I am secretly an organism automated by the innate intelligence of nature itself. Of course this is my callsign.
Now, to get to some posts that caught my eye here...
People are getting a few decades ahead of themselves with these basic income ideas.
More like decades too slow to really get on ball. If you even ignore the automation concerns which may make such a policy a necessity, this was a serious idea proposed in the Nixon administration, and was one of the last major topics MLK talked about regarding equality for all in America.
Basic income is a program to assure a floor for all, instead of this bullshit plank we've erected. The problem we face now is we can't use rugged individual as a justification of those who fall off the plank: technology makes human will and capabilities possibly insoluble when compared to the possibilities of the former. No free will character assassinations for the have nots, but we know the enemies of reason will not let it go too quickly, now.
Of course, this speaks well to how bad America fucked up by justifying poverty and inequality. Just like with health care, we can't even start at ground zero: we're in the
negatives because we've expanded the problem, not contracted it.
Basic income should have been a policy to handle poverty as it has been, not our fucking evac chopper from the automation invasion. This shows, in some sick sense, we've lived in a way to "justify" poverty to our ideas, and technology can be prone to simply killing the ideas or the societies that hold them above all else.
Regarding automation replacing truck drivers, companies aren't going to want to leave their products unattended. Someone will still need to be in the car. If anything automation will make their jobs easier and safer, and will act more as security guards instead.
Not to mention someone needs to be with the truck when it needs a refuel.
If the humans skillset is less desirable outside of just being a security guard in a vehicle, are their wages going to increase or stagnate? This is a problem with automation people also fail to realize: the delegation to the machine means the costs of labor for the human become diminished because their skillsets are less required in the overall activity. There is less the person is doing for the company, and thus less reason to really incentivize raises beyond more of a status quo model of doing things.
You're more likely to see truck drivers fall into the problem of Uber drivers, that being they become part of the gig economy culture, which means they'll be juggling more than one job and be a precariat. Precarious people will be ridden with anxiety and fear, for their lack of stability, and just enough of those people at the edge can be more problematic than the bungee cord over the seas of poverty they could be dangling over.
We already know poverty does negatively impact the brain and close off pathways. This leads into the whole "why do poor people do dumb things" finger waving game we make. How can we expect these
same people to suddenly become Einstein and work for CERN or something? They'll need a lot more than willpower, for that's not the key to open such a door, despite our assumptions it's
the key for all human prosperity.
Where are you getting the money from? Money tree?
Why would anybody do anything anymore if people don't have to worry about being out of the streets if they don't have a job?
If this is really your argument, and your own personal views as to why to work, you assume awfully little of people. Your impositions and assumptions of people are not even kindergarten tier. If you believe people only do things because of this awful imposition, you should really look at the sick culture that you're telling people they have to claw their way in and ask is any of this really worth it, if this nonsense is what we're going to beguile people with?
You are saying coercion, which in this case is stemmed with violence via assimilation (to be a have, or else you suffer), is really the best tool to use to motivate people. Are you a fan of dictators or religious bullshittery like Original Sin? Everyone is damned and has to prove their worth and be saved? That's more or less what you're implying, even if you don't see it that way.
This doesn't even get into the problem of people being a have not through no false free will of their own, mind you. Even your answer of "lol just learn something else" loops right back into this shitbrained thinking.
Fun fact: it is the goal of Capitalism that makes automation a danger. If your goal is to increase production and minimize costs, the target to aim is to replace people with technology. Those are games of whens, not ifs. Of course, I'm sure you'd be quick to parrot the miasma "a job destroyed is a job created" but save us the lack of critical inquiry if this really
was your card to play.
They choose to work there and not invest on their studies, I am not paying more taxes so they can finance their own terrible decisions in life.
Speaking of the hand waving character assassination justifications to justify being passive to a problem I alluded to earlier...
Also, I have to ask this sincerely, and it may come off as offensive, but I have no other way to ask it...
Precisely my point, if I make a bad call is on me not on the rest of society, people can see automation coming from years ahead. People should be responsible of their own individual choices, even if that choice is to starve to death because of a lack of marketable skill.
What the fuck is this?
I can't even fathom a reasoned reply to you. Like, that level of "thought" breaks my mind.
Are you one of those who believes a job is man's objective purpose on Earth and ride that Protestant work ethic bus and all of its fallacies, just like Protestantism itself?
Or you develop a set of valuable skills that can't be automated by a computer, thus ensuring a future where your job can't be replaced by a processor.
This assumes a great deal of naivety, but I blame that on the human virus that is egocentric special snowflake syndrome.
Seeing as we're the same species that seems shocked about similarities between us and animals, of course one would also assume that machines are unlike humans, yet the problems of AI go directly into the capabilities of the mind and what people do as labor: information processing.
If there is nothing special about the human being in this regard - and there isn't - then this only becomes an issue of "what can't the technology do" which is only a present-day question. That's not future proofing a fucking thing, so what can you genuinely ensure?
Like, I'll out me as an example. I'm deeply interested in the illusion of self and what some call nondual awareness, to see that what we call "I" as a fixed agent is a genuine illusion of the mind. While you will only learn of this through neurology or aspects of contemplative monks, machines cannot clearly explain and showcase this as clearly as humans. But, is it to say they never can? I mean, we are talking about states of the mind that are its actual default systems, only obscured by habits and conditioning. What really stops technology and its systems from eventually being able to tackle the issue as well, even if in another way? Even something as unautomatable as that is something that we can only say is such in the present, and those making assured statements in the future about a surefire no are asserting too much of the present into that future.
There are plenty of people on welfare not looking for jobs, we're always going to have people on welfare, but let's not put everyone on welfare and see who feels like going to work everyday.
Back to you I see, Professor
The problem of welfare as it is should be obvious, but I guess I should explain. Means-tested welfare
incentivizes not striving, because the moment you do, you lose your floor. So if that's your argument, look at how the system punishes trying to get out of such assistance which would also condition the person to not rock the boat.
The problem you state of going to work everyday is another dogmatic problem we face, so I won't get too deep into it. I will say that a work of want, not need, leads to better productivity and happiness, as most trials of this program have shown through various countries. If one wouldn't really want to go to work after having their basic needs met, there are other issues to deal with such as "is the work genuinely worthless outside of money?" which for a great deal of people, it is.
And they are right to be averse to that. It's a waste of time and childish way of getting people to assimilate to conflicting models of living.
Employers pay because there's a need for workers, that's the leverage, to provide universal welfare only depresses the desire to work and drives up the cost of labor which in turn drives up the cost of products people pay for.
This is a common, albeit a...moranic claim constantly made.
The leverage here is that in a society that says everyone must have a job or else, people will
have to settle on wages. The costs of labor stay down because you're expecting everyone to have to play ball. Similarly, this is the problem of the American health care system, for everyone now has to assimilate to a for-profit cartel system.
When you assure people a minimum floor, they have the ability to say no. Today, that no would leave you homeless and/or starving. First, looking at it from the present-day society, is this freedom? For a country that dickrides the notion of
FREEDOM (I'm assuming you're American) it obviously fucking isn't. Second, by now having the floor of others taken care of, the power is in the worker, for the work that needs to be done will now have to offer a salary in the other way, which then values the needs the employer wants from a demand - if you want someone to get something done, you can't coerce them to settle if they have a floor and not a plank to push them off of - which also values the employee, alleviating the risk of simply being paid with what the employer can get away with.
Chris Rock had something to say on this topic, funnily enough. I'll share it.
I used to work at McDonald's making minimum wage. You know what that means when someone pays you minimum wage? You know what your boss was trying to say? "Hey if I could pay you less, I would, but it's against the law.
Just do away with money
If they do bring in a basic income, what is the drive to work hard for a degree to fight for the few non-automated jobs? Just having more money than basic income? I suppose the optimistic outlook is that people have much more freedom to choose what work they do - more artists, or less people moving because of work.
Work becomes a want, not a need.
Consider for a moment how many things we can do that involve us working at something, but it's non-canon because this work doesn't pay.
To use myself as an example here, when I was involved with hospice care, I often volunteered to be a part of their bereavement services for their clients. This didn't pay me a single penny, but by being there, helping organize, and really being there for those who were grieving, there was a level of acceptance and presence that no paying job has come close to. But, this didn't give me money, so this isn't really
REAL work, because real work must involve money. It would instead be classified as something supplemental, something optional, and something disposable, all of which I would take deep offense to, considering I was involved in helping people cope with dead family and friends.
This absurd duality is a major issue in the labor system as is. With a basic income, maybe more people engage in community efforts like this? A good deal of studies have shown this empowerment to want to help others after your basic needs have been met. Maslow's hierarchy of needs feeds right into this.
Good news, you'll never see that in your lifetime
Some argue we have a timetable of about 50 years before this pops up in a huge way. Many of us will still be alive.
I don't think there'll be a weird dystopian future where everyone is unemployed and no one can afford anything except for the 1% because of automation. That's crazy simply because automation typically benefits high volume industries the most. Everything would simply go out of business and nothing would be automated long before we had unemployment on such a massive scale.
To me the bigger issue is what to do with the impending ~15-20% unemployment that could still support all that automation with our current economic system. The 2008 economic crisis in many ways was a signal that nobody really "needs" at least 10% of the workforce.
It's going to be interesting going forward politically because if that many people are out of work, we're going to inevitably have all these conversations about UBI on a national level.
I also think this is a great point to make. When we're talking about automation, full or even half isn't really the issue: "enough" is an issue. Now, what is enough? One in four, which is Depression levels of displacement? One in three? Both are deep concerns, because you don't need to replace industries in full to tally up to that number; just take a bit from here and there, and it eventually can add up.
I think the government needs to place laws and restrictions on AI use with certain jobs.
They couldn't do much for replacing factory or call center jobs, because the those jobs would just go to countries where the laws don't exist.
You can't outsource a bus driver or a cashier. It's kind of harsh, but it will be a disaster if those two industries go fully automated.
Probably not that simple, but neither is paying everyone a base salary.
Do you see how your aversion to technology is a problem, for it demands the sustainability of the status quo, despite the fact technology may be faster, cheaper, and better than the person?
You are essentially saying a person must be the epicenter to labor, and we must fight any change to this. Please, inquire into hanging onto this idea, for this idea is in fact
the entire reason automation is the problem it is.
To conclude with my own words and not driveby replies, think about how fucking stupid we are as a society to make automation even be
possible to be a threat and concern. We have fucked up so many things as a species, but the capability of replacing humans from working in this or that is somehow bad? We can say from a macro scale it isn't, but why is that not the case on the micro scale? Because those without jobs, in this culture, actively suffer, and there's the whole problem right there.
It's not the loss of jobs that is the root here. It's the imposition that jobs must be done by humans above all else, for if there is no job for you as a human, somehow, some way, this creates a lack of something, even if you're replaced by a machine, system, or service that simply does the task cheaper and better. Technology is prone to make a lot of human skills increasingly obsolescent, which only highlights the problems of our warped, limped-dick social paradigm of life, living, and worthiness within it.
The sooner we accept we live only by ideas, and these ideas are unfathomably flawed, will we move on to revise and change. We're in trouble in this sense, because many of us confuse these systems of ideas with the world itself, as if this is the objective order of the cosmos, unchanging and final. This is a load of donkey dick thinking.
