4 ms·

Automation technology has allowed a machine to create 100,000s to millions of a product with very little input from a human to put in the raw resources into it.

• wonderwonder 5y ago
  "GDP grows instantly by at least 13% (in the US) if doing a $1,000/month UBI, for example" That really does not track though, sure GDP will go up if the money is spent, but its just spending money that we either borrowed or just printed. Not to mention a ton of that money would be saved, essentially removing it from circulation. Inflation would go out of control. If not, then why not just print 100,000 for each person? 12k a year for 300 million people is ~3.6 trillion. ~20% of gdp a year being printed.
  • loceng 5y ago
    It's too complex to rehash here in a comment - there are people like Andrew Yang who "have done the MATH" and it works out; you tie UBI to inflation also, so people only with UBI don't get priced out of the market, at the same time people can move to towns where things like housing inflation isn't running wild, etc. Yang also has said you make up most of the difference with a Value Added Tax (consumption tax) - and you can say make Facebook ads have an 80% tax, and diapers - necessities having 0% tax, that way poorer people aren't impacted by the tax; if everyone's receiving $12,000 / year in UBI then you can design it so only people spending more than $200,000 per year are actually paying back into the system - otherwise the taxes you pay is just putting that $12k UBI back into the system. What Yang points out is with the UBI tied to inflation + VAT you can have many levers to pull on if you need to to increase/decrease tax. Another chunk of covering that UBI comes from cash and cash-like social assistance programs that people will have to decide for themselves if the $1,000/month is better for them or if their current social assistance programs (for cash and cash-like things) is better for them; and no, it's not a Trojan Horse, Yang doesn't want to cut social assistance programs - but if people choose the cash because that's better for their specific circumstances (and they get to decide that, not a bureaucratic government) then that program's spending is going down - the cost of what's provided goes down (turned into the UBI) but then also the management/bureaucracy cost of managing different programs will go down as well depending on how many people chose the UBI over the cash/cash-like options. And then there's even more that ties into this that reduces costs; stress going down, crime going down, emergency services costs (fire/ambulance/police) go down, etc.
• nradov 5y ago
  This is nonsense completely disconnected from reality. Sure we could increase GDP in nominal dollar terms by 13% or 130% or any arbitrary number by just printing more dollars but inflation doesn't make us wealthier. At some point someone has to actually make things. Most forms of resource extraction, farming, and manufacturing are still quite labor intensive. The dilettantes who believe that automation will save us from working have probably never had to clean the conveyor belt in a mushroom packing plant; show me a robot capable of doing that.
  • loceng 5y ago
    Have you ever invested in yourself and did you become more valuable to yourself, to the people around you, etc? And do you think people who are struggling to just survive, who are constantly stressed (which causes mental health issues, poor decision making, and long-term dis-ease progression) will become more productive to society, become more valuable/useful to society if their basic needs are covered - and that people will become less counter-productive (which has a cost too)? What makes you think people who get UBI also aren't going to want to work? People being lazy isn't attractive. The logic that people think people given money won't work doesn't fit because billionaires still keep working; yes, some people won't work, but better they don't work than go into crime and hurt society - and then cost society even more if they're caught and we have to pay for them to be in jail. Dilettantes, neat word - it seems like you're the one who's under-studied in this area though - you seem to have all-or-nothing thinking as well, while catastrophizing while not working from first principles; I am certain you could create a system to efficiently clean a conveyor belt in a mushroom packing plant: high pressure air/water washers, robotic arms that can target specific areas (like how robotic arms move around material to then weld vehicles together, etc) - perhaps requiring innovation on the conveyor belt technology itself. Have you ever searched for self-washing mushroom packing plant conveyor belt? Maybe someone's already developing/developed one? What I think is the greatest about automating as much as possible is that that means we free up more time for humans to be creative, to develop themselves and their mind and knowledge, to raise healthy families, to build and strengthen community, etc.
    • nradov 5y ago