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That's the thing, instead of giving people a universal basic income and distorting the prices we should really keep on striving to make the essentials that peop

by kokey 13y ago

That's the thing, instead of giving people a universal basic income and distorting the prices we should really keep on striving to make the essentials that people need as cheap as possible.

guard-of-terra 13y ago
Which basically means things that do not scale will skyrocket in price. You already see this as prices of education and housing grow decade to decade. Essentials are: bad food that doesn't taste well, bad housing, bad medical care, bad transportation and bad service. That's what Soviet Union consistently delivered to every citizen and while there were vitrually no hungry, unemployed or homeless people, nobody felt happy too, everybody fought to be able to afford a tiny bit of something of quality. In short, cheap essentials are not so cool.
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  Also, we're talking about world where robots produce those cheap essentials out of soil and solar/nuclear power, leaving many more unemployed competing for ever shrinking pool of jobs that are not done by robots out of free solar/nuclear power. Basically it's not any kind of a solution, it's exactly where we are headed now.
  - dkrich 13y ago
    I don't understand why this is a problem. A job is something you have to do to complete a task. Somebody pays you for it because it brings them some value. If they can get that task completed for a lower rate, why is that a bad thing? Sure, in the short-term you lose the paycheck you received for completing that task, but in the long-term that person who paid you is now wealthier, which enables them to spend money elsewhere. This causes the jobs to migrate to where things need to be done. I assure you we are still a very long way from accomplishing all tasks that need to be done and for which people would be willing to pay. But if we ever did reach that point, nobody would need to work because everything would be free.

by kokey 13y ago

That's the thing, instead of giving people a universal basic income and distorting the prices we should really keep on striving to make the essentials that people need as cheap as possible.

guard-of-terra 13y ago

Which basically means things that do not scale will skyrocket in price. You already see this as prices of education and housing grow decade to decade. Essentials are: bad food that doesn't taste well, bad housing, bad medical care, bad transportation and bad service. That's what Soviet Union consistently delivered to every citizen and while there were vitrually no hungry, unemployed or homeless people, nobody felt happy too, everybody fought to be able to afford a tiny bit of something of quality. In short, cheap essentials are not so cool.

TeMPOraL 13y ago
Also, we're talking about world where robots produce those cheap essentials out of soil and solar/nuclear power, leaving many more unemployed competing for ever shrinking pool of jobs that are not done by robots out of free solar/nuclear power. Basically it's not any kind of a solution, it's exactly where we are headed now.
- dkrich 13y ago
  I don't understand why this is a problem. A job is something you have to do to complete a task. Somebody pays you for it because it brings them some value. If they can get that task completed for a lower rate, why is that a bad thing? Sure, in the short-term you lose the paycheck you received for completing that task, but in the long-term that person who paid you is now wealthier, which enables them to spend money elsewhere. This causes the jobs to migrate to where things need to be done. I assure you we are still a very long way from accomplishing all tasks that need to be done and for which people would be willing to pay. But if we ever did reach that point, nobody would need to work because everything would be free.