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2) and 5) assume people let go or fired have ways to make money afterwards. That's the high question mark no one is really considering right now. People can't s

2) and 5) assume people let go or fired have ways to make money afterwards. That's the high question mark no one is really considering right now. People can't spend money they don't have. I think people talk excitedly about this post-labor society without considering how we upkeep it while all the value labor is managed by billionaires and worked on by an exceedingly small labor force maintaining the real labor force of AI. Current directions don't support topic ideals like UBI.

cma 2y ago
Progressive taxes
jillesvangurp 2y ago
I don't subscribe to this narrow view of economics. The AI fallacy is that whatever they do cheaply just stops being valuable. We pay a little for it, but we spend most of what we have on other things. What that is shifts over time. Pre-industrial revolution it was food and agriculture. Then it shifted to manufacturing. Today it's people doing stuff for other people (aka. services). Over time, we work less and less and we earn more and more. You mention UBI. You could actually argue that we already have some notion of that. It's just a terribly inefficient, poorly administered, and very costly, and not very good version of it. People don't starve, they mostly have access to health care (the US being an exception to this relative to most countries, including most developing nations). And shelter too (people freezing to death because they can't hide from the elements is pretty rare). Many people live on what they get for free. It's called charity, social security, unemployment, pension, childhood, etc. But one way or another, somebody provides for them. And being dependent on just the free stuff is something that would horrify most normal people. But it's there for pretty much everyone. Feudalism is cyclic. It comes and goes. We had a lot of it early last century. And then we got communism, socialism, unions, etc. And a surge in economic wealth for the middle class after things were rebalanced. The post WW II economic boom in the US was powered by Roosevelt's new deal. I don't think there's much respect or loyalty to the current batch of trillionaires. They can exist only because people allow them to. Future governments could find themselves empowered and tasked to do something about the economic wealth distribution. Such things have happened before. Often after some kind of revolution.

cma 2y ago

Progressive taxes

jillesvangurp 2y ago

I don't subscribe to this narrow view of economics. The AI fallacy is that whatever they do cheaply just stops being valuable. We pay a little for it, but we spend most of what we have on other things. What that is shifts over time. Pre-industrial revolution it was food and agriculture. Then it shifted to manufacturing. Today it's people doing stuff for other people (aka. services). Over time, we work less and less and we earn more and more. You mention UBI. You could actually argue that we already have some notion of that. It's just a terribly inefficient, poorly administered, and very costly, and not very good version of it. People don't starve, they mostly have access to health care (the US being an exception to this relative to most countries, including most developing nations). And shelter too (people freezing to death because they can't hide from the elements is pretty rare). Many people live on what they get for free. It's called charity, social security, unemployment, pension, childhood, etc. But one way or another, somebody provides for them. And being dependent on just the free stuff is something that would horrify most normal people. But it's there for pretty much everyone. Feudalism is cyclic. It comes and goes. We had a lot of it early last century. And then we got communism, socialism, unions, etc. And a surge in economic wealth for the middle class after things were rebalanced. The post WW II economic boom in the US was powered by Roosevelt's new deal. I don't think there's much respect or loyalty to the current batch of trillionaires. They can exist only because people allow them to. Future governments could find themselves empowered and tasked to do something about the economic wealth distribution. Such things have happened before. Often after some kind of revolution.