4 ms·

UBI is a bandaid on top of capitalism. It is saying "we have a system where people die if they don't have money, so we'll give people money." It's not a real fi

UBI is a bandaid on top of capitalism. It is saying "we have a system where people die if they don't have money, so we'll give people money." It's not a real fix. A real fix would be replacing the system with one where people don't need money in order to not die. We're going to keep automating more and more things. I think that much is inevitable. Eventually, we may get to a point where very few jobs are necessary for society to function. This should be a good thing, because it would mean fewer people would have to work and could therefore pursue things that actually interest them, but it would be a catastrophe under the current system.

mhss 3y ago
You make it sound simple. What's the replacement? UBI is at least somewhat within grasp. Completely replacing capitalism is going to take a long time and it's more likely to happen as incremental improvements.
pmarreck 3y ago
That’s not going to come to fruition, and no amount of dreamy socialist fanfiction’ing is going to make it so. People pay for value. Produce value for others, get paid. LLM’s are tools to make humans able to produce more value, and will not replace humans, although the job market will change, and hopefully utilize humans better. People, NOT machines, are the ultimate judgers of what is valuable and the ultimate producers of value. “no one should have to work to eat” is the most ridiculous gen Z meme going around lately. Like, technically yes, not eating would make you unhealthy and thus unable to contribute yourself, but we also don’t want the opposite of people just sitting home all depressed about being oppressed and not utilizing their gifts while living off mysteriously-produced (paid for or labored over by whom?) gourmet sushi. How about another common meme in response? “We live in a society.”
- kortex 3y ago
  > Produce value for others, get paid So if a human is unable to produce value, they don't get (food/education/heathcare/<resource>)? That seems to be the implication. We in developed countries already have some amount of "value risk hedging" (I'm loathe to say "socialism" here), we just disagree endlessly how much is the optimal amount. But we've determined that wards of the state, universal education, and some amount of food support for the poor is the absolute bare minimum for a developed society. > People, NOT machines, are the ultimate judgers of what is valuable and the ultimate producers of value. Uhhh we already have software which sifts through resumes to allow/reject candidates, before it gets to any kind of human judge, so we are already gating value assessments.
  - pmarreck 3y ago
    > So if a human is unable to produce value, they don't get (food/education/heathcare/<resource>)? I would agree that some people are simply unable to help and need the help themselves and should get it. UBI or some other social safety net should be there for that.
brvsft 3y ago
People don't need money to not die, they need to work to not die. Until the fulfillment of everyone's basic needs can be automated, people are expected to work (disregarding some obvious exceptions). The money is just a proxy for that work. Although there is certainly a lot of fuckery going on with the money (currency) itself, but if that's the problem you're alluding to, I don't think summarizing it as "capitalism" is accurate.

mhss 3y ago

You make it sound simple. What's the replacement? UBI is at least somewhat within grasp. Completely replacing capitalism is going to take a long time and it's more likely to happen as incremental improvements.

pmarreck 3y ago

That’s not going to come to fruition, and no amount of dreamy socialist fanfiction’ing is going to make it so. People pay for value. Produce value for others, get paid. LLM’s are tools to make humans able to produce more value, and will not replace humans, although the job market will change, and hopefully utilize humans better. People, NOT machines, are the ultimate judgers of what is valuable and the ultimate producers of value. “no one should have to work to eat” is the most ridiculous gen Z meme going around lately. Like, technically yes, not eating would make you unhealthy and thus unable to contribute yourself, but we also don’t want the opposite of people just sitting home all depressed about being oppressed and not utilizing their gifts while living off mysteriously-produced (paid for or labored over by whom?) gourmet sushi. How about another common meme in response? “We live in a society.”

kortex 3y ago
> Produce value for others, get paid So if a human is unable to produce value, they don't get (food/education/heathcare/<resource>)? That seems to be the implication. We in developed countries already have some amount of "value risk hedging" (I'm loathe to say "socialism" here), we just disagree endlessly how much is the optimal amount. But we've determined that wards of the state, universal education, and some amount of food support for the poor is the absolute bare minimum for a developed society. > People, NOT machines, are the ultimate judgers of what is valuable and the ultimate producers of value. Uhhh we already have software which sifts through resumes to allow/reject candidates, before it gets to any kind of human judge, so we are already gating value assessments.
- pmarreck 3y ago
  > So if a human is unable to produce value, they don't get (food/education/heathcare/<resource>)? I would agree that some people are simply unable to help and need the help themselves and should get it. UBI or some other social safety net should be there for that.

brvsft 3y ago

People don't need money to not die, they need to work to not die. Until the fulfillment of everyone's basic needs can be automated, people are expected to work (disregarding some obvious exceptions). The money is just a proxy for that work. Although there is certainly a lot of fuckery going on with the money (currency) itself, but if that's the problem you're alluding to, I don't think summarizing it as "capitalism" is accurate.