Let's Riff on the next Tech/Social Revolution

[DBTrek]

The great paradox of the UBI:

1. People won't have the talent, drive, or skill to innovate new technologies/products/markets and earn a livable income in the future, so they need a basic income to keep them comfortable and well fed (UBI).

2. The UBI will allow all these same people who lack the talent, drive, or skill to innovate new technologies/products/markets to tap into their inner genius and use that free time to produce great works for humanity!


Lazy motherfuckers.
If you've got so many "great works" for humanity stored up inside you, PRODUCE THEM. I bet we can market your godly talent into a livable income.

"No man, people will finally have the *time* to focus on their great works, dude, you'll see!"

Right. Like that technological and social panacea we see coming out of the section-8 housing, WIC dependent, food-stamp saturated neighborhoods right now. BUT THE WORKS!!! HAVE YOU SEEN THOSE MARVELOUS WORKS coming direct from the ghettos, trailer parks, and government retirement homes?!? Awesome advancements in human evolution, literature, science, and philosophy - all made possible because we finally retired a class of people to full-time government assisted living. That's the dream folks, let's all get there together!

[Speaker to Animals]

You are just straw manning and insulting people now. It shows you lack any coherent argument. I think you know you took an indefensible position. I can see arguing against the UBI if you have an alternative solution to the problem. But to ignore the problem is just silly. This is coming. It's already here to some extent. You can see it in the rising disability pensions coupled with rising unemployment. If there were no underlying problem of, essentially, musical chairs where the chairs are jobs, and if the cause of the disability rise were just freeloading, then you should see a decline in the unemployment. But you don't. What you see is a steady increase in unemployment coupled with desperate people looking for alternatives to keep themselves sheltered and fed.

[DBTrek]

Actually, I'm using satire to highlight the absurdity of people proposing UBI without giving a single thought to how it would work beyond "And then I could quit my job and have zero responsibilities to anything but my own hedonistic wants". That's considerably different than having nothing to say. In fact, I've had plenty to say and I've dropped point after point like MOABs on this silly idea.

The truth is, it doesn't take much effort to dismantle a bad idea that is nothing more than an absurd and terrible "solution" to an imaginary problem.
But it's still fun.


As to your point about "What you see is a steady increase in unemployment coupled with desperate people looking for alternatives to keep themselves sheltered and fed".

GOOD.
Right?

GOOD, by God.
That's EXACTLY what we're supposed to see as the economy and the labor force grows and changes. We watch all the farmers pack up their carts, all the horsemen pack in their ponies, while cities and automobiles roll into our lives. All during this period desperate people [are] looking for alternatives to keep themselves sheltered and fed. AND THEY SUCCEED. AND IN THAT SUCCESS THEY BUILD ESTEEM, SELF RELIANCE, A SENSE OF PRIDE, AND POSITIVE TRAITS THEY PASS ON TO THE NEXT GENERATION.

I'm really surprised that we're on opposite sides of this one.

[Fife]

The economic term of art is "moral hazard." I sometime refer to it as moral injury, and have recently in making the absurdly easy argument that the UBI is absolute bunk. If it weren't so freaking dangerous, it would be sort of amusing.

I'm kind of surprised that StA is defending the subsidization of laying about. Every day is something new.

[Fife]

That's EXACTLY what we're supposed to see as the economy and the labor force grows and changes. We watch all the farmers pack up their carts, all the horsemen pack in their ponies, while cities and automobiles roll into our lives. All during this period desperate people [are] looking for alternatives to keep themselves sheltered and fed. AND THEY SUCCEED. AND IN THAT SUCCESS THEY BUILD ESTEEM, SELF RELIANCE, A SENSE OF PRIDE, AND POSITIVE TRAITS THEY PASS ON TO THE NEXT GENERATION.

He shoots, he scores.


Here's one way of putting it, and in a way, IMNSHO, that destroys the goldbricker fantasy: The Luddite reflexive position regarding automation is contrary to history and observable human behavior. Automation creates more products, not more leisure time. As much as starry-eyed dreamers have loved to wax poetic about grown ups sitting around singing folk songs all day for centuries, it turns out people would rather have pick-up trucks, cheeseburgers, clean drinking water, computers, iPhones, and medication.

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[SuburbanFarmer]

Actually, I'm using satire to highlight the absurdity of people proposing UBI without giving a single thought to how it would work beyond "And then I could quit my job and have zero responsibilities to anything but my own hedonistic wants". .

Ahhhhh, there it is. Accusation of moral inferiority, and a strawman. The mark of the papist.

Jesus thanks you for your work, now fuggoff.

[DBTrek]

Actually, I'm using satire to highlight the absurdity of people proposing UBI without giving a single thought to how it would work beyond "And then I could quit my job and have zero responsibilities to anything but my own hedonistic wants". .

Ahhhhh, there it is. Accusation of moral inferiority, and a strawman. The mark of the papist.

Jesus thanks you for your work, now fuggoff.

Taking from your neighbors without giving in return is, in fact, morally inferior.
It's not an accusation of moral inferiority - it's a diagnosis.


I understand your generation isn't well acquainted with criticism, but fear not, I'm here to help.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Actually, I'm using satire to highlight the absurdity of people proposing UBI without giving a single thought to how it would work beyond "And then I could quit my job and have zero responsibilities to anything but my own hedonistic wants". .

Ahhhhh, there it is. Accusation of moral inferiority, and a strawman. The mark of the papist.

Jesus thanks you for your work, now fuggoff.

Taking from your neighbors without giving in return is, in fact, morally inferior.
It's not an accusation of moral inferiority - it's a diagnosis.


I understand your generation isn't well acquainted with criticism, but fear not, I'm here to help.

I would not be one of the takers. Your strawman is nonsense.

[DBTrek]

I would not be one of the takers. Your strawman is nonsense.

The 'U' in 'UBI' stands for UNIVERSAL, Cornbread pants.
We'd all be takers.

But taking from whom?
Unpaid robots and mass production machinery, of course.
Wait . . . unpaid robots don't pay taxes to support nonproductive citizens you say?

It's almost as if no one has thought this boondoggle through past the "And then I could quit my job and have zero responsibilities to anything but my own hedonistic wants" part.


Y'all come back now!

[Speaker to Animals]

Actually, I'm using satire to highlight the absurdity of people proposing UBI without giving a single thought to how it would work beyond "And then I could quit my job and have zero responsibilities to anything but my own hedonistic wants". That's considerably different than having nothing to say. In fact, I've had plenty to say and I've dropped point after point like MOABs on this silly idea.

The truth is, it doesn't take much effort to dismantle a bad idea that is nothing more than an absurd and terrible "solution" to an imaginary problem.
But it's still fun.


As to your point about "What you see is a steady increase in unemployment coupled with desperate people looking for alternatives to keep themselves sheltered and fed".

GOOD.
Right?

GOOD, by God.
That's EXACTLY what we're supposed to see as the economy and the labor force grows and changes. We watch all the farmers pack up their carts, all the horsemen pack in their ponies, while cities and automobiles roll into our lives. All during this period desperate people [are] looking for alternatives to keep themselves sheltered and fed. AND THEY SUCCEED. AND IN THAT SUCCESS THEY BUILD ESTEEM, SELF RELIANCE, A SENSE OF PRIDE, AND POSITIVE TRAITS THEY PASS ON TO THE NEXT GENERATION.

I'm really surprised that we're on opposite sides of this one.

Not really. You are just insulting people and prancing about like a cock.

The fundamental fact remains: automation is already resulting in less jobs than people who need them. That gap continues to grow. At some point, we will need to alter our economic system to account for this.

If access to food, shelter, etc., is dependent upon your access to a job, and if the numbers of jobs relative to workers keeps on shrinking.. we got problems, Houston.