392 America's Future

[Martin Hash]

[DBTrek]

Two things:

1. UBI will not work, even for a little while. If every American is given a free $20k a year guess what happens to prices? They go up to take into account the fact that each American has an extra $20k. Everyone having +$20k is no different than no one having +$20k to the supply/demand curve. Much like college loans or home loans - open up that “free money” to everyone and what happens to housing prices and education costs?

Well, UBI is going to give you exactly the same.

2. Is the new economy centralized in the hands of a rich few? Seems like 40 years ago media was contained to four public channels. Then it was cable. Then dish. Now YouTube. The power has moved beyond the grasp of gatekeepers and into the hands of the public. Look at publishing - used to be six big publishing houses controlling the book trade. Amazon killed that. Everyone can write and publish books without satisfying gatekeepers. Look at alibaba.com where any entrepreneur can make deals with Chinese manufacturers to produce cheap goods. Again, a power that used to belong to the wealthy few is open to everyone now.

Of course, the fact that average people can’t perform as well as 1%ers isn’t new. But this is the first time in human history that the rabble can’t blame unequal access. If you’re not selling like Steven King it’s because you don’t write like Steven King. If your YouTube channel doesn’t get views like “The Voice” it’s because your content isn’t as captivating. It’s not rich peoples fault if you can’t perform at a level that makes you a millionaire in 2018. You have the access.

[Zlaxer]

UBI will not work, even for a little while...

Easy to say it won't work.....but what is your solution to automation? Do you honestly believe there will be jobs for 10 Billion people?

[DBTrek]

UBI will not work, even for a little while...

Easy to say it won't work.....but what is your solution to automation? Do you honestly believe there will be jobs for 10 Billion people?

What was the luddites solution to Industrialization?
They ate shit and the world adapted and moved on.

[Speaker to Animals]

Dude, what?

Industrialization created jobs. People migrated to the cities from subsistence farms to work in factories. It's the complete opposite situation of what we face.

[Zlaxer]

UBI will not work, even for a little while...

Easy to say it won't work.....but what is your solution to automation? Do you honestly believe there will be jobs for 10 Billion people?

What was the luddites solution to Industrialization?
They ate shit and the world adapted and moved on.

The "world moved on" because there were enough jobs that machines sucked at and/or could not accomplish.

Do you believe that there are certain "human" functions that machines never will be able to perform? and if so, what? and how many jobs do you think will correspond to such functions?

[DBTrek]

Well, we *know* there are certain functions machines cannot perform, or at least can't perform better than humans which is all that's required for humans to keep jobs. We also seem to function under this delusion that humanity has accomplished all it possibly can, so if machines replace 2 billion workers the only option is to treat those 2billion souls like expensive pets from cradle to grave.
But when has that ever been the case?

The advent of agriculture gave rise to cities, which created new jobs and professions never before dreamed.
The advent of industrialization gave rise to cities which once again created jobs and professions that never existed previously.
The creation of the internet gave rise to social media, eCommerce, and direct-to-viewer independent entertainment again creating entire new professions and industries.

... so why is it assumed that AI is just going to make humans obsolete and result in a dystopia. That runs counter to the narrative of all human history, so I find it unlikely.

[Speaker to Animals]

You are conflating opposite things. All these other events in human history CREATED jobs. Automation is taking them.

There won't be enough jobs for everybody. You have to solve that somehow.

[DBTrek]

Agriculture TOOK jobs from hunter/gatherers - which were the ONLY job up to that point.
Industrialization TOOK jobs from farmers who were the predominant profession up until that time.
The internet TOOK jobs from retailers and entertainers, two significant job sectors in the 21st century.
AI will take bullshit service jobs, truckers jobs, and hit a few other large industries. We'll live.

[Speaker to Animals]

LMFAO

Agricultural revolution literally created jobs as a concept. It is what created sedentarism which led to specialization of labor.


We will eventually reach the point where, for the first time in human history, a major revolution in society will actually result in less jobs and roles than there are people. You cannot compare that to anything that came before because nothing like this ever happened before.