(Universal Basic Income) Freedom Dividend of $1K/Month

[surfndestroy]

I'm a supporter of UBI but there is lots that hasn't been though. I'm in favor of it because I think it is the only path forward with automation and environmental issues. I'd like to see about 75% of the government cut with it's implementation. You get your money and no services. No subsidized housing, no school lunch program. Government would exist to provide basic infrastructure, apply zoning laws, provide schooling and healthcare, pay the UBI and not much else.

[Bi_3]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ ... -1.4768626

[4/5]

It's hard to reference history when finding the right path forward in a world with NO TRUCK DRIVERS. What are these idiots going to do for an income? This technological advancement is not the same as before.

The agricultural and industrial revolutions beg to differ. The AI revolution, though different in nature, will unequivocally improve productivity and provide for all of us - yes, including displaced truck drivers - lives of markedly higher quality. The Model-T ruined life for carriage drivers, and the ATM ruined life for bank tellers. Somehow, we survived.

It is not wise to put a premium on the economic opinions of philosophers and lawyers-turned-aspiring-politicians.

Obviously I agree with your general assertion that technology improvements are good for humankind even though the transition can be painful. But the fact is that the transition can be painful and that pain is not equally distributed. Your claim that it will help ALL people is simply not true. There are people who are negatively impacted by advancements in technology, immigration, and free trade. In my personal opinion all three of those things are unequivocally positive and we should not erect barriers to progress in the name of protecting some easily-identifiable group of people who will be displaced because the gains to society as a whole, and even more importantly, to future generations (including the very children of the people who are hurt today) are so large as to offset the negatives.

But I think making statements or implying that every single person will be better off is careless. Some people are negatively impacted temporarily, but there is a group (and I tend to think it's rather small, but I believe it exists nonetheless) that will be permanently worse off and no amount of cheaper goods or additional choices, etc. will be able to make up for the losses that they have personally endured. I think it does a disservice to the free market position to claim otherwise because a market skeptic, or really anybody who isn't 100% convinced of the merits of such a position, can read that and easily think to himself of towns that have been desolated by factories shutting down or people who haven't been able to find a job that pays anywhere near as well as before or people who have literally taken their own lives because of economic hardship that resulted from technological advancement. And when he can so easily disprove one claim it inevitably causes him to be even more skeptical of an ideology/perspective that could make such an assertion.

Of course I agree that the job that person had before might not have existed at all or almost surely wouldn't have paid as well if hadn't been for free trade or other technological advancement, etc., etc. I am only taking issue with the claim that literally everybody will be better off. Hopefully the above paragraph was clear in why I chose to take issue with this. It wasn't in hopes of a pedantic debate, but because I think stuff like that turns people away from the market perspective, which would be unfortunate.

[---]

It's hard to reference history when finding the right path forward in a world with NO TRUCK DRIVERS. What are these idiots going to do for an income? This technological advancement is not the same as before.

The agricultural and industrial revolutions beg to differ. The AI revolution, though different in nature, will unequivocally improve productivity and provide for all of us - yes, including displaced truck drivers - lives of markedly higher quality. The Model-T ruined life for carriage drivers, and the ATM ruined life for bank tellers. Somehow, we survived.

It is not wise to put a premium on the economic opinions of philosophers and lawyers-turned-aspiring-politicians.

Obviously I agree with your general assertion that technology improvements are good for humankind even though the transition can be painful. But the fact is that the transition can be painful and that pain is not equally distributed. Your claim that it will help ALL people is simply not true. There are people who are negatively impacted by advancements in technology, immigration, and free trade. In my personal opinion all three of those things are unequivocally positive and we should not erect barriers to progress in the name of protecting some easily-identifiable group of people who will be displaced because the gains to society as a whole, and even more importantly, to future generations (including the very children of the people who are hurt today) are so large as to offset the negatives.

But I think making statements or implying that every single person will be better off is careless. Some people are negatively impacted temporarily, but there is a group (and I tend to think it's rather small, but I believe it exists nonetheless) that will be permanently worse off and no amount of cheaper goods or additional choices, etc. will be able to make up for the losses that they have personally endured. I think it does a disservice to the free market position to claim otherwise because a market skeptic, or really anybody who isn't 100% convinced of the merits of such a position, can read that and easily think to himself of towns that have been desolated by factories shutting down or people who haven't been able to find a job that pays anywhere near as well as before or people who have literally taken their own lives because of economic hardship that resulted from technological advancement. And when he can so easily disprove one claim it inevitably causes him to be even more skeptical of an ideology/perspective that could make such an assertion.

Of course I agree that the job that person had before might not have existed at all or almost surely wouldn't have paid as well if hadn't been for free trade or other technological advancement, etc., etc. I am only taking issue with the claim that literally everybody will be better off. Hopefully the above paragraph was clear in why I chose to take issue with this. It wasn't in hopes of a pedantic debate, but because I think stuff like that turns people away from the market perspective, which would be unfortunate.

You are, of course, correct.

Nothing is costless, including the policies for which I would advocate. Technology, immigration, and free trade impose costs on a very small but very identifiable - and, too often, politically sympathetic - set of individuals and groups. I suppose I neglected accounting for the costs not to mislead but to instead avoid losing the forest for the tree_s.

[Birds in Hell]

Eliminating the need for labor should be the most beautiful step in human evolution. A society should then be free to focus on things that offer meaning and pleasure and joy.

This sounds like a kind of hell on earth. Work gives people purpose and dignity. I agree that a lot of modern work doesn’t always provide those things, but I don’t think eliminating work is ultimately going to help. Better, more meaningful work would, at least I hope.

[Monkey_Driven]

Eliminating the need for labor should be the most beautiful step in human evolution. A society should then be free to focus on things that offer meaning and pleasure and joy.

This sounds like a kind of hell on earth. Work gives people purpose and dignity. I agree that a lot of modern work doesn’t always provide those things, but I don’t think eliminating work is ultimately going to help. Better, more meaningful work would, at least I hope.

The biggest fault in LV's statement is that it assumes that work does not ever give life meaning, pleasure, and/or joy.

[LoathedVermin72]

Eliminating the need for labor should be the most beautiful step in human evolution. A society should then be free to focus on things that offer meaning and pleasure and joy.

This sounds like a kind of hell on earth. Work gives people purpose and dignity. I agree that a lot of modern work doesn’t always provide those things, but I don’t think eliminating work is ultimately going to help. Better, more meaningful work would, at least I hope.

The biggest fault in LV's statement is that it assumes that work does not ever give life meaning, pleasure, and/or joy.

Maybe for like 10% of the population. For the rest of us, it’s hell.

The concept of “dignity in labor” is the biggest con job the ruling class has ever pulled. There is nothing dignified in being exploited. Work - under the current societal framework - is utterly dehumanizing.

[---]

Eliminating the need for labor should be the most beautiful step in human evolution. A society should then be free to focus on things that offer meaning and pleasure and joy.

This sounds like a kind of hell on earth. Work gives people purpose and dignity. I agree that a lot of modern work doesn’t always provide those things, but I don’t think eliminating work is ultimately going to help. Better, more meaningful work would, at least I hope.

The biggest fault in LV's statement is that it assumes that work does not ever give life meaning, pleasure, and/or joy.

Maybe for like 10% of the population. For the rest of us, it’s hell.

The concept of “dignity in labor” is the biggest con job the ruling class has ever pulled. There is nothing dignified in being exploited. Work - under the current societal framework - is utterly dehumanizing.

searing analysis, comrade

[LoathedVermin72]

Eliminating the need for labor should be the most beautiful step in human evolution. A society should then be free to focus on things that offer meaning and pleasure and joy.

This sounds like a kind of hell on earth. Work gives people purpose and dignity. I agree that a lot of modern work doesn’t always provide those things, but I don’t think eliminating work is ultimately going to help. Better, more meaningful work would, at least I hope.

The biggest fault in LV's statement is that it assumes that work does not ever give life meaning, pleasure, and/or joy.

Maybe for like 10% of the population. For the rest of us, it’s hell.

The concept of “dignity in labor” is the biggest con job the ruling class has ever pulled. There is nothing dignified in being exploited. Work - under the current societal framework - is utterly dehumanizing.

searing analysis, comrade

Devastating insight, you sure showed me

[4/5]

The concept of “dignity in labor” is the biggest con job the ruling class has ever pulled. There is nothing dignified in being exploited. Work - under the current societal framework - is utterly dehumanizing.

What's the tipping point when work becomes exploitative?

[LoathedVermin72]

The concept of “dignity in labor” is the biggest con job the ruling class has ever pulled. There is nothing dignified in being exploited. Work - under the current societal framework - is utterly dehumanizing.

What's the tipping point when work becomes exploitative?

I’m not sure exactly where it is, but when Jeff Bezos has $150 billion and his warehouse workers are afraid to take piss breaks, I’d say we’ve passed it.

[washing machine]

Lots of nuance on this page.

[---]

In the interest of incorporating a bit of nuance, I will defend work as - among other things - implicitly virtuous, as an essential element in the development and enrichment of our character, as precisely the opposite of corrosively dehumanizing. Simply, we are better people for working, and as such render stronger and more vibrant relationships, families, and communities.

Work is an exercise of self-denial. It is subordinating the otherwise tempting individual desires of today to the enduring needs of others tomorrow. Most of the banal workaday realities of work are, if you look closely enough, actually occasions for the expression of solidarity across any number of dimensions that would in almost any other context be considered divisive: age, gender, ethnicity, social class, political bent. It is in our capacities as producers that we most fully accommodate the wishes of others, and in so doing both implicitly and explicitly improve the quality of their lives. This is not nothing.

The history of western development can essentially be boiled down to the efforts of one - say, Jeff Bezos - creating opportunities for many - say, warehouse workers - writ large. It is because of Green Habit's work that we have the opportunity to communicate on RM. It is because of Pearl Jam's work that we come together and shit on their pitiable post-2003 output.

Work unifies. Work equalizes. Work dignifies.

[LoathedVermin72]

What a load of brainwashed, out of touch bullshit

[---]

Which part?

[washing machine]

While there's lots to chew on with ---'s summary of the innate goodness of work, I have to laugh at the irony of reading and replying to this

Work is an exercise of self-denial. It is subordinating the otherwise tempting individual desires of today to the enduring needs of others tomorrow.

while I should currently be on a spreadsheet doing this.

[---]

Will the LoathedVermin72 account ever go beyond sneering and asserting? Is he unwilling or simply incapable of talking like an adult?

[LoathedVermin72]

Unfortunately I don’t have time to type out a full response right now because I have ten minutes left on my lunch break which I spend sitting in my car shoving food into my mouth before I have to go back inside an office and sit for 3-4 hours performing mind-numbing, tedious work that I don’t care about surrounded by people I don’t care about in order to afford a roof over my head and more food to shove in my mouth. I do this because it makes me feel so dignified and gives me so much purpose. Much better than spending time with people I love and focusing energy on things that matter to me.

[Norah]

Arbeit macht frei.

[---]

Arbeit macht frei.

the nuance we need