6 ms·

That's why basic income is inevitable. We simply don't have enough jobs for everyone.

daenz 10y ago
...or the notion of what a job is changes. Unless machines can literally provide everything that humans can want (including art, interaction, companionship, etc), then there will always be something for humans to do to make money.
- tiglionabbit 10y ago
  Like in The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. You can make anything in the matter compiler for free, so long as you've bought the intellectual property rights for the design.
- intended 10y ago
  Which are all relatively poorly paying. Art is a log scale when it comes to compensation - and many of the best paid are dead. The issue is not job loss, its job replacement with worse paying service sector jobs which act as a barrier to upward social movement (because lower pay means less access to various positive network effects)
  - stevetrewick 10y ago
    >Which are all relatively poorly paying Relative to stuff we place higher utility on than art, because opportunity cost. But as the price of that stuff approaches zero due to mass automation of production so does the opportunity cost of art.
revscat 10y ago
You underestimate the power of partisan ideologues. Many millions will die before that comes to pass.
up_so_floating 10y ago
I think you are missing another potential implication: as less wealth is generated by productive citizens, and more from automation, there is less incentive for the ruler to maintain or improve quality of life.
- dublinben 10y ago
  In democratic states, the people themselves are sovereign. They simply won't stand for the level of unemployment that mass automation will bring.
  - up_so_floating 10y ago
    Absolutely, and let's hope we find ourselves in a democratic state at such a time.
    - chiefalchemist 10y ago
      Exactly. The shift is already on. So I guess that means the democracy is done. Given the election that might be true.
  - nine_k 10y ago
    How exactly they "won't stand"? For instance, they won't allow automation of this kind on their ground. As Ned Ludd would have it, they will keep the machines out and the humans in. Suddenly their production is much costlier that what the robot-running neighbors produce. They can't export it (nobody would buy), but they can still locally consume it. But for that they need to limit the imports of the same thing to keep the prices up. As the list of robot-produced goods grows, more and more import restrictions are added, and things cheaply available abroad become dear and inaccessible in the country. I don't think a democratic government with a policy like that will last too long. It looks more interesting to think how to distribute the ownership, a share in a huge robotic factory so that it is not easily falls under control of a single person or a small group. It might be an interesting game-theoretic problem.
nine_k 10y ago
The keystone of democracy is distributed production of value. Basic income is redistribution. Certain Arabian countries have basic income: they redisitribute a part of the oil rent to all citizens. These places are utterly undemocratic, though, being monarchies with few limitations. This is because it takes a rather small clique to control the oil wells and pipes that produce, say, 80% of the national budget. Once they are in power, other citizens have little to do to limit their power. The next guy to depose them is tempted (and usually yields to the temptation) to build the next version of the same regime. The countries that buy the oil (or gold, or whatever the single key product is) don't care about democracy in these countries; they care about stability of their supplies, and thus stability of the regime in the country. Now replace oil wells with robotic factories plus a few key power stations. If all of this requires a small amount of people to operate, and is as easy to physically control as oil wells, you might have the same situation. 90% of population are suddenly irrelevant, living on a whim of the small group of rulers who control 80-90% of GDP.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  Reminds me of this quote, or some version of it, attributed to various people by various source... Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.
  - ethbro 10y ago
    Curious about the largess comment in light of US politics. There seems to be a broadly supported movement against government payouts.
    - Qworg 10y ago
      The barely middle class was turned against the poor. The former is the movement against payouts, even though they're one bad incident away from being part of the latter group.
dfabulich 10y ago
I used to think this, but I no longer do. If we get mass automation, I think we're going to get one of these outcomes: 1) Individuals have their own robots. For example, everybody gets their own automated hydroponic garden, enough to provide them with sufficient calories. 2) A dictatorship seizes control of the automation and lets the people starve. I think it's very unlikely that we'll have a welfare-capitalist society where major corporations own mass automation, where the government taxes the corporation so highly that government can pay for everyone else to survive. Taxing mass automation to pay for basic income is just too fragile. If the people themselves aren't providing wealth through productive labor, then at some point, somebody will try to starve them instead of feeding them, and they'll succeed.
- zizee 10y ago
  Some throwaway thoughts: Having all production automated will result in falling prices, including the cost to automate something. This should result in a lot of competition, driving prices down even more. In this scenario, it is difficult to imagine someone having a monopoly on production for long, unless they are already a dictator. Dictators tend to have to keep at least a portion of their population happy, otherwise they lose control. A large portion of the population with nothing to loose (as they are starving) tends to result in revolution. If the cost of production (or cost of imports) is close to 0, what motivation (beyond bond style villany) does a dictator have to make their population starve? If everyone is out of work, no one has any money to pay for the products of the capital owners. What's the point of that?
  - dfabulich 10y ago
    > Dictators tend to have to keep at least a portion of their population happy, otherwise they lose control. The portion can be very small. It has to include the military, and it has to include the people involved in creating GDP, but if production is centralized (e.g. because the nation's resources are in digging stuff out of the ground), then the masses can be kept very poor. Watch the "Rules for Rulers" video I linked above. Resource-rich dictators don't need to provide public education or adequate roads, say nothing of adequate food. "The people stay quiet, not because this is fine, or because they're scared, but because the cold truth is: starving, disconnected illiterates don't make good revolutionaries." So can production be centralized in the face of mass automation? I think so. Look at farming. Seizing control of all of the farms in the 1880s would be a massive operation spanning the entire North American continent. Seizing control of today's Big Farming conglomerates would be relatively straightforward for a modern dictator. Which is to say, we'll get through this if the automation is decentralized, but if it's like farming, where a few expensive machines make all of the food for hundreds of millions of people, then we're on a path to ruin.
damptowel 10y ago
There's a lot of decent comments being downvoted. Really mature.

daenz 10y ago

...or the notion of what a job is changes. Unless machines can literally provide everything that humans can want (including art, interaction, companionship, etc), then there will always be something for humans to do to make money.

tiglionabbit 10y ago
Like in The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. You can make anything in the matter compiler for free, so long as you've bought the intellectual property rights for the design.
intended 10y ago
Which are all relatively poorly paying. Art is a log scale when it comes to compensation - and many of the best paid are dead. The issue is not job loss, its job replacement with worse paying service sector jobs which act as a barrier to upward social movement (because lower pay means less access to various positive network effects)
- stevetrewick 10y ago
  >Which are all relatively poorly paying Relative to stuff we place higher utility on than art, because opportunity cost. But as the price of that stuff approaches zero due to mass automation of production so does the opportunity cost of art.

revscat 10y ago

You underestimate the power of partisan ideologues. Many millions will die before that comes to pass.

up_so_floating 10y ago

I think you are missing another potential implication: as less wealth is generated by productive citizens, and more from automation, there is less incentive for the ruler to maintain or improve quality of life.

dublinben 10y ago
In democratic states, the people themselves are sovereign. They simply won't stand for the level of unemployment that mass automation will bring.
- up_so_floating 10y ago
  Absolutely, and let's hope we find ourselves in a democratic state at such a time.
  - chiefalchemist 10y ago
    Exactly. The shift is already on. So I guess that means the democracy is done. Given the election that might be true.
- nine_k 10y ago
  How exactly they "won't stand"? For instance, they won't allow automation of this kind on their ground. As Ned Ludd would have it, they will keep the machines out and the humans in. Suddenly their production is much costlier that what the robot-running neighbors produce. They can't export it (nobody would buy), but they can still locally consume it. But for that they need to limit the imports of the same thing to keep the prices up. As the list of robot-produced goods grows, more and more import restrictions are added, and things cheaply available abroad become dear and inaccessible in the country. I don't think a democratic government with a policy like that will last too long. It looks more interesting to think how to distribute the ownership, a share in a huge robotic factory so that it is not easily falls under control of a single person or a small group. It might be an interesting game-theoretic problem.

nine_k 10y ago

The keystone of democracy is distributed production of value. Basic income is redistribution. Certain Arabian countries have basic income: they redisitribute a part of the oil rent to all citizens. These places are utterly undemocratic, though, being monarchies with few limitations. This is because it takes a rather small clique to control the oil wells and pipes that produce, say, 80% of the national budget. Once they are in power, other citizens have little to do to limit their power. The next guy to depose them is tempted (and usually yields to the temptation) to build the next version of the same regime. The countries that buy the oil (or gold, or whatever the single key product is) don't care about democracy in these countries; they care about stability of their supplies, and thus stability of the regime in the country. Now replace oil wells with robotic factories plus a few key power stations. If all of this requires a small amount of people to operate, and is as easy to physically control as oil wells, you might have the same situation. 90% of population are suddenly irrelevant, living on a whim of the small group of rulers who control 80-90% of GDP.

TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
Reminds me of this quote, or some version of it, attributed to various people by various source... Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.
- ethbro 10y ago
  Curious about the largess comment in light of US politics. There seems to be a broadly supported movement against government payouts.
  - Qworg 10y ago
    The barely middle class was turned against the poor. The former is the movement against payouts, even though they're one bad incident away from being part of the latter group.

dfabulich 10y ago

I used to think this, but I no longer do. If we get mass automation, I think we're going to get one of these outcomes: 1) Individuals have their own robots. For example, everybody gets their own automated hydroponic garden, enough to provide them with sufficient calories. 2) A dictatorship seizes control of the automation and lets the people starve. I think it's very unlikely that we'll have a welfare-capitalist society where major corporations own mass automation, where the government taxes the corporation so highly that government can pay for everyone else to survive. Taxing mass automation to pay for basic income is just too fragile. If the people themselves aren't providing wealth through productive labor, then at some point, somebody will try to starve them instead of feeding them, and they'll succeed.

zizee 10y ago
Some throwaway thoughts: Having all production automated will result in falling prices, including the cost to automate something. This should result in a lot of competition, driving prices down even more. In this scenario, it is difficult to imagine someone having a monopoly on production for long, unless they are already a dictator. Dictators tend to have to keep at least a portion of their population happy, otherwise they lose control. A large portion of the population with nothing to loose (as they are starving) tends to result in revolution. If the cost of production (or cost of imports) is close to 0, what motivation (beyond bond style villany) does a dictator have to make their population starve? If everyone is out of work, no one has any money to pay for the products of the capital owners. What's the point of that?
- dfabulich 10y ago
  > Dictators tend to have to keep at least a portion of their population happy, otherwise they lose control. The portion can be very small. It has to include the military, and it has to include the people involved in creating GDP, but if production is centralized (e.g. because the nation's resources are in digging stuff out of the ground), then the masses can be kept very poor. Watch the "Rules for Rulers" video I linked above. Resource-rich dictators don't need to provide public education or adequate roads, say nothing of adequate food. "The people stay quiet, not because this is fine, or because they're scared, but because the cold truth is: starving, disconnected illiterates don't make good revolutionaries." So can production be centralized in the face of mass automation? I think so. Look at farming. Seizing control of all of the farms in the 1880s would be a massive operation spanning the entire North American continent. Seizing control of today's Big Farming conglomerates would be relatively straightforward for a modern dictator. Which is to say, we'll get through this if the automation is decentralized, but if it's like farming, where a few expensive machines make all of the food for hundreds of millions of people, then we're on a path to ruin.

damptowel 10y ago

There's a lot of decent comments being downvoted. Really mature.