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You're trivializing the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution. The 40 hour work week was only won after centuries of bloody labor revolts. https://futurism.com/w

You're trivializing the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution. The 40 hour work week was only won after centuries of bloody labor revolts. https://futurism.com/what-the-industrial-revolution-really-tells-us-about-the-future-of-automation-and-work/ https://futurism.com/what-the-industrial-revolution-really-t... This time is fundamentally different because AI automates the human mind. Human input may always be needed, but fewer and fewer jobs are required to support the needs of the population. New quality jobs are not being created at a sufficient enough pace to be offset the loses.

DoreenMichele 9y ago
I'm not trivializing anything. I spent 5.7 years homeless. I got off the street 4.5 months ago. We have a ridiculous number of homeless in the US. Meanwhile, rich tech giants talk of giving UBI to everyone as their solution to so many jobs going away. The jobs that are going away pay about $20k-$50k. UBI is expected to be $10k or maybe $18k. Articles that talk about this then write warm little vignettes about how lovely it will be to have that supplemental income on top of your low paid job, utterly ignoring the actual scenario posited that this money is in place of a job in a climate where there is little or no hope of getting another job. If you think the Industrial Revolution was bloody, you don't want to see what happens with millions of people getting just enough money to sleep in a tent and keep eating while the cops harass them and the system gives them no hope of getting back to a middle class lifestyle. They won't be actually starving. But they will be mad as hell and have nothing but time on their hands to plot a revolution and train for it.
- thriftwy 9y ago
  With UBI, you have two important new options: - You can move away from expensive locale to a cheapest one. - You can find supplemental income: do something with your hands, provide services, etc. You have all day to do that. It shouldn't be that your time is worthless and nobody is willing to pay anything for it. - You can pool with other people to form a community, save on bulk. Three actually.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    You can find supplemental income: do something with your hands, provide services, etc. You have all day to do that. It shouldn't be that your time is worthless and nobody is willing to pay anything for it. People are positing that we need UBI because jobs are outright going away and there will be no paid work to be found. If it is possible to create earning opportunities in the post robo-job-pocalypse, then why can't we focus on restructuring work to begin with? I wish people would pick one. Either it will be possible to keep earning money somehow, in which case we don't need UBI to replace jobs and we can, instead, focus on restructuring work to improve quality of life generally. Or it won't be possible to find earning opportunities, in which case UBI is all the money you will have.
    - thriftwy 9y ago
      I don't think it would be a kind of work that can earn a living in urban setting. However, it's something that can be used to earn supplemental income in cheap locale. Teach spoken English using Skype, for example. There's 2B potential customers. Or maybe 4B. All you have to be is native speaker.
      - DoreenMichele 9y ago
        If someone wants to do that, they are currently free to move someplace cheap and do that. On the other hand, a lot of low cost areas, like rural parts of the US, don't have the high speed internet necessary to do something like that. It doesn't work unless you have both low cost of living and amenities like high speed internet. Right now, amenities like high speed internet and jobs are mostly concentrated in big cities. So just giving people a check (UBI) and telling them to work the rest out themselves while the world is actively against the idea of restructuring work simply doesn't work. Either we can make a world that supports living someplace cheap and earning money online or we can't. Basic Income has no bearing on the logistics of making that work.
        thriftwy 9y ago
        This world kind of exists already. A lot of people move to Southeast Asia (for cheap and comfortable living) and there travel between countries while making money remotely.
- cryoshon 9y ago
  >plot a revolution and train for it. i suspect the wheels are already in motion.
- chillwaves 9y ago
  Give me 10K a year, no strings attached and I can live comfortably without ever working again. Move somewhere cheap or go in with some friends, you will be surprised what 10k a year can do.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    I have a bit over $10k a year in alimony. To get off the street, I spent 2 years researching where in the western half of the US I could a) travel inexpensively without a car and b) afford to buy a house. I am in a cheap rental trying to figure out how to buy a house with no money down. There are places in the US where you can rent for $500/mo or less, but they are pretty hard to find. If it is just you, you may be able to make it, especially if you are willing and able to get a roommate. If you have dependents, high health costs or any complications whatsoever, it rapidly falls apart. If we don't give UBI from birth, poor families with children won't be lifted out of poverty like we imagine. If we do, you can guarantee that some women will crank out babies as a means to raise their income and be lousy, abusive mothers who don't actually care about the kids. For the vast majority of people, cutting their income 50 to 80 percent in exchange for going jobless will be a hardship. Most lottery winners are bankrupt within 5 years. I suspect part of the reason for this is that most people divide their time between working to make money and consuming in their off hours. When you remove the job from the equation, they suddenly have about 50 hours more a week that they need to entertain themselves. If you are used to spending money in your leisure time, it can be incredibly hard to shift gears and find cheap or free means to do so. It can be done. I have lived on damn little for a long time and I do a lot for free because my income supports three people, not one. So the budget is quite tight. But a lot of people fail at it. Currently, people failing to make ends meet can turn to food stamps, section 8 housing, etc. Many people feel that the way to finance UBI is to eliminate all that stuff. So if you get UBI and fail to make it work, it is possible there won't be a safety net to catch you when you fall. It may be one huge fuck you.
- JDiculous 9y ago
  UBI is supplemental income, you can still work. With a UBI, you wouldn't have to live in a tent because you could afford an apartment. I find it strange that someone who was once homeless is opposed to a policy like UBI that would end or at least severely curtail homelessness. So if not UBI, what's your solution?
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    You can't still work if all the big wigs with the power to create jobs are not bothering to make work available because you have your UBI. I have already laid out my solution: accessible healthcare, affordable housing and restructuring work. And the reason I hold the position I hold is because I was homeless. So I know what bs it is to say "You can just move someplace cheaper and supplement your income." I was both willing and able to do both of those things. It isn't the easy answer folks imagine. I owe a bunch of money from making the move. People who, themselves, make money online mostly shat all over me and wouldn't help me figure out how to make money online while saying things to me like I was panhandling the internet for trying to figure out how to earn money online etc. UBI will not give anyone the knowledge, skills and connections necessary to turn free time into income. What it will do is allow classist or sexist or racist assholes to be more comfortable with shutting out Those People from the paths to an earned income because, hey, you don't need me to give you an opportunity. You have your UBI. If we don't fix the affordable housing mess, UBI fixes nothing. There are lots of places where $10k is basically just rent for the year, with no money leftover for anything else. And if you think people can just move to the cheap seats, it is hard to find a place for under $500/mo. That leaves less than $500/mo to cover all other living expenses. I have lived on that kind of a budget. I have looked for housing on that kind of a budget. I know firsthand how hard it is to make that work. So when folks who likely have more income than me post imaginary stories about what a piece of cake life will be when there are no jobs but everyone has UBI, that really sticks in my craw. You telling me that UBI is supplemental income tells me you don't get it. UBI is not supposed to be supplemental. It is supposed to make sure most people don't starve when there simply is no paid work to be found. These kinds of comments are crazy making. If it is supplemental, we don't need it. If it isn't supplemental, it doesn't work without also fixing healthcare and housing. I think we don't need it. We just need to fix healthcare and housing and restructure work. We need to do all that with or without UBI. I think without UBI, we will do a better job of fixing those things. With UBI, too many people think those problems don't really matter that much. Poor people can just move elsewhere or something.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

I'm not trivializing anything. I spent 5.7 years homeless. I got off the street 4.5 months ago. We have a ridiculous number of homeless in the US. Meanwhile, rich tech giants talk of giving UBI to everyone as their solution to so many jobs going away. The jobs that are going away pay about $20k-$50k. UBI is expected to be $10k or maybe $18k. Articles that talk about this then write warm little vignettes about how lovely it will be to have that supplemental income on top of your low paid job, utterly ignoring the actual scenario posited that this money is in place of a job in a climate where there is little or no hope of getting another job. If you think the Industrial Revolution was bloody, you don't want to see what happens with millions of people getting just enough money to sleep in a tent and keep eating while the cops harass them and the system gives them no hope of getting back to a middle class lifestyle. They won't be actually starving. But they will be mad as hell and have nothing but time on their hands to plot a revolution and train for it.

thriftwy 9y ago
With UBI, you have two important new options: - You can move away from expensive locale to a cheapest one. - You can find supplemental income: do something with your hands, provide services, etc. You have all day to do that. It shouldn't be that your time is worthless and nobody is willing to pay anything for it. - You can pool with other people to form a community, save on bulk. Three actually.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  You can find supplemental income: do something with your hands, provide services, etc. You have all day to do that. It shouldn't be that your time is worthless and nobody is willing to pay anything for it. People are positing that we need UBI because jobs are outright going away and there will be no paid work to be found. If it is possible to create earning opportunities in the post robo-job-pocalypse, then why can't we focus on restructuring work to begin with? I wish people would pick one. Either it will be possible to keep earning money somehow, in which case we don't need UBI to replace jobs and we can, instead, focus on restructuring work to improve quality of life generally. Or it won't be possible to find earning opportunities, in which case UBI is all the money you will have.
  - thriftwy 9y ago
    I don't think it would be a kind of work that can earn a living in urban setting. However, it's something that can be used to earn supplemental income in cheap locale. Teach spoken English using Skype, for example. There's 2B potential customers. Or maybe 4B. All you have to be is native speaker.
    - DoreenMichele 9y ago
      If someone wants to do that, they are currently free to move someplace cheap and do that. On the other hand, a lot of low cost areas, like rural parts of the US, don't have the high speed internet necessary to do something like that. It doesn't work unless you have both low cost of living and amenities like high speed internet. Right now, amenities like high speed internet and jobs are mostly concentrated in big cities. So just giving people a check (UBI) and telling them to work the rest out themselves while the world is actively against the idea of restructuring work simply doesn't work. Either we can make a world that supports living someplace cheap and earning money online or we can't. Basic Income has no bearing on the logistics of making that work.
      - thriftwy 9y ago
        This world kind of exists already. A lot of people move to Southeast Asia (for cheap and comfortable living) and there travel between countries while making money remotely.
cryoshon 9y ago
>plot a revolution and train for it. i suspect the wheels are already in motion.
chillwaves 9y ago
Give me 10K a year, no strings attached and I can live comfortably without ever working again. Move somewhere cheap or go in with some friends, you will be surprised what 10k a year can do.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  I have a bit over $10k a year in alimony. To get off the street, I spent 2 years researching where in the western half of the US I could a) travel inexpensively without a car and b) afford to buy a house. I am in a cheap rental trying to figure out how to buy a house with no money down. There are places in the US where you can rent for $500/mo or less, but they are pretty hard to find. If it is just you, you may be able to make it, especially if you are willing and able to get a roommate. If you have dependents, high health costs or any complications whatsoever, it rapidly falls apart. If we don't give UBI from birth, poor families with children won't be lifted out of poverty like we imagine. If we do, you can guarantee that some women will crank out babies as a means to raise their income and be lousy, abusive mothers who don't actually care about the kids. For the vast majority of people, cutting their income 50 to 80 percent in exchange for going jobless will be a hardship. Most lottery winners are bankrupt within 5 years. I suspect part of the reason for this is that most people divide their time between working to make money and consuming in their off hours. When you remove the job from the equation, they suddenly have about 50 hours more a week that they need to entertain themselves. If you are used to spending money in your leisure time, it can be incredibly hard to shift gears and find cheap or free means to do so. It can be done. I have lived on damn little for a long time and I do a lot for free because my income supports three people, not one. So the budget is quite tight. But a lot of people fail at it. Currently, people failing to make ends meet can turn to food stamps, section 8 housing, etc. Many people feel that the way to finance UBI is to eliminate all that stuff. So if you get UBI and fail to make it work, it is possible there won't be a safety net to catch you when you fall. It may be one huge fuck you.
JDiculous 9y ago
UBI is supplemental income, you can still work. With a UBI, you wouldn't have to live in a tent because you could afford an apartment. I find it strange that someone who was once homeless is opposed to a policy like UBI that would end or at least severely curtail homelessness. So if not UBI, what's your solution?
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  You can't still work if all the big wigs with the power to create jobs are not bothering to make work available because you have your UBI. I have already laid out my solution: accessible healthcare, affordable housing and restructuring work. And the reason I hold the position I hold is because I was homeless. So I know what bs it is to say "You can just move someplace cheaper and supplement your income." I was both willing and able to do both of those things. It isn't the easy answer folks imagine. I owe a bunch of money from making the move. People who, themselves, make money online mostly shat all over me and wouldn't help me figure out how to make money online while saying things to me like I was panhandling the internet for trying to figure out how to earn money online etc. UBI will not give anyone the knowledge, skills and connections necessary to turn free time into income. What it will do is allow classist or sexist or racist assholes to be more comfortable with shutting out Those People from the paths to an earned income because, hey, you don't need me to give you an opportunity. You have your UBI. If we don't fix the affordable housing mess, UBI fixes nothing. There are lots of places where $10k is basically just rent for the year, with no money leftover for anything else. And if you think people can just move to the cheap seats, it is hard to find a place for under $500/mo. That leaves less than $500/mo to cover all other living expenses. I have lived on that kind of a budget. I have looked for housing on that kind of a budget. I know firsthand how hard it is to make that work. So when folks who likely have more income than me post imaginary stories about what a piece of cake life will be when there are no jobs but everyone has UBI, that really sticks in my craw. You telling me that UBI is supplemental income tells me you don't get it. UBI is not supposed to be supplemental. It is supposed to make sure most people don't starve when there simply is no paid work to be found. These kinds of comments are crazy making. If it is supplemental, we don't need it. If it isn't supplemental, it doesn't work without also fixing healthcare and housing. I think we don't need it. We just need to fix healthcare and housing and restructure work. We need to do all that with or without UBI. I think without UBI, we will do a better job of fixing those things. With UBI, too many people think those problems don't really matter that much. Poor people can just move elsewhere or something.