Anyway, some fool will come along shortly and scream, “UBI!”.
It sounds like you have other suggestions? Or at least objections to this one?
But… why would you not replace workers with robots when you can? Serious question.
The alternative is paying people to do an unneeded job, and that’s not sustainable. How do we intend to pay a person who contributes nothing to society?
I feel there are going to be a shitload of questions like this in the coming decade. We’ve navigated such upheavals before, such as during the Industrial Revolution and the beginning of the Information Age. But now? Seems quite different.
Had this talk with a more conservative acquaintance about minimum wage:
“We gotta pay these people a living wage. What about all the dumbasses out there that can’t handle more than a convenience store job?”
“Not my problem.”
“But those people are OUR problem. Want to give them more welfare? Want them to be homeless with all the problems that brings?”
Anyway, some fool will come along shortly and scream, “UBI!”. If you get a simple answer to a complex question, the answering party is simple.
HerbalGamer@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Kepabar@startrek.website 11 months ago
It’s just so hard to see where we transition from here.
We went from a resource economy to a manufacturing economy to a service economy… And now many services are being automated. So what’s next?
I’m in favor of the automation but recognize it’s going to cause pain in the near future.
I’ve seen people tout a ‘creative based economy’, but to be honest LLMs and GANs seen poised to grab that sector before anyone in service can transition to it.
You’d hope all of this would mean an easier life, but so long as capitalism is the name of the game there is zero incentive to spread the benefits among all.
Knusper@feddit.de 11 months ago
Why do you feel this is different from the Industrial Revolution et al? They also made certain jobs redundant. People were either given different tasks or had to find different a new job. It was certainly not easy and I would certainly like things to go over smoother this time around, but in my mind, worst-case is that it will simply go over like in the Industrial Revolution.
SuckMyWang@lemmy.world 11 months ago
What’s the difference with ubi and a higher welfare amount that doesn’t have catches?
Pandantic@midwest.social 11 months ago
Is that a good thing or bad thing to you?
SuckMyWang@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Thanks for asking. Good I suppose. It means all this talk and moaning about being too hard to implement and there’s no system in place is prooven to be I lie. I mean, we already knew it was a lie but this is close to proof that it is. We just tag it onto the system that’s already in place all that really changes is the name. Probably don’t even have to do that to get the same effect.
SmoothIsFast@citizensgaming.com 11 months ago
The problem isn’t the funding it’s people’s reactions. Why slave away for someone else’s company even if it provides utility for your society if you can survive and even thrive creatively on UBI? What happens then, do we get worse class warefare then we have now? What happens when people realize most of what can be automated away at current levels are executive and CEO positions? When they leave with Golden parachutes are you gonna ask for UBI for them? No then we have set a precedent legally for those automated away jobs to not receive UBI or you just facilitated more capitalistic greed for those executives. Is UBI setup on a global scale? No then how do you enforce dual citizenship individuals from collecting UBI and working another job remotely from the second nation they are registered with creating inefficiencies in our program with could make it a target for regressive policies. Think Republicans constantly saying illegals are stealing our benefits so we should block them and cut funding to the programs, how do we defend against those attacks? I mean I can keep going, but the problem is how do we implement this without everything being automated and create a fair and equitable system for all involved? While it would be nice to just throw money at everyone you need to take into account individuals reactions to this. We aren’t in a vacuum and yet we isolate ourselves in echo chambers as if our perspectives are the only ones out there, we loose nuance by doing this and then get aggravated something isn’t done because the cause of that nuance isn’t even on our radar from lacking communication with other people who have differing views and opinions.
Daft_ish@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I for sure 100% want you deciding what we do with the, "dumbasses out there that can’t handle more than a convenience store job?”
pokemaster787@ani.social 11 months ago
Why must we value how a person “contributes to society” via their output for capitalism?
Is studying philosophy useless? Is making art? Is reaping the benefits of a society built upon tens of thousands of years of human innovation to just sit back and relax a bit?
Humanity worked hard to get to a point where this is even a question. If you listen to the capitalists saying “If you’re not working you’re worthless” then you’ve been tricked. Tens of thousands of years of human innovation and suffering to advance society to a point where we don’t all have to work, but the rich want you to think that’s a bad thing. It is not natural that the benefits of all of that effort and suffering should all collect in the hands of a few at the top while everyone else suffers.
The “simple answer” is UBI because there literally is no alternative short of outright killing people that don’t work to maintain automation. You and everyone else deserves a cut of that pie, we and all of our ancestors put blood, sweat, and tears into it. Let the people relax and enjoy the fruits of that society.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Well unfortunately that’s the proposed solution too. When you ask an AI optimist what their solution is for workers after their jobs are replaced by ai, a common answer is a universal basic income. But if you believe it’s unsustainable to pay a person to do a job that could be done by a robot (which for the record isn’t really accurate, as we’ve been sustaining that), then it probably isn’t sustainable to pay that same person for doing nothing…
So we’re left with the same problem, what do we do about the workers?
pokemaster787@ani.social 11 months ago
Why is that unsustainable?
That person isn’t going to spend their life doing “nothing,” humans have an intrinsic need to do something. Psychology has shown us pretty conclusively. The difference is once we’ve automated so much, that can be whatever we want instead of focusing on the bare necessities to survive. The only way “paying someone to do nothing” is unsustainable is if you’ve bought into the lie that our value as human beings is inherently tied to what we produce for capitalism.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I actually don’t agree that is is unsustainable, I was just pointing out the logical falicy. It’s a weird thing to say that “paying a person to do a newly unnecessary job is unsustainable”, especially in the context of AI. It doesn’t make sense to complain about something when the only proposed solution is doing the exact same thing in a more roundabout way.
Also, something that has been done successfully for years doesn’t suddenly become unsustainable just because new methods arise.
It was just a weird post.
But personally, I’m in favor of a UBI, I think it would likely work just fine and solve a plethora of problems that have been ignored in this country (USA) for too long.