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Innovation> No need to better ourselves, just hang out with hands out. No new products, no improvements, no education needed for anything. People will get even DUMBER than they are now.
Not at all: many economists understand that UBI will totally free people to "pursue their passion" and thus absolutely engender innovation like nothing else.
Even Plato -- a right-wing favorite -- noted thousands of years ago that having to labor just to survive robs mankind of the time and energy to devote to intellectual pursuits ("innovation").
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Originally Posted by newtovenice
Productive lives > No need to do anything because it's just handed to people.
Not at all -- busying ourselves like squirrels all the day long scurrying after nuts robs people of the ability to innovate.
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Originally Posted by newtovenice
Independence > Nothing is free. What stipulations would go along with the UBI handout? What restrictions will be placed on people who receive UBI?
No stipulations -- that's the point.
However, people's own self-interest will ensure that they innovate -- because that's human nature...to innovate; to discover; to improve; to invent.
It seems that you don't really believe in "homo sapiens" but rather that artificial construct "homo economicus"....
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Originally Posted by newtovenice
Big questions. I'd rather work for a living and make my own decisions and have my freedom.
Again with the strawmen with you...UBI doesn't prevent anyone from working. Leading economists are for it -- even conservatives and even libertarians, too!
You should know that your intellectual forbears also criticized Social Security and just pensions in general for the same exact reason!
A lot of the jobs we have now are not necessary. They are jobs put in place so that we can give people token jobs so they can feed and house themselves.
Do you really need a policeman who sits there every time there's road construction?
Do you really need 5 people from 5 different subcontractors sitting there and performing oversight on a construction site and taking the same notes.
Do you really need hundreds of people working for state and federal entities continuously revising standards for construction and what not that do not to be revised?
Or one of thousands of people to minimally optimize computer software or hardware?
Etc...
So, when more automation happens, they'll just find new jobs to throw people into.
When I said "Universal Basic Job" you probably conjured up an image of a traditional 40 hours per week job in an office or factory. In a world of automation there would still be manual work, just not enough to go around going by the traditional standard. Your universal job could be more like a task, maybe just 4 hours per week, doing things that are not feasible to automate and would pay too low to be worth doing as a supplement. Call it community service.
While I'm sympathetic to some kind of mandatory "community service," UBI isn't about that at all, and to tie UBI to that rather defeats the whole point of UBI.
Not at all: many economists understand that UBI will totally free people to "pursue their passion" and thus absolutely engender innovation like nothing else.
so why cant they do that now and make a profit? if you say they can do it after ubi, do you assume they would do it for free?
there is literally nothing preventig people from pursing their passion today, the excuse that they cant afford it is dumb. if their passion costs them more than they make, they need to learn to make more. because even u i wont be able to afford someone with an expensive hobby
I think a requirement for some type of community service or volunteering would be a good idea in theory, but it would then require some type of administration to oversee that, so it wouldn't work out well logistically.
Indeed, there's that, too.
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Originally Posted by AnotherTouchOfWhimsy
I really think that most people WOULD contribute by volunteering and doing community service. I don't really know anyone who prefers to just sit at home doing absolutely nothing all the time. Humans are social creatures, and most get some type of interaction at work or through volunteering.
Exactly -- as usual, people are really arguing over the "hidden variable" of human nature; namely, their own conceptions (and, all too often, misconceptions) of human nature...what people really are like and what's really good for people are a result.
Not at all: many economists understand that UBI will totally free people to "pursue their passion" and thus absolutely engender innovation like nothing else.
Even Plato -- a right-wing favorite -- noted thousands of years ago that having to labor just to survive robs mankind of the time and energy to devote to intellectual pursuits ("innovation").
Very good analysis. I agree.
Not at all -- busying ourselves like squirrels all the day long scurrying after nuts robs people of the ability to innovate.
No stipulations -- that's the point.
However, people's own self-interest will ensure that they innovate -- because that's human nature...to innovate; to discover; to improve; to invent.
It seems that you don't really believe in "homo sapiens" but rather that artificial construct "homo economicus"....
Again with the strawmen with you...UBI doesn't prevent anyone from working. Leading economists are for it -- even conservatives and even libertarians, too!
You should know that your intellectual forbears also criticized Social Security and just pensions in general for the same exact reason!
Good analysis. I agree. Some people think that we will always need to work to earn money and that will never change no matter what. They cannot seem to envision anything else. With full automation, for better or worse, no one will be working because their labor won't be needed. They can then "work" at whatever they want for pleasure, or if their conscience bothers them for receiving their entitlements, the government could create phony "make work" jobs for them like on the cartoon show "The Jetsons" where George Jetson goes to "work", presses a button and the work gets done automatically and then he puts his feet up and reads books and magazines for the rest of his shift. LOL!
Last edited by BusinessManIT; 11-30-2017 at 12:33 PM..
Reason: Grammar
Good analysis. I agree. Some people think that we will always need to work to earn money and that will never change no matter what. They cannot seem to envision anything else. With full automation, for better or worse, no one will be working because their labor won't be needed. They can then "work" at whatever they want for pleasure, or if their conscience bothers them for receiving their entitlements, the government could create phony "make work" jobs for them like on the cartoon show "The Jetsons" where George Jetson goes to "work", presses a button and the work gets done automatically and then he puts his feet up and reads books and magazines for the rest of his shift. LOL!
automation eliminates labor not jobs... learn how to work using automation as a tool
if they can find work for their pleasure without doing labor, they can do it today already
the poor artist that cant sing because he needs food, he wont be singing after ubi because he still isnt good and no one would listen to him regardless. if he were good, people would pay him today for his songs
A lot of the jobs we have now are not necessary. They are jobs put in place so that we can give people token jobs so they can feed and house themselves.
Well, certainly many -- especially those created by politicians (like all the no-show jobs in NYC government and CUNY)!
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Originally Posted by jobaba
Do you really need a policeman who sits there every time there's road construction?
Unfortunately, yeah you do if you're referring to highway construction...motorists are notoriously entitled!
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Originally Posted by jobaba
Do you really need 5 people from 5 different subcontractors sitting there and performing oversight on a construction site and taking the same notes.
That I don't think so but I have no construction background so it's hard to say -- do note that many may be mandated for legal reasons (such as safety supervisors and the like).
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Originally Posted by jobaba
Do you really need hundreds of people working for state and federal entities continuously revising standards for construction and what not that do not to be revised?
Well, that's "politics" -- too bad we can't agree on the science involved and must create pork for the constituents. But UBI should go a long way in indirectly addressing such pork, given that no one's worried about the basics anymore!
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Originally Posted by jobaba
Or one of thousands of people to minimally optimize computer software or hardware?
Etc...
So, when more automation happens, they'll just find new jobs to throw people into.
You have a rather comically cynical view of the status quo but it isn't quite like you imagine, actually.
so why cant they do that now and make a profit? if you say they can do it after ubi, do you assume they would do it for free?
Because they're wasted on mind-numbing soul-crushing work taken on just to pay the bills. Even Plato, a perennial fascist favorite, noted thousands of years ago that intellectual endeavor is sapped by hard labor after jsut the mere basics of survival!
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Originally Posted by MLSFan
there is literally nothing preventig people from pursing their passion today, the excuse that they cant afford it is dumb. if their passion costs them more than they make, they need to learn to make more. because even u i wont be able to afford someone with an expensive hobby
And now you've revealed your complete disconnection from reality as it's actually lived by the overwhelming vast majority of people in this country, never mind on the planet.
I don't know what else to say to you at this point because you keep coming up with strawman arguments and, even worse, seem to have no grasp of actual conditions...I hope you get your Captains Courageous (the Kipling [there, another conservative bootstrapper favorite] novel, not necessarily the movie[s?]) moment one day -- which I wish not out of malice but so that you may become informed for yourself.
Until then, I respectfully bow out of this argument with you.
Good analysis. I agree. Some people think that we will always need to work to earn money and that will never change no matter what. They cannot seem to envision anything else. With full automation, for better or worse, no one will be working because their labor won't be needed. They can then "work" at whatever they want for pleasure, or if their conscience bothers them for receiving their entitlements, the government could create phony "make work" jobs for them like on the cartoon show "The Jetsons" where George Jetson goes to "work", presses a button and the work gets done automatically and then he puts his feet up and reads books and magazines for the rest of his shift. LOL!
Tee hee -- George Jetson!
Heck, Homer Simpson's already doin' something similar...that's what folks don't seem to understand: it's already costing money; it's not like UBI is an added expense, exactly (though the few projections conducted so far do show it costing more)....
It's really a problem with people's misconceptions of human nature -- that's what really needs to be addressed first: many people just have a very limited notion of the nature of a human being and thus what's optimal and under what conditions the human being would best thrive (and "innovate")....
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Good Analysis
