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It was same with industrialisation. All the crying that factories will destroy economies and cause massive unemployment which didn't do. It did a lot of good in

by funkyy 10y ago

It was same with industrialisation. All the crying that factories will destroy economies and cause massive unemployment which didn't do. It did a lot of good instead. Well, there was basic income in some communist countries and it failed on a social level.

AnthonyMouse 10y ago
Communism is not a basic income. Communism is the government telling you what your job is and giving you a minimal amount of resources and prohibiting you from earning a single extra dollar, and your choices are either take it or escape to West Germany. A basic income is the government unconditionally giving you enough money that you don't starve. Then if you want to e.g. own a car or send your kids to college or live in a city, you have to go out and get a job, which you can do however you like.
- deleted 10y ago
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tzs 10y ago
> It was same with industrialisation Not really. That was replacing human workers with new machines. New factories were needed to build those new machines. New supply chains were needed to supply those factories. New materials were being used in manufacturing. Replacing those human workers required so many new things that it created a vast number of new job, much more than were lost. Now we are tending to replace human works with old machines. Take a self-driving truck. That's just a normal truck (an old machine), with some computers (old machines) added, some motors (old machines) added to actuate the controls, and some sensors (old machines) added to provide input to the software. Note that not many new physical things are required for self-driving trucks. The novelty is in the combination, and in custom software and some custom electronics. Custom software and electronics do not generate many jobs--it takes the same number of programmers and electrical engineers regardless of whether you are making one truck or a billion trucks. For the non-new physical things needed, like motors to move controls, orders go up at motor factories and maybe they have to add a shift and so that creates some jobs. But the motor factory is likely highly automated, and so adding a shift just represents a handful of jobs.

by funkyy 10y ago

AnthonyMouse 10y ago

Communism is not a basic income. Communism is the government telling you what your job is and giving you a minimal amount of resources and prohibiting you from earning a single extra dollar, and your choices are either take it or escape to West Germany. A basic income is the government unconditionally giving you enough money that you don't starve. Then if you want to e.g. own a car or send your kids to college or live in a city, you have to go out and get a job, which you can do however you like.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

tzs 10y ago

> It was same with industrialisation Not really. That was replacing human workers with new machines. New factories were needed to build those new machines. New supply chains were needed to supply those factories. New materials were being used in manufacturing. Replacing those human workers required so many new things that it created a vast number of new job, much more than were lost. Now we are tending to replace human works with old machines. Take a self-driving truck. That's just a normal truck (an old machine), with some computers (old machines) added, some motors (old machines) added to actuate the controls, and some sensors (old machines) added to provide input to the software. Note that not many new physical things are required for self-driving trucks. The novelty is in the combination, and in custom software and some custom electronics. Custom software and electronics do not generate many jobs--it takes the same number of programmers and electrical engineers regardless of whether you are making one truck or a billion trucks. For the non-new physical things needed, like motors to move controls, orders go up at motor factories and maybe they have to add a shift and so that creates some jobs. But the motor factory is likely highly automated, and so adding a shift just represents a handful of jobs.