• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

UBI - If robots are taking jobs, their wages can be given to us

Orphia Nay said:
If robots are taking jobs, their wages can be given to us.

My idea for Universal Basic Income (UBI) Funding.

After all, we don't have to pay robots.

Discuss.
Click to expand...

Perhaps in the future.

So far, robots have decidedly not taken all the jobs. Maybe someday they will.

When that day arrives, maybe UBI will be more urgent.




I have an idea that some kind of UBI kicks in when the unemployment rate rises above 10%. Basically that's what the government is doing now on an ad hoc basis anyway: The government is sending stimulus checks to everyone due to COVID-19. Think about it: that's UBI, albeit temporary.



For those who say: but how will we pay for it? The answer lies in Modern Monetary Theory. An act of Congress can basically create new money. The national debt is sort of a fiction. Yes, it must be paid, but the government can order up new money to pay it at will. And the central bank can buy up the debt with money it creates from thin air. So "how do we pay for it" isn't actually the problem you might think it is. The money doesn't have to come from taxpayers necessarily, (although some fraction of it may).
 
psionl0 said:
This has been discussed before. People who talk about the mythical jobs in the future invariably use the example of replacing saddle making jobs with jobs in the automobile industry over 100 years ago.

They fail to recognize that all of the new jobs are going to robots and not people. And they refuse to acknowledge that jobs for young people have dried up. Youth unemployment is higher than great depression levels - and that is after taking account that large numbers of the unemployment figures are buried in colleges and trade schools where people can pay up to $100,000 or more to get a degree.
Click to expand...

I started reading this long article which makes a good point (amongst many)

It’s Time for Technology to Serve all Humankind with Unconditional Basic Income | by Scott Santens | Basic Income | Medium

https://medium.com/basic-income/its...-with-unconditional-basic-income-e46329764d28


Scott Santens says that instead of thinking "what will happen when we stop having enough jobs for everyone", we realise that we passed that point in 1990.

psionl0 said:
Basically you can't just tax the bejesus out of robots and use the money for a UBI nor could you force employers to pay high salaries for a short working week. It would make the local product uncompetitive with imports and force local businesses to the wall.

A UBI financed by an equitable tax on all earnings might be made to work if we set the level correctly and if we eliminated other types of social security benefits but we would still need to stop the foreign sector from messing it up (not to mention that the government wouldn't dare to upset the global corporations).
Click to expand...

Yes, good post.

It's not just about the profits saved from having robots do the work.

UBI is a shift in almost every part of society.

It's part of The Great Reset (WEF, IMF, UN, etc initiative).




Our problem is that we're stuck in the mindset that corporations are all bad and don't want to be shamed by a volatile, interconnected society.

They all love to be seen as good at customer service, having ethical work places, being kind to the environment.

Some companies are paying their almost-robot-like job-workers more. Think "sweatshops" in the fashion industry.


lomiller said:
Unemployment (US) in the 16-19 year old age group rose to record highs in the 2008 recession but then steadily declined and by 2019 were are 50 year lows. Post coved they are at record highs again. Volatility seems to be more of an issue than any trend towards youth employment drying up, and in any case maybe kids in that age group are better served spending those hours working on their education.

[qimg]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=txby[/qimg]
Click to expand...

Yes, that shows what Santens was saying.
 
theprestige said:
If we're going to have a universal basic income to sustain a largely idle workforce, then I want universal public works to go with it. People should not get paid to be idle. I'm sure there's plenty of crowd-sourcing credits to be earned on all kinds of projects. I'm sure that even if we expanded business automation by an order of magnitude, there'd still be useful tasks that could be assigned to a legion of citizens working part-time.

Clean up graffiti and trash. Tend to national parks and monuments. Tutor children. Care for the infirm. Produce art. Hell, build a pyramid or two.

Anyway, I can't shake the impression that the whole idea is somehow circular. Nobody is working, so nobody is getting paid. So nobody has any money to buy anything. Then where is the money for the UBI coming from? Taxes? Okay, but what revenue is being taxed, if nobody has any money and nobody is buying anything?

Seems like it would end up being some weirdly elaborate totalitarian barter system. The government orders you to put a robot to work providing goods and services to me, free of charge. And then... orders me to put a robot to work providing goods and services to the people who maintain your robot? Nobody gets paid anything, we all just have to provide stuff for each other somehow.
Click to expand...

A Utopian Illuminati Communist Marxist Socialist Environmental Technocracy for the win.
 
If your job is given to robots their income will be for their employers but the government will give you well fare to survive, just enough to eat i mean.
 
Gaetan said:
If your job is given to robots their income will be for their employers but the government will give you well fare to survive, just enough to eat i mean.
Click to expand...

Nobody got fired when I bought a Roomba or two.

Who will you fire when you get a self driving Tesla?
 
Orphia Nay said:
I started reading this long article which makes a good point (amongst many)

It’s Time for Technology to Serve all Humankind with Unconditional Basic Income | by Scott Santens | Basic Income | Medium

https://medium.com/basic-income/its...-with-unconditional-basic-income-e46329764d28


Scott Santens says that instead of thinking "what will happen when we stop having enough jobs for everyone", we realise that we passed that point in 1990.



Yes, good post.

It's not just about the profits saved from having robots do the work.

UBI is a shift in almost every part of society.

It's part of The Great Reset (WEF, IMF, UN, etc initiative).




Our problem is that we're stuck in the mindset that corporations are all bad and don't want to be shamed by a volatile, interconnected society.

They all love to be seen as good at customer service, having ethical work places, being kind to the environment.

Some companies are paying their almost-robot-like job-workers more. Think "sweatshops" in the fashion industry.




Yes, that shows what Santens was saying.
Click to expand...
Good article there.
I have been making those arguments for some time.

One nitpick, though, I would really prefer if it were referred to as a Guaranteed Annual Stipend.
I like the acronym more.
 
Distracted1 said:
Good article there.
I have been making those arguments for some time.

One nitpick, though, I would really prefer if it were referred to as a Guaranteed Annual Stipend.
I like the acronym more.
Click to expand...

Haha, yes, to supplant the word for the commonly-used fuel source and to weird out historians.
 
Wait, did we just have a thread in the General section in which we pretty much all agreed? :D
 
Orphia Nay said:
If robots are taking jobs, their wages can be given to us.

My idea for Universal Basic Income (UBI) Funding.

After all, we don't have to pay robots.

Discuss.
Click to expand...

No work, no pay, very simple. Sides the robits have to send their lil robits off the College, so they will need a paycheck.
 
Orphia Nay said:
What are some laws about slave labour, ethical workplaces, and unfair dismissal? Those can be relevant to worker/robot transitions.

Let's use our imaginations, people, not just "It can't be done because it hasn't been done yet".
Click to expand...

I't cant be done because you shouldn't get something for nothing.
 
Orphia Nay said:
Wait, did we just have a thread in the General section in which we pretty much all agreed? : D
Click to expand...

I don't think so. You make a lot of assertions that are either inscrutable or debatable, and you don't provide much in the way of explanation or debate for them. I don't see how we can have agreement without more give in the give-and-take. What would you say are our principal points of agreement?
 
Last edited:
theprestige said:
I don't think so. You make a lot of assertions that are either inscrutable or debatable, and you don't provide much in the way of explanation or debate for them. I don't see how we can have agreement without more give in the give-and-take. What would you say are our principal points of agreement?
Click to expand...

I've just been asking questions, not making any claims. And yes, I'm fully aware of the Marquis connotations. :)
 
Orphia Nay said:
I've just been asking questions, not making any claims. And yes, I'm fully aware of the Marquis connotations. : )
Click to expand...

You've made several claims, too. Kind of hard to see what we might agree on, in the face of this dishonesty. And it's the CT connotations of JAQ, that put the Q in my QED on this one.

So. All that aside, what would you say are our main points of agreement?

I mean, Gaetan agrees with your opening claim. Is that the kind of thing you had in mind?
S
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom