I am uncomfortable with the second part of this equation. I would prefer instead of a wage, the distribution of shares that produced a dividend. If AI and rob

I am uncomfortable with the second part of this equation. I would prefer instead of a wage, the distribution of shares that produced a dividend. If AI and robotics really will produce all this new wealth, then that capital can be symbolized (Urbit could create such a system https://www.urbit.org/#learn https://www.urbit.org/#learn) & represent this. The basis for my reasoning is as follows. We have already had a system that had the same effects as a 'UBI' system. We used to call people in that system aristocrats. Suppose we enabled all or most people in our society to become aristocrats? When we look at aristocrats of the past, we see two things. A bunch of people who don't think mostly in terms of work/money for survival. This appears to produce two distinct genres of behavior. Much of their time is spent partying and socializing. Some of them greatly further the political, the artistic and scientific. Others gamble away their fortunes. Obviously it is more complicated than this but that is the impression I'm left with when I visit the great houses. Aristocrats were continually throwing themselves into various projects. Sometimes virtuous, sometimes not. So I was thinking about what creates an aristocracy in history, and of course the answer is mostly indentured labour or slaves. The word robot originally comes from a slavic word for slave. Presumably a more humane aristocracy could be cultivated on the back of AI and robotics. This is what the Elon Musks and Sam Altmans point to, although they don't call it an aristocracy, what UBI advocates promote as their values (individual self empowerment, holding society to higher standards) does smack of the original meaning of the word aristocrat. An aristocracy could never have existed were they reliant on a supply of money from the King. The popular culture idea 'the king controls all' is naive. It were never so except in certain extreme local cases. Without independent wealth (from being Landlords), the political economy would be one giant monopoly. The State would have total power in the same way the Soviet Union did over the lives of its citizens. Its too much power in one place. This is the trouble I have with UBI. I can see scenarios for which it could work. I cannot see any of them working in which there isn't distribution of the wealth producing assets. The AI and the robots. Jaron Lanier has been saying similar things for a while now. The left and the right, Nicolas_Colin correctly noted (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12473112 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12473112), will tear a government funded UBI apart in trying to use it as a political weapon against each other. That problem can be ameliorated with property ownership.