Universal Basic Income

[snowychap]

1 hour ago, Michelsen said:

I have to say I am surprised by the tone of your post. We can disagree, sure, but I didn’t think anything about my posts was of such a nature that required taking our gloves off. 

1) My ideal society is a society without economic class structures. My fear is that by giving people a UBI, that is big enough to keep you from wanting to change the system but not big enough to erase class divisions, we’re only providing the capitalist class with another tool they can use to keep their privileges. I’d rather keep working for real equality. 

2) A UBI would give tories and neo-libs a very handy excuse when they want to cut something else next. It would be a terrible excuse, but when has that ever stopped them before? 

3) The context of my initial post was the, according to some, inevitable future scenario where automatization leads us to surrender a near-monopoly on employment to the capitalist class. If we accept that in exchange for a basic income, then I can’t see how that would not cement class divisions and make the rest of us de facto clients of the capitalist class. They wouldn’t accept financing the UBI out of the kindness of their hearts, they’d be paying to keep us happy enough not to challenge their position. 

4) I can easily see questions being asked about the need for universial education if we accept permanent unemployment as the norm, rather than the exception. Many, many people have a strictly instrumental view of education. Again, they would be wrong, but again, when has that ever stopped them? 

5) I can easily see the capitalist class and their political allies using the UBI as a shield to protect them from egalitarian threats. ‘Look at the nasty socialists! They want to take our money! Since our money pays for all of your income...’ etc. 

6) I certainly didn’t attempt any theory of anything, and nothing I wrote was intended as a description of the status quo or the innate nature of all work. I was describing a belief that fair work for fair wages is a good thing and a better alternative than unemployment. It doesn’t strike me as too controversial, and I certainly don’t think having that position affects my ability to teach history, but I think you could have made your point without making such remarks anyway. 

7) I put in what I thought was obviously a self-depricating joke about semi-Marxism. I’m not sure if the lable actually applies to me, although I do find his beard impressive and believe we could probably find some common ground when it comes to, let’s call it, the potential value of work. 

I shall reply but I'm a bit pissed so will do you the courtesy of not replying now.

Apologies, though, for any issues with the tone of my post.

[blandy]

9 hours ago, sidcow said:

Theoretically there is absolutely no job a machine will not be able to do. 

This is complete rot. The whole notion that machines will take everyone’s jobs is rubbish. I’m short of time right now, so I’ll just mention footballers, as this is a football message board. People won’t pay to go watch Man City robots v Chelsea robots.

[sidcow]

20 minutes ago, blandy said:

This is complete rot. The whole notion that machines will take everyone’s jobs is rubbish. I’m short of time right now, so I’ll just mention footballers, as this is a football message board. People won’t pay to go watch Man City robots v Chelsea robots.

They could still do it though. 

I agree why would you want to watch robot actors etc. I can see the arts being an area where it would not be likely other than for novelty machines would be preferable to people. But we are talking about minority employment numbers. You can't sustain 77m footballers actors and singers unfortunately. 

What worries me so much is people poo pooing this, it's on the way and certainly governments are not doing anything to prepare. 

The mantra is always that previously more jobs have arisen to replace those lost. But its just not going to happen this time. 

As a by the way I have already seen teams of AI robots playing football. They were utterly crap obviously and would probably struggle to beat BCFC. But it illustrates the possibilities,  these kind of things are in the very very early days but the creep has begun. 

Edited March 5, 2018 by sidcow

[HanoiVillan]

@sidcow While AI is an increasing trend, and can be expected to reduce employment at the margins, your timeframe for this is way out. We aren't talking about 15-20 years here, we're talking many decades before AI is smart enough to replace most jobs (if it ever is). AI is currently fairly abysmal at the extremely basic task of 'working out what adverts to show you'.

[sidcow]

3 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

@sidcow While AI is an increasing trend, and can be expected to reduce employment at the margins, your timeframe for this is way out. We aren't talking about 15-20 years here, we're talking many decades before AI is smart enough to replace most jobs (if it ever is). AI is currently fairly abysmal at the extremely basic task of 'working out what adverts to show you'.

Maybe the time frames are longer, but it doesn't change what's going on. The transport industry will be devastated in the very much foreseeable future when lorries and taxis become self driving. That is undoubtedly the end game aim of uber. 

Driving cars ain't exactly easy. 

[blandy]

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

I agree why would you want to watch robot actors etc. I can see the arts being an area where it would not be likely other than for novelty machines would be preferable to people. But we are talking about minority employment numbers. You can't sustain 77m footballers actors and singers unfortunately. 

What worries me so much is people poo pooing this, it's on the way and certainly governments are not doing anything to prepare. 

The mantra is always that previously more jobs have arisen to replace those lost. But its just not going to happen this time. 

So, the arts isn't going to be taken over by androids. And sport isn't. So basically any form of entertainment is going to remain human, and there's capacity for growth.

What about food? You know, growing things in fields,  planting things, harvesting them at the right time, looking after animals, milking cows, preparing ingredients in a kitchen, cooking the ingredients, putting them on a plate and serving them.

OK, so the Arts, Sport and food.

What about health. Nursing, childbirth, doctors, care of the sick and elderly.  

OK, so the Arts, Sport, Food and Health

What about things like design - you know, design for the things all the UBI humans will want to spend their money on? from clothes to utensils, to compouting devices, to TV and Music players, and consumer electronics.

OK,  so apart from Arts, Sport, Food, Health, Design?

Well what about policing, and defence and admin - Local and National Government

OK, so apart from Arts, Sport, Food, Health, Design. police, Fire, Ambulance, local government, national government?

Well what about stuff like haircuts, nail treatments, all that beauty industry stuff?

OK, so apart from Arts, Sport, Food, Health, Design. police, Fire, Ambulance, local government, national government and fashion and beauty and personal grooming?

Well what about holidays  - you know the messy part of the holiday and travel industry, whether that's flight attendants, holiday reps, hotel cleaners, lifeguards,  pilots, regulators and safety standard inspectors  and people to conduct searches of passengers and people to train sniffer dogs and to look after the sniffer dogs or to monitor cctv or perofrm human security...

Ok so...etc.

...Scientists, explorers, adventurers, researchers, journalists, teachers, childcarers...

There will be (as there always have been) many and huge changes come about through technology, but they will not lead to prolonged mass unemployment. They will lead to changed jobs.

And none of any of that is fixed, cured or helped by UBI.

[Xann]

2 hours ago, blandy said:

This is complete rot. The whole notion that machines will take everyone’s jobs is rubbish. I’m short of time right now, so I’ll just mention footballers, as this is a football message board. People won’t pay to go watch Man City robots v Chelsea robots.

The changes won't take everyone's jobs, just the majority in certain sectors.

You don't think it can happen? It already has and continues to do so.

I've had to fork on my chosen career path already because of ProTools. It annihilated the recording studios. If I showed you a copy of Kemps the show production guide from the mid nineties, the studio section was a fair chunk of the tome. In the modern online version it's a page and a half - Worldwide! - It's been like that for a while. Even Abbey Road, the most famous studio in the World, sells mugs and T-shirts to stay afloat. 

My OB teams as it stands are about 20 people. It'll be down to 15 in three years and 5 in 10 years. How? Because cheap broadcast quality cameras and mics will be built into the venues, we will pay the stadium to hire this kit and log into them from base via IP and not fly all those bodies around the world.

It was BVE last week. The broadcast trade show in London. Chatting to one of the office guys the day after, he's now looking for a change in direction as software that does his job was on demo. The editors are also looking over their shoulders as we are developing software that watches sports, cuts to different cameras and runs replays and graphics. The Chinese already have a computer that watches sport and produces a live text description of the action. Basically visual broadcast is going to suffer the same shedding of jobs as the audio studios.

The banks are going to keep paying traders when funds managed by AI perform better? The best performing fund last year was AI. The cleverest person I know, Mastermind winner Marianne Fairthorne is working hard with AI to put the rest of them out of business.

Google translate is coming on in leaps and bounds, what happens when similar deep learning gets turned on legal documentation? That's a lot of lawyers and clerical staff gone.

Interesting you've gone for food - Robot harvesters are out there already, they don't have to worry about pedestrians and traffic to the same degree.

You don't think robots are going to get involved in the rescue services? No robot fire engines or flying platforms to get people off sinking boats and burning buildings?

Nursing? Much of a nurses work on the wards is about observation and that can be automated as can cleaning and a lot of other menial tasks.

There's loads and loads more instances, all against an expanding population.

It'll get to the Military-industrial complex soon enough.

Edited March 5, 2018 by Xann

[snowychap]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

What about food? You know, growing things in fields

Will we be growing things in fields in 2100?

[LondonLax]

2 hours ago, blandy said:

So, the arts isn't going to be taken over by androids. And sport isn't. So basically any form of entertainment is going to remain human, and there's capacity for growth.

What about food? You know, growing things in fields,  planting things, harvesting them at the right time, looking after animals, milking cows, preparing ingredients in a kitchen, cooking the ingredients, putting them on a plate and serving them.

OK, so the Arts, Sport and food.

What about health. Nursing, childbirth, doctors, care of the sick and elderly.  

OK, so the Arts, Sport, Food and Health

What about things like design - you know, design for the things all the UBI humans will want to spend their money on? from clothes to utensils, to compouting devices, to TV and Music players, and consumer electronics.

OK,  so apart from Arts, Sport, Food, Health, Design?

Well what about policing, and defence and admin - Local and National Government

OK, so apart from Arts, Sport, Food, Health, Design. police, Fire, Ambulance, local government, national government?

Well what about stuff like haircuts, nail treatments, all that beauty industry stuff?

OK, so apart from Arts, Sport, Food, Health, Design. police, Fire, Ambulance, local government, national government and fashion and beauty and personal grooming?

Well what about holidays  - you know the messy part of the holiday and travel industry, whether that's flight attendants, holiday reps, hotel cleaners, lifeguards,  pilots, regulators and safety standard inspectors  and people to conduct searches of passengers and people to train sniffer dogs and to look after the sniffer dogs or to monitor cctv or perofrm human security...

Ok so...etc.

...Scientists, explorers, adventurers, researchers, journalists, teachers, childcarers...

There will be (as there always have been) many and huge changes come about through technology, but they will not lead to prolonged mass unemployment. They will lead to changed jobs.

And none of any of that is fixed, cured or helped by UBI.

All of these things will be done by tech in a long enough time line (and some in quite a short time line). 

The only chance human athletes will have to compete is if we go cyborg in a ‘can’t beat them then join them’ response. 

[blandy]

1 hour ago, Xann said:

The changes won't take everyone's jobs, just the majority in certain sectors.

You don't think it can happen? It already has and continues to do so.

I've had to fork on my chosen career path already because of ProTools. It annihilated the recording studios. If I showed you a copy of Kemps the show production guide from the mid nineties, the studio section was a fair chunk of the tome. In the modern online version it's a page and a half - Worldwide! - It's been like that for a while. Even Abbey Road, the most famous studio in the World, sells mugs and T-shirts to stay afloat. 

My OB teams as it stands are about 20 people. It'll be down to 15 in three years and 5 in 10 years. How? Because cheap broadcast quality cameras and mics will be built into the venues, we will pay the stadium to hire this kit and log into them from base via IP and not fly all those bodies around the world.

It was BVE last week. The broadcast trade show in London. Chatting to one of the office guys the day after, he's now looking for a change in direction as software that does his job was on demo. The editors are also looking over their shoulders as we are developing software that watches sports, cuts to different cameras and runs replays and graphics. The Chinese already have a computer that watches sport and produces a live text description of the action. Basically visual broadcast is going to suffer the same shedding of jobs as the audio studios.

The banks are going to keep paying traders when funds managed by AI perform better? The best performing fund last year was AI. The cleverest person I know, Mastermind winner Marianne Fairthorne is working hard with AI to put the rest of them out of business.

Google translate is coming on in leaps and bounds, what happens when similar deep learning gets turned on legal documentation? That's a lot of lawyers and clerical staff gone.

Interesting you've gone for food - Robot harvesters are out there already, they don't have to worry about pedestrians and traffic to the same degree.

You don't think robots are going to get involved in the rescue services? No robot fire engines or flying platforms to get people off sinking boats and burning buildings?

Nursing? Much of a nurses work on the wards is about observation and that can be automated as can cleaning and a lot of other menial tasks.

There's loads and loads more instances, all against an expanding population.

It'll get to the Military-industrial complex soon enough.

You're pretty much saying the same things as me, there, really, Xann, I think.

Humans have always innovated to invent new tools and tech and machines to make their lives easier. And as they've done so the nature of toil has changed. It's of course potentially traumatic for people whose line of work is affected. I don't think anyone's said otherwise. I work in tech, I know some of the changes and advances it's brought about and how jobs have come and got as a consequence.

People are making the computers Pro-tools is on. They're writing the plug-ins, creating music they previously couldn't have dome without access to expensive recording studios.

The ability to OB with a smaller team can mean more events can be covered. Taking football, again. Every game from every league is now covered, whearas (as was posted in the old gimmers thread) it used to be one game from the north, one from the south....

All those satelite dishes didn't sell themselves. All those smartphones, TVs  and so on didn't build themselves, didn't put themselves in shops.

Of course rescuers (people) use robots, and firemen use machines. They always will. That's a good thing.

Banking systems - AI causes stock market panics because of their instant responses based on algorithms and humans have to come along and correct and change the algorithms. Humans ultimately are the customers and providers of banking services.

A fear founded or unfounded of change and of technology is part of human nature. It isn't solved by UBI.

[blandy]

57 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Will we be growing things in fields in 2100?

Sure, unless armageddon's happened.

[sidcow]

4 hours ago, blandy said:

So, the arts isn't going to be taken over by androids. And sport isn't. So basically any form of entertainment is going to remain human, and there's capacity for growth.

What about food? You know, growing things in fields,  planting things, harvesting them at the right time, looking after animals, milking cows, preparing ingredients in a kitchen, cooking the ingredients, putting them on a plate and serving them.

OK, so the Arts, Sport and food.

What about health. Nursing, childbirth, doctors, care of the sick and elderly.  

OK, so the Arts, Sport, Food and Health

What about things like design - you know, design for the things all the UBI humans will want to spend their money on? from clothes to utensils, to compouting devices, to TV and Music players, and consumer electronics.

OK,  so apart from Arts, Sport, Food, Health, Design?

Well what about policing, and defence and admin - Local and National Government

OK, so apart from Arts, Sport, Food, Health, Design. police, Fire, Ambulance, local government, national government?

Well what about stuff like haircuts, nail treatments, all that beauty industry stuff?

OK, so apart from Arts, Sport, Food, Health, Design. police, Fire, Ambulance, local government, national government and fashion and beauty and personal grooming?

Well what about holidays  - you know the messy part of the holiday and travel industry, whether that's flight attendants, holiday reps, hotel cleaners, lifeguards,  pilots, regulators and safety standard inspectors  and people to conduct searches of passengers and people to train sniffer dogs and to look after the sniffer dogs or to monitor cctv or perofrm human security...

Ok so...etc.

...Scientists, explorers, adventurers, researchers, journalists, teachers, childcarers...

There will be (as there always have been) many and huge changes come about through technology, but they will not lead to prolonged mass unemployment. They will lead to changed jobs.

And none of any of that is fixed, cured or helped by UBI.

I’m sorry Blandy.  I have not just woken up this morning and started to worry about this, it’s been a concern for quite some time and I have been reading up on it.  Also every time I catch a news article on the subject  it rings a bell with me

 

Food – milking cows has been fully automated for years.  Cows line up and walk into fully automated machines which milk them.   All that’s missing is an automated herder to get them there.   With Amazon planning drone deliveries all over the world in the not too distant future this doesn’t seem like a very large leap at all.

 

Automation in farming has been a buzz word for a while now.  It will be taken forwards rapidly by Brexit because farmers will lose the cheap European labour who used to come over to harvest crops.  If you google fully automated farming you will see a number of new reports about crops which have just this year been fully planted and harvested with no human involvement for the first time.

 

Design is already going heavily down the AI route.   Machines are designing all sorts of things. 

 

Pretty much anything you list there, if you google Artificial Intelligence in xxxx, it will bring up a number of news stories about how companies are working on AI to do those jobs.  Not from nutcase weirdo web sites, from genuine news reports.

 

My favourite is Care Bots.  I actually cannot wait for this as when I am old and infirm only able to lie in bed and piss myself I would like to think there is a machine there to help me out.  Japan is into those in a big way because they have the most ageing population in the world.  The NHS have already had trials with them.

 

Local and National Governments definitely will be moving in as much AI as they can.  Their budget pressures are probably greater than anyone’s.   Administration jobs are 100% in the firing line.   I work in insurance and already AI is replacing skilled underwriters and used to design and issue policy wordings.   I think this is what first started me to take note when I started to read in trade press about future developments in this area and about how many people in the industry would likely be replaced in 20 years.

 

I know that the legal profession is using AI to draft contracts already.

 

All arguments seem to revolve around, peoples jobs will just change.   Well how when another machine can just be designed for that as well?

 

Machines will be expensive but will work 24 hours a day, with no holiday or lunch breaks and will not get distracted at the water cooler.

 

Finally, where people prefer the human element.  Personally I always go for the self checkout where one is available.   If it saves me time I will do it.   I don’t use the person on the till by any preference.

 

People will say they prefer to shop in small stores, but they will rarely deliberately not buy something at a lower cost from a supermarket in order to support a small store.  I hate buying from Amazon, but most of the time the saving is just too much to ignore.

 

The fact that most jobs can eventually be done by machines does not seem to be in question by most commentators.    

 

It may seem a it off topic all this, but I just don’t see how the capitalist model we currently work to can survive this.   If Universal Income is not possible what happens?

 

I just think people are burying their heads in the sand over the issue.

Edited March 5, 2018 by sidcow

[blandy]

2 hours ago, sidcow said:

I’m sorry Blandy.  I have not just woken up this morning and started to worry about this, it’s been a concern for quite some time and I have been reading up on it.  Also every time I catch a news article on the subject  it rings a bell with me

Food – milking cows has been fully automated for years.  Cows line up and walk into fully automated machines which milk them.   All that’s missing is an automated herder to get them there.   With Amazon planning drone deliveries all over the world in the not too distant future this doesn’t seem like a very large leap at all.

Automation in farming has been a buzz word for a while now.  It will be taken forwards rapidly by Brexit because farmers will lose the cheap European labour who used to come over to harvest crops.  If you google fully automated farming you will see a number of new reports about crops which have just this year been fully planted and harvested with no human involvement for the first time.

Design is already going heavily down the AI route.   Machines are designing all sorts of things. 

Pretty much anything you list there, if you google Artificial Intelligence in xxxx, it will bring up a number of news stories about how companies are working on AI to do those jobs.  Not from nutcase weirdo web sites, from genuine news reports.

My favourite is Care Bots.  I actually cannot wait for this as when I am old and infirm only able to lie in bed and piss myself I would like to think there is a machine there to help me out.  Japan is into those in a big way because they have the most ageing population in the world.  The NHS have already had trials with them.

Local and National Governments definitely will be moving in as much AI as they can.  Their budget pressures are probably greater than anyone’s.   Administration jobs are 100% in the firing line.   I work in insurance and already AI is replacing skilled underwriters and used to design and issue policy wordings.   I think this is what first started me to take note when I started to read in trade press about future developments in this area and about how many people in the industry would likely be replaced in 20 years.

I know that the legal profession is using AI to draft contracts already.

All arguments seem to revolve around, peoples jobs will just change.   Well how when another machine can just be designed for that as well?

Machines will be expensive but will work 24 hours a day, with no holiday or lunch breaks and will not get distracted at the water cooler.

Finally, where people prefer the human element.  Personally I always go for the self checkout where one is available.   If it saves me time I will do it.   I don’t use the person on the till by any preference.

People will say they prefer to shop in small stores, but they will rarely deliberately not buy something at a lower cost from a supermarket in order to support a small store.  I hate buying from Amazon, but most of the time the saving is just too much to ignore.

The fact that most jobs can eventually be done by machines does not seem to be in questing by most commentators.    

It may seem a it off topic all this, but I just don’t see how the capitalist model we currently work to can survive this.   If Universal Income is not possible what happens?

I just think people are burying their heads in the sand over the issue.

I think your post has an outlook on all this that is overly pessimistic. It's not about burying my head in the sand.

Given this is a thread about UBI, rather than the future, I don't want to go too far off topic. 

When you say "milking cows has been fully automated for years", what you presumably mean is very expensive machines are available to milk cows with little human involvement, but by and large they aren't chosen to be used for a multiple of reasons (including animal welfare).

It's the same with growing or harvesting crops, delivering parcels, "designing" products and all the other things. And these milking machines, tools and drones and etc. are all being invented, trialled, tested by designers, engineers, scientists, technicians, farmers, nurses and so on. Universities and industries are there teaching and learning and experimenting away and will come up with new fangled tech and inventions and machines in the future and that's a brilliant thing.

Government and regulators can choose to regulate, limit, control the extent to which this tech can be used. Fully automatic milking machines are only viable for Cows kept indoors permanently in the same location as the machine. That's not permitted (rightly) in the UK.

Amazon drones still need to be operated by a human. Again, there's regulation which (currently) basically allows for a few test flights, but that's the extent of it. Amazon is employing people (including a former colleague of mine) to design test and develop this capability.

And so on and so on.

The point isn't that machines won't take jobs, change the nature of people's jobs - because they will. But the point is that the opportunity exists both to regulate/control/limit/steer how, when and where machines can and can't be used, to educate the people so they are able to work in the areas where the machines need tending to, configuring, turning off and back on again or whatever, or where machines can't or won't be able to be used  and for people to continue inventing and exploring and helping and caring...

It isn't give everyone free shiny coins while they sit and worry about the coming singularity and oblivion.

[Xann]

2 hours ago, blandy said:

A fear founded or unfounded of change and of technology is part of human nature. It isn't solved by UBI.

I don't fear technology, though I fear what some technology can do in the wrong hands - Those hands seem to be in power right now.

Our society model will need to change as humanity swarms. Capitalism/money won't go without a fight and perhaps UBI could be a step?

2 hours ago, blandy said:

The ability to OB with a smaller team can mean more events can be covered. Taking football, again. Every game from every league is now covered, whearas (as was posted in the old gimmers thread) it used to be one game from the north, one from the south....

Only if it can be monetized? It won't be people covering it, it'll be automated.

2 hours ago, blandy said:

People are making the computers Pro-tools is on. They're writing the plug-ins, creating music they previously couldn't have dome without access to expensive recording studios.

Right, so audio engineers are becoming software engineers.

Who is writing the next generation of software? More and more it's the previous generation of software.

[ender4]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

When you say "milking cows has been fully automated for years", what you presumably mean is very expensive machines are available to milk cows with little human involvement, but by and large they aren't chosen to be used for a multiple of reasons (including animal welfare).

This was 3 years ago and being used in the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32610257

 

Quote

There's a growing number of dairy farms where the cows are milked with minimal input from humans. Is this the future of dairy farming?

About 5% of UK farms already use robotic milking, according to Liz Snaith of the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers.

But they also constitute about 30% of all new milking systems being purchased.

Higher milk yields and lower workforce costs are two driving factors for farmers adopting robotic milking, says Ian Ohnstad, director of the Dairy Group and a specialist in milking technology. But other farmers place higher value on other benefits, he says, such as a more flexible working day or more time available for more general work on the herd.

Sorry to pick on that specific example, but i remembered reading that article 3 years ago  

Edited March 5, 2018 by ender4

[sidcow]

I think people are going to have to agree to disagree on much of this.  I have not heard anything to convince me that 20 or 30 or 50 years in the future there is not going to be absolutely massive problems with huge unemployment.  Very few people will control nearly all of the wealth - that polarisation has been going on for a long time but I see it accelerating.

It worries me personally a hell of a lot and I am certain that mankind needs to find a way to work through all this.

I hope I am wrong and in future we have millions of people making hologram booths and tractor beams and weaving mind melds or whatever.   They definitely won't be farming though! 

Edited March 5, 2018 by sidcow

[sidcow]

Oh. and you can be certain that the oldest profession in the world will soon be seeking alternative forms of income

[OutByEaster?]

Automation hasn't just got to be able to do it; it's got to be cheaper than getting a person to do it. It's got to cost less than £7.50 an hour.

That's going to stretch those timelines a long, long way.

 

[fightoffyour]

 

Cheezoid takes McDonalds jobs

Quote

Burger-flipping robot begins first shift

Flippy, a burger-flipping robot, has begun work at a restaurant in Pasadena, Los Angeles. 

It is the first of dozens of locations for the system, which is destined to replace human fast-food workers.

The BBC's North America technology reporter Dave Lee saw it in action.

Video journalist: Cody Godwin

 

[VILLAMARV]

Adam Curtis' 3 part 2007 documentary - The Trap - Whatever happened to our dream of freedom - is a great documentary focusing on the mathematical theories that underpin the decision making of economic and political think-tanks since WWII and stands as a great backdrop to the systems and the thinking behind them that we, as a global populous, find ourselves existing within. I feel it has some relevance to the discussion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMYPQVIl6JM - Part 1 (50's-80's - game theory/public choice theory driving policy through the cold war era)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80GXhIMpS1w- Part 2 (90's - target driven society, free-market democracy, deregulation)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaGiYOuA11M - Part 3 (2000's - Positive and negative liberty, the rise of neoconservatism)

While whoever reads this may rile against the use of the word freedom - the example of Russia's crash course in western style democracy has some relevancy here. If nothing else it highlights the questions of what role fairness, decency, security, collectivism and basic equality have to play in our current political and socioeconomic structure. But regardless of that example, Freedom is used by the proponents of UBI behind their reasoning. Oligarchy is the name of the game imo. The answer to the question of 'who is behind this?' is the global oligarchs and the same think-tanks behind the policies outlined in the documentaries above (imho).

Whatever your personal take on the issue surely what we are driving at here is that there are problems associated with our current modus operandi. And while the freedoms associated within the current system that allows us all (theoretically) to focus on our chosen interests to varying degrees that we all enjoy, it seems to come at the expense of sections of society who are left behind. Add on to that that social mobility (in the UK at least) has effectively ground to a halt and on top of that that we are seeing a huge disparity in the distribution of wealth on a scale unprecedented in recent western history. Inflation and low interest rates have affected savings, yet at the highest levels of wealth it lies accumulated and uninvested due mainly, one suspects, to the volatility of the marketplace. On top of that we have the looming technological unemployment issue.

Technological unemployment is real. The human-being's ability to adapt is also real. What UBI is designed to address in the short term (or before complete unemployment is reached) is surely the imbalance caused by the rate of the change without the need for a change of regime. Whether footballers or hairdressers will still have a future roll in any possible economic paradigm is one issue - the amount of white collar jobs currently in the firing line by the progress in the fields of automation is something a little more pressing. Whether the technology will ever catch up to have a complete control over the production of income is a side issue compared to the potential economic cliff face the current system faces in the next 20-30 years if people like Mark Carney from the BoE are to be believed (and that warning needs to be heeded imo). Problems lie ahead in many traditional sectors of employment for shifting reasons. And there's nothing but evolution there on the one hand, but the collapse of the mining industries and manufacturing sector in the UK did not come with the Thatcherite promise of 'retraining and opportunity for all', so assuming some redress of the imbalance is needed if we reach sudden mass unemployment in the future is surely a noble cause based on prior evidence.

The idea of unproductiveness towards/within the current paradigm isn't restricted to those with a lack of opportunity though either. 2 or 3 years ago in the wake of the banking crisis a friend of mine in London told me some of the major banking houses opened their application procedures to non graduates for the first time she could remember, as the 'cream of the crop' that they had always relied on chasing a high wage and standard of living before were preferring to take more altruistic routes like finding ways to clean plastic out of the seas or protecting rainforests through start-up ethical investment companies and so on. Expand that idea to the military or any other high end income sector in the current economic system, and add on the very real possibility of some people choosing an unproductive lifestyle in economic terms like blandy said on page whatever.

As a few posters here have pointed out certain ways of doing things wont be done the way we do them. What current occupations remain in the future will be what drives the 2070 'nostalgia thread' on VT I suppose! But whatever new occupations spring up that we cant even perceive or conceptualise at this time will certainly be in full flow by then. ( @sidcow STEM stuff, coding and programming one suggestion for your kids' futures!)

The message from the cheerleaders of UBI as a concept (as laid out by Guy Standing here in a TedX talk on youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNHAgXy5dxQ - Professorial Research Associate at SOAS University of London and a founder member and honorary co-president of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), a non-governmental organisation that promotes a basic income for all. http://www.guystanding.com/ ) run the logic along the lines of firstly, Social Justice, a social dividend on the collective wealth. Secondly (that appeals to 'the right') of conservative freedom. The third (that appeals to 'the left') being basic security as a right and that there is an element of 'irrationality' (Crime, selfishness, 'irrational' economic decisions and so on) that could be instantly positively affected by the relief of poverty.

I don't see anyone here that would argue against the need to address those issues either. The question is surely whether UBI could do that quickly enough and to the point where it could influence the transition to a different paradigm without the need for civil unrest? I may argue it could well fulfill that particular function. Nobody likes the extreme inequalities in our system that mean homeless people exist or that poor people die on average younger than the more affluent. Or that statistically poor people are more likely to be driven into a life of crime, but the only opposition to it here from anyone in this thread that I can see is that they feel it does not directly address those issues, moreover it helps to frame the argument in a way in which the potential solution operates within the very system which is causing the problems in the first place. And on top of that I would argue is designed to make us 'fit' the game theory models outlined in the Adam Curtis stuff above, rather than the models being developed to 'fit' our needs.

It expounds on basic tenants of communism and appeals to the notion of equality of opportunity. People shouldn't be left to die on the streets, collectively we can provide for everyone and people should have an element of freedom that allows them to exist as they choose and exist in relative safety. But if the point of that debate within the current paradigm is - people shouldn't have to 'afford' basic levels of housing, utilities, enough food to survive and so on then wouldn't our time be better spent working out ways of facilitating that for the betterment of society rather than entertaining a disproportionately divided profit share? What is the role of dissent in a society where we are all on the payroll of the overclass? In the age of efficiency and individualism, isn't it also the bureaucrats, the facilitators and the politicians, the 'owners' of intellect, and of resources whose current income streams will be wiped out? What need do we have in an automated future for the majority of them? I get it, that there is little framework for an alternative to immediately point towards. And for that reason alone maybe it's an idea whose time has come. Problem for me is it entrenches our investment in the status quo to a level that would be hard to ever redress and I can't help but think it's part of the driving force behind a concept from the 1790's making the rounds in the press today. Thomas Paine credited as being the originally quoted source of the idea -

Quote

Agrarian Justice as the first American proposal for an old-age pension and basic income or citizen's dividend. Per Agrarian Justice:

In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right, and not a charity ... [Government must] create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property. And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine

The basis then being that people's 'natural inheritance' of land and resources needed to be recompensed - nothing to do with unemployment then (N.B. think about what the line compensated for 'the introduction of the system of landed property' actually means in this country). We operate in a time where we are beginning to progress past the need for the man in the big top hat with the money and the knowledge to do the things we cant do for ourselves. Yet affordability and accessibility are still constraints. Part of that progress is already due to the way we interface with these very technologies we use to access VT! Part of it will be the way we evolve to use the new technologies around us and as the things we can't do for ourselves get less and less in number. The idea whose time has come imo is "who reckons they own 'the water' exactly?" (and so on). We saw the international communities reaction to that question being posed in Bolivia some time back. The Guillotine was of course the French model back in the day used to redress their perceived disparity at the time. But younger generations are already posing the questions around re-nationalising key infrastructure like the railways for example. Finding more efficient and inclusive ways to educate people, feed people, house people, provide healthcare and so on is not really in this day and age particularly challenging especially as A.I. and statistical modelling become ever more entwined and sophisticated. Convincing the owners to the educational copyrights, the owners of the means of food production, the owners and builders of housing or the healthcare industry to give up their economic and political advantages for the advancement of the greater good though is pretty tricky.

Few people want to continue destroying the rainforests or the environment, few people want wars, few people (although admittedly many are happy with it) want to enslave people on the other side of the planet in some economic paradigm that means they facilitate your comfortable life at the expense of their own. The people's reaction to the idea of TTIP shows people are not ok with entrenching the rights of corporations and oligarchs into law at a level above their own. This suggests to me that 'the people' are way ahead of the conceptual argument on this one compared to those framing the dialogue. And lo and behold in this day and age vested interests are the driving force. Our inclination towards collectivism (National figures suggest at least 48/49% of the country at the last count ) is not accounted for in an economic model driven purely by self interest. As I've said before it's not about attacking capitalism from my point of view, but being realistic about the need to regain some of the controls over it, politically, that make it work for the benefit of the society more as a whole than for the pockets of society who it works for on an uneven scale of opportunity in it's present form. Ethical investment portfolios can only save so many trees and watercourses. Technological advancements in alternate energies wont have an effect over the nuclear fuel payment guarantees at Hinkley Point. Nor will UBI address the ongoing debt related to PFI payments underwritten by govt policy or begin to address any of the more counter-productive elements of our current system without a more radical overhaul than creating more debt to facilitate more consumer spending and the promotion of perpetual growth. It would however allow us to carry on regardless with the current way of doing things, the differences being a bit less dissent, ever rising costs that need never really consider affordability and the whole world continuing to pay in to a system that already created an overclass and continues to subsidise it.

Bail-Out II and this time, it's your money! Would the powers that be be able to sell it as a concept without the bribe though?

I'll stop now, but only after quoting my favourite line from those Adam Curtis documentaries up there - "Behavioural Economics has been studying whether people really behave as the simplified model (game theory) says they do. Their studies show that only 2 groups in society actually behave in a rational, self interested way in all experimental situations. One is Economists themselves, the other is Psychopaths"

Edited March 5, 2018 by VILLAMARV
missed a word and added a couple also changed a link to a better version :)