Obama is a politician and he lies. He says what other people want to hear. The thing is that they're already killing most humans through the LGTB agenda of depopulation. Dumb people is going to concede and die off. Rich people will perpetuate their linage because most forms of power require inheritance of power.
Inheritance of power is not only an observable fact: It's also a way to pass power to a trusted member, Why? To extend one's influence over others, because influence requires this stability/security of power.
The thing is that a massive genocide is going on: Even if such utopia were in the near horizon, which is not, you're running against this, and the fact that safe income ensures that the first country that reaches this utopia would end up looking like mozambique or germany.
A proposal of my "Base Income System"
It is a mix of both.
Automation is absolutely a source of job changes. But there is nothing new there and it has always been the case.
There was significant job loss with the invention of the cotton gin, but other industries absorbed the workers. The automobile caused job changes, there was suddenly far less demand for horse tack, for horseshoes, and for street muckers, and also far more demand for fuel stations, automobile repair, and mechanics.
Computers caused enormous job changes, there used to be entire armies of clerks and typists at major companies. Their only role was to make typewritten copies of documents for distribution. Switchboard operators used to connect calls and run little wires to connect people to each other. Printing something used to mean sending out to an actual human printer who would typeset, ink, and print. Files used to range from small rooms to enormous buildings full of papers and other objects. Those roles are largely gone.
Job change is not necessarily a bad thing. Generally the jobs being eliminated are tedious, difficult, or dangerous. While it is difficult to have your career path change, generally it results in better options overall for society.
Unfortunately for many, the jobs being eliminated also tend to be low-skill menial work. Sometimes that is the only kind of work some people can do. Even major companies like Walmart hire door greeters, people who otherwise probably could not hold a regular job where menial tasks are required. (There might be debate about if they do it for tax benefits, or government money, or whatever, but even so the people are hired.)
I know several people who work in metal shops. They tell similar stories about how their jobs have changed, but there is still work to be done. They can program in metal cuts to the system, load up the right metals, and listen to the buzz as the high-precision cuts are made with lasers or automated lathes or similar devices. The number of workers has dropped and there is different work than there was before. It changes.
Job change has always happened as technologies were invented. Javelin making, arrow fletchers, plate mail and chain mail manufacturing, buggy whips, cordwainers, street lamp lighters, field winnowers, ship rowers.... Changes in societal needs has always happened and always will.
As for a statutory minimum income, that has been proposed in many places and implemented in a few. The economic changes are wide-reaching. Nobody likes paying taxes, everybody likes "free money". There is always a need to discuss the balance between individuals versus society since the balance is constantly shifting. The cost to society as a whole is relatively small, but the costs to individuals will vary from unbearable to unnoticable. The benefit to individuals will vary from unnoticable to lifesaving. It also becomes a question of morals and humanity. There were eras and places where the moral and humane thing of the era was to slay the ill, elderly, and infirm. Societal norms and values are always in flux, and the effects can affect all of society, so it is a big discussion not particularly related to game development.
It is a mix of both.
Automation is absolutely a source of job changes. But there is nothing new there and it has always been the case.
...
Job change has always happened as technologies were invented. Javelin making, arrow fletchers, plate mail and chain mail manufacturing, buggy whips, cordwainers, street lamp lighters, field winnowers, ship rowers.... Changes in societal needs has always happened and always will.
It is true that people have always worried that machines will "steal all the jobs", and that hasn't happened yet. Luddites, etc...were obviously mistaken at their time.
That's mainly because jobs are not a limited, finite pool, so if machines take a piece of the pie, less "pie" remains for humans. That's obviously proven to be false. So far, machines that replace existing jobs, create new jobs that can't be also delegated to machines, and so must be done by humans.
The question remains though, is there a tipping point where most of the jobs created by smart machines can *also* be performed by smart machines? Because then we'll truly have a situation we haven't dealt with before.
Your view seems to be that there is no such tipping point...personally my view is that we simply haven't reached it yet. The natural capabilities of humans are more-or-less fixed; machines get smarter every day, and they will continue to do so. Take into account that for most of human history, jobs that require any kind of thinking processes have been solely the domain of humans, and even when it comes to replacing manual labour, the steam engine only came about 3 centuries ago.
Tbh, I can't see how one can argue that there is no such tipping point. A simple thought experiment : Take the extreme case scenario where we have a smart machine capable to replace the best neurosurgeon...even if the existence of such machine creates new jobs, the nature of which we can't imagine yet, why would they need to be performed by humans if we already have machines as "smart" as a neurosurgeon? If machines can perform brain surgery, what is it that they won't be able to do that humans can? How many humans can compete with such a generation of machines for the new pieces of "job pie" that have been created?
(Note - I used that as an obviously extreme example to show that my proposed "tipping point" *must* exist somewhere; my actual view is that we will reach it even with "moderately" smart machines, in 30-40 years, even if actual "neurosurgeon" machines won't arrive for a couple of centuries. Of course, I'm not an expert in robotics/AI, my view is just from what I read about them.)
Anyway...a couple of relevant articles/vids:
https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/ubers-self-driving-cars-start-picking-up-passengers-in-san-francisco/
Obama is a politician and he lies. He says what other people want to hear. The thing is that they're already killing most humans through the LGTB agenda of depopulation. Dumb people is going to concede and die off. Rich people will perpetuate their linage because most forms of power require inheritance of power.
Obama and Trump are both capable of telling lies and telling the truth, like anyone. Since anyone can say anything true or false, someones status is not a very good measure on the truth value of their claim (see: appeal to authority logical fallacy). The rest of your claims are wild conjecture which can just as easily be refuted by "have you seen the movie idiocracy?" which serves as a perfect counter example.
Inheritance of power is not only an observable fact: It's also a way to pass power to a trusted member, Why? To extend one's influence over others, because influence requires this stability/security of power.
I don't see where you're going with this or how it's related...
The thing is that a massive genocide is going on: Even if such utopia were in the near horizon, which is not, you're running against this, and the fact that safe income ensures that the first country that reaches this utopia would end up looking like mozambique or germany.
Citation needed.
Eric Nevala
Indie Developer | Spellbound | Dev blog | Twitter | Unreal Engine 4
Aw dammit, I was really hoping this thread would be kept nice and to-the-point. Did we really have to address the "LGBT agenda of depopulation" guy? :P
It is a mix of both.
Automation is absolutely a source of job changes. But there is nothing new there and it has always been the case.
There was significant job loss with the invention of the cotton gin, but other industries absorbed the workers. The automobile caused job changes, there was suddenly far less demand for horse tack, for horseshoes, and for street muckers, and also far more demand for fuel stations, automobile repair, and mechanics.
Computers caused enormous job changes, there used to be entire armies of clerks and typists at major companies. Their only role was to make typewritten copies of documents for distribution. Switchboard operators used to connect calls and run little wires to connect people to each other. Printing something used to mean sending out to an actual human printer who would typeset, ink, and print. Files used to range from small rooms to enormous buildings full of papers and other objects. Those roles are largely gone.
Job change is not necessarily a bad thing. Generally the jobs being eliminated are tedious, difficult, or dangerous. While it is difficult to have your career path change, generally it results in better options overall for society.
Unfortunately for many, the jobs being eliminated also tend to be low-skill menial work. Sometimes that is the only kind of work some people can do. Even major companies like Walmart hire door greeters, people who otherwise probably could not hold a regular job where menial tasks are required. (There might be debate about if they do it for tax benefits, or government money, or whatever, but even so the people are hired.)
I know several people who work in metal shops. They tell similar stories about how their jobs have changed, but there is still work to be done. They can program in metal cuts to the system, load up the right metals, and listen to the buzz as the high-precision cuts are made with lasers or automated lathes or similar devices. The number of workers has dropped and there is different work than there was before. It changes.
Job change has always happened as technologies were invented. Javelin making, arrow fletchers, plate mail and chain mail manufacturing, buggy whips, cordwainers, street lamp lighters, field winnowers, ship rowers.... Changes in societal needs has always happened and always will.
I look at Detroit as a canary in the coalmine for the future of what we have in store for us. The center of the American auto industry has been in Detroit for decades, and the city got the nickname "Motorcity". In 1970, it was a huge boom town. Assembly lines were pumping out cars by the thousands, the automobile factories employeed thousands, the who auto industry brought in an influx of fresh cash and put it into the pockets of the auto workers. Over the decades, increases in production efficiency meant that fewer and fewer auto workers were required to assemble a car. Then the robotics came. You can now assemble 90% of a car with a robot. I'm making up numbers here, but what used to take 20 people now takes 3 people, and there is no reduction in volume or quality. That means there are 17 fewer needed workers, which means that the difference in profits goes directly to the pockets of the owners and shareholders. THIS is why we have an increasing separation between the richest 1% who have 40% of the wealth and the other 99%. That chasm is going to continue to grow. A lot of other industries popped up in Detroit to provide services to the flush auto workers, but as the auto workers dried up, so did the dependent service industries. Now, if you look at what Detroit has become, it's a ghost town of its former self.
You're saying that jobs change and new jobs are created, but that depends on new industries to pop up because existing jobs/industries became obsolete. I agree with the benefits of disruption and job creation, but what happens when an industry isn't disrupted and it just gets automated to 90% production efficiency? The bottom falls out on the economy. John builds a car and gets paid $1,000 for it. Tom, Jane and Stan sells John a widget for $250 each. Tom, Jane, and Stan all go buy lunches for $100 a month from Stacy, Cindy, and Pam. If John doesn't build cars for $1,000 anymore, and he goes and joins Tom, Jane, and Stan, they're all waiting for another John to come spend money so that they can circulate his earnings through the economic spending chain. When nobody has money left because business has stopped, because there are no customers left, the economy grinds to a stand still. This is happening all over America, and the symptoms are going to be somewhat gradual. It'll look like this: Unemployment rates are going to gradually increase, year by year. Under employment is going to increase as well. Service industry jobs will gradually start circulating stale money and then go out of business. Some service industry jobs will also be automated as well: Instead of ordering a cheeseburger from a human being at McDonalds, you'll just order it much like you'd order a coke from a soda dispenser. No human required. This will accelerate the unemployment rate.
As for a statutory minimum income, that has been proposed in many places and implemented in a few. The economic changes are wide-reaching. Nobody likes paying taxes, everybody likes "free money". There is always a need to discuss the balance between individuals versus society since the balance is constantly shifting. The cost to society as a whole is relatively small, but the costs to individuals will vary from unbearable to unnoticable. The benefit to individuals will vary from unnoticable to lifesaving. It also becomes a question of morals and humanity. There were eras and places where the moral and humane thing of the era was to slay the ill, elderly, and infirm. Societal norms and values are always in flux, and the effects can affect all of society, so it is a big discussion not particularly related to game development.
Yeah, I agree. I think that the difference between a basic income and what I'm proposing is that the "base" income is a deductible amount of earnings an employer can take off of someones earnings. This would require massive reform, and would also obsolete a bunch of existing systems. "Minimum wage" would be redundant, because that would be taken care of by the subsidized base income. This would really incentivize employers to hire more workers because the barrier for entry is a lot lower. And if we boost a persons base income if they're gainfully employed, it also incentivizes them to work as a means to live a better life. Social Security would also be unnecessary, because every senior would just make their base income plus any investment revenue, and that would be sufficient to life comfortably. That would mean that Social Security could just be reappropriated to the new base income system. Likewise with welfare, but with less bureaucracy and overhead costs,
I think the hardest problem would be funding it:
If every adult in America makes $1500 a month, guaranteed, and we have 300,000,000 adults, then we're looking at 450 billion a month, or $5.4 trillion a year.
Social security paid out $888 billion in 2015. Welfare paid out $668 billion in 2015. Combined, we'd have an annual expenditure of 1.556 trillion, which is $3.844 trillion short of what we'd need. So, we'd need to raise taxes to pay for it.... and who pays the taxes? The businesses and people who work.... so... if I'm right and eventually 90% of the workforce is unemployed and enjoys getting paid a base income to do nothing... who is left to pay the taxes to fund it all? Yeah... here's where I run into trouble. I think a simple computer simulation could give a lot more insight on the viability of my idea.
Eric Nevala
Indie Developer | Spellbound | Dev blog | Twitter | Unreal Engine 4
And, if you have the top elite of 20% of super skilled workers who are programmers, scientists, surgeons, etc, who decide to work because those jobs can't be automated, and they sacrifice their lifes time by dedicating it to work, then they should deserve the huge increase in a quality of life, prestige, status, etc. The other 80% can live a "good enough" lifestyle and be happy. If you wanted to, you could spend the next five years of your life doing nothing but playing World of Warcraft and working out, and that would be just fine.
I don't think it's really that simple.
You see "having a job" as merely a means to make money, but is it really so?
Being a "productive member of society" means you have an active role in shaping it, however small. Shaping history, basically.
The professional, high-skilled "elite" I mentioned won't just have a better quality of life. They will have a much bigger, or even exclusive, say on shaping society and history. And they will do it, as always, to benefit themselves.
Presently, even by being an unskilled manual worker, you are still an active agent in history. You have a job. You hone your skills. You work with other people to build something. You can be part of a union.
Being thrown entirely outside production, so you can play warcraft and survive on this "basic income"? What does that leave you when it comes to playing an active role in society and history?
A part of the goal is to get people to NOT work, because it won't be necessary for survival anymore.
The problem is, however, not that there isn't enough work. The problem is that there are too many people, and too many useless people. This sounds harsh and inhuman, but it is true. Plus, the useless people are getting more.
This is a problem that is actively being promoted by current politics in developed countries, too. In particular, by programs that make people not work. I'll come back to that in the last paragraph, as to not disrupt the flow too much.
a lot of people will say, "You know what? I'm actually quite comfortable and happy, this is good enough, I don't need more, and it is more important for me to spend my lifes time pursuing activity X."
No. You think too highly of people. People are not comfortable and happy. Fullstop. In particular, people do not appreciate what they get for free. People want more, and better stuff. People want to blame someone. What do you think God exists for? Ulitmately, because that's someone who can be blamed. Example: My child died. It's God's will. Need to blame someone.
People will not say "I'm happy", they will say: "Why do I still live in this shitty apartment that looks the same as the apartment to the left and to the right, why can't I be, like, the ruler of this city, or something, live in a palace. My neighbour has a much better wife, and he isn't working either. Whom can I blame? What? I have enough to eat and every luxury and should be happy? Now that you mention eating... darn it, I'm fat. This is all your fault.".
everybody gets 15,000
This means no more and no less than 15,000 is worth exactly zero. If you have money (or a similar system) then it only works if whatever you have is worth something.
If money comes out of "nowhere", it has no value.
Remember the 1920s. Everybody was rich, but few people had enough to eat. My grandmother still owns some "ten billion Reichsmark" bills. Woah, billionaire. Multi billionaire even! If, however, a loaf of bread costs a hundred billion, those billions aren't worth too much, are they.
And, if you have the top elite of 20% of super skilled workers [...] huge increase in a quality of life
Erm... 0.02% you mean.
But you see, again, this is exactly the opposite of what is happening and what socialist politics go for. It is also the exact opposite of what would be the case in your model.
Life time is the most precious thing that exists. It is the only thing that is truly hard limited and that cannot be recycled, regained, or bought back once it's gone. Thus, by definition, if you spend your life time doing work when you need not, you are expending the most precious thing you have in your life. Nothing can compensate for that.
The political problem:
What we are currently seeing is that we have more and more slackers and more and more unskilled workers who are, bluntly said, useless. Those unskilled workers are indeed exactly what you can automate away. And they are increasing in numbers. On the other hand side, the very same people who talk of base income are trying hard to take away everything from those who are skilled and are working. In other words, the few who keep the state going. Which, of course, can only lead to desaster.
One of those far-left comedians who do left propaganda late at night in public TV recently made a joke on some lower-class radicals shouting paroles like "down with this state" (presumably jobless Neonazis, and from what they looked like, I'm willing to agree with that judgement) in former East Germany. He said: "What are they complaining about, they live in a paradise where over 50% of every Euro gained is redistributed, and where the top 1% pays more tax than the other 99%, this is what people in other countries only dream of". -- Well, he was smarter than he intended in what he said!
Indeed, the top 1% (to which I belong too) pay more tax than the other 99%. And indeed, over half of everything you earn is taken away (it's much more than half if you are being truly honest). At the same time, the far-lefts shout: Down with the rich, raise taxes. Sure, it's easy to shout "raise tax" when you're not paying any. But what does being "rich" mean nowadays? Unless you are one of approximately 100 people in the country, being "rich" means having more or less the same (sometimes fewer) privileges as a welfare recipient. Only just, you're working your ass off while they smoke hemp.
Communists are presently talking of a 75% tax on "super rich" again (where "super rich" means one million), and Greens agree with that although they don't want to commit to a number (there is however an apparent relation to Rolex watches). Socialists say: "Raise tax? Sure. There is plenty of room upwards for income tax, still". Liberals say "Just take 10% wealth tax from everybody, no exceptions". In reality (only need to look at the past, or how it works e.g. in France), what classifies you as elegible for wealth tax ("super rich") is when you own a house that isn't a total ruin. Fat Sigi, who plans to take away your parent's house, said inheriting is unfair, and each generation must earn their right to own something. Earn the right to own, funny how that is so very much compatible with our constitution that says the right to own is guaranteed. This is akin to how the legal system is perverted. The law says you're innocent unless proven otherwise. In reality, you must prove your innocence.
But, in summary, what they are all saying is: "Take away what people who work have earned". That stupid socialist in France already tried how well this works. Come up with a 75% surprise tax and what happens is simply that the rich leave your country. So instead of 35% tax, you now get zero from them. You can call Depardieu a faithless traitor all day long, but you're still not getting one cent from him.
To add to this, we have a gallopping inflation whilst interest remains at zero. This is nothing but stealing from those who have worked and saved. Sure, if all you have is debt, then you're laughing at that. But it doesn't work like this forever.
Why are these politics a problem?
All in all, it makes working unattractive, and it leads to the exact situation that we already have.
We have millions of people not working and not bothering to get an education. Plus, millions of "doctors and engineers" migrants of which meanwhile is known 30% cannot read or write. All of them want to eat, and they all want a luxury apartment and a big car, and two blonde women. For free, of course. And they all get children for which they get a lot of welfare. Needless to say that what they're teaching to their children is surely not to be a hard worker. Why would they, everything is free.
Where does the money for that come from? Where will it come from when the 1% that pays 99% of the tax is fed up and stops working?
The industry, in virtually every sector, has -- for years -- been desperately seeking for skilled people, or for people who are at least willing to get educated/qualified, take an apprenticeship, or people who can at least read and write properly and who don't outright fail the idiot test. But they simply don't get enough people, and those that they do get are mostly useless. I know a master carpenter living in the next town who told me how hopeless it is to even find an apprentice in this not-so-very-scientific craft. If he gets any applicants at all, three out of four he can reject right away without even trying since they're just too darn fucking stupid, lazy, and useless.
So... instead of teaching people not to work, what about teaching people to learn?
The same problem exists on a global scale, too. There's billions of people living in either perceived or real poverty, and they are multiplying. But nothing is done to teach them escape this cycle. Instead, they are being fed (just enough so they live), and they learn that it's not necessary to do something because you're being fed. So they multiply again, and the problem worsens. And of course, they're being sold weapons, too. Without a little war now and then, how boring would it be.
Greens are saying we cannot afford to breed cattle any more because they fart so much methane and because there is not enough food for the population. This is a lie. The truth is that we are still letting a large share of our (comparatively very small) agricultural surface lay waste, or using it for non-environmental non-food things (including "bio fuel" and including deliberately producing huge amounts of methane called "bio gas").
Truth is also that if we do not teach the entire third world that they must eat filet mignon every day and that filet mignon falls from the sky for free, then of course there is enough cattle for everybody. They've eaten tapioca and rice for thousands of years, and they were happy with it. Now they suddenly all want filet.
It's the same thing with water. There is plenty of water for everybody on the planet. Only just, 99% of all living humans do not appreciate its value. You cannot even blame them because they're not being taught to appreciate it. They're taught water comes out of that pipe, and if no more water comes, well.. then you sit down and wait until someone fixes the problem for you. Meanwhile, you waste it all you want, because hey, it comes from that pipe forever.
What I always find fascinating is this idea that suddenly things are changing now more than ever, as if the industrial revolution wasn't a massive change, or that automation hasn't been continually increasing for much of the last 200 years since then. When it's just working/lower class jobs, nobody really minded, but now we see a computer painting a picture or winning at Go, suddenly there's panic, even though those tasks are in relatively low demand. It looks to me less like there's a change in automation quantity, more that it's started to affect the type of people who are able to write articles about it.
My perspective is: yes, the nature of work is changing, but mostly at the same rate as ever. Automation moves people out of jobs but it also reduces the cost of goods and services, which could mean that people don't all need to work the typical 35-40hr week. People might transition to more part-time work, on average. In the short to medium term there will be some roadbumps with this (e.g. how to encourage the system to employ 2 people to work 20hrs a week instead of 1 person working 40 and the other getting no hours) but I think this will be more easily adjusted with targeted help (e.g. funding for retraining) than with blanket measures that are very expensive and politically controversial such as universal basic income.
Is it presumably because the latter is providing you(all of us in the 1st world, that is) with cheap products, and you(we) very much like those products keep being cheap?
I'll...just leave this here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company
https://genius.com/Pablo-neruda-the-united-fruit-company-annotated
(Really, if you want to blame someone for Che Guevara, blame UFC; the guy basically got radicalized by trying to figure out how a company that sold freaking fruits managed to constantly wreak havok and have in its pockets most of the Americas).
(As I'm writing this, I'm eating a Chiquita banana, we have plenty free-for-all in the office; where we make military simulators for the US army; what a damn hypocrite I am myself!)
