, that all depends on the implementation (again, another reason why it's being discussed now). What I believe is likely to happen to the current job market if we had UBI is that people would be freer to switch careers, and as a consequence of this undesirable jobs are likely to have higher wages, and desirable jobs are likely to have lower wages. For example, cleaning jobs would pay more, and marketing jobs would pay less. In other words, the incentives for working would change based on the flexibility of the workforce. > "Also, caring for children/elderly is not something that is necessarily desirable to automate..." Most of that isn't paid work at it stands now, plus it's worth remembering that the automation of the future is likely to be more adaptive to individual needs (i.e. when it's driven by sufficiently sophisticated AI). Lastly, the aim isn't to remove humans entirely from the world of work, the idea is to change the need for humans to work, the option to work will still be present.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

ZenoArrow 11y ago

> "There is so much work out there to be done, it's laughable that we are talking about paying people for doing nothing." If automation continues to expand as expected, the majority of tasks humans do could be replaced by machines/AI. At this point, the total volume of work may be high, but the total volume of work only humans can best fulfil may be much lower than it is today. The question becomes, when we can apply automation to most jobs, what will human society look like?

surfmike 11y ago
Let's worry about that when it happens. My point is that it's premature to talk about introducing a UBI when there's so many needs out there. Also, caring for children/elderly is not something that is necessarily desirable to automate...
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  > "Let's worry about that when it happens. My point is that it's premature to talk about introducing a UBI when there's so many needs out there." The point of talking about an UBI now is to iron out any issues with it before it's needed. Furthermore, whilst the need for it isn't as strong as it might be later, there are certain benefits it could bring to simplifying and improving welfare even in today's society. If you're suggesting there's a risk people will not work, that all depends on the implementation (again, another reason why it's being discussed now). What I believe is likely to happen to the current job market if we had UBI is that people would be freer to switch careers, and as a consequence of this undesirable jobs are likely to have higher wages, and desirable jobs are likely to have lower wages. For example, cleaning jobs would pay more, and marketing jobs would pay less. In other words, the incentives for working would change based on the flexibility of the workforce. > "Also, caring for children/elderly is not something that is necessarily desirable to automate..." Most of that isn't paid work at it stands now, plus it's worth remembering that the automation of the future is likely to be more adaptive to individual needs (i.e. when it's driven by sufficiently sophisticated AI). Lastly, the aim isn't to remove humans entirely from the world of work, the idea is to change the need for humans to work, the option to work will still be present.