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There have been trials of basic income though, so people are thinking about it. Additionally the term 'robot' is very handwavey and could mean anything intellig

There have been trials of basic income though, so people are thinking about it. Additionally the term 'robot' is very handwavey and could mean anything intelligence wise, so difficult to say what jobs will get replaced and when.

ThomPete 10y ago
This is one of the very the problems of this discussion. What is important is not robots but ai.
monk_e_boy 10y ago
Bill Gates said that no nation on earth is rich enough to afford basic income. It's a long way off.
- speedboat 10y ago
  Bill Gates just want doesn't want to pay more in taxes. That's what UBI requires: more taxes. Considerable tax increases, but there it is. Tax the economic beneficiaries of the economy and divest to everyone to bring the top and bottom closer to GDP per capita.
  - massysett 10y ago
    Gates is worth $76 billion. US population is over 300 million. So if we liberated Gates of every penny he has, there would be a one-time payment of less than $253 to every American. The rich do not have enough money to pay for everyone else to be on the dole.
    - vorotato 10y ago
      Sure but there were over 10 million millionaires in the US last year. If we took just a million a year just from those guys we'd have 30,000 a year per american. I'm not saying we should, but your math sucks.
      - elsewhen 10y ago
        a millionaire is a person with $1MM or more in net worth. the lion's share of these people have the low single-digits millions, as you would expect. after you take $1MM from them in the first year, they won't have much more to give in the subsequent years. net-worth ≠ income.
    - speedboat 10y ago
      Would Bill Gates personally fund a UBI? No. The claim wasn't is Bill Gates rich enough to personally fund an American UBI. He would still see his taxes rise considerably and would fall within the tax net to fund a UBI. Those taxes would reach far down the income and wealth ladder, but as long as your UBI is below GDP per capita, it's feasible and a nation could fund it, if it so chose.
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        While I support a universal income gradually reaching up to (and eventually perhaps well above) the level at which it could fairly be called a UBI, it is not at all the case that any UBI level up to the pre-UBI GDP per capita is affordable. A universal income will affect behavior, and through that real GDP; at some levels, it may actually improve GDP by reducing job market friction and better allowing people to retrain, retool, and optimize their contribution and their own returns; OTOH, there's certainly a level at which it draws people out of the labor force in large enough quantities to overwhelm any advantage from reducing friction, crashing real, post-UBI GDP.
  - gpawl 10y ago
    Bill Gates has dedicated >90% of his lifetime income to poverty relief projects, and hasn't cured poverty yet.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    Would he have to pay more taxes, though? All his wealth is tied up in stock. His income is probably relatively small. When taxes go up the money actually comes from middle and upper-middle class people who draw a paycheck, not from super-rich people whose net worth goes up by a billion dollars on a good market day and all without generating any taxable income.
- astrodev 10y ago
  Bill Gates said so, so it must be true.
gozur88 10y ago
Somebody on this very site quipped you can define a robot as "A machine that doesn't work yet," because if it worked you'd name it after what it does (like a dishwasher or a vacuum cleaner).
- Namrog84 10y ago
  That is actually quite clever. Most of the scenarios that I think to use the word robot, I can very easily conceive that its still underdeveloped and yet to be highly proficient at that task yet. Yet when it can, we will undoubtedly refine the term for that particular robot.

ThomPete 10y ago

This is one of the very the problems of this discussion. What is important is not robots but ai.

monk_e_boy 10y ago

Bill Gates said that no nation on earth is rich enough to afford basic income. It's a long way off.

speedboat 10y ago
Bill Gates just want doesn't want to pay more in taxes. That's what UBI requires: more taxes. Considerable tax increases, but there it is. Tax the economic beneficiaries of the economy and divest to everyone to bring the top and bottom closer to GDP per capita.
- massysett 10y ago
  Gates is worth $76 billion. US population is over 300 million. So if we liberated Gates of every penny he has, there would be a one-time payment of less than $253 to every American. The rich do not have enough money to pay for everyone else to be on the dole.
  - vorotato 10y ago
    Sure but there were over 10 million millionaires in the US last year. If we took just a million a year just from those guys we'd have 30,000 a year per american. I'm not saying we should, but your math sucks.
    - elsewhen 10y ago
      a millionaire is a person with $1MM or more in net worth. the lion's share of these people have the low single-digits millions, as you would expect. after you take $1MM from them in the first year, they won't have much more to give in the subsequent years. net-worth ≠ income.
  - speedboat 10y ago
    Would Bill Gates personally fund a UBI? No. The claim wasn't is Bill Gates rich enough to personally fund an American UBI. He would still see his taxes rise considerably and would fall within the tax net to fund a UBI. Those taxes would reach far down the income and wealth ladder, but as long as your UBI is below GDP per capita, it's feasible and a nation could fund it, if it so chose.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      While I support a universal income gradually reaching up to (and eventually perhaps well above) the level at which it could fairly be called a UBI, it is not at all the case that any UBI level up to the pre-UBI GDP per capita is affordable. A universal income will affect behavior, and through that real GDP; at some levels, it may actually improve GDP by reducing job market friction and better allowing people to retrain, retool, and optimize their contribution and their own returns; OTOH, there's certainly a level at which it draws people out of the labor force in large enough quantities to overwhelm any advantage from reducing friction, crashing real, post-UBI GDP.
- gpawl 10y ago
  Bill Gates has dedicated >90% of his lifetime income to poverty relief projects, and hasn't cured poverty yet.
- gozur88 10y ago
  Would he have to pay more taxes, though? All his wealth is tied up in stock. His income is probably relatively small. When taxes go up the money actually comes from middle and upper-middle class people who draw a paycheck, not from super-rich people whose net worth goes up by a billion dollars on a good market day and all without generating any taxable income.
astrodev 10y ago
Bill Gates said so, so it must be true.

gozur88 10y ago

Somebody on this very site quipped you can define a robot as "A machine that doesn't work yet," because if it worked you'd name it after what it does (like a dishwasher or a vacuum cleaner).

Namrog84 10y ago
That is actually quite clever. Most of the scenarios that I think to use the word robot, I can very easily conceive that its still underdeveloped and yet to be highly proficient at that task yet. Yet when it can, we will undoubtedly refine the term for that particular robot.