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I know livelihood after automation needs to be solved but I'm worried about how a guaranteed fixed income for a large section of young population might be explo

by chime 8y ago

I know livelihood after automation needs to be solved but I'm worried about how a guaranteed fixed income for a large section of young population might be exploited. If you are 70 and get $1500/mo social security, nobody is going to sell you a $200k Ferrari. But if you are young, there is tremendous incentive for businesses to carve out that $1500/mo into life long revenue streams. Student loans cannot be easily discharged in bankruptcy. Pass a few laws and suddenly, contracts you signed as an 18yr old cannot be discharged through any means. This means an 18yr old could buy a $200k car if they agree to $750/mo for 600 months (50 years) at 4% fixed rate. A little bit of collusion in the insurance industry and suddenly anyone could be liable for $200k damages from healthcare to auto claims. No problem, just pay it off over the next 50-60 years of your life while you live in destitution. In a Star-Trek post-scarcity world, cars don't cost $200k so this problem doesn't exist. But as long as we live in a world where money exists, I think giving everyone a fixed minimum income will absolutely result in unexpected exploitation on a mass scale. Right now, nobody is going to give an 18yr old with no credit a 200k car because there is no guarantee they can pay it off. They give them 30yr fixed mortgages today because property historically appreciates in value and can be repossessed. But in a post-credit rating world, instead of repossessing a 15yr old car, it is better to just put a lien on 50 yrs of somebody's income, bundle it up, and sell a million of these liens to a bank.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago
It's interesting to consider Star Trek. I mean in our society today you can easily blame capitalism for our woes. But I think more aptly, you should blame us. Consumerism is something you personally have to choose to become involved in. People buy overpriced phones offering marginal benefits over vastly more affordable alternatives, fancy cars that in the end do nothing but get from point A to point B, pay a massive markup on a Unix based PC so they can have a fruity label and a slightly thinner screen, etc, etc. And they do this all of their own will. In Star Trek people always look to us as the humans, because we are humans. But the biggest gag in Star Trek is that we're not the humans - we're the the Ferengi. Seriously, that was the intent. [1] The first paragraph there is irrelevant, the second is from the actual screenwriters and producers for the show. Society is a product of its people. The Ferengi live as they do because of the Ferengi. And the humans too live as they do because of the humans. If you thrust the Ferengi into the society of the humans it's not like they'd suddenly become as the humans. In short order it'd revert to Ferengi standards. And so too for us. Our society is a reflection of us. You need not change society - you need to change the people that makeup society. So long as there is somebody willing to buy something far outside their means for whatever reason, there will be people lining up to sell it to them. Something that is actually also still reflected in the show, even among humanity. Society is not something in isolation. Society is little more than the product of the people that comprise it. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi#Interpretation_as_a_parody_of_Judaism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi#Interpretation_as_a_pa...

by chime 8y ago

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

It's interesting to consider Star Trek. I mean in our society today you can easily blame capitalism for our woes. But I think more aptly, you should blame us. Consumerism is something you personally have to choose to become involved in. People buy overpriced phones offering marginal benefits over vastly more affordable alternatives, fancy cars that in the end do nothing but get from point A to point B, pay a massive markup on a Unix based PC so they can have a fruity label and a slightly thinner screen, etc, etc. And they do this all of their own will. In Star Trek people always look to us as the humans, because we are humans. But the biggest gag in Star Trek is that we're not the humans - we're the the Ferengi. Seriously, that was the intent. [1] The first paragraph there is irrelevant, the second is from the actual screenwriters and producers for the show. Society is a product of its people. The Ferengi live as they do because of the Ferengi. And the humans too live as they do because of the humans. If you thrust the Ferengi into the society of the humans it's not like they'd suddenly become as the humans. In short order it'd revert to Ferengi standards. And so too for us. Our society is a reflection of us. You need not change society - you need to change the people that makeup society. So long as there is somebody willing to buy something far outside their means for whatever reason, there will be people lining up to sell it to them. Something that is actually also still reflected in the show, even among humanity. Society is not something in isolation. Society is little more than the product of the people that comprise it. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi#Interpretation_as_a_parody_of_Judaism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi#Interpretation_as_a_pa...