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All the warm, fuzzy pro UBI articles gush about how tech giants are generously willing to support UBI in the face of jobs going away. They then paint glowing pi

by Mz 9y ago

All the warm, fuzzy pro UBI articles gush about how tech giants are generously willing to support UBI in the face of jobs going away. They then paint glowing pictures of how useful that money will be for underpaid workers doing "good work," like teachers and social workers. They never go into how bleak a dystopian future we are talking about if large numbers of jobs that pay $20k-$50k or so disappear and now you have to live on $10k-$20k with little or no hope of ever getting a job again while inflation steadily erodes the real value of your UBI. Glad to see one article exploring that (dystopian view), though it fails to mention this aspect of UBI. We need to resolve the widespread lack of affordable housing in the US and we need to fix our broken healthcare system. That would give ordinary people substantial relief.

PeterisP 9y ago
UBI is a non-perfect solution to the problem of the (IMHO inevitable) situation when "large numbers of jobs that pay $20k-$50k or so disappear and now you have to live [...] with little or no hope of ever getting a job again". This part doesn't depend on UBI in any way whatsoever, it's not caused by UBI but by the current trends in technology development, and it's only relevance to UBI is that "UBI people" are willing to think and talk about this scenario while mainstream politicians would (obviously) rather pretend that this problem doesn't exist, since voters tend to punish politicians that bring bad news even if they're true. Assuming your assumptions, in this situation is living on $10k-20k a bleak, dystopian future compared to the default (if nothing changes in our policy, no UBI) scenario of all these permanently unemployable people having no reasonable income?
- Mz 9y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15060319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15060319 The last time we faced the possibility of "automation" taking our jobs, we invented the 40 hour work week to redistribute work and raise quality of life for more working class people. We called it The Industrial Revolution. I think of this as The Second Industrial Revolution. I think we need new ways to cut the burden of work for the average individual without cutting large numbers of people out of work entirely. Designing it that way is not a given. And it is a design choice to say "meh, too bad, so sad that many people will simply be unemployed -- not my problem." It is a terrible design choice, but it is a choice.

by Mz 9y ago

PeterisP 9y ago

UBI is a non-perfect solution to the problem of the (IMHO inevitable) situation when "large numbers of jobs that pay $20k-$50k or so disappear and now you have to live [...] with little or no hope of ever getting a job again". This part doesn't depend on UBI in any way whatsoever, it's not caused by UBI but by the current trends in technology development, and it's only relevance to UBI is that "UBI people" are willing to think and talk about this scenario while mainstream politicians would (obviously) rather pretend that this problem doesn't exist, since voters tend to punish politicians that bring bad news even if they're true. Assuming your assumptions, in this situation is living on $10k-20k a bleak, dystopian future compared to the default (if nothing changes in our policy, no UBI) scenario of all these permanently unemployable people having no reasonable income?

Mz 9y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15060319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15060319 The last time we faced the possibility of "automation" taking our jobs, we invented the 40 hour work week to redistribute work and raise quality of life for more working class people. We called it The Industrial Revolution. I think of this as The Second Industrial Revolution. I think we need new ways to cut the burden of work for the average individual without cutting large numbers of people out of work entirely. Designing it that way is not a given. And it is a design choice to say "meh, too bad, so sad that many people will simply be unemployed -- not my problem." It is a terrible design choice, but it is a choice.