4 ms·

What is morally wrong is the idea that everyone should have a job in a society where it's so obviously unnecessary for everyone to work, and where the level of

What is morally wrong is the idea that everyone should have a job in a society where it's so obviously unnecessary for everyone to work, and where the level of productivity is in fact detrimental to the people and their environment in the long term. What I'm saying is that we should get rid of the idea of not having a wage job at all as inherently less respectable than working with anything and introduce a guaranteed minimum income.

jordan0day 14y ago
This, exactly. On hn we can have these discussions (and see a lot of people hold these welfare=lazy straw man views) because most of us have jobs that haven't been automated away... yet. But that day is coming. Probably a lot sooner than most of us realize. I can't help but agree that a policy of full employment or guaranteed minimum income is going to be necessary in the not-too-distant future, unless we're comfortable living in a society where most people are destitute because they weren't born to already-rich parents.
SkyMarshal 14y ago
The problem with that is it incentivizes more and more people to just stop working, and instead become dependent on the guaranteed income, government, and the fewer and fewer who create the wealth necessary to fund that guaranteed income. Someone has to pay for it, and they will extract a price in power. Ultimately you end up with a large portion of the populace dependent, and hence politically powerless, undermining democracy and our republic. The real answer is, as usual, the harder one - continually improving education and access to education for the lower and middle segments, breaking cycles of poverty (and violence where applicable), eradicating Learned Helplessness [1], building better tools that enable more people to adapt to a new environment where machines have supplanted humans for some tasks but not all (FOSS and 3D printing being particularly interesting here). It's a hard, imperfect task that will never be finished, but better than making the entire world completely dependent on a few. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness
Cadsby 14y ago
> and introduce a guaranteed minimum income. Nixon tried this in 70's. It came surprising close to passing on the grounds that it would be far more efficient and lead to better outcomes than the patch work system of social programs we currently have.

jordan0day 14y ago

This, exactly. On hn we can have these discussions (and see a lot of people hold these welfare=lazy straw man views) because most of us have jobs that haven't been automated away... yet. But that day is coming. Probably a lot sooner than most of us realize. I can't help but agree that a policy of full employment or guaranteed minimum income is going to be necessary in the not-too-distant future, unless we're comfortable living in a society where most people are destitute because they weren't born to already-rich parents.

SkyMarshal 14y ago

The problem with that is it incentivizes more and more people to just stop working, and instead become dependent on the guaranteed income, government, and the fewer and fewer who create the wealth necessary to fund that guaranteed income. Someone has to pay for it, and they will extract a price in power. Ultimately you end up with a large portion of the populace dependent, and hence politically powerless, undermining democracy and our republic. The real answer is, as usual, the harder one - continually improving education and access to education for the lower and middle segments, breaking cycles of poverty (and violence where applicable), eradicating Learned Helplessness [1], building better tools that enable more people to adapt to a new environment where machines have supplanted humans for some tasks but not all (FOSS and 3D printing being particularly interesting here). It's a hard, imperfect task that will never be finished, but better than making the entire world completely dependent on a few. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

Cadsby 14y ago

> and introduce a guaranteed minimum income. Nixon tried this in 70's. It came surprising close to passing on the grounds that it would be far more efficient and lead to better outcomes than the patch work system of social programs we currently have.