A work or die mentality doesn't work. Why we deserve a basic income.

originally posted by: Benicealways
Indeed there is no scarcity regarding resources and energy, that's just an idea to keep you scared and worried.

Citation needed. Last I checked, resources and the means to get them are finite. The everyday person has limited access to resources, and largely depend on others to provide them with said resources.

Do those who extract oil, pump and purify water, and grow food not deserve to be compensated for both their capital investment and labor?

You can recycle pretty much anything, ever thought about that?

Of course you can, it just requires a further expenditure of resources, time, and labor. Therefore even recycling has a cost.

As technology progresses there will be less of all types of jobs to do.

Have you ever participated in a tobacco harvest?, I have. There is a machine now, that is run by one or two people. It cuts the tobacco, separates the leaves, places the leaves on lath or something similar and deposits the lath, with the leaves on it on a drying rack, then unloads the rack to be picked by another machine eliminating at least ten laborers.

So what is supposed to happen when there are no jobs?, no pesky humans who fight and get sick and have crappy attitudes?.

Just today I saw about a dozen self checkouts at the store that were not even up and running yet where there were none before.

If you can't see what's coming you're blind.

Labor and business have always been in conflict.

Minimum wage will be the least of your concerns, maybe not tomorrow, but soon.

a reply to: cynicalheathen
Name 1 resource that is scarce, crucial and also un-recyclable.

originally posted by: cynicalheathen
Somebody has to repair the machines when they break down...

Yes. Other machines. We are now in the process of starting to employ general purpose, self-learning machines, that can be taught how to repair others, including those of their own kind. I recently visited a HUGE datacenter, and the man in charge there explained to us how exceptional it was that we came to see the innards of the datacenter. They are very hesitant to allow humans inside - HUMANS ARE RISK. Almost all incidents they had in the last year were caused by human miscalculations and their clumsyness. Their robots NEVER have cause ANY problem yet.

Might be a field for a young person to look into.

Yes, until his / her / its job is also replaced by a system that does an equally well or slighty better job - against formidably lower costs and with far less risk of something going wrong.

As for myself, I'm very mechanically inclined, and can fix most anything from a car to a gun.

Though I'm not currently employed in a field which makes use of those particular skills, if I were to leave my job, I could easily find employment. Possibly even repairing our future robot overlords.

More like our future robot servants, they will see US as their masters, they are built that way. And you won't get near to them - waaaay to risky to have a carbon based biped ruining a perfectly fine robot, that merely needed some high quality repairs done by a fellow robot.

Once again, a person makes themselves valuable through their individual skillset, not some abstract concept like spirituality or creativity.

Mostly just the other way around, for as long as it lasts - even now, machines are already capable of creativity aka an elementary form of spirutuality.

a reply to: Benicealways

Ah, you noticed that too?.

That's why I am studying IT on my own time.

Maybe I'll just hack for a living....

....was replying to the wrong topic....

....Sorry....

Just think about a thing that can learn and perform labor, yet only demands electricity and repairs to keep learning and performing labor without wanting advancement and so on.

And know some people will be afraid of this technology because they have been conditioned to be, so that that technology does not make governments and banks and classes necessary any more.

Might be nice, not likely to happen though.

A.I. could set everyone free, can't have that....

originally posted by: sycomix
a reply to: Benicealways

If everything was free nobody would have anything, nobody deserves more than a chance, failure to thrive is part of nature. If you didn't earn it and lose, to bad so sad. If you can't hunt, you starve, ohh well.

You really should read that again, are you sure it makes sense? I can't tell if this is sarcasm or your truth.

Humanity, being beyond the constraints of nature, is what defines us...or so they say.

All of these references to "nature"....

Do you realize how many fewer people there would be if mankind had not separated himself from nature?.

The only thing mankind ever did was remove himself from the food chain.

There really isn't any such thing as "human nature".

I mean really?.

I love the idea of a basic income, but it's not going to happen without some drastic changes in the way we live.
More work is being automated every day. I noticed it in the company I work for.
I started out as an applications engineer that was asked after a few years to automate as much as possible. About 2 years ago, with cloud computing and release automation, there was simply not enough work for all of us. Instead of having more time to do other innovate stuff, we were more or less told that maybe it would be best to look for another job.

So I schooled myself and now I'm a test engineer for the same company. A month in on the new job, guess what my colleagues and I are asked to accomplish? Exactly!
And sure enough it will be interesting to automate, but don't tell me that it will give me time to do more 'fun stuff'. I don't buy it anymore.

Follow the money 💰 applies here again.
Look at who benefits most from all this automation?

So what do we need?

I think, we all should start by taking care of each other. Any work done is for mutual benefit. If we could accomplish that, I might give it a chance. People who don't work, would still have to be actively involved in society. It should not be possible for people to hide themselves in their tiny apartments, binge watching tv or playing video games until their thumbs fall off. Nope, no such thing as a free ride.

Instead we put all the generations together like small villages. Have the people that don't 'work' take care of the elderly. See how interacting with other people can motivate someone to do 'work'.

It could be a good thing if we would put our efforts into caring for the world and every living thing on it. But we are stupid and greedy. Who cares about anyone else but their own? Who cares that there are lonely, less fortunate people out there? Who cares that our elderly rot away in homes. As long as you and yours are taken care of, who gives a #, right?
Every man for himself.

Sigh..

Working should be fun and it can be. If only the incentive would be to achieve a common benefit and not to make more money by screwing other people over.

Yup, nice idea, but I'm afraid it's not going to happen in my lifetime.

parasitism!
The rich Need to make Money off you.
they NEED the trillians in tax free banks.

parasitism!
The rich Need to make Money off you.
they NEED the trillians in tax free banks.

originally posted by: z00msterFollow the money applies here again.
Look at who benefits most from all this automation?

Those that already own almost everything, of course. The devil always sh_ts on the same heap. Yes, this may result in the rise of a superclass - the top 0.1 percent that owns ALL the wealth of the planet. If we don't stop them.

So what do we need?

A very strong anti-corporatism movement. More socialism. Less capitalism. More human dignity. Less greed.

a reply to: Benicealways

You might like this book: For Us, The Living

Kind of along these lines...and very interesting. I think it could work.

I agree. I've been working since I was 13. I'm almost sixty now. I am tired. The tribal way of life is natural, our way of life is no way of life. Read Sebastian Junger's latest book "Tribe". It makes some interesting points & its a good read.



www.amazon.com...=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1468276871&sr=8-2&keywords=tribes

a reply to: Benicealways

Really?


Tax workers so you can sit on your duff and play with your playstation.

No thanks. How about going to the job board, find out what jobs actually pay a good wage, and THEN go to school for those professions.

Way too many people wasting 10's of thousands for useless degrees when a small bit of research will tell you exactly what you need to do to win.

a reply to: z00mster

If someone wants to live by themselves, why not respect that?
Why force someone to create more luxury over freedom when they value freedom more?

Sure, if someone is trapped in escapism you try to help them, but not by force and disrespect, that would only result in more unhappiness and these people are society as well.

And I am pretty sure some country in Europe will implement it within 5 years, if not 10. And then it will catch on.
Because the current welfare systems there are already falling apart because they are realizing that forcing people to look for jobs that are not there is counter productive as well as removing the incentive to work because it removes the welfare.

a reply to: infolurker

About the biggest scam there is, is to take out a loan to get a job that you are not already guaranteed to get.

Yep, I'll go into debt and hope it all works out.

Works good on kids who don't know any better.

...Kinda like going into the military to go to school afterwards and not living that long...

This isn't a game, nobody ever wins.

a reply to: MyHappyDogShiner

I will make it easy for them.

CCNA - take you 3 months or so to get and you can start making 40ish-50'sh thou a year pretty easily depending on your area.

CCNP, take you about a year or so, start making 60-90K depending on area.

Search either of those acronyms on simplyhired.com or another meta-search and see the opportunities .

a reply to: HUMBLEONE

I feel ya. And they keep raising the SSI age for us too...which in a way is kind of stealing what we paid into for decades, seeing as we will really be able to get very little benefit from it in the end as our lifespans are getting shorter due to stress.

Why not lower it and let us retire and have some life and let the younger people take over our jobs and paying into the system?