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I used to think a universal basic income would make sense, especially in developed countries, only for the near future scenario of machines taking ever more job

I used to think a universal basic income would make sense, especially in developed countries, only for the near future scenario of machines taking ever more jobs. We know that this has always happened in history, and new jobs were always created, but that doesn't mean that the rate of job creation vs destruction will remain the same, forever. What made me change my mind about UBI was to realize that a) human desires are infinite, and there'll always be more work to be done and b) the more work is done by machines, the richer the population as a whole will be, as products and services automated tend to be cheaper. I do expect the work dynamic to change a lot, and that in the future we'll see a lot more gigs and maybe freelancing for a few hours each week will be enough to sustain a reasonable lifestyle (for whatever that means). That said, I believe our political efforts are best invested in removing all the artificial constraints that make it hard for new jobs to be created, like excessive regulations for example.

devwastaken 10y ago
>the more work is done by machines, the richer the population as a whole will be, as products and services automated tend to be cheaper. There is no such thing as trickle down economics. Wealth does not get distributed in equal to its gain, it is distributed based upon many other markets. For example, if your company makes double this year, you're not going to get paid any more than you were, but if what you said was true, you should be getting paid near double. Infact, how much wealth your company makes has little to do with how much you will be paid when it comes to investment. You're going to get paid what you can negotiate for, which will be competative to the market of other individuals. Just because your company is doing good does not mean they're going to pay anywhere near double for their employees when they can get them at market rate, which is always pressured to be lower. The products also don't have to be cheaper. Infact I don't know of any good examples of automation making things cheaper that aren't just competing with other products. Products do not have to be priced near what they cost to make, as examplified by apple products and tech in general. They're priced to what people give it value, which is manipulated by advertising and patents/copyrights that give them the ability others need or want.
- harryh 10y ago
  If a particular company is making outsized profits other firms will enter the market to capture them. Those firms will bid up the cost of the labor necessary to serve the market. The historic share of labor as a % of GDP is pretty constant. It has dipped slightly in the last ~15 years and some people see this as the beginning of a major change but that's highly speculative.
  - taneq 10y ago
    > The historic share of labor as a % of GDP is pretty constant. What time scale are we talking about? I'm pretty sure that 5000 years ago, labour was close to 100% of GDP. I'm equally sure that it's well down below 20% now.
    - harryh 10y ago
      Looking at US data for the past 100 years or so. And no, it's not at 20%. More like a bit over 50%. If you take out depreciation and gov't because what you really care about is return to capital & labor it's about 30/70.
- felipeccastro 10y ago
  The products become cheaper because of competition with other products, automation is just part of what allows business to have a lower cost themselves. Apple and tech in general are actually a good example of my point. Why is it that in several third world countries, lacking basic sanitation for a large part of the population, it's so common to see people in slums with last generation smartphones and big flat screen TVs? What I meant about everyone getting richer is not that the money flows equally, but that when you need less money to buy goods and services you are, in a way, richer. Another example is Uber: I don't get a single dollar of what they make, but I have access now to a service that it wasn't accessible before (taxi cabs).
whack 10y ago
The reasoning you're using is very flawed. Yes, we'll never get to a state where a small number end up with 100% of the wealth. Yes, there will be an equilibrium reached between the wealthy and the middle class. But this equilibrium point can shift more and more towards the wealthy. In fact, this has already been happening in the past few decades, as illustrated in books such as Capital. And as this equilibrium shifts in favor of the wealthy, you'll see the effects of inequality get more and more exacerbated. You might even get to a point where the inequality is so extreme, that the "masses" have much more to gain through wealth appropriation, as opposed to wealth creation. And when that point comes, democracy will collapse and give way to a communist or fascist revolution. Basic income offers an escape valve to the corrosive effects of inequality. It distributes more fairly the fruits of globalisation and automation. It gives every citizen a share in the national prosperity. It gives us all a reason to cheer for the greater good, and not just our own advancement.
- tluyben2 10y ago
  >Basic income offers an escape valve to the corrosive effects of inequality. It distributes more fairly the fruits of globalisation and automation. It gives every citizen a share in the national prosperity. It gives us all a reason to cheer for the greater good, and not just our own advancement. I think this hits the nail on it's head; opponents of basic income (usually rich or might-become-rich people in my experience) do not see this clearly. We would be able to cheer for greater good as we do not have to struggle for money anymore in our own tiny world of our household. I think that UBI would be a good plan with or without robots taking over. But robots forces us into it as people will simply die; sure there might be some other jobs (although I think this revolution is so different than past ones that it will not happen like that, but we can only see as everyone of their generation says this) but for many people these jobs will come too late or are not achievable. In the factories we work with, most people were replaced by robots, there are only a few people in the very big buildings. Some of the assembly line people I did speak to because I was curious, but really, they have no up potential: they cannot do anything else but actual robot work. I would be highly surprised (and so would the owner of the factories who tried this) if anyone could retrain them for a non robot like task. These people will not die (I am told) in China as thr gov find something for them, like standing on a street corner to watch the traffic or sitting in front of a building to see who goes in and out (but nothing else: not like a porter), but in many other countries it means you cannot buy food or pay rent. And that is it without UBI. I am in no way for a distribution of wealth equally; we know that will not work as countries tried, but we are now at a complete opposite and that does not work for many either. When there are less (well paid) jobs it will not work for most suddenly.
NeutronBoy 10y ago
> What made me change my mind about UBI was to realize that a) human desires are infinite, and there'll always be more work to be done and b) the more work is done by machines, the richer the population as a whole will be, as products and services automated tend to be cheaper. I agree with this sentiment. Looking into the (very long term) future, it's interesting to look at a fictional post-scarcity society (Star Trek) (with a grain of salt - it's really the writer's imaginations and what you see in the movies/shows) and see what the impact would be. My key takeaways are: * everyone still works, or studies, and the culture is that you still contribute to society rather than sit around and do nothing. This requires a significant culture change from our current society. * They often visit colonies and planets that are decidedly not post-scarcity - they are often poor or middle-class colonies, with an agricultural bent. In theory this shouldn't be the case in a post-scarcity society, but it becomes apparent that there's still a cost (resources and time) associated with production and transport unless you want to be ruled by AI overlords.
- tluyben2 10y ago
  You work, in that case, but not for money. There might be a lot of work but a lot of that work might be not something anyone wants to pay for. Hell, things we do want, like nurses and teachers we already do not pay enough for, let alone all kinds of niche things. A lot of people who do not have to work still work, and while not many of that kind of worker pops up on HN, many millionaires I know do work in their or other communities, for no money; they also help out with their money. People who like to work, will work, people who want to live on holodecks will live on holodecks. And that is fine. Why would anyone care if we are post scarcity / full UBI?
  - a_t48 10y ago
    > A lot of people who do not have to work still work, and while not many of that kind of worker pops up on HN I'd say you're more likely to find that kind of worker here than most other forums on the net.
mstodd 10y ago
You don't mind the fact that you're just taking money from people who earned it to give to others who didn't?
perfmode 10y ago
> b) the more work is done by machines, the richer the population as a whole will be, as products and services automated tend to be cheaper This assumes the existence of a "good" distribution of generated wealth. This tends to not be the case. How does that factor into your thoughts?
- felipeccastro 10y ago
  The less money you need to buy goods and services, the richer you are because your money is more valuable. You don't need a direct money transfer from big companies to benefit from them.
boardwaalk 10y ago
I'm not clear on how your realizations turned you against UBI. If (a) is true, people will still work (because they want money above their UBI), and will still create progress (i.e. little will change). I'm not sure how (b) connects. Perhaps it assumes people will do less work towards automation under UBI? I would like to think people will still work on UBI. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the percentage that don't is similar in some respects to drug use in those places where all drugs have be decriminalized (and perhaps similar to true unemployment numbers now). There is a question of what people will do with their freedom to choose what they will do. Would we get more and more creative art? More inventions and entrepreneurs? More things that are "useful" (by whatever metric: technological progress, preservation of the environment, internal well-being e.g.) or less? Trying to speculate seems fairly silly, though perhaps one could look to history (patronage, for example). I think it'd be even more silly to think we have things right right now (esp. considering fairly objective things like suffering that could be prevented or environmental damage that could be checked) and the idea should be given a shot at least in a limited setting.
- felipeccastro 10y ago
  I'm not fundamentally against UBI. It's a different form of social welfare, and it could be more or less efficient depending on how it's applied. My point is, until recently, I believed it was absolutely the only way forward, we wouldn't be able to avoid it, because this time "robots will really steal our jobs". My realizations imply that this is not the only way forward, even if robots take 100% of the currently existing jobs.
jjoonathan 10y ago
Human desire may be infinite, but that doesn't mean there is an infinite source of jobs if we just try hard enough. Problem 1: the economic notion of value is weighted by wealth, but the notion of "human desire" you discuss is not. Entertaining a king is valuable, in the economic sense, but feeding and housing a poor is not. It doesn't matter if there are plenty of things that people want to be done, it matters if there are plenty of things that people with money want to be done. If all the money flows into a few hands, the demands of the many do not count towards stimulating the economy, and the economy is not stimulated. Problem 2: leverage. The economic value you create is an upper bound to what you earn, not a lower bound. The lower bound is determined by your next best option, which effectively, in light of correlated risk, means there is no lower bound. The service you provide may be critical to the functioning of society, but if you are easily replaced, well, you aren't going to earn very much. In other words, even if demand increases exponentially forever, and you play a critical role in satisfying that demand, the economy does not guarantee that you will be able to extract money for yourself out of the process. See: crowd of artists trying to pawn their wares off on the king. Also, farmers. Problem 1 and problem 2 combined are what make the "capitalist dystopia" a plausible, stable, and terrifying state of affairs. Problem 3: deregulation does not necessarily return markets to a pristine state of natural excellence. No such state exists. Quite the opposite, in many cases. Regulatory capture is a real problem, a big problem, but it's only one of many factors that lead to sclerotic, anti-competitive markets. I'm regularly floored by people's ability to talk about network effects, economies of scale, information asymmetries, moats, winner-takes-all games, and mergers/acquisitions with one breath -- all of which are non-regulatory market forces that suppress competition and innovation -- and then with the next breath assert that deregulation is the most straightforward way to spur innovation and competition. See: Enron, where deregulation of the energy markets led to artificial supply shutdown (the infamous rolling blackouts) in order to drive prices higher and profit. Listen to the recordings of the traders literally giggling as they order plants offline, and tell me again that deregulation is a cure-all. Sometimes more regulation leads to better functioning markets. Utilities are the canonical example.
- tn13 10y ago
  > but that doesn't mean there is an infinite source of jobs if we just try hard enough. Job = Time. As long as human beings can use their muscles and brains in the time to change outcome of some events and as long as people vary in their ability to do so, I think jobs will always exist.
blackoil 10y ago
It is possible for a software engineer/lawyer/MBAs today to reduce the work week and live reasonable life, but as human desires are infinite we see them working a 90 hour week. So the smartest will keep working longer and harder to be richer, rest will start going out of work bottom to top
- sokoloff 10y ago
  Related: http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html I love what I do and don't intend to stop anytime soon, but when the time comes that I do want to stop, I want to make sure there's more than ample money in the retirement and investment accounts to fund our lives post-career.
foxylad 10y ago
> b) the more work is done by machines, the richer the population as a whole will be True - as a whole. But as things stand now, the owners of the machines get richer, and the displaced workers get significantly poorer. My concern is this. In ten years time, trucks and taxis will be automated, and vanishingly few truck drivers will be able to retrain as truck computer techs. Truck and taxi driving is the last bastion of badly-educated men, (apart from the military, but automation will be gutting military employment too). So we're going to have a huge (many millions) population of (to generalise horribly) redneck men who like guns and feel worthless. Even now, 2/3s of gun death in the US is that exact demographic suiciding. I believe these guys gave Trump his victory, and when they realise even he's let them down, those that don't kill themselves are going to revolt. A UBI could be part of the solution to this nightmare, because it would take the economic aspect out of the equation. It would mean unemployment lost its stigma, because at least some people chose to do their own thing (playing music, carving wood, reading at schools) instead of working for the man. So it would become socially acceptable not to have a paying job. Sadly I think it's very unlikely to happen, unless the rich figure out that their wealth is going to be redistributed violently if they don't do voluntarily.
- harryh 10y ago
  The US suicide rate has been pretty flat for about 50 years. There was a decent drop from the mid 80s until 2000 that has since reverted to norm but it's not historically high. Increasing automation of lower skilled jobs has been going on for a long time. It's hard to see that correlating with any increase in the suicide rate.
  - FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
    > The US suicide rate has been pretty flat for about 50 years. There was a decent drop from the mid 80s until 2000 that has since reverted to norm but it's not historically high. I don't believe you are analyzing this considering the context. What that implies is that we have not made any significant advances in preventing suicides and treating the root causes despite the many resources being allocated to it. In the last 50 years, there has been more total wealth and prosperity. Most importantly, there has been a revolution in how mental illness is viewed by not only medical professionals, but by society at large, and we have developed better treatments for it From suicide hotlines to modern police training that includes how to deal with the mentally ill. The curve SHOULD be trending and that is isn't is a potential cause for worry.
ouid 10y ago
I present the analogy of the obsolete computer for your consideration. Perhaps it is the case that what the market decides is best for people who cannot perform any task more efficiently than a computer is to simply stop being powered.
- felipeccastro 10y ago
  Unlike obsolete computers, humans have the capacity of adapt themselves and learn/do different jobs.
lend000 10y ago
It's an implementation problem -- UBI just has to be very basic to incentivize productivity. Contrary to what many think, there will always be jobs in a fully automated world (until robots can be indistinguishable from humans, that is, both physically and mentally) -- we will shift from a labor-intensive economy to one based on social value and experience. The more concerning problem which comes up in this article is that you cannot have both UBI and lax immigration/easy freedom of movement. The first country to institute a UBI would be quite appealing to the billions of people living in destitute poverty, and they would all want to emigrate, making it almost impossible to get into the country. How do you decide who gets in? Do you require the person was a citizen for 18 years before qualifying? You certainly can't have open borders or the welfare system would quickly be overrun.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

devwastaken 10y ago

>the more work is done by machines, the richer the population as a whole will be, as products and services automated tend to be cheaper. There is no such thing as trickle down economics. Wealth does not get distributed in equal to its gain, it is distributed based upon many other markets. For example, if your company makes double this year, you're not going to get paid any more than you were, but if what you said was true, you should be getting paid near double. Infact, how much wealth your company makes has little to do with how much you will be paid when it comes to investment. You're going to get paid what you can negotiate for, which will be competative to the market of other individuals. Just because your company is doing good does not mean they're going to pay anywhere near double for their employees when they can get them at market rate, which is always pressured to be lower. The products also don't have to be cheaper. Infact I don't know of any good examples of automation making things cheaper that aren't just competing with other products. Products do not have to be priced near what they cost to make, as examplified by apple products and tech in general. They're priced to what people give it value, which is manipulated by advertising and patents/copyrights that give them the ability others need or want.

harryh 10y ago
If a particular company is making outsized profits other firms will enter the market to capture them. Those firms will bid up the cost of the labor necessary to serve the market. The historic share of labor as a % of GDP is pretty constant. It has dipped slightly in the last ~15 years and some people see this as the beginning of a major change but that's highly speculative.
- taneq 10y ago
  > The historic share of labor as a % of GDP is pretty constant. What time scale are we talking about? I'm pretty sure that 5000 years ago, labour was close to 100% of GDP. I'm equally sure that it's well down below 20% now.
  - harryh 10y ago
    Looking at US data for the past 100 years or so. And no, it's not at 20%. More like a bit over 50%. If you take out depreciation and gov't because what you really care about is return to capital & labor it's about 30/70.
felipeccastro 10y ago
The products become cheaper because of competition with other products, automation is just part of what allows business to have a lower cost themselves. Apple and tech in general are actually a good example of my point. Why is it that in several third world countries, lacking basic sanitation for a large part of the population, it's so common to see people in slums with last generation smartphones and big flat screen TVs? What I meant about everyone getting richer is not that the money flows equally, but that when you need less money to buy goods and services you are, in a way, richer. Another example is Uber: I don't get a single dollar of what they make, but I have access now to a service that it wasn't accessible before (taxi cabs).

whack 10y ago

The reasoning you're using is very flawed. Yes, we'll never get to a state where a small number end up with 100% of the wealth. Yes, there will be an equilibrium reached between the wealthy and the middle class. But this equilibrium point can shift more and more towards the wealthy. In fact, this has already been happening in the past few decades, as illustrated in books such as Capital. And as this equilibrium shifts in favor of the wealthy, you'll see the effects of inequality get more and more exacerbated. You might even get to a point where the inequality is so extreme, that the "masses" have much more to gain through wealth appropriation, as opposed to wealth creation. And when that point comes, democracy will collapse and give way to a communist or fascist revolution. Basic income offers an escape valve to the corrosive effects of inequality. It distributes more fairly the fruits of globalisation and automation. It gives every citizen a share in the national prosperity. It gives us all a reason to cheer for the greater good, and not just our own advancement.

tluyben2 10y ago
>Basic income offers an escape valve to the corrosive effects of inequality. It distributes more fairly the fruits of globalisation and automation. It gives every citizen a share in the national prosperity. It gives us all a reason to cheer for the greater good, and not just our own advancement. I think this hits the nail on it's head; opponents of basic income (usually rich or might-become-rich people in my experience) do not see this clearly. We would be able to cheer for greater good as we do not have to struggle for money anymore in our own tiny world of our household. I think that UBI would be a good plan with or without robots taking over. But robots forces us into it as people will simply die; sure there might be some other jobs (although I think this revolution is so different than past ones that it will not happen like that, but we can only see as everyone of their generation says this) but for many people these jobs will come too late or are not achievable. In the factories we work with, most people were replaced by robots, there are only a few people in the very big buildings. Some of the assembly line people I did speak to because I was curious, but really, they have no up potential: they cannot do anything else but actual robot work. I would be highly surprised (and so would the owner of the factories who tried this) if anyone could retrain them for a non robot like task. These people will not die (I am told) in China as thr gov find something for them, like standing on a street corner to watch the traffic or sitting in front of a building to see who goes in and out (but nothing else: not like a porter), but in many other countries it means you cannot buy food or pay rent. And that is it without UBI. I am in no way for a distribution of wealth equally; we know that will not work as countries tried, but we are now at a complete opposite and that does not work for many either. When there are less (well paid) jobs it will not work for most suddenly.

NeutronBoy 10y ago

> What made me change my mind about UBI was to realize that a) human desires are infinite, and there'll always be more work to be done and b) the more work is done by machines, the richer the population as a whole will be, as products and services automated tend to be cheaper. I agree with this sentiment. Looking into the (very long term) future, it's interesting to look at a fictional post-scarcity society (Star Trek) (with a grain of salt - it's really the writer's imaginations and what you see in the movies/shows) and see what the impact would be. My key takeaways are: * everyone still works, or studies, and the culture is that you still contribute to society rather than sit around and do nothing. This requires a significant culture change from our current society. * They often visit colonies and planets that are decidedly not post-scarcity - they are often poor or middle-class colonies, with an agricultural bent. In theory this shouldn't be the case in a post-scarcity society, but it becomes apparent that there's still a cost (resources and time) associated with production and transport unless you want to be ruled by AI overlords.

tluyben2 10y ago
You work, in that case, but not for money. There might be a lot of work but a lot of that work might be not something anyone wants to pay for. Hell, things we do want, like nurses and teachers we already do not pay enough for, let alone all kinds of niche things. A lot of people who do not have to work still work, and while not many of that kind of worker pops up on HN, many millionaires I know do work in their or other communities, for no money; they also help out with their money. People who like to work, will work, people who want to live on holodecks will live on holodecks. And that is fine. Why would anyone care if we are post scarcity / full UBI?
- a_t48 10y ago
  > A lot of people who do not have to work still work, and while not many of that kind of worker pops up on HN I'd say you're more likely to find that kind of worker here than most other forums on the net.

mstodd 10y ago

You don't mind the fact that you're just taking money from people who earned it to give to others who didn't?

perfmode 10y ago

> b) the more work is done by machines, the richer the population as a whole will be, as products and services automated tend to be cheaper This assumes the existence of a "good" distribution of generated wealth. This tends to not be the case. How does that factor into your thoughts?

felipeccastro 10y ago
The less money you need to buy goods and services, the richer you are because your money is more valuable. You don't need a direct money transfer from big companies to benefit from them.

boardwaalk 10y ago

I'm not clear on how your realizations turned you against UBI. If (a) is true, people will still work (because they want money above their UBI), and will still create progress (i.e. little will change). I'm not sure how (b) connects. Perhaps it assumes people will do less work towards automation under UBI? I would like to think people will still work on UBI. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the percentage that don't is similar in some respects to drug use in those places where all drugs have be decriminalized (and perhaps similar to true unemployment numbers now). There is a question of what people will do with their freedom to choose what they will do. Would we get more and more creative art? More inventions and entrepreneurs? More things that are "useful" (by whatever metric: technological progress, preservation of the environment, internal well-being e.g.) or less? Trying to speculate seems fairly silly, though perhaps one could look to history (patronage, for example). I think it'd be even more silly to think we have things right right now (esp. considering fairly objective things like suffering that could be prevented or environmental damage that could be checked) and the idea should be given a shot at least in a limited setting.

felipeccastro 10y ago
I'm not fundamentally against UBI. It's a different form of social welfare, and it could be more or less efficient depending on how it's applied. My point is, until recently, I believed it was absolutely the only way forward, we wouldn't be able to avoid it, because this time "robots will really steal our jobs". My realizations imply that this is not the only way forward, even if robots take 100% of the currently existing jobs.

jjoonathan 10y ago

Human desire may be infinite, but that doesn't mean there is an infinite source of jobs if we just try hard enough. Problem 1: the economic notion of value is weighted by wealth, but the notion of "human desire" you discuss is not. Entertaining a king is valuable, in the economic sense, but feeding and housing a poor is not. It doesn't matter if there are plenty of things that people want to be done, it matters if there are plenty of things that people with money want to be done. If all the money flows into a few hands, the demands of the many do not count towards stimulating the economy, and the economy is not stimulated. Problem 2: leverage. The economic value you create is an upper bound to what you earn, not a lower bound. The lower bound is determined by your next best option, which effectively, in light of correlated risk, means there is no lower bound. The service you provide may be critical to the functioning of society, but if you are easily replaced, well, you aren't going to earn very much. In other words, even if demand increases exponentially forever, and you play a critical role in satisfying that demand, the economy does not guarantee that you will be able to extract money for yourself out of the process. See: crowd of artists trying to pawn their wares off on the king. Also, farmers. Problem 1 and problem 2 combined are what make the "capitalist dystopia" a plausible, stable, and terrifying state of affairs. Problem 3: deregulation does not necessarily return markets to a pristine state of natural excellence. No such state exists. Quite the opposite, in many cases. Regulatory capture is a real problem, a big problem, but it's only one of many factors that lead to sclerotic, anti-competitive markets. I'm regularly floored by people's ability to talk about network effects, economies of scale, information asymmetries, moats, winner-takes-all games, and mergers/acquisitions with one breath -- all of which are non-regulatory market forces that suppress competition and innovation -- and then with the next breath assert that deregulation is the most straightforward way to spur innovation and competition. See: Enron, where deregulation of the energy markets led to artificial supply shutdown (the infamous rolling blackouts) in order to drive prices higher and profit. Listen to the recordings of the traders literally giggling as they order plants offline, and tell me again that deregulation is a cure-all. Sometimes more regulation leads to better functioning markets. Utilities are the canonical example.

tn13 10y ago
> but that doesn't mean there is an infinite source of jobs if we just try hard enough. Job = Time. As long as human beings can use their muscles and brains in the time to change outcome of some events and as long as people vary in their ability to do so, I think jobs will always exist.

blackoil 10y ago

It is possible for a software engineer/lawyer/MBAs today to reduce the work week and live reasonable life, but as human desires are infinite we see them working a 90 hour week. So the smartest will keep working longer and harder to be richer, rest will start going out of work bottom to top

sokoloff 10y ago
Related: http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html I love what I do and don't intend to stop anytime soon, but when the time comes that I do want to stop, I want to make sure there's more than ample money in the retirement and investment accounts to fund our lives post-career.

foxylad 10y ago

> b) the more work is done by machines, the richer the population as a whole will be True - as a whole. But as things stand now, the owners of the machines get richer, and the displaced workers get significantly poorer. My concern is this. In ten years time, trucks and taxis will be automated, and vanishingly few truck drivers will be able to retrain as truck computer techs. Truck and taxi driving is the last bastion of badly-educated men, (apart from the military, but automation will be gutting military employment too). So we're going to have a huge (many millions) population of (to generalise horribly) redneck men who like guns and feel worthless. Even now, 2/3s of gun death in the US is that exact demographic suiciding. I believe these guys gave Trump his victory, and when they realise even he's let them down, those that don't kill themselves are going to revolt. A UBI could be part of the solution to this nightmare, because it would take the economic aspect out of the equation. It would mean unemployment lost its stigma, because at least some people chose to do their own thing (playing music, carving wood, reading at schools) instead of working for the man. So it would become socially acceptable not to have a paying job. Sadly I think it's very unlikely to happen, unless the rich figure out that their wealth is going to be redistributed violently if they don't do voluntarily.

harryh 10y ago
The US suicide rate has been pretty flat for about 50 years. There was a decent drop from the mid 80s until 2000 that has since reverted to norm but it's not historically high. Increasing automation of lower skilled jobs has been going on for a long time. It's hard to see that correlating with any increase in the suicide rate.
- FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
  > The US suicide rate has been pretty flat for about 50 years. There was a decent drop from the mid 80s until 2000 that has since reverted to norm but it's not historically high. I don't believe you are analyzing this considering the context. What that implies is that we have not made any significant advances in preventing suicides and treating the root causes despite the many resources being allocated to it. In the last 50 years, there has been more total wealth and prosperity. Most importantly, there has been a revolution in how mental illness is viewed by not only medical professionals, but by society at large, and we have developed better treatments for it From suicide hotlines to modern police training that includes how to deal with the mentally ill. The curve SHOULD be trending and that is isn't is a potential cause for worry.

ouid 10y ago

I present the analogy of the obsolete computer for your consideration. Perhaps it is the case that what the market decides is best for people who cannot perform any task more efficiently than a computer is to simply stop being powered.

felipeccastro 10y ago
Unlike obsolete computers, humans have the capacity of adapt themselves and learn/do different jobs.

lend000 10y ago

It's an implementation problem -- UBI just has to be very basic to incentivize productivity. Contrary to what many think, there will always be jobs in a fully automated world (until robots can be indistinguishable from humans, that is, both physically and mentally) -- we will shift from a labor-intensive economy to one based on social value and experience. The more concerning problem which comes up in this article is that you cannot have both UBI and lax immigration/easy freedom of movement. The first country to institute a UBI would be quite appealing to the billions of people living in destitute poverty, and they would all want to emigrate, making it almost impossible to get into the country. How do you decide who gets in? Do you require the person was a citizen for 18 years before qualifying? You certainly can't have open borders or the welfare system would quickly be overrun.

deleted 10y ago

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