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Don't kid yourself. New jobs get created, but fewer. And many of those who lose their jobs don't get retrained—for a myriad of reasons—and end up leaving the wo

Don't kid yourself. New jobs get created, but fewer. And many of those who lose their jobs don't get retrained—for a myriad of reasons—and end up leaving the workforce entirely. Many just end up on long term disability because it's the only path they have. Jobs are disappearing. They aren't "coming back" in greater numbers. And the new jobs, by and large, aren't for the previous workforce. We already live in a world where many jobs are unnecessary. A large portion of government jobs are, essentially, welfare jobs. One of the systematic reasons of for the expansion of government is "job creation". Politicians will create jobs, but those jobs add nothing to society. We've got people pretending to work a job to collect a paycheck. It's welfare. The industrial revolution replaced muscle with machine, but brainpower was still a required input. There was a clear shift: from doing the work to using a machine to do the same work, but faster. There was enough demand that things didn't collapse. The current shift is replacing both muscle and brainpower. Outside of creative jobs, what is left for the human to do? Make the brain smarter? We are already entering into a time where the machine makes itself smarter without the advent of the human. New jobs will be created, sure. But those jobs will not be for the 1.8 million truck drivers. Instead the government will likely end up soaking it up through one program or another. Tens of thousands will end up in welfare jobs. Hundreds of thousands will end up on long term disability. The numbers aren't small. UBI is an inevitability. You've got some 40 million people on food stamps, about 9 million on disability. Millions more working pointless government jobs like directing people from one TSA employee to another. At what point to we recognize that the future does not look like the past?

paulddraper 10y ago
> UBI is an inevitability. UBI inevitability: https://youtu.be/x5m1A7zoIcc https://youtu.be/x5m1A7zoIcc --- Market forces are inevitable. Human behavior is inevitable. The future does look like the past.
atemerev 10y ago
UBI is inevitably doomed, because the equation doesn't hold. You are right that ongoing elimination of jobs is a problem leading to huge social unrest, and UBI fits the bill to be a good solution for this. The only problem with UBI is that it is unsustainable and therefore impossible. The balance just doesn't check out. The mere retirement schemes are in grave danger of collapse; the money there are long spent. UBI is huge, and there is no way to get this kind of money from anywhere (even if you strip away all capital from the top 1% and send them to labor camps, as it was done elsewhere, the money from this will fuel $1000/month UBI for about 2 years tops). Antigravity would be an excellent solution to our space travel challenges, but we don't know any way to make it work. It is exactly the same with UBI.
- tim333 10y ago
  You can't really say definitely that the equations won't work without some details. If the UBI level was similar to unemployment benefit / social security and workers received it but had less tax allowances then the payments could work out about the same as they do now.
- themagician 10y ago
  People will have to adapt to a new way of life. We are going to move into a world where full employment means 50% of people don't work, because there is nothing for them to do. Like the computer, the cost of everything will begin to decline rapidly when general purpose robots and automation take over human tasks. The UBI equation may well balance. When there are no human costs the only cost is energy. In theory, you will need far less income. Honestly, I'm excited to see what happens as it will happen in my lifetime. 30 years ago we had the first general purpose computers. Look at where we are now. Today we have the first general purpose robots. Imagine where we will be in 30 years. It's hard to imagine. Drivers, construction workers, doctors, lawyers—it's all going to be dramatically different 30 years from now. Forget the US. All those jobs making everything from iPhones to t-shirts will also be at risk. When you don't need specialized equipment and you can buy a robot that can make t-shirts for a few thousand dollars you don't need the human anymore. If not UBI, then what? What do all these people do?
Razengan 10y ago
> The current shift is replacing both muscle and brainpower. Outside of creative jobs, what is left for the human to do? Guarding the robots. Face it; self-driving cars and trucks are going to be a HUGE target of vandalism and theft at first, especially for people who're made unemployed by them and can't find other jobs. You're gonna need other people to keep them safe, and carrying guns doesn't require a lot of retraining in the US at least. Those soon-to-be-out-of-work drivers may very well be required to tag along with the upcoming robot-vehicles anyway, to sit in them as guards and protect them from the rioting Luddites. Until we can make robotic clones of Arnold Schwarzenegger to automate this as well, that is.

paulddraper 10y ago

> UBI is an inevitability. UBI inevitability: https://youtu.be/x5m1A7zoIcc https://youtu.be/x5m1A7zoIcc --- Market forces are inevitable. Human behavior is inevitable. The future does look like the past.

atemerev 10y ago

UBI is inevitably doomed, because the equation doesn't hold. You are right that ongoing elimination of jobs is a problem leading to huge social unrest, and UBI fits the bill to be a good solution for this. The only problem with UBI is that it is unsustainable and therefore impossible. The balance just doesn't check out. The mere retirement schemes are in grave danger of collapse; the money there are long spent. UBI is huge, and there is no way to get this kind of money from anywhere (even if you strip away all capital from the top 1% and send them to labor camps, as it was done elsewhere, the money from this will fuel $1000/month UBI for about 2 years tops). Antigravity would be an excellent solution to our space travel challenges, but we don't know any way to make it work. It is exactly the same with UBI.

tim333 10y ago
You can't really say definitely that the equations won't work without some details. If the UBI level was similar to unemployment benefit / social security and workers received it but had less tax allowances then the payments could work out about the same as they do now.
themagician 10y ago
People will have to adapt to a new way of life. We are going to move into a world where full employment means 50% of people don't work, because there is nothing for them to do. Like the computer, the cost of everything will begin to decline rapidly when general purpose robots and automation take over human tasks. The UBI equation may well balance. When there are no human costs the only cost is energy. In theory, you will need far less income. Honestly, I'm excited to see what happens as it will happen in my lifetime. 30 years ago we had the first general purpose computers. Look at where we are now. Today we have the first general purpose robots. Imagine where we will be in 30 years. It's hard to imagine. Drivers, construction workers, doctors, lawyers—it's all going to be dramatically different 30 years from now. Forget the US. All those jobs making everything from iPhones to t-shirts will also be at risk. When you don't need specialized equipment and you can buy a robot that can make t-shirts for a few thousand dollars you don't need the human anymore. If not UBI, then what? What do all these people do?

Razengan 10y ago

> The current shift is replacing both muscle and brainpower. Outside of creative jobs, what is left for the human to do? Guarding the robots. Face it; self-driving cars and trucks are going to be a HUGE target of vandalism and theft at first, especially for people who're made unemployed by them and can't find other jobs. You're gonna need other people to keep them safe, and carrying guns doesn't require a lot of retraining in the US at least. Those soon-to-be-out-of-work drivers may very well be required to tag along with the upcoming robot-vehicles anyway, to sit in them as guards and protect them from the rioting Luddites. Until we can make robotic clones of Arnold Schwarzenegger to automate this as well, that is.