re: Elon Musk: Automation Will Force Governments to Introduce Universal Basic Income

quote:

---

I don't owe you an alternative plan. We are discussing UBI, and I've explained why it will not work. You won't listen, but that's your issue.

We have ALWAYS had automation, and it has always lead to gains in productivity that offset the labor that is lost. Save the great depression, unemployment is stable throughout decades of some of the most significant advances in automation the world has ever known. Someone has to program and design the tech, someone has to furnish the supply base for automated systems and maintain those systems. New, yet undiscovered economic drivers will emerge, as the Web did in the early 90's that reinvigorate the economy with new jobs. Nothing happening todayou hasn't already happened.

---

So your argument is just to put your fingers in your ears, close your eyes and pretend nothing is going to happen or change and that hopefully historical trends will not change despite good evidence to the contrary?

Here are some quick facts: 3.5 million truck drivers in America. 500,000 to 1 million cab, Uber delivery, and transportation drivers. 3.7 million fast food workers. Millions of paralegal, low level accountants, book-keepers and various other low level paper jobs that are vulnerable to automation. Even Watson, the IBM super computer, is being engineered to replace the role doctors used to serve in diagnosing patients. And it has more far-reaching effects then that for the healthcare world. That is a 13 million directly employed industry.

Now it is also true that historically economies have shifted and employment overall has not suffered on the scale many in the very industry driving this(and many economists) predict. But there is one truth both sides agree upon, the speed and scope that these new advances can come into play is accelerating and will continue to do so. It is much easier for Google to launch a revolutionary software that can be adapted industry or economy wise in a matter of months then it was for the assembly line or changes in agriculture to make their way across the globe.

So the problem will still remain that UBI is uniquely poised to address. Because in an accelerated world the need to re-train, re-tool, and shift entire career fields will be more important then ever. How does a person like a machinist cope if they find their job is subject to automation? Maybe an equal number of opportunities do open up in software programming and wind technicians or in computer hardware maintenance. But how do we as a society adapt to that and make that transition possible?

The current welfare state is not well suited for that. UBI may not be a a magic bullet(I certainly don't think it is), but so far you are failing to provide a better one or explain how the current one is superior? That argument, I do not see. At least not when you bring efficiency and cost into the equation.

quote:

---

I don't disagree with any of this, but the industrial revolution decimated ag and manufacturing labor forces.

---

Well that's completely inaccurate. The industrial revolution shifted the labor force from agriculture to manufacturing. And industrialization of agriculture allowed a minuscule percentage of the population to provide more food than 70%+ of the population did just a few generations before.

quote:

---

UBI should already be a fact of life worldwide. Everyone has a right to have a living income.

---

This is a globalism free zone. Take this shite to Reddit

quote:

---

How old are you? Seriously, do you think we are ever getting rid of welfare? You think this system would suddenly be managed responsibly when all others before it are wrought with waste? All this does is raise our tax burden, increase unemployment, are drive inflation.

---

That isn't remotely the point of the post. What do we do when there can't possibly be enough jobs for people able to do them. We're already sort of there now and the post says it's inevitable that it will only get worse. Comment on the future, not today's sorry state of affairs...

quote:

---

This is a globalism free zone. Take this shite to Reddit

---

TBH, not even Trump thinks that is true. His argument is just that current deals haven't been good enough and that things like individual bi-lateral trade agreements are superior to multi-country or regional FTA.

Which will be interesting to see how that pans out for him in the coming years.

quote:

---

Everyone here has the right to a living income and decent shelter.

---

I am cut out of the mold of Locke, Jefferson, and Madison who assert that there is no such thing as a positive right. Luckily, those three probably had the biggest impact on our system of government. Madison actually drafted it.

quote:

---

Has he ever done anything without government money and who decided to give him so much?

---

quote:

---

So your argument is just to put your fingers in your ears, close your eyes and pretend nothing is going to happen or change and that hopefully historical trends will not change despite good evidence to the contrary?

---

No. My argument is that UBI doesn't work. It doesn't work and outside of a handful of pilot programs, no one will touch it- not even the Germans.

Show me a thriving, economically healthy democracy that has used UBI for at least 30 years.

quote:

---

No. My argument is that UBI doesn't work. It doesn't work and outside of a handful of pilot programs, no one will touch it- not even the Germans.

Show me a thriving, economically healthy democracy that has used UBI for at least 30 years.

---

So you say it hasn't really been tried on a wide scale but yet it doesn't work? So you mean it doesn't work conceptually? If so, why?

And again we get back to the same question, what works then? What will work in the future based on the agreed upon premises and forces at work?

quote:

---

There would a big and bloody set of wars that you would fight first before the equilibrium is reached

---

If you have the technology to automate critical needs, you can probably create technology to sterilize a good chunk of the population covertly. Why push violence when you can slowly and passively get rid of the 'problem'?