4 ms·

Why is it important to start this ~200 years into the industrial revolution? What is actually different now? If anything we're (well) into diminishing returns.

elif 3y ago
Capitalism until now has functioned on the premise that reward for human labor was a necessary component of generating capital.
- version_five 3y ago
  That doesn't mean anything to me but maybe it's persuasive for somebody. We already have mechanical harvesters and computers and looms and whatnot. I don't see a step change at llms. One thing that's different (if you buy into the hype) is that the jobs that are threatened this time are held by educated people. When it was truck drivers (now a lucrative job in no danger of replacement) being threatened, we told them they could learn to code. Now that people writing code and doing powerpoints (if you believe the hype) are threatened, we need UBI
  - elif 3y ago
    Yanis was proposing this a decade ago when it was the blue collar workers you mention being displaced. The problem is merely increasingly visible as more classes of people become affected.
  - beepbooptheory 3y ago
    You guys are both right. It just needs to be understood that UBI itself is a weak band-aid for otherwise intractable problems or contradictions that will continue to unfold as we progress in the experiment, but were always inherent in the design. That's why it at once seems immediately necessary and also too late. There is no "right time" for it, or it has always been the right time for it, depending on where you hang your hat around more fundamental issues.
  - simonh 3y ago
    Even then I don't see how this is currently any more than a productivity enhancer like an IDE, refactoring tools or a higher level language. Game engines like Unity are a huge productivity gain compared to hand coding a new engine for every game, but nobody is bringing in a special game engine tax. I do think capital returns should be taxed similarly to income, but it's not simple to accomplish. One thing to bear in mind on taxing return on capital is that it's already taxed several times, once as corporate income tax and then again on dividends or share price gains. So the real tax on capital returns is the combination of these, and sometimes other taxes as well. There are some common loopholes that should really be closed though, such as exemptions for inherited capital.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

elif 3y ago

Capitalism until now has functioned on the premise that reward for human labor was a necessary component of generating capital.

version_five 3y ago
That doesn't mean anything to me but maybe it's persuasive for somebody. We already have mechanical harvesters and computers and looms and whatnot. I don't see a step change at llms. One thing that's different (if you buy into the hype) is that the jobs that are threatened this time are held by educated people. When it was truck drivers (now a lucrative job in no danger of replacement) being threatened, we told them they could learn to code. Now that people writing code and doing powerpoints (if you believe the hype) are threatened, we need UBI
- elif 3y ago
  Yanis was proposing this a decade ago when it was the blue collar workers you mention being displaced. The problem is merely increasingly visible as more classes of people become affected.
- beepbooptheory 3y ago
  You guys are both right. It just needs to be understood that UBI itself is a weak band-aid for otherwise intractable problems or contradictions that will continue to unfold as we progress in the experiment, but were always inherent in the design. That's why it at once seems immediately necessary and also too late. There is no "right time" for it, or it has always been the right time for it, depending on where you hang your hat around more fundamental issues.
- simonh 3y ago
  Even then I don't see how this is currently any more than a productivity enhancer like an IDE, refactoring tools or a higher level language. Game engines like Unity are a huge productivity gain compared to hand coding a new engine for every game, but nobody is bringing in a special game engine tax. I do think capital returns should be taxed similarly to income, but it's not simple to accomplish. One thing to bear in mind on taxing return on capital is that it's already taxed several times, once as corporate income tax and then again on dividends or share price gains. So the real tax on capital returns is the combination of these, and sometimes other taxes as well. There are some common loopholes that should really be closed though, such as exemptions for inherited capital.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]