Enacting a basic income for all Americans

originally posted by: 0zzymand0s
a reply to: beezzer
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I'm telling you right now, they already have surgical robots that can perform appendectomies as well as any doctor. I've seen them because I keep up with my SO's field. Your current job and my current job don't stand a chance.

This is a topic of great debate in my life- I'd like to stick with my assessment from fifteen years ago- someone has to fix the fixxers. A career isn't what it used to be- there are people in this world living off their fat retirement who made a "career" of mounting rubber on rims.

These days, a career is keeping up with an idea. If your career is the idea of keeping the systems that run the subsystems running, you'll always have a job- right up until the subsystems collapse, anyway.

Hint: the subsystems are things like 911, residential internet, HVAC controls...
That work goes uphill. The labor in the field- laying pipe, patching holes- those jobs don't go away.

I dare say the work I do today probably replaces the work done by a hundred less profitable people ten years ago.
Funny thing is, all I want is a little plot of land and a couple chickens to survive off of, yet here I am, replacing the jobs of others so their income can go to their bosses.
This world makes me sick.

a reply to: Shamrock6

I never said there wouldn't be growing pains, but it's coming, and it's unstoppable. That's what I'm trying to say. It's not about whether or not I agree with the idea of basic income, the reality is that it's going to happen. If not within the decade, within the next 20 years is a certainty.

My questions is how does one prepare for it, and what changes to the current economic model must be made for the transition to be successful?

a reply to: MystikMushroom

So....because people don't want to find another person's lifestyle, that makes them a martyr?

Because a person thinks that you should work to get what you want instead of waiting for it to be handed to you, they're a martyr? And need your pity?

I didn't see a single "walked uphill both ways" story in there.

Some interesting logic amigo.

originally posted by: Shamrock6
a reply to: MystikMushroom

So....because people don't want to find another person's lifestyle, that makes them a martyr?

Because a person thinks that you should work to get what you want instead of waiting for it to be handed to you, they're a martyr? And need your pity?

I didn't see a single "walked uphill both ways" story in there.

Some interesting logic amigo.

Who says that you'll be paying for ANYONE's lifestyle under the new economic model. Sure, under the current model, in order for someone to HAVE money, someone must LET GO of money. It's basic capitalism, redistribution of wealth from people who have money, to people who want money.

An economic collapse is coming. Everyone knows it. The current model is unsustainable, it has been since Nixon screwed us with the petrodollar, it has been since the Federal Reserve became a thing.

Who's to say the new model wouldn't guarantee BASIC living currency, you know, EXACTLY enough for shelter, bills (electricity, internet, water, gas. No cell phone or other luxury expenses), and food. No frills, basic living. Even under the current model, that wouldn't be funding a LIFESTYLE, it would be funding SURVIVAL, which is vastly different.

I want to talk about what economic model would provide a sustainable, basic level of living for ALL citizens, regardless of disability or desire to work, and still drive people into finding their own wealth.

a reply to: ketsuko
If we have the technology to carry out the majority of the work, especially the more menial tasks, then the work done by the technology contributes the labour, its psychologically difficult to get ones head round as we have mainly been brought up in Christian cultures that maintain a strong Protestant work ethic, which preaches hard work and frugality are the ways to salvation this has led to a mindset of people must work to live. Soon we will have the technology, maybe we already do, to replace 90% of labour, which is going to leave very few positions for human workers. Once the technology can produce the labour, the government taxes the labour of the technology.

a reply to: ScientificRailgun

You want a Star Trek universe!

I get it now.

Well, we need to have a nuclear war first that wipes out 80% of the planet.

Then wait 80 years.

Then when we develop warp drive, the Vulcans can help out!

Giving a "basic income"- money or not- enough for everyone to survive, implies everyone pulls their own weight.


We'd need a mass culling to even begin to pull that off- and I honestly think that a mass culling is far more likely than all of these greedy idiots in charge working together to keep ten billion people sitting on ass and well fed all the time.

If you want to be prepared for what's coming, I suggest you store some food and get away from large populations.

In this scenario who would be the target of the basic income, just because I have a successful career would that mean that I wasn't eligible?

Playing catch up to the whole thread so if you answered that previously I haven't read it yet.

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
a reply to: onequestion

I still subscribe to the idea that, if you guarantee minimum amounts of money for doing something, you are supporting the apathetic nature that I see as becoming so prevalent in many people in America. It removes, quite often, the motivation or desire to do better if you can just get comfortable scraping by.

The threat of living poor, being homeless, not being able to provide for your family, etc., is a real motivating factor to not just have a job, but to continue to rise on the income ladder.

Guaranteed minimum anything that is offered by the government is not good for societies as a whole.

really?.....maybe if you looked up the arguments from the past when the minimum wage was first enacted, you might come to a different conclusion.

a reply to: ScientificRailgun

Well, your questions have been answered. The government will expand on a massive scale, taxes will increase in several ways, etc.

But, as I said in my very first comment here, it's hard to win against Santa Claus. So eventually enough people will learn that if they elect a certain person, they'll get money in exchange for doing so. Money in the bank every month, just for ticking a box at the poll.

a reply to: lordcomac why do you think people would be sat on the arse all day? That's a very limited view of life you have there. Not interested in anything?

originally posted by: beezzer
a reply to: ScientificRailgun

You want a Star Trek universe!

I get it now.

Well, we need to have a nuclear war first that wipes out 80% of the planet.

Then wait 80 years.

Then when we develop warp drive, the Vulcans can help out!

I don't want anything. I'm simply tell people what the future will be like. Those of us who are technically inclined, with our ears to ground, can hear the rumblings of this happening. It's called living in a post scarcity society. The population problem is certainly a major problem, but you can already see birth rates decreasing in developed nations. Would it take a major war to reduce the population to sustainable levels? Perhaps, but it's not a certainty.

I don't think a "Star Trek" universe is coming for a long, long time. Even with the principles of Moore's Law, unless the technological singularity solves the problem of FTL (Faster Than Light) travel faster than we anticipate, traveling the stars in vast space cruisers to bang alien dudes won't be a reality for me.

What WILL be a reality will be 3D Printers that print food for pennies, a basic income that guarantees all living persons the basic necessities, and a society that focuses on more creative and innovative problems that those of basic survival.

That future is inevitable, and it'll happen in MY lifetime, not too sure about yours. Depends on your age.

originally posted by: nwtrucker
a reply to: onequestion

It sounds exactly like what the left/Obama is working towards. The trouble being, in exchange for that 'income' rules, regulations and compliance is required to continue receiving that income...or health care...so on.

I'll pass thanks.

Uhm, So you are suggesting that only the Republicans are corrupted by the lobbying dollars and not the democrats?

The democrats and Obama are actually going against the lobbyist and trying to implement a quasi socialism/communism economy that goes against what is the best interest of the lobbyist?

I'm curious to see why you think its only the left that is working towards that?

This argument reminds me of drug legalization.

"If you legalize all drugs, there will be drug addicts everywhere! The horror! So many people will overdose on drugs and die! Our children, think of our children!"

Well, it's been proven in places like Portugal where all drugs are legal that this hasn't happened. I think something similar would happen with a basic income.

Sure, at first you would have some freeloaders, but overall I think you'd be surprised at how people actually want to DO things. Paint, create music, write books, conduct experiments -- people would be freer to pursue their passions.

I don't think we'd devolve into a couch potato society, as those that did that would be looked down upon. There would be a lot of social pressure for people to "be the best they can".

Now, if we go further down this rabbit hole to a "star trek" like future two things need to happen:

1. Free energy. Total limitless, free energy.

2. Replicator technology.

If we had a replicator that could make food, or anything else your heart desired -- pretty soon (maybe a generation or two) you'd see a SHARP drop in materialism. People simply could ask for a "Gibson Guitar" and POOF. No one would be hording resources anymore. No one would feel the need to act in a greedy way. Everyone could have access to anything they wanted instantly.

I think that's why it works in Star Trek. People do what they do because they WANT to do it, not because they need to or are forced to. Some people are OK with being a cewman on the Enterprise...some people want more, so they go to officer training and become captains.

Some people don't like space travel, live on Earth and study weather patterns. Others enjoy painting all day. No one worries about their basic needs.

EDIT TO ADD:

And we could have something close to that today. Unfortunately we are led by the least visionary among us, the least noble and the most elite of us. We allow society to tell us that we're not important, we don't matter. We allow ourselves to be bought and sold as a commodity in the "rat race. We don't seem to realize the dehumanizing values those in control are forcing us to accept.

I am not a robot!

originally posted by: opethPA
In this scenario who would be the target of the basic income, just because I have a successful career would that mean that I wasn't eligible?

Playing catch up to the whole thread so if you answered that previously I haven't read it yet.

If you already make money, and your job continues to exist in post-scarcity society, the basic income would simply be added to whatever money you already make. No caveats, just lands in your account or in your mailbox every week/biweekly/month/etc.

originally posted by: woodwardjnr
a reply to: lordcomac why do you think people would be sat on the arse all day? That's a very limited view of life you have there. Not interested in anything?

It's limited to my exposure to.... people.

People- they go to the jobs they don't like so they can have enough money to pay the bills they don't want to pay- but if they don't pay their rent, the room their TV is in goes away.
Then they go home and watch their stories on netflix or whichever media subscription they're comfortable with.

Why do I think people would sit on ass all day? Because that's all people do when given a choice. If that wasn't the case, we wouldn't have such a huge portion of homeless, low income, and welfare families.

Next person to tell me there's a shortage of jobs gets my boot to their head- I gave my notice out of principle about two weeks back, and had a new job that's a better fit for my life within 72 hours. There's plenty of work- there's a shortage of competent and/or willing laborers.

So when automation becomes so common place that there aren't any jobs except for the maintenance of the machines, what then? There will always be a few areas in which automation can never be fully implemented: Medicine, Science, etc. But we all can't be scientists and doctors. We all can't be hired to maintain such systems. What then?

That leaves jobs for less than 10% of the worlds population.


We can't say this isn't coming. Every year new technological breakthroughs are inching us closer to this reality.


Is it really a welfare state/world if we eliminate the need to work?

a reply to: ScientificRailgun
I'm trying to think of what jobs can't be automated in the not too distant future. New technology in medicine and farming techniques will pretty much replace any manual labour in those areas.

a reply to: lordcomac but that's a real problem that people have no interests in their life. Is a life of drudgery working the best alternative you believe

originally posted by: woodwardjnr
a reply to: ScientificRailgun
I'm trying to think of what jobs can't be automated in the not too distant future. New technology in medicine and farming techniques will pretty much replace any manual labour in those areas.

Hmmm... In the immediate future (next 40 years or so) Programmers will still be in high demand, tech-related jobs in the IT field, and people who maintain infrastructure as well. Farming will be MOSTLY done by machinery, but the land will still need to be cultivated, and people will need to maintain the machines once they leave the factory. Simple diagnosis of medical conditions will be accomplished by automated programs and machines, though more complex medical issues will still need the discerning eye of a medical professional. Food service will still be a necessity, especially for luxury foods like 3-star or higher establishments that pride themselves on personal touch.

Human interaction jobs will still be in demand, such and therapists, psychologists, prostitution, etc. Virtual jobs will also be pretty common. Companies will go more from automated systems to answer calls back to real human interaction to solve customer service issues. Or at least, those that do will be more exclusive than those that still rely on automated systems. Entertainment will be in high demand, so there will be plenty of opportunity for people who produce music, artwork, feature films, etc.