The Communication Cube


This isn't a new question. You always have a portion of people unable to work; for good reasons. We have kids, the elderly and (temporarily) disabled people who don't work but do need care and attention.
The group we're now talking about are the people that could work but can't or won't usefully contribute for some reason. With automation the value of those task get lowered to the costs of using automation, which is usually cheaper compared to paying for the time of a human. Increasing automation will also increase the tasks that lose value.
We've seen a similar trend in history: paintings got replaced by photos, radio got replaced by TV, TV got replaced by streaming services, etc. Those things still exists but lose their value, most people won't invest in a painting when making a photo is much cheaper.

If everyone's job got replaced by automation we would have to do other stuff.
In an experiment with rats they compared two groups where they pampered one active group and the other group had to collect their own food. The active group was more healthy and got older, while the pampered group was lazy and spend most time on cleaning themselves but got fat and died earlier.
I would expect something similar to happen to humans.

1743850931419.jpeg
 
I wouldn't. What constructive things do you expect rats to do in their freetime? What can you imaging a human do? Also, unconditional basic income doesn't mean you can affort everything. I'd expect some to work long term, for they have the drive to do so, and others to work on and off to safe up on something or whatever. And yes, there'll probably be those that are content not working.
Employers wouldn't have leverage over employees anymore. At least not like today. And what a job pays might better reflect how willing people are to do whatever it entails.

When healthcare is a human right, why not food, why not a roof over your head or cloths? And when we are that productive as a society, that there aren't as many necessary jobs as there are people, we should stop pretending there were.
 
I agree with @Djoga'Ro . In fact I believe most workers should be unemployed. Maybe 60% I don't know. Very few people work on necessary things, like care, education, growing food... Most people work on either depleting planet's resources to build useless things that become soon dangerous waste, or in ensnaring other people to buy things they don't need or spend money they think they have or will have for nothing burgers.

Most jobs are bullshit, both those people are happy doing and those that don't (not equally so, people are more happy doing useful jobs and that's why they usually get paid less money).

So I would like everyone to have granted survival, and not having to work, and then people who want to do useful things not being restrained to absurd criteria of whether those things are profitable economically in a bogus economy.

And it should work, because most jobs today are destroying more than creating, so eliminating them would create richness.

The problem is coordination, making sure everyone agrees in how to do it. Capitalism is ruinous, but it self regulates on a course. But it's a course to destruction, so it should be scraped. The problem is how.

If people keep believing in capitalism, and putting themselves before the common good, it'll never work, proletariat dictatorship or not, democracy or authoritarianism. It's people who need to understand, not a system that needs to be imposed on people.

So we're heading for extinction, but with some luck, life will strive after us. We'll have destroyed a lot of life, but hopefully some may survive.
 
I'm convinced human beings ain't built to do nothing useful. They're conditioned to do so.
I don't understand this statement.

What I'm saying is governments should balance things so even the laziest people can find a job they don't mind doing. Globalization has made job markets less diverse and tariffs bring it the other direction, is the theory. Higher prices for goods and being poorer is the tradeoff, which we are experiencing.
Capitalism is ruinous
I agree. What the market giveth the market taketh. Capitalism gave us video games and now they are being taken away. Great game studios get ruined by investors. This is why we retro game.
 
I don't understand this statement.
If I understand the phrasing, what was meant was that doing useful things is something in the nature of human beings. It is not in the human nature to stay always idle, or to fatigue for useless things.
So not having a job would not be a reason for people to stop doing useful things. Maybe they'd do more useful things because they wouldn't be tired from their jobs.
I agree. What the market giveth the market taketh. Capitalism gave us video games and now they are being taken away. Great game studios get ruined by investors. This is why we retro game.
Well, Yes. I guess if that's what you care for, it can be an example. Capitalism is just a game to try to get all the resources there are. If you need to provide something in exchange to get money you do,
but as soon as you have enough money to keep getting money without giving much in exchange you do. Or something.
But if everyone had survival guaranteed people could come together to write video games for fun, and they could share them with everybody because they wouldn't need to get pay for it.
Because the only reason investors can ruin game studios is because game writers need to eat. If they could already eat, they wouldn't need investors money.
But we can live without video games, so even if this didn't work particularly for video games, it wouldn't matter much.
 
When healthcare is a human right, why not food, why not a roof over your head or cloths? And when we are that productive as a society, that there aren't as many necessary jobs as there are people, we should stop pretending there were.
I agree, everyone should be able to live. But currently most people work and those provide the means to support the people that don't work (which can be for a good reason). This group of non-working people will grow over time placing a larger burden on the working group. Automation can reduce that burden or completely remove it, so everyone is free to do what they want. Some will live an artisan live-style maybe even without any automation in their own lives, most might not: why work if you don't have to.

Take for example the army. Most countries require (although tested in different ways) an minimum IQ of 85. This means that the army thinks with an IQ under 85 you probably couldn't contribute much. This means that from all eligible people on the planet (about 2.6 billion 18-40 years old) to join an army roughly 428 million couldn't join. Do we have 428 million jobs for people that are lower skilled compared to the lowest skill job you could do in an army, like carrying crates? Do you think with basic income we'll have 428 million potential artisans?
The challenge for artists for example is the value of art has decreased a lot, so only exceptionally high quality or famous art(ist) get paid a lot. Just like there are many football players, but only a few are really good and some of those get paid a lot.
With basic income these kind of professions get a more stable income, so you also would get more (high quality, and low quality) art. With the current monetary incentive mostly talented people are more eligible to continue their work.
I guess the problem with money is that someone could use money to disincentives people to do their job properly, with basic income this risk would get lower so people might keep doing a good job under pressure.

So probably a mix of guarantees and incentives to do more of the same talented thing would work. And I feel we have somewhat like this in place in western countries, without the good and well balanced counter measures for perverse incentives.
 
Actually we have a severe shortage of carers for the elderly. You guys don't want help the elderly? And you expect the government to give you money so you can ignore them?
 
Back
Top