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I think it's a false assumption to make that there would be devastating, society stopping labor shortages with UBI. I will contend a lot of jobs today are usele

I think it's a false assumption to make that there would be devastating, society stopping labor shortages with UBI. I will contend a lot of jobs today are useless (or worse, actually harmful). Many things can definitely be automated as well. I'm sure we can come up with janitorial robots, we just haven't because it's cheaper to exploit people. The goal of society should be to become post-scarcity. All of our technological progress has led in that direction. We currently just live in a period where the majority of the gains have been captured by very few people and that has allowed them to exploit human labor to enrich themselves vs. building a self-sustainable society. Engineered or not, I think that's the inevitable end game of continuing humanity.

zamadatix 5y ago
I also think elimination of busywork, automation of work, and similar things that make "We rely on people's work to get materials, build and heat homes, grow and distribute food. Society is built upon contribution." an obsolete statement are definitely the path to sustainable UBI. Generally this falls into the techno-utopianism viewpoint. Apart from needing those technologies to exist before being able to claim them as reasons there won't be a labor shortage with UBI this is still completely independent of rich people existing today without causing a labor shortage. Perhaps it's a funding source to prove out things like automation by redistributing said wealth but the existence of said wealth in the hands of a few is not prove lack of labor in all is sustainable. To do that you must actually prove the alternative means of production out - regardless if the wealthy exist.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  The thing is that the unnecesaary work isn't "busy work" but is work that primarily delivers value to the employer by winning in zero sum competitions. Advertising, legal services, lots of software development, lobbying, plus all those services that enable high productivity for zero sum work. The problem is that we are dependent on these zero sum games to regulate our economy and as a result these zero sum games end up consuming all our our productivity gains and making up a progressively larger share of the economy.

zamadatix 5y ago

I also think elimination of busywork, automation of work, and similar things that make "We rely on people's work to get materials, build and heat homes, grow and distribute food. Society is built upon contribution." an obsolete statement are definitely the path to sustainable UBI. Generally this falls into the techno-utopianism viewpoint. Apart from needing those technologies to exist before being able to claim them as reasons there won't be a labor shortage with UBI this is still completely independent of rich people existing today without causing a labor shortage. Perhaps it's a funding source to prove out things like automation by redistributing said wealth but the existence of said wealth in the hands of a few is not prove lack of labor in all is sustainable. To do that you must actually prove the alternative means of production out - regardless if the wealthy exist.

shkkmo 5y ago
The thing is that the unnecesaary work isn't "busy work" but is work that primarily delivers value to the employer by winning in zero sum competitions. Advertising, legal services, lots of software development, lobbying, plus all those services that enable high productivity for zero sum work. The problem is that we are dependent on these zero sum games to regulate our economy and as a result these zero sum games end up consuming all our our productivity gains and making up a progressively larger share of the economy.