5 ms·

We'll all be on the beach at that point collecting our universal basic income right?

vouaobrasil 3y ago
I don't know, that could happen. But that's not really a great life...hamsters and pet birds also "sit on the beach" and collect "universal basic income" with some limited form of entertainment (hamser wheels and bright toys), but I for one do NOT want to be in a cage. I want genuine autonomy over my life, not being a cog in a machine, maintaining some AI machine whose needs for humanity dwindle over the year.
- optimalsolver 3y ago
  >I want genuine autonomy over my life, not being a cog in a machine So that's not the case for you now?
- squigz 3y ago
  > I want genuine autonomy over my life, not being a cog in a machine I have some news for you about life for the vast majority of people right now... Including yourself, most likely
  - supriyo-biswas 3y ago
    What a terrible misreading of parent's comments, that's completely not in the spirit of HN and its guidelines[1]. You may feel like a cog in society, and at present, this is often not the case, compared to the situation which I talked about in a sibling comment[2]. If you disagree, try this: find a new job and put in your resignation and say that you're leaving effective immediately (or with a very short notice). Most likely, you'll have your manager and HR scrambling to get a proper handover, and sometimes followed with private comments berating you for your "lack of professionalism" and other comments like "why are you doing this to us" and "can we keep you for a little longer, please" (in violation of HR policy for the maximum notice period). In an age where AI has replaced most humans, people would lose all leverage, and would be forced into zero-sum games (killing and maiming other people to steal their wealth) as they would not have any other mechanism to prove their worth and improve their standing in society. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39743566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39743566
    - squigz 3y ago
      > In an age where AI has replaced most humans, people would lose all leverage, and would be forced into zero-sum games (killing and maiming other people to steal their wealth) as they would not have any other mechanism to prove their worth and improve their standing in society. I don't know about you but maybe the fact so many people determine their entire worth from their job is more problematic than inventing technology that will enable people to pursue more worthwhile objectives of their own choosing.
      - supriyo-biswas 3y ago
        I strongly suspect that a forcing function that causes people to have challenges that proves their self worth, society is likely to collapse in the style of the "behavioral sink" experiment[1] (though I agree the way it'd play out in humans would be a bit different). Traditionally, these challenges have come through challenges associated with a hunter-gatherer or an agricultural lifestyle, and in contemporary times, it is associated with a job. There are other forms which can make feel people rewarded, such as through the excess consumption of food or social media activity, but since they do not have an associated mental or physical challenge, they only have negative worth and cannot be the basis for someone's self worth and value. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
        squigz 3y ago
        > Traditionally, these challenges have come through challenges associated with a hunter-gatherer or an agricultural lifestyle, and in contemporary times, it is associated with a job. Maybe it's time we found other "forcing functions"?
        supriyo-biswas 3y ago
        I'm not aware of mechanisms that could replace these; could you propose some that would work in a world where most or all jobs have been replaced with AI or other automated systems?
- supriyo-biswas 3y ago
  It's good to see other people talk about what I've been privately warning about amongst my circles for almost 5 years now, though no one has really taken it seriously and I've been often dismissed as a conspiracy nut for saying this. The reason citizens like you and me are kept around is because we have typically provided some form of economic output, in the form of labor and taxes, to society, and indirectly to the wealthy and powerful class, which is billionaires and politicians. If most citizens don't have anything to contribute in an economy, they can be eliminated entirely from society so that this class can win the zero-sum games in society, and have natural resources to themselves. Thus, in the best case, commoners will be kept around in government provided housing (with all the things that it implies), with strict limits on reproduction and a very small baseline of resources so as to give the appearance that the government wasn't killing its people, though death would still be incentivized in the form of lower standards of medical care, so that society's dead weight can be eliminated. In the worst case, politicians and billionaires would simply join forces to eliminate aforementioned dead weight through mass genocide. There is no downside to this, except that the first country to do this may have to face criticism, but I suspect eventually all countries would move in that direction once a few have taken their first step and established precedent.
  - martyfmelb 3y ago
    You're not the only person who has had this idea. I have too. This is the first time I've seen someone else say it quite like this. I have to say, it's more confronting to hear it come from someone else. The interesting part will be the violent conflict inherent in this turn of events. Will it be so easy to mow down billions of people? Will a way be found to do the job without the natural resistance of empathetic humans (A virus? A very large drone swarm? Pin-sharp training of a traditional police force?). How fast is too risky to execute? How _slow_ is too risky to execute?
- jimberlage 3y ago
  I like this analogy, especially because lots of homeless people sit on the beach without things to do, and we don’t really envy that they have the time to write the next great American novel.
  - CuriouslyC 3y ago
    Being homeless in a place with a nice climate isn't bad, you can camp every night under starry skies, read books, make art, hang out with your friends and hook up with hippie chicks. It only gets shitty when you get sick or the weather gets bad.
- hackerlight 3y ago
  > But that's not really a great life Most people on this planet would figuratively kill for that life. It's a crushing existence trying to survive on below $10000/year.
jimberlage 3y ago
It feels like this might be sarcastic? But if not Based on how the US currently rolls out universal programs, UBI probably looks a lot more like the current Section 8 housing program. They’re gonna guarantee something minimally livable, not beachfront property.
- pzo 3y ago
  and only if you are US citizen/resident. There will be only few country/winners in this game for now most likely: US, China, France.
- throwuwu 3y ago
  UBI won’t happen but the price of most goods and services will fall to a tiny fraction of what they are now. There will still be people who are considered impoverished but they’ll likely have a higher standard of living than you do.
Cloudef 3y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvk_XylEmLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvk_XylEmLo

I don't know, that could happen. But that's not really a great life...hamsters and pet birds also "sit on the beach" and collect "universal basic income" with some limited form of entertainment (hamser wheels and bright toys), but I for one do NOT want to be in a cage. I want genuine autonomy over my life, not being a cog in a machine, maintaining some AI machine whose needs for humanity dwindle over the year.

optimalsolver 3y ago
>I want genuine autonomy over my life, not being a cog in a machine So that's not the case for you now?
squigz 3y ago
> I want genuine autonomy over my life, not being a cog in a machine I have some news for you about life for the vast majority of people right now... Including yourself, most likely
- supriyo-biswas 3y ago
  What a terrible misreading of parent's comments, that's completely not in the spirit of HN and its guidelines[1]. You may feel like a cog in society, and at present, this is often not the case, compared to the situation which I talked about in a sibling comment[2]. If you disagree, try this: find a new job and put in your resignation and say that you're leaving effective immediately (or with a very short notice). Most likely, you'll have your manager and HR scrambling to get a proper handover, and sometimes followed with private comments berating you for your "lack of professionalism" and other comments like "why are you doing this to us" and "can we keep you for a little longer, please" (in violation of HR policy for the maximum notice period). In an age where AI has replaced most humans, people would lose all leverage, and would be forced into zero-sum games (killing and maiming other people to steal their wealth) as they would not have any other mechanism to prove their worth and improve their standing in society. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39743566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39743566
  - squigz 3y ago
    > In an age where AI has replaced most humans, people would lose all leverage, and would be forced into zero-sum games (killing and maiming other people to steal their wealth) as they would not have any other mechanism to prove their worth and improve their standing in society. I don't know about you but maybe the fact so many people determine their entire worth from their job is more problematic than inventing technology that will enable people to pursue more worthwhile objectives of their own choosing.
    - supriyo-biswas 3y ago
      I strongly suspect that a forcing function that causes people to have challenges that proves their self worth, society is likely to collapse in the style of the "behavioral sink" experiment[1] (though I agree the way it'd play out in humans would be a bit different). Traditionally, these challenges have come through challenges associated with a hunter-gatherer or an agricultural lifestyle, and in contemporary times, it is associated with a job. There are other forms which can make feel people rewarded, such as through the excess consumption of food or social media activity, but since they do not have an associated mental or physical challenge, they only have negative worth and cannot be the basis for someone's self worth and value. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
      - squigz 3y ago
        > Traditionally, these challenges have come through challenges associated with a hunter-gatherer or an agricultural lifestyle, and in contemporary times, it is associated with a job. Maybe it's time we found other "forcing functions"?
        supriyo-biswas 3y ago
        I'm not aware of mechanisms that could replace these; could you propose some that would work in a world where most or all jobs have been replaced with AI or other automated systems?
supriyo-biswas 3y ago
It's good to see other people talk about what I've been privately warning about amongst my circles for almost 5 years now, though no one has really taken it seriously and I've been often dismissed as a conspiracy nut for saying this. The reason citizens like you and me are kept around is because we have typically provided some form of economic output, in the form of labor and taxes, to society, and indirectly to the wealthy and powerful class, which is billionaires and politicians. If most citizens don't have anything to contribute in an economy, they can be eliminated entirely from society so that this class can win the zero-sum games in society, and have natural resources to themselves. Thus, in the best case, commoners will be kept around in government provided housing (with all the things that it implies), with strict limits on reproduction and a very small baseline of resources so as to give the appearance that the government wasn't killing its people, though death would still be incentivized in the form of lower standards of medical care, so that society's dead weight can be eliminated. In the worst case, politicians and billionaires would simply join forces to eliminate aforementioned dead weight through mass genocide. There is no downside to this, except that the first country to do this may have to face criticism, but I suspect eventually all countries would move in that direction once a few have taken their first step and established precedent.
- martyfmelb 3y ago
  You're not the only person who has had this idea. I have too. This is the first time I've seen someone else say it quite like this. I have to say, it's more confronting to hear it come from someone else. The interesting part will be the violent conflict inherent in this turn of events. Will it be so easy to mow down billions of people? Will a way be found to do the job without the natural resistance of empathetic humans (A virus? A very large drone swarm? Pin-sharp training of a traditional police force?). How fast is too risky to execute? How _slow_ is too risky to execute?
jimberlage 3y ago
I like this analogy, especially because lots of homeless people sit on the beach without things to do, and we don’t really envy that they have the time to write the next great American novel.
- CuriouslyC 3y ago
  Being homeless in a place with a nice climate isn't bad, you can camp every night under starry skies, read books, make art, hang out with your friends and hook up with hippie chicks. It only gets shitty when you get sick or the weather gets bad.
hackerlight 3y ago
> But that's not really a great life Most people on this planet would figuratively kill for that life. It's a crushing existence trying to survive on below $10000/year.

jimberlage 3y ago

It feels like this might be sarcastic? But if not Based on how the US currently rolls out universal programs, UBI probably looks a lot more like the current Section 8 housing program. They’re gonna guarantee something minimally livable, not beachfront property.

pzo 3y ago
and only if you are US citizen/resident. There will be only few country/winners in this game for now most likely: US, China, France.
throwuwu 3y ago
UBI won’t happen but the price of most goods and services will fall to a tiny fraction of what they are now. There will still be people who are considered impoverished but they’ll likely have a higher standard of living than you do.

Cloudef 3y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvk_XylEmLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvk_XylEmLo