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Basic income seems to come from the right place from people that support it. I do think it's misguided benevolence, though. I hope that largely removing adver
by ra1n85 11y ago
Basic income seems to come from the right place from people that support it.
I do think it's misguided benevolence, though. I hope that largely removing adversity and creating dependence aren't viewed as trivial changes here. People need to be challenged. We need to consider the more subtle ramifications of this. Humans have always labored. Work is in our blood.
- zzalpha 11y agoWhat leads you to the conclusion that basic income == not working? Or that working for subsistence is somehow noble while basic income and working to achieve other goals (creative outlet, education, etc) isn't?
- ra1n85 11y agoThat's not my conclusion. I'm sorry for you if that's the way you understood it. I'm certain that basic income would also be supplemental to other forms of income. Your second point is not even in the same ballpark with what I said, however.
- zzalpha 11y agoYou talk of "removing adversity and creating dependence" which is a pretty classic Calvinist trope. What else am I to conclude from you comment?
- ssmoot 11y agoI'm not challenged in the same way someone making $30k a year is. They're not challenged at that level. They're just stressed, poor and have a lower overall quality of life. The only real challenge in my life is to keep some perspective and maintain a positive outlook. So from where I'm sitting this sounds pretty patronizing.
- vixen99 11y agoWhat else is it other than being patronized?
- georgemcbay 11y agoI don't view it as benevolence so much as one of the few realistic solutions to the issue of increasing automation resulting in having way more people than we need to produce the needed goods for that same population. The options are either embracing some form of socialism or violent, society-ending revolt. I'd much prefer the former to the latter.
- waterlesscloud 11y agoThat's pretty much how I see it. It's something that simply must happen, there's not a lot of choice about it. Better to figure it out now than be forced into it later.
- ra1n85 11y agoI agree that a lot of forms of employment will eventually be automated. I'm more optimistic, however. I think labor will just evolve, just as it's done with every corresponding evolution in technology.
- gnaritas 11y ago> I think labor will just evolve Then you're missing the point, there is not an endless amount of low skilled labor to do and machines will take over all of those roles, even the new ones. People aren't going to suddenly all be able to handle high skilled jobs.
- ra1n85 11y agoI imagine they said something similar about ditch diggers and buggy drivers when the combustion engine came along. There is a strong relationship between improvements in technology and improvements in human development. All boats rise with the tide.
- gnaritas 11y agoWhat happened in the past is not an indication of what will happen in the future, past automation was trivial and small compared to the automation happening today. To continue to bury your head in the sand and proclaim "there will be new jobs" is utterly missing the point being made, no, there will not be a continual supply of new jobs to replace the old ones. Low skill jobs are going away permanently, not just shifted to new fields like in the past. The effect of machines on the economy (industrial revolution) is not going to be the same as the effect of intelligent machines on the economy; the past doesn't predict the future, it only occasionally rhymes with it. Intelligent machines aren't going to create enough new jobs to replace the ones they destroy, by design.
- JetSpiegel 11y agoI think you are mistaking Protestant Work Ethic for human nature.
- bobwaycott 11y agoAnd some humans have always avoided labor, and actively sought to establish and perpetuate systems that allow them to collect and live off others' labor. They even convince people this is a good thing, the ideal thing, the thing gods intended, the thing other than which no thing could be better. Exploitative laziness is "in our blood".
- Chinjut 11y agoYou could make the same argument against, oh, I dunno, medicine. Or libraries. Supermarkets (freeing us from all farming our own food). Anything that reduces adversity for anyone. I propose a counter-statement: removing adversity is good, the goodest thing there is.