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Every time I hear arguments about basic incomes, I think of universe 25. http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/03/the-amazing-rise-and-fall-of-a-rodent-utopia/ ht

Every time I hear arguments about basic incomes, I think of universe 25. http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/03/the-amazing-rise-and-fall-of-a-rodent-utopia/ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/03/the-amazing-rise-and-f... Fundamentally, we're all animals and due to physics and material constraints, there's scarcity involved. By giving a basic income, we're pretty much ignoring the fact that eventually we will run out of water and food and manufactured goods.

zanny 10y ago
You can't relate the rodent utopia experiments as a defense of having to keep people in need of basic necessities to survive or they lose the will to live. Besides the fact you are comparing rats to people, even the study itself considers all the localized factors that contributed to societal collapse: * You are isolating them in a relatively small space with one another. * You have uncontrolled population growth. * You are using a species that naturally trends towards "clan wars" for territory. * They are rats, and thus have nothing productive to do with their time in the absence of survival. In the same reason you cannot just compare horses to humans and say that when physical and mental human labor is obsoleted there will be no new jobs for people because horses do not have the capability to invent their own work, rats are the same. Fundamental to our establishment of society is our ability to invent things for us to do beyond the survival every other animal dedicates their life to. Also, it is incredibly nihilistic to think that human beings need to toil to survive or else life is without meaning or we will collapse society. We already know that in first world countries people reproduce less. That isn't even a function of economic well being directly but a function of education, which relates precisely back to how humans aren't just animals acting on instinct. If your post-scarcity society is uneducated hairless monkies, yes, they would go the way of the rat colony dystopia. If you have a culture of education and intellectualism, and let people invent their own work, you have an actual utopia. It is the same mind that elevated mankind above all other animals that can stop us from destroying ourselves as we eliminate survival as a daily concern.
- jimmywanger 10y ago
  > * You are isolating them in a relatively small space with one another. * You have uncontrolled population growth. * You are using a species that naturally trends towards "clan wars" for territory. * They are rats, and thus have nothing productive to do with their time in the absence of survival. Are we talking about rats or humans now? Only your fourth assertion is rat specific. All the other observations are true of the human condition. We now have 7.4 billion human beings in the world right now, and it's the developing countries, you know with clan warfare and living in relatively small spaces that have uncontrolled population growth. > Also, it is incredibly nihilistic to think that human beings need to toil to survive or else life is without meaning or we will collapse society. Just because it's nihilistic doesn't mean it doesn't hold truth. It seems that your objections are rooted more in your worldview and philosophy rather than objective arguments you're bringing up. They even bring up this point in the experiment, where he mentioned the "beautiful ones", who forgot how to breed and spent all day grooming themselves. > We already know that in first world countries people reproduce less. That isn't even a function of economic well being directly but a function of education, which relates precisely back to how humans aren't just animals acting on instinct. I don't think it's a function of education. Do you have a citation? You could easily read this as saying, people in the first world are incented not to have children, as they have seen how children generally make parents unhappier and would prefer against that. > It is the same mind that elevated mankind above all other animals that can stop us from destroying ourselves as we eliminate survival as a daily concern. I think that's where the difference lies between our points of view. I think that most people are creatures of instinct, and our conscious mind is constantly trying to justify our actions after the fact with logic. If we really have elevated minds, how come many intelligent and educated people have differing opinions on things? Why are we still debating global warming, and having wars over religion?
  - zanny 10y ago
    > Are we talking about rats or humans now? We are not restricted to confined spaces with other people. Even the most destitute could walk down the street and leave. And we see in people that are so restricted the same kind of psychological problems you find in the rats, such as in prisons. Population growth is not uncontrolled. Educated populations are equalizing and declining in growth. Once women are educated and empowered in society and people have a standard of living where their own survival isn't dependent on many children taking care of them in old age, you see birthrates decline dramatically. The clan war problem is truly something mutual, but its something we might be able to surpass one day. > would prefer against that. Which isn't something reflected in rats, at all. The population decline was due to a breakdown of society. We are not having that at all, yet our replacement rate declines dramatically once you no longer need the kids to survive in your later years and you are educated on how to avoid getting pregnant. The only reason rats reproduce like... rats is because they don't have the rational mind to understand what contraception is, how to use it, and how it can avoid them the unhappiness later of having kids. > Why are we still debating global warming, and having wars over religion? Neither of these are rational arguments. For all intents and purposes, scientific consensus is the basis of rational thought, and everything else is emotional response to rationality. It is that scientific process that separates us from the animalistic emotional squabbles.
namlem 10y ago
Why would we run out of any of those things? We can achieve water, food, and goods sustainably. There is plenty to go around as long as population growth is kept in check, which based on current trends seems to be happening by itself.

zanny 10y ago

You can't relate the rodent utopia experiments as a defense of having to keep people in need of basic necessities to survive or they lose the will to live. Besides the fact you are comparing rats to people, even the study itself considers all the localized factors that contributed to societal collapse: * You are isolating them in a relatively small space with one another. * You have uncontrolled population growth. * You are using a species that naturally trends towards "clan wars" for territory. * They are rats, and thus have nothing productive to do with their time in the absence of survival. In the same reason you cannot just compare horses to humans and say that when physical and mental human labor is obsoleted there will be no new jobs for people because horses do not have the capability to invent their own work, rats are the same. Fundamental to our establishment of society is our ability to invent things for us to do beyond the survival every other animal dedicates their life to. Also, it is incredibly nihilistic to think that human beings need to toil to survive or else life is without meaning or we will collapse society. We already know that in first world countries people reproduce less. That isn't even a function of economic well being directly but a function of education, which relates precisely back to how humans aren't just animals acting on instinct. If your post-scarcity society is uneducated hairless monkies, yes, they would go the way of the rat colony dystopia. If you have a culture of education and intellectualism, and let people invent their own work, you have an actual utopia. It is the same mind that elevated mankind above all other animals that can stop us from destroying ourselves as we eliminate survival as a daily concern.

jimmywanger 10y ago
> * You are isolating them in a relatively small space with one another. * You have uncontrolled population growth. * You are using a species that naturally trends towards "clan wars" for territory. * They are rats, and thus have nothing productive to do with their time in the absence of survival. Are we talking about rats or humans now? Only your fourth assertion is rat specific. All the other observations are true of the human condition. We now have 7.4 billion human beings in the world right now, and it's the developing countries, you know with clan warfare and living in relatively small spaces that have uncontrolled population growth. > Also, it is incredibly nihilistic to think that human beings need to toil to survive or else life is without meaning or we will collapse society. Just because it's nihilistic doesn't mean it doesn't hold truth. It seems that your objections are rooted more in your worldview and philosophy rather than objective arguments you're bringing up. They even bring up this point in the experiment, where he mentioned the "beautiful ones", who forgot how to breed and spent all day grooming themselves. > We already know that in first world countries people reproduce less. That isn't even a function of economic well being directly but a function of education, which relates precisely back to how humans aren't just animals acting on instinct. I don't think it's a function of education. Do you have a citation? You could easily read this as saying, people in the first world are incented not to have children, as they have seen how children generally make parents unhappier and would prefer against that. > It is the same mind that elevated mankind above all other animals that can stop us from destroying ourselves as we eliminate survival as a daily concern. I think that's where the difference lies between our points of view. I think that most people are creatures of instinct, and our conscious mind is constantly trying to justify our actions after the fact with logic. If we really have elevated minds, how come many intelligent and educated people have differing opinions on things? Why are we still debating global warming, and having wars over religion?
- zanny 10y ago
  > Are we talking about rats or humans now? We are not restricted to confined spaces with other people. Even the most destitute could walk down the street and leave. And we see in people that are so restricted the same kind of psychological problems you find in the rats, such as in prisons. Population growth is not uncontrolled. Educated populations are equalizing and declining in growth. Once women are educated and empowered in society and people have a standard of living where their own survival isn't dependent on many children taking care of them in old age, you see birthrates decline dramatically. The clan war problem is truly something mutual, but its something we might be able to surpass one day. > would prefer against that. Which isn't something reflected in rats, at all. The population decline was due to a breakdown of society. We are not having that at all, yet our replacement rate declines dramatically once you no longer need the kids to survive in your later years and you are educated on how to avoid getting pregnant. The only reason rats reproduce like... rats is because they don't have the rational mind to understand what contraception is, how to use it, and how it can avoid them the unhappiness later of having kids. > Why are we still debating global warming, and having wars over religion? Neither of these are rational arguments. For all intents and purposes, scientific consensus is the basis of rational thought, and everything else is emotional response to rationality. It is that scientific process that separates us from the animalistic emotional squabbles.

namlem 10y ago

Why would we run out of any of those things? We can achieve water, food, and goods sustainably. There is plenty to go around as long as population growth is kept in check, which based on current trends seems to be happening by itself.