3 ms·

I am not at all proposing that "people with billions of dollars" somehow directly pay for "the needs of the population as a whole". I'm considering "actual pow

I am not at all proposing that "people with billions of dollars" somehow directly pay for "the needs of the population as a whole". I'm considering "actual power", rather than "actual income".

rayiner 6mo ago
Then who pays for it?
- DavidPiper 6mo ago
  That is the question society is currently asking with articles like this one. Given that (allegedly) "your salary" won't be the answer for a significant chunk of the population soon, and all that money will instead (allegedly) go to the bosses doing the firings, and the AI companies they employ instead.
  - RajT88 6mo ago
    We get a view of this taken to its logical extreme in the final Resident Evil film featuring Milla Jovovich. The entire Earth's population dead, with evil corporate board members holding votes underground as to who gets to be the CEO of the company.
- estimator7292 6mo ago
  Everyone. That includes the small number of people hoarding a majority of the wealth. Everyone needs to contribute to the wellbeing of society as a whole and nobody is exempt.
  - lotsofpulp 6mo ago
    Good luck taking away the detached single family homes, pickup trucks, SUVs, commercial flights, out of season fruits/vegetables, and imported manufactured goods. The people that expect those things are the “ small number of people hoarding a majority of the wealth”, and there are quite a few of them (probably 1B+ worldwide).
    - UltraSane 6mo ago
      Comparing those people to the richest few thousand people in the US and Europe is very disingenuous.
      - lotsofpulp 6mo ago
        My comment did not compare those enjoying detached single family homes and large vehicles and flying to vacations with the richest few thousand people in the US and Europe. Avicebron brought up inequality as the root cause. DavidPiper indicated only the few thousand richest as the root cause. Rayiner questioned if those few thousand richest have the means or capacity to reduce inequality. estimator7292 responded that everyone has to help reduce inequality. To which I wanted to point out exactly what would need to be sacrificed, because it would involve sacrifices among the top 10% to 20% of the world (constituting many on this forum) which those 10% to 20% would not even consider a "luxury". It is easy to claim a billionaire's private jet is an expendable luxury exacerbating inequality, but the reality is the bar is far lower than that (see statistics on energy used per capita, which can serve as a good proxy for which side of the inequality the lifestyle you might expect is). That is why we are all mostly talk and no walk, because push comes to shove, we can't even get a sufficient fossil fuel tax passed to slow climate change for our own descendants, much less voluntarily decrease our standard of living solely for the benefit of others in the world.
      - TeMPOraL 6mo ago
        Yes, but in the opposite way to what you think. Do the math, there's billions of people consuming the overly cheap, massively subsidized goods and services parent listed; there's only so many billionaires and they have only so many billions, and most of it is just fake bullshit accounting paper-shuffling anyway.
        UltraSane 6mo ago
        I have no idea what you are trying to say. Forbes Real-Time Billionaires covers the full ~3,000-person list. The 2025 annual snapshot: 3,028 billionaires with combined net worth of $16.1 trillion
  - drzaiusx11 6mo ago
    I'd like to emphasize that the above should be immediately obvious. The fact that it's not does not bode well for humanity's future. Billionaires simply _should not exist_. The fact that the power to shape societies is concentrated in so few can account for many of the existential threats we face today. AI is not "the problem", it's merely the latest symptom of our broken system and the prioritization of the wrong goals and outcomes. EDIT: grammar
    - smallmancontrov 6mo ago
      AI, automation, and globalization would all be uncontroversially brilliant if the benefits weren't distributed like "150% of net benefit to capital, -50% net benefit to labor, better hope some of it trickles down brokie!"
      - drzaiusx11 6mo ago
        I wholeheartedly agree, these are all "tools" at our disposal. We're just holding them wrong.
    - logicchains 6mo ago
      >Billionaires simply _should not exist_. T If American billionaires couldn't exist then America would be even poorer and underdeveloped than Europe, the entire tech industry wouldn't exist, and it'd be entirely at the mercy of China. Because nobody's going to start a business in a country that violently confiscates their wealth just for being successful. The envy of people like yourself is a deep moral illness that destroys civilizations if left unchecked.
      - wookmaster 6mo ago
        "violently confiscates their wealth just" Sure are jumping to some...conclusions there.
      - drzaiusx11 6mo ago
        Have you actually spent an appreciable amount of time outside of the US? Europe isn't the place of destitution and squalor you imply. I highly suggest it, to widen your perspective at least. Maybe then you'll see it's quite the reverse in many cases.
  - GarnetFloride 6mo ago
    A quote that stuck with me: "We are all crew on Spaceship Earth. There are no passengers." And anyone that thinks they are the captain, is wrong.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
- scotty79 6mo ago
  At societal level money is not a resource. Money is just a way of keeping track to how high of a fraction of the future output of the civilization any one person or entity is entitled to. This is by consent. With AI all is subject to change.
  - classified 6mo ago
    > With AI all is subject to change. Nope. AI is an accelerant that makes the divide between rich and poor grow even faster.
- jplusequalt 6mo ago
  Raising taxes is the only possible way a UBI would be feasible, and even then it wouldn't be a large enough amount for most people to live off of. Also, a UBI is likely to cause inflation.
  - azinman2 6mo ago
    I don’t understand why welfare is the answer. To me it seems we’ve super failed if that’s the case — just brings everyone down except a few ultra rich people.
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
    - ori_b 6mo ago
      If the promises of AGI pan out, there will be nothing a human will be able to do better than an AI. If humans can't contribute economically, what else could things look like?
    - jfengel 6mo ago
      UBI is not welfare. It is just a livable minimum wage, for everyone who works. For those who cannot work, it replaces welfare, but that is not it's primary purpose. As a welfare replacement, it is much more efficient, since there is no effort spent determining who qualifies. People can spent their money however they want, rather than the patchwork of separate programs we have now. It doesn't need to bring anyone down. It's just a different way of distributing what we already receive. For you ordinary workers, they will receive $X in a monthly check, and their salary can be reduced by $X (since the minimum wage can also be abolished). That does mean that the desirability of some jobs will shift. Good. We have a bunch of very dirty jobs being done for minimum wage, even though demand is extremely high. I'd love to see the garbage men and chicken processors get more money for their dangerous work. And if I get less for my cushy desk job, oh well. Especially since we seem to be putting all of the effort into replacing me, and none into the jobs that come with hazards to life and limb.
      - 6mo ago
- UltraSane 6mo ago
  A national dividend from the combined profits of all companies.
- fn-mote 6mo ago
  Frankly, the entire world is now paying for what is happening in the US. Were you talking about specifically how do you restrain the power of massive corporations to harm people? AI is coming but a lot of the other things that are happening are preventable - like the rise of no-benefit gig work.
- raydev 6mo ago
  That is a great question for those in power to figure out before the masses get upset enough to harm them.
- alsetmusic 6mo ago
  We all do. With our taxes. It’s just that the people allocate our taxes refuse to spend it responsibly. We could fix education. We could take care of the unhoused. We could treat addiction. We could pay for healthcare for everyone. They’d much rather blow money on military spending and stupid unnecessary wars and funding genocide. The richest nation in world history and we can’t spend any of it for the betterment of our citizens. It’s disgraceful.
  - rsoto2 6mo ago
    We gotta end citizens united, corporations and weapons manufacturers are incentivized to lobby congress and enable wars and starvation abroad. Billionaires need to be taxed out of existence so we can stop spending our collective wealth on dumb shit contracts for palantir and elon musks dogshit companies.
rsoto2 6mo ago
They should absolutely pay for it through higher corporate taxation which is how businesses are incentivized to grow their business instead of stashing away wealth. Get rid of citizens united corporations are not people and they have stolen our democracy.

I am not at all proposing that "people with billions of dollars" somehow directly pay for "the needs of the population as a whole". I'm considering "actual power", rather than "actual income".

rayiner 6mo ago

Then who pays for it?

DavidPiper 6mo ago
That is the question society is currently asking with articles like this one. Given that (allegedly) "your salary" won't be the answer for a significant chunk of the population soon, and all that money will instead (allegedly) go to the bosses doing the firings, and the AI companies they employ instead.
- RajT88 6mo ago
  We get a view of this taken to its logical extreme in the final Resident Evil film featuring Milla Jovovich. The entire Earth's population dead, with evil corporate board members holding votes underground as to who gets to be the CEO of the company.
estimator7292 6mo ago
Everyone. That includes the small number of people hoarding a majority of the wealth. Everyone needs to contribute to the wellbeing of society as a whole and nobody is exempt.
- lotsofpulp 6mo ago
  Good luck taking away the detached single family homes, pickup trucks, SUVs, commercial flights, out of season fruits/vegetables, and imported manufactured goods. The people that expect those things are the “ small number of people hoarding a majority of the wealth”, and there are quite a few of them (probably 1B+ worldwide).
  - UltraSane 6mo ago
    Comparing those people to the richest few thousand people in the US and Europe is very disingenuous.
    - lotsofpulp 6mo ago
      My comment did not compare those enjoying detached single family homes and large vehicles and flying to vacations with the richest few thousand people in the US and Europe. Avicebron brought up inequality as the root cause. DavidPiper indicated only the few thousand richest as the root cause. Rayiner questioned if those few thousand richest have the means or capacity to reduce inequality. estimator7292 responded that everyone has to help reduce inequality. To which I wanted to point out exactly what would need to be sacrificed, because it would involve sacrifices among the top 10% to 20% of the world (constituting many on this forum) which those 10% to 20% would not even consider a "luxury". It is easy to claim a billionaire's private jet is an expendable luxury exacerbating inequality, but the reality is the bar is far lower than that (see statistics on energy used per capita, which can serve as a good proxy for which side of the inequality the lifestyle you might expect is). That is why we are all mostly talk and no walk, because push comes to shove, we can't even get a sufficient fossil fuel tax passed to slow climate change for our own descendants, much less voluntarily decrease our standard of living solely for the benefit of others in the world.
    - TeMPOraL 6mo ago
      Yes, but in the opposite way to what you think. Do the math, there's billions of people consuming the overly cheap, massively subsidized goods and services parent listed; there's only so many billionaires and they have only so many billions, and most of it is just fake bullshit accounting paper-shuffling anyway.
      - UltraSane 6mo ago
        I have no idea what you are trying to say. Forbes Real-Time Billionaires covers the full ~3,000-person list. The 2025 annual snapshot: 3,028 billionaires with combined net worth of $16.1 trillion
- drzaiusx11 6mo ago
  I'd like to emphasize that the above should be immediately obvious. The fact that it's not does not bode well for humanity's future. Billionaires simply _should not exist_. The fact that the power to shape societies is concentrated in so few can account for many of the existential threats we face today. AI is not "the problem", it's merely the latest symptom of our broken system and the prioritization of the wrong goals and outcomes. EDIT: grammar
  - smallmancontrov 6mo ago
    AI, automation, and globalization would all be uncontroversially brilliant if the benefits weren't distributed like "150% of net benefit to capital, -50% net benefit to labor, better hope some of it trickles down brokie!"
    - drzaiusx11 6mo ago
      I wholeheartedly agree, these are all "tools" at our disposal. We're just holding them wrong.
  - logicchains 6mo ago
    >Billionaires simply _should not exist_. T If American billionaires couldn't exist then America would be even poorer and underdeveloped than Europe, the entire tech industry wouldn't exist, and it'd be entirely at the mercy of China. Because nobody's going to start a business in a country that violently confiscates their wealth just for being successful. The envy of people like yourself is a deep moral illness that destroys civilizations if left unchecked.
    - wookmaster 6mo ago
      "violently confiscates their wealth just" Sure are jumping to some...conclusions there.
    - drzaiusx11 6mo ago
      Have you actually spent an appreciable amount of time outside of the US? Europe isn't the place of destitution and squalor you imply. I highly suggest it, to widen your perspective at least. Maybe then you'll see it's quite the reverse in many cases.
- GarnetFloride 6mo ago
  A quote that stuck with me: "We are all crew on Spaceship Earth. There are no passengers." And anyone that thinks they are the captain, is wrong.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
scotty79 6mo ago
At societal level money is not a resource. Money is just a way of keeping track to how high of a fraction of the future output of the civilization any one person or entity is entitled to. This is by consent. With AI all is subject to change.
- classified 6mo ago
  > With AI all is subject to change. Nope. AI is an accelerant that makes the divide between rich and poor grow even faster.
jplusequalt 6mo ago
Raising taxes is the only possible way a UBI would be feasible, and even then it wouldn't be a large enough amount for most people to live off of. Also, a UBI is likely to cause inflation.
- azinman2 6mo ago
  I don’t understand why welfare is the answer. To me it seems we’ve super failed if that’s the case — just brings everyone down except a few ultra rich people.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - ori_b 6mo ago
    If the promises of AGI pan out, there will be nothing a human will be able to do better than an AI. If humans can't contribute economically, what else could things look like?
  - jfengel 6mo ago
    UBI is not welfare. It is just a livable minimum wage, for everyone who works. For those who cannot work, it replaces welfare, but that is not it's primary purpose. As a welfare replacement, it is much more efficient, since there is no effort spent determining who qualifies. People can spent their money however they want, rather than the patchwork of separate programs we have now. It doesn't need to bring anyone down. It's just a different way of distributing what we already receive. For you ordinary workers, they will receive $X in a monthly check, and their salary can be reduced by $X (since the minimum wage can also be abolished). That does mean that the desirability of some jobs will shift. Good. We have a bunch of very dirty jobs being done for minimum wage, even though demand is extremely high. I'd love to see the garbage men and chicken processors get more money for their dangerous work. And if I get less for my cushy desk job, oh well. Especially since we seem to be putting all of the effort into replacing me, and none into the jobs that come with hazards to life and limb.
    - 6mo ago
UltraSane 6mo ago
A national dividend from the combined profits of all companies.
fn-mote 6mo ago
Frankly, the entire world is now paying for what is happening in the US. Were you talking about specifically how do you restrain the power of massive corporations to harm people? AI is coming but a lot of the other things that are happening are preventable - like the rise of no-benefit gig work.
raydev 6mo ago
That is a great question for those in power to figure out before the masses get upset enough to harm them.
alsetmusic 6mo ago
We all do. With our taxes. It’s just that the people allocate our taxes refuse to spend it responsibly. We could fix education. We could take care of the unhoused. We could treat addiction. We could pay for healthcare for everyone. They’d much rather blow money on military spending and stupid unnecessary wars and funding genocide. The richest nation in world history and we can’t spend any of it for the betterment of our citizens. It’s disgraceful.
- rsoto2 6mo ago
  We gotta end citizens united, corporations and weapons manufacturers are incentivized to lobby congress and enable wars and starvation abroad. Billionaires need to be taxed out of existence so we can stop spending our collective wealth on dumb shit contracts for palantir and elon musks dogshit companies.

rsoto2 6mo ago

They should absolutely pay for it through higher corporate taxation which is how businesses are incentivized to grow their business instead of stashing away wealth. Get rid of citizens united corporations are not people and they have stolen our democracy.