Minimum Wage Sucks Because

[DBTrek]

"Just this one time, man, c'mon!"

[heydaralon]

In all seriousness, libertarians and opponents of UBI:

Do you guys not think that mass automation will occur? This is a reasonable position to take. If it does not, then it renders the entire UBI plan moot.

If you believe mass automation will occur though, I don't see how your position is viable, because how could you possibly expect the mass unemployed electorate to behave calmly when they are unemployed and living without any expectation of a better future? I don't like the government either, but if 60-80% (or whatever the number ends up being) of Americans cannot work, support their families, or have any pride as human beings, what do you think will happen?

[heydaralon]

"Just this one time, man, c'mon!"

Do you want to risk the robots going to hell for eternity? I'm not willing to take that chance.

[SuburbanFarmer]

In all seriousness, libertarians and opponents of UBI:

Do you guys not think that mass automation will occur? This is a reasonable position to take. If it does not, then it renders the entire UBI plan moot.

If you believe mass automation will occur though, I don't see how your position is viable, because how could you possibly expect the mass unemployed electorate to behave calmly when they are unemployed and living without any expectation of a better future? I don't like the government either, but if 60-80% (or whatever the number ends up being) of Americans cannot work, support their families, or have any pride as human beings, what do you think will happen?

60-80% of jobs were "lost" during the Industrial Revolution... I don't think this is much different.

If it is, and I'm wrong, then we need to rethink financial systems entirely. UBI is only one effect of this.

[heydaralon]

In all seriousness, libertarians and opponents of UBI:

Do you guys not think that mass automation will occur? This is a reasonable position to take. If it does not, then it renders the entire UBI plan moot.

If you believe mass automation will occur though, I don't see how your position is viable, because how could you possibly expect the mass unemployed electorate to behave calmly when they are unemployed and living without any expectation of a better future? I don't like the government either, but if 60-80% (or whatever the number ends up being) of Americans cannot work, support their families, or have any pride as human beings, what do you think will happen?

60-80% of jobs were "lost" during the Industrial Revolution... I don't think this is much different.

If it is, and I'm wrong, then we need to rethink financial systems entirely. UBI is only one effect of this.

So you are taking the position that Automation will create new jobs? I agree to an extent, I'm just not certain they will create enough jobs to offset the ones that are destroyed. I don't think it will be a 1:1 ratio either. The other thing is, even if a small amount of jobs get automated, it will still fuck over millions of people. Lets say that in 20 years most driving jobs will be obsolete. Well, where will those truck drivers go? They will go now be competing with retail fastfood call centers etc. This glut of workers will drive the wages way down and cause everyone working in those sectors to have an even more miserable existence. Again, I hate the idea of UBI, as the government fucks up everything it touches. Marxism does not work in practice. I'm just wracking my brain as to how society can fix this problem.

[DBTrek]

I think you have to properly define the problem before taking a whack at fixing it.

Right now, the "problem" you're trying to solve is "How do we indefinitely sustain and grow a non-productive populace so they can indefinitely consume resources without having ever having to produce for the rest of the group?"

Some might posit that the entire premise isn't actually a "problem" so much as an exercise in trying to rationalize an unsustainable and bad idea.

[heydaralon]

I think you have to properly define the problem before taking a whack at fixing it.

Right now, the "problem" you're trying to solve is "How do we indefinitely sustain and grow a non-productive populace so they can indefinitely consume resources without having ever having to produce for the rest of the group?"

Some might posit that the entire premise isn't actually a "problem" so much as an exercise in trying to rationalize an unsustainable and bad idea.

I think a great start to fixing that problem would be to try to figure out how to get the birthrates way down for countries that are about to see a slew of jobs automated. I don't think we really need much more immigration either. We certainly don't need any more illegal immigration. All of our entitlement programs are based on the idea that the population must grow indefinitely, which is asking for trouble. I'm not claiming to be an economist or futurologist, so you probably understand this far better than I do, but in my opinion, getting the population way down would do wonders. Assuming you think automation is even a problem Trek, how would you go about fixing it, since you are against UBI?

[DBTrek]

It's a self-correcting problem, there is nothing to fix.
In fact, as I said above, the entire purpose of discussing a "fix" is to find a way to provide first-world convenience and lifestyle to millions of people who return nothing to the very society they're relying on to foot the bill.
That's not fixing a problem, that's actually creating a problem.
/shrug

[heydaralon]

It's a self-correcting problem, there is nothing to fix.
In fact, as I said above, the entire purpose of the "fix" is to provide first-world convenience and lifestyle to millions of people who return nothing to the very society they're relying on to foot the bill.
That's not fixing a problem, that's actually creating a problem.
/shrug

I'm not trying to be difficult dude, but I still don't quite understand your answer. So you don't think that anything should be done to offset the mass unemployment that could happen from automation? Don't you think that a society full of unemployed disgruntled people is a powder keg waiting for a populist/marxist fuse? I realize that American history is full of pioneers, homesteaders, and people scraping by off the land, but how do you expect a politician to sell that to an angry impoverished mob?

[heydaralon]

I joke around a lot on this forum, and make dumb posts, but I am genuinely worried about this problem. I don't see any good solutions on the horizon, and I don't think private industry or gov't is competent enough to even address these questions, much less fix them.