Income Inequality

[jbird4049]

p.s. A little preview: "Jobs for Everyone" should be a State goal so that people can get a UBI and still keep a Work Ethic.

That is very desirable. You might want to think of how to give enough support so that one is not miserable and eating nothing but rice and beans, and how to get work that is more than digging holes and then filling them up.

[jbird4049]

What the fuck?

This has nothing to do with equality. It's a solution to the post-scarcity world in which most labor is automated, and most people won't have available to them a job.

If anything, there will be rampant inequality as those who can innovate and invent will amass great wealth compared to the multitudes who cannot. But the multitudes who cannot won't suffer either.

But the inequality!

OK, maybe I'm rooting back to the OP a bit much. I'm just not a fan of UBI, so I'll own my bias.

The term "income inequality" is a canard, though. A tool of the most evil among us to enslave the gullible majority.

I think income inequality is a ridiculous issue. The more advanced a society, the more income inequality will exist. People who want income equality should move to the Amazon rain forest and shack up with the Invisible People or something.

I am talking about the very real problem in our near future whereby an increasing number of people will be without jobs because we are slowly automating our entire economy. You have to address that. If you hate the idea of a UBI, then present an alternative that doesn't amount to "fuck 'em".

There will always be inequality, but the immense, and still increasing, inequality is unsustainable.

[Okeefenokee]

Then the market would respond and provide the balance.

I didn't know you were so religious.

Unless you mean that one such response would be to kill off billions of people, because that is one possible response.

It sounds a lot like the idea that science and innovation will arrive to fix any problem facing humanity. The whole idea that, when we get there, we will innovate to find a solution, because magic.

There is no guarantee that we will automatically fix any problem simply because we must.

It didn't happen for the Anasazi or any other civilization that faced problems that were ultimate. Sometimes you face problems that you fail to solve. Has happened many times. Look at any group that ever lost a conflict. Probably best not to look at a problem with the assumption that the necessity of solving the problem will result in the problem being solved.

The Anasazi finished themselves off because of war followed by the survivors fleeing, but the humongous drought was the true cause. God given you might say. Considering this civilization problems are self inflicted, our collapse would be a kind of suicide.

Given that you admitted that the drought was the true cause, unless you are arguing that a stone age society caused climate change, their demise was not their own doing.

My argument should be palatable to leftists. Certain people argue that any future we face will be handled by human ingenuity simply because we must. When I hear that and think back on what I know of history, there is a long line of human failures to make that argument true. If that were true, then no society would have ever lost a war. If the mere presence of an existential crisis meant that those who faced it would inevitably rise above that challenge, then there would have never have been a single loser of any war ever, which we all know is not the case.

Walking into the future with the naive idea that we will meet any challenges the future brings simply because we must is folly. History is a graveyard of examples of this.

[Martin Hash]

Our society, America's, is being held hostage by a foolish Political class. Wisdom is a rare thing, and somehow we as a nation have to figure out how to get wise people into decision-making positions of power 'cuz democracy ain't doin' it for us so far.

p.s. Why aren't people more upset that Trump's main advisors are his immediate family?

[DBTrek]

We saw the entire nation move from a largely agrarian society to an industrial one. Meaning a nation of farmers watched "automation" destroy the predominant profession, a profession that had sustained humans for millennia. Those Americans watched almost everybody's "job" collapse (from a human labor perspective) in a few short decades.

And humanity went on.
In fact, they prospered.

These days you get a bunch of crackpot doom-sayers telling millennials and college kids about the spooky AI that's coming for everyone's jobs and they're immediately like "OMG! THAT SETTLES IT. FREE GOVERNMENT CHECKS FOR EVER, CUZ IF NOT WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!"


What a difference a few generations makes.

[Zlaxer]

@Hash

BC average Joe is too stupid to realize what is going on....and even if he was cognizant, he cant do shit if he's not willing to pick up his pitch fork......


Proles deserve what proles get....there will be no revolution BC the 0.1% have the technological means to maintain absolute control....welcome to the future

Just be glad you're inside the 1%....life isn't so bad there......

[Zlaxer]

We saw the entire nation move from a largely agrarian society to an industrial one. Meaning a nation of farmers watched "automation" destroy the predominant profession, a profession that had sustained humans for millennia. Those Americans watched almost everybody's "job" collapse (from a human labor perspective) in a few short decades.

And humanity went on.
In fact, they prospered.

These days you get a bunch of crackpot doom-sayers telling millennials and college kids about the spooky AI that's coming for everyone's jobs and they're immediately like "OMG! THAT SETTLES IT. FREE GOVERNMENT CHECKS FOR EVER, CUZ IF NOT WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!"


What a difference a few generations makes.

This time is different db - we are the horse......

[DBTrek]

This time is different db - we are the horse......

You want to be the horse.
"Please, just give us a free stable, and free hay, and brush our coats for us, and shovel our shit, and pay our vet bills, all while demanding nothing in return from us!"

You guys are pining for that equine lifestyle. Begging for it. Maybe the karmic wheel will grant your wish, and in the next life you can be dumb, useless, animals that exist solely by the care and economic philanthropy of other's hard work.

But as a human being, you should probably aim a little higher than wasting your one life by wishing you were born lower on the food chain.

[Martin Hash]

I recommend that UBI supporters simply win the lottery.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

This time is different db - we are the horse......

You want to be the horse.
"Please, just give us a free stable, and free hay, and brush our coats for us, and shovel our shit, and pay our vet bills, all while demanding nothing in return from us!"

You guys are pining for that equine lifestyle. Begging for it. Maybe the karmic wheel will grant your wish, and in the next life you can be dumb, useless, animals that exist solely by the care and economic philanthropy of other's hard work.

But as a human being, you should probably aim a little higher than wasting your one life by wishing you were born lower on the food chain.

By 'care and economic philanthropy of other's hard work' I assume you mean being kept by whatever trust fund kid is maintaining a stable for their own edification?

Versus punching in for some unedifying task day in and day out for the pride of having earned my poverty? Hell yeah I take being a horse... running around, getting fed, maybe being put to stud... shit... never ceasing wheel of the world, bring me back as some one else's luxury by all means.