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The concept of "free stuff" is also rather artificial: it comes from the idea that we MUST pay for things. Imagine we build self-sustained machines capable of

The concept of "free stuff" is also rather artificial: it comes from the idea that we MUST pay for things. Imagine we build self-sustained machines capable of producing and distributing enough food for twice the Earth's population. Does it still make sense for people to have to PAY for their food? As a reminder, many of our ancestors gathered fruits that grew on trees or hunted animals -- they did not need to PAY anyone for food. The idea of paying for food makes sense in a world where food is scarce and great effort is required to produce it. As the difficulty in producing in volume decreases, so should this artificial price we put on it. We still don't have such food-producing machines. But that's a direction in which we're going, and we should shape our society with this kind of thing in mind.

BareNakedCoder 5y ago
They may not have PAID for food but they did WORK to get that food. With UBI no work required.
- presentation 5y ago
  I agree with you on the distinction but violently disagree on the conclusion. With UBI you still pay for things and the capitalist system still functions; it just lifts a baseline for all of society.
presentation 5y ago
Food these days isn’t just literally apples picked from a tree though. Putting aside the labor for harvesting and transporting the raw ingredients to you so that you didn’t have to do it, someone put labor into cooking something nice at a restaurant - I think that labor should be rewarded in some form, and I also think electing for a luxury over, say, just making the food yourself. But putting even all that aside, I disagree that payment isn’t necessary in a world of abundance. It’s not just a means of rationing limited supplies; a main point of capitalism is to incentivize people to do things (well) in the first place, and to coordinate action between different actors in society that may not be communicating with one another. Prices do that. I don’t think we as a society have worked it out how to coordinate and incentivize labor if payment isn’t part of the process.

BareNakedCoder 5y ago

They may not have PAID for food but they did WORK to get that food. With UBI no work required.

presentation 5y ago
I agree with you on the distinction but violently disagree on the conclusion. With UBI you still pay for things and the capitalist system still functions; it just lifts a baseline for all of society.

presentation 5y ago

Food these days isn’t just literally apples picked from a tree though. Putting aside the labor for harvesting and transporting the raw ingredients to you so that you didn’t have to do it, someone put labor into cooking something nice at a restaurant - I think that labor should be rewarded in some form, and I also think electing for a luxury over, say, just making the food yourself. But putting even all that aside, I disagree that payment isn’t necessary in a world of abundance. It’s not just a means of rationing limited supplies; a main point of capitalism is to incentivize people to do things (well) in the first place, and to coordinate action between different actors in society that may not be communicating with one another. Prices do that. I don’t think we as a society have worked it out how to coordinate and incentivize labor if payment isn’t part of the process.