The Machine Economy Vs. The UBI: The Machine Economy is Winning

A while ago toysforadults posted this thread: Andrew Yang 2020 candidate on Joe Rogan

This thread rekindled discussion on the future of economics with regard to AI and automation. Joe Rogan interviewed Democratic candidate for president, Andrew Yang. A very smart individual who understands very clearly what the problems will be in the future with automation. The problem with Andrew Yang's approach is that he believes that government should provide a UBI. My argument against that idea is this:

originally posted by: projectvxn
Andrew Yang's answer to automation is the effective obliteration of governing by consent. The UBI, which is what he's after, will ensure that people remain a ward of the state for eternity. It will be done at the expense of industries that it will be designed to destroy, it will be devastatingly inflationary, and in very short order, controlled by a central global government structure.

Anyone can make free money from the government sound good. But Mr. "I do math so I'm smarter than everyone else" isn't nearly as smart as he thinks he is.

Want data?

Here it is:

The Machine Economy: An Essay on The Communication of Value in an Automated Economy

This should also let you know that there is an alternative to automation induced communism.

I, for one, don't feel like dragging a century-old class warfare doctrine with us another century.

The essay proposes a system predicated on the concept of the ownership of self, and to "hardwire" an IoT and blockchain distributed network economy to ensure continued participation in the economy by people.

From the essay The Machine Economy: An Essay on The Communication of Value in an Automated Economy - Section 6: The Machine Economy:

Decentralizing and automating digital processing, fabrication, assembly, and service transactions linked to a single ownership account on a blockchain, would ensure that the owner gets paid and continues to participate in the economy. Decentralized economic networks and automation in a machine economy would make a cellphone, an electric car, or an idle computer a contributor to the economy, while the person reaps the benefits. With blockchain technology turning digital information into digital property, virtual environment simulations would be able to sell virtual property, create and sell virtual consumer goods and services, and even help create virtual societies in which people may live and work (Ordano, E., Meilich, A. Jardi, Y., Araoz, M. 2013).

We see IoT network economic models similar to this being developed by blockchain and blockchain-like projects like IOTA:


HTC has built a phone that utilizes a native Web 3.0 blockchain platform.

HTC Exodus 1

HTC is emphasizing the ownership of self concept as well as addressing the economics of a world where technology is the oil and data is the currency.

We see a world where people own their own identities and data, where everyone understand the concept and economic of digital property. - Phil Chen, HTC

CNBC

“The dominant companies in our world today are Google and Facebook, and in China, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, because they basically own all our data, ” Chen said.

This is exactly the problem. All of these phones are hardwired to make YOU the product. While some methods of data collection on people are perfectly ethical, you can sidestep those ethics by building away the concept of consent from the get go.

Blockchain can stop this from happening. And now we're seeing a real-world example of the hardware integration I'm talking about as well as technological development in line with what I have directly proposed in the Machine Economy essay. I think I have more than proven my point in this matter. We can build this new economy from the ground up.



HTC is leading the way by bringing this to the market at a reasonable price. But more than that, they are leading the way in creating the economy I've been discussing. Follow us into a free, decentralized future, or create your own. That's the beauty of the economy I advocate; your contributions to the economy, from being compensated for viewing an ad (Brave Browser), to selling your processor time and hard disk space (Holochain), we do NOT need the UBI. We DO NOT NEED to leave the truck driver behind. The truck driver, in my proposed economy, won't be driving. But his rig can haul for him and make him money. Because HE/SHE OWNS IT and HE/SHE OWNS himself, and no transaction based on his/her identity can be made without consent and just compensation for that data.

I think I have made my case for this on more than one front on ATS. As far as I'm concerned, the UBI is a dead idea. Any idiot can make free money from government sound good.

How would this address food and agriculture? Or public services like policing and fire fighting?

a reply to: strongfp

It is important to note that it won't be ONE blockchain, but MANY blockchains that will enable this future to unfold and still remain a free economy. We have technologies available to us like the Interledger Protocol or ILP

VeChain

Agriculture: VeChain provides the solution of blockchain-enabled cloud services for the certification of environmentally friendly and organic agriculture products. Throughout the production process, IoT sensors and mobile devices feedback climate and soil conditions which are then updated into the cloud for real-time monitoring, this data is encrypted and immutable and at the same time, can be easily accessed by relevant parties with proper authorization and private keys.

VeChain is a logistics and real-time data authentication blockchain system:



Public services would still be public services. There is nothing in the system I propose that removes government as the intermediary of society.

I still think the machine economy will suffer from the economy of sameness. Sure, goods can be produced cheaply, easily and in bulk quantity to satisfy the base needs of all, but they will be cheap, easy, and the same. There will be little variety in anything.

Think about your personal possessions. Which ones tend to be valued the most? What ones do you want to save if you have to evacuate? Generally, most people save things with sentimental value or with a rarity that makes them unique and irreplaceable. The machine goods won't be that way.

Artisan goods will be.

Which chest do you save? Do you save the hand-crafted one made by your great-great grandfather or the fiber board one you picked up at Big Box R Us?

Which blanket do you save? The one your great-aunt Sophie knitted by hand or the polyester one you picked up at Bog Box R Us?

Which wall decor comes with you? The collage of family pictures or the print knockoff of The Scream you picked up at Big Box R Us?

People who can and continue to make hand-crafted goods of any sort with any quality will be the producers of real value in the machine economy. And the things they make will be the highly sought after items because they will be unique and stand out against the sameness of the machine world.

a reply to: projectvxn

You mentioned that it will be a automated an AI based economy. Your truck driver for example.

When it comes to policing and fire fighting will robots take over those jobs or will humans still be in the mix?

Is your model based off ALL humans will be replaced by automation / robots / AI?

a reply to: ketsuko

I still think the machine economy will suffer from the economy of sameness. Sure, goods can be produced cheaply, easily and in bulk quantity to satisfy the base needs of all, but they will be cheap, easy, and the same. There will be little variety in anything.

The only way this can happen is if economic activity is wholly centralized and excludes any innovation.

This is not the case.

Think about your personal possessions. Which ones tend to be valued the most? What ones do you want to save if you have to evacuate? Generally, most people save things with sentimental value or with a rarity that makes them unique and irreplaceable. The machine goods won't be that way.

What does this have to do with an overall economic model? Why would those things be replaced by anything else? Please read everything I have written on this matter. Nothing you're saying here has anything to do with what I'm talking about.

People who can and continue to make hand-crafted goods of any sort with any quality will be the producers of real value in the machine economy.

At no point is human creativity excluded from this proposal. This has actually been addressed many times. None of this addresses what I am addressing, however. Which is the Machine Economy vs government slavery via the UBI.

a reply to: strongfp

When it comes to policing and fire fighting will robots take over those jobs or will humans still be in the mix?

Eventually services like that may not be necessary due to building technology or, in the case of wildfires, drone technology which is being used today.

A lot of police work can be automated, but I do not believe ALL police work can be or even should be.

a reply to: projectvxn

If you're talking about an economy where most things are easily and cheaply produced obliviating the need for most labor leaving a lot of people without work -- that's where the work goes. You learn to produce stuff with your hands and become a craftsperson. People will want handcrafted things in the face of cheaply mass produced stuff.

You can have the mass produced things easily and cheaply which eliminated the idea of "need" attached to the crafted items, but people will want them. Why do you think MakerFaires and Maker Spaces are gaining in popularity? Sure, some of it is tech innovation, but a large part of it is also showcasing craftsmanship at every level from tech down to the basic handy crafts and craft trades.

And there will always be tasks that cannot and should not be automated.

Would you want your doctor to be completely automated, for example? There is a certain amount of intuition involved there.

And I get that you're communicating that our value lies in our ad potential ... basically, we market our needs and wants to tell the machines what to make, but it's still a sameness.

a reply to: ketsuko

Would you want your doctor to be completely automated, for example? There is a certain amount of intuition involved there.

Once again nothing in my proposal leaves humans out of the equation. At all.

I advocate for decentralized manufacturing where ever possible. What I am proposing is an automated ownership society. We do not have much of a choice. The progress of technology will drag us along. I think we should prepare for it now.

What I have been writing about and advocating keeps the economy free instead of subjugating it to onerous dictatorship from government and a payoff to those of us who will lose our jobs. Which will be most people to some degree.

Doctors are typically outmoded by machine-learning and this trend is increasing.

In 60-100 years your doctor will likely be a robot.

I don't wanna be 'that guy' but someone did predict what OP is proposing.

Labour no longer appears so much to be included within the production process; rather, the human being comes to relate more as watchman and regulator to the production process itself… As soon as labour in the direct form has ceased to be the great well-spring of wealth, labour time ceases and must cease to be its measure

It's interesting the blockchain aspect tho. I think it's a great alternative to fiat currency. But, I think what's being proposed is a long, long ways away. Well after all of us are dead. It seems a lot of people are already in the works to getting the ball rolling tho.

a reply to: ketsuko

And I get that you're communicating that our value lies in our ad potential ...

No. That is merely one aspect where our identities can be used for economic gain.

There is much more to it than that.

basically, we market our needs and wants to tell the machines what to make, but it's still a sameness.

This is just ONE business model in an overall economy.

a reply to: strongfp

I don't wanna be 'that guy' but someone did predict what OP is proposing.

Karl Marx is a relic of the industrial revolution.

I do not propose Marxism.

Nothing I propose abolishes private property. I think I've made that quite clear.

Edit:

If there is one thing I will patently reject, it is the dragging of industrial revolution era ideologies and economics forward another century where THEY DO NOT BELONG.

a reply to: projectvxn

Communism out of the equation, I am not advocating it or saying it's what you're proposing. But, It's pretty accurate to what you are proposing to be honest.
You own machine, you get it's profits.

But when automation becomes the clear dominant theory in your proposal. I do question, what will housing look like in your future? Heating, cooling, etc...

a reply to: strongfp

But when automation becomes the clear dominant theory in your proposal. I do question, what will housing look like in your future? Heating, cooling, etc...

Decentralizing as much power generation as possible will be what is required.

Selling excess energy across a relayed network of power distribution depending on demand and production/overproduction is what is necessary.

As far as selling houses this is where smart contracts come in:

By contrast, ethereum replaces bitcoin’s more restrictive language (a scripting language of a hundred or so scripts) and replaces it with a language that allows developers to write their own programs.

Ethereum allows developers to program their own smart contracts, or ‘autonomous agents’, as the ethereum white paper calls them. The language is ‘Turing-complete’, meaning it supports a broader set of computational instructions.

Smart contracts can:

Function as ‘multi-signature’ accounts, so that funds are spent only when a required percentage of people agree
Manage agreements between users, say, if one buys insurance from the other
Provide utility to other contracts (similar to how a software library works)
Store information about an application, such as domain registration information or membership records.

This can be used in real estate contracts and would likely reduce the level of chicanery with regard to buying and selling homes as many intermediaries (real estate brokers) would be unnecessary.

Smart Contracts and the Real Estate Industry- A Match Made in Heaven!

We don't need UBI.

I propose that we be allowed to purchase robot workers, or robotic vehicles that will act as surrogates. 24hr working surrogates. Think about that.

You can lease, finance, and outright purchase these robots.
The company your robot works for can provide a maintenance benefit plan, which will be deducted from your income, or you could learn to maintain it yourself and profit more.

This is just a spitball, give me more time and I can really flesh this out.

a reply to: Wardaddy454

I can really flesh this out.

I'm sure you could "Wardaddy".

originally posted by: projectvxn
a reply to: Wardaddy454

I can really flesh this out.

I'm sure you could "Wardaddy".

...Yes.

You should watch Fury, decent movie even if it isn't based on historical accuracy.

a reply to: Wardaddy454

I've seen it. Among my favorites.