1): Ultimately we have to at least initially rely on taxation of the people who would be working and managing automated systems. Cultural perceptions of this can help, but there is the fact that some will feel like they are working for everyone and not getting much out of it.

2): Will people who have nothing to do simply be content with that? That's the real question.

1) This appears to be true. Corporations love to lobby for their own benefit at the detriment of the public. Individuals are pretty vocal about not wanting to support random strangers with their taxes/insurance premiums/etc. There's not enough sympathy or empathy in our society for this to be accepted at this point.

2) If people's needs are met, and they can sustain some kind of hobby, they'll be fine.


In the current system, if someone doesn't have a job they're not really capable of buying many products.

If we automate too much, we may find that eventually there are too few people to sustain the costs of even the highly efficient automated processes.

I'll disagree with a few points, but do agree that we're looking for the larger trend.

The larger trend ignores individuals. The individual jobs don't particularly matter, such as how there was a downfall in buggy and bicycle repair but an increase in automobile repair. One city focused on one job may fall into decline, but another may rise.

For jobs themselves, I think it would be amazing if the number of human-required jobs trended down toward zero. I doubt it could ever hit zero, but consider what that means: It means humans do not need to do manual labor to enjoy the basics of food and shelter, but also the more advanced elements like high quality of life, medical care, and entertainment.

What remains is the modifications to the economy as that line changes. While it may be bumpy as occasional human greed must be overcome, I would hope that the line for all of society the global quality of life would trend upward. As the amount of work needed for basic support drops downward everyone can enjoy that quality of life.

One big issue today is not that we don't have services, or we don't have clean water, or we don't have food, shelter, or we cannot educate. The problem is distribution. It is difficult to get services, educators, food, water and shelter to all the people. Many rich countries have more food on the vine than can be picked , food waiting in distribution centers, food rotting on store shelves. There is no economically viable way to transport the extra food to poor locations.

So we have people in some regions of the world that uses clean, purified, treated culinary water on their fields and crops, but we cannot transport it to other regions of the world where clean water doesn't exist. We have regions with excess food, more than we can easily dispose of, but we cannot transport it to other regions where food is scarce. Some regions have excess housing, homes sitting vacant where there not even any squatters, the squatters have picked over the best houses among the vacant and there are even more vacancies to go around, but we cannot get these to the people living huddled in garbage heaps where no housing space is available.

But let's say somehow that distribution problem gets solved.

All the people have basic needs met through automated systems. All the people everywhere in the world have places to live, clean water, food to eat, sanitation, education, and medical care.

That would be AWESOME. If we had also reduced the need to work down to a bare minimum, where people could enjoy the luxury of following any career they wished rather than being forced to work out of need, that would also be AWESOME. If that is the direction the line takes humanity, I'm all for it. This is the pattern of Utopian novels and movies, the world of Star Trek and similar. Money doesn't need to exist, everyone lives their lives flooded with opportunity and little misery.

However, if the bumpy line goes the opposite way and works downward, that would be TERRIBLE. Those in power would have everything they need, all their whims would be provided. But anyone not in power would have nothing, and those with power would deny the basics for life. This is the pattern of dystopian novels and post-apocalyptic movies. The world is a horrible place, people scratch out a life of misery where death is a welcome friend.

Unfortunately, we don't have any good way to establish which direction that longer term line would go. We hope for the upward trend, the utopian world. We fear for the downward trend, the dystopian world.

If a universal minimum base income could bring society toward that upward trend of a utopian world, even though it is mildly disruptive to some the entire world would be better for it. Let's do it.

But if the universal minimum base income just means all costs go up, the rich get richer, the poor have more money yet a worse quality of life because the money does not go as far, then we're headed to a dystopian world. Let's not do it.

Unfortunately my crystal ball is broken and I don't know which way it will go. So let's wait until some of the places experimenting with the idea have tried it out for a while. If those places start to succeed and turn into a mini-utopia, let's go that way. If those places begin to turn to a nightmarish hellscape, let's not go that way.

What if you put a tax on companies that leave the country?

The upper ends of companies already have billions in offshore tax havens. If you do a one time tax on exiting companies you get revenue for 1 year. After that you're SOL

That's a fairly definite claim. Do you have numbers to back it up?

I'm not really sure of numbers to back it up, but as a manager my workers who work on one project are way more familar with the project than those who work on a project for less time.

While productivity does go up with rest/time off, knowledge can be seperate from that. Spending a long tmie reviewing/working on a process can make an employee integral to that project's success.

I'm not even against a basic income, but I think trying to gain funding for it through corporate tax is pretty wrong-headed. I'd say a potentially more profitable move would be setting a 0% corporate income tax, 0% capital gains tax, and tax both exports and imports (including software). This way we have an incredibly strong private sector that can afford to maintain massive ammounts of taxable productivity.

Ah, one of the classic arguments. But like all the classic socialist arguments, it's a lie. Why is it a lie? Because the "low wage" that you pay to those poor people is not low at all in their country.

http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats



~1 billion live with less than 1$ per day.
~3 billion live with less than 2.50$ per day
~5 billion live with less than 10$ per day

Let that sink in : - 3 billion live with less than 2.50$ per day.

Those people gather our fruit, our coffee, or tea, sew our clothes, assemble our electronics. mine our raw materials.

Before you go "that's not low in their country" - that's not what they actually earn. Those figures are PPP-adjusted, meaning "Purchasing Power Partity" - what they earn corresponds to what you can buy with $1, $2.50, $10 in the US.

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

I rent my place, and I don't even own a car - Yet I'm still firmly in the top 15-20% globally, and still one of the beneficiaries of those people's misery.

I'm not saying the rich shouldn't pay taxes. But so should everybody, not just 1% of the population (or 3% or 5%, choose your number).

Tbh, I don't even know *what* you're ranting most of the time, man. I make a very modest living as game programmer in Prague(~2400E per month), and 28% of my monthly salary goes directly to taxes. I paid roughly the same when I was freelancing in Greece. I'm more than happy to pay them so it goes to public infastructure/healthcare and to those less fortunate than me - I could end up without a job myself any moment, and months could go by before I find a new one. You don't see me go "waaah waaah waaah...you people are taking out of my pocket more than what my rent is every month". So...you know, with all respect...quit your whining, man. :)

Camp A believes the "function" is a line that always "goes upwards". It has done so in the past, does so in the present, and will continue to do so in the future. The trend will continue as always; no matter how many jobs will be automated by a new generation of machines, enough jobs will be created that are more cost-effective to be performed by humans than the current generation of machines.

Camp B believes the "function" is a curve, that so far has been going "upwards". On that, like everything else, we agree with Camp A. Our difference is that we believe that, eventually, we will reach a tipping point, when most of the jobs created by the new generation of machines can (and is cost-effective to) be performed by the very same generation of machines that created them in the first place. The curve will "slow down", and eventually "go downwards". And, at that point, a new situation, a new "quality" will arise that humanity hasn't dealt with before.

I think that this is a question of recursion. Recursion definitely exists, so the "Camp A" type of prediction cannot necessarily hold forever.

I'm more interested in having a contingency plan in place in case that new "quality" you mention arises.

Well, if you ask me, that contingency plan is socialism - and I when I say socialism I don't merely mean "tax the rich" or "social welfare" and "basic income" - those are all well and good reforms to make life a bit better until capitalism. Social democracy basically. Of course, for some people, it's all the same - damn commies want to steal my stuff.

I mean : common ownership of the means of production(so, basically, a large army of automatons). Of course, democracy, as open as possible. Work less, play more. If you have to work, invest in large-scale projects that benefit mankind; pool resources in order to do that, don't waste them in developing technologies in parallel. Don't think I imagine a "paradise on earth". Humans are heavily flawed; every society they'll build will be heavily flawed. But still, we can be heavily flawed while at the same time finding a better balance.

(Btw, that "new quality that arises from changes into quantity" is a classic marxist/dialectics method of seeing things - so I don't take credit for it).

But the problem is, undoubtebly, the "good name" of socialism has been besmirched in the 20th century - and I'm not saying it's completely unjustified. Some people in the left even propose we abandon the "brand" altogether - they use some other names, like Michael Albert's "Participatory Economics" - Parecon; my god what an awfully-sounding name. :P

Anyway, it is a fact that today you can't mention socialism/communism, even to people that are willing to hear, without the inevitable question : "So what about Stalin or Mao".

And we get to the fact that the socialist revolutions in the 20th century all happened in backwards, agricultural, largely feudal countries: Russia, China, Cuba, etc.

And we get to the tenet of marxism, that really, all those revolutions "sidelined" : https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Marx

No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore, mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, we will always find that the task itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation.

In the countries that socialist revolutions happened, there was just too much "inertia", both in material in social conditions. Too much force was used to overcome that inertia. And that force did lead to atrocities and crimes and dictatorship.(let me just say that it's highly hypocritical of the capitalists to cry "oh what attrocities were commited in Soviet Russia or Cuba!", like they ever left them alone to develop more freely; right after the mostly peaceful 1917 revolution they send their armies to crush it, resulting in the utterly destructive Civil War).

Let me give a telling passage of "Darkness At Noon" - a very much anti-communist, or at least anti-Stalinist and anti-Bolshevik book, but one that its author, as an ex-communist himself, at least really understands the "objective conditions" that led to all the ugliness :

"Several years ago," said Gletkin after a while, "a little peasant was brought to me to be cross-examined. It was in the provinces, at the time when we still believed in the flower-garden theory, as you call it. Cross-examinations were conducted in a very gentlemanly way. The peasant had buried his crops; it was at the beginning of the collectivization of the land. I kept strictly to the prescribed etiquette. I explained to him in a friendly way that we needed the corn to feed the growing city population and for export, in order to build up our industries; so would he please tell me where he had hidden his crops.

The peasant had his head drawn into his shoulders when he was brought into my room, expecting a beating. I knew his kind; I am myself country-born. When, instead of beating him, I began to reason with him, to talk to him as an equal and call him ‘citizen,' he took me for a half-wit. I saw it in his eyes. I talked at him for half an hour. He never opened his mouth and alternately picked his nose and his ears.

I went on talking, although I saw that he held the whole thing for a superb joke and was not listening at all. Arguments simply did not penetrate his ears. They were blocked up by the wax of centuries of patriarchal mental paralysis. I held strictly to the regulations; it never even occurred to me that there were other methods. ...

"At that time I had twenty to thirty such cases daily.My colleagues the same. The Revolution was in danger of foundering on these little fat peasants. The workers were undernourished; whole districts were ravaged by starvation typhus; we had no credit with which to build up our armament industry, and we were expecting to be attacked from month to month. Two hundred millions in gold lay hidden in the woollen stockings of these fellows and half the crops were buried underground.

And, when cross-examining them, we addressed them as ‘citizen,' while they blinked at us with their sly-stupid eyes, took it all for a superb joke and picked their noses.

"The third hearing of my man took place at two o'clock at night; I had previously worked for eighteen hours on end. He had been woken up; he was drunk with sleep and frightened; he betrayed himself.

From that time I cross-examined my people chiefly at night. ...Once a woman complained that she had been kept standing outside my room the whole night, awaiting her turn. Her legs were shaking and she was completely tired out; in the middle of the hearing she fell asleep. I woke her up; she went on talking, in a sleepy mumbling voice, without fully realizing what she wassaying, and fell asleep again. I woke her once more, and she admitted everything and signed the statement without reading it, in order that I should let her sleep.

Her husband had hidden two machine guns in his barn and persuaded the farmers of his village to burn the corn because the Anti-Christ had appeared to him in a dream. That the wife had been kept waiting on her feet the whole night was due to the carelessness of my sergeant; from then onwards I encouraged carelessness of that kind; stubborn cases had to stand upright on one spot for as long as forty-eight hours.

After that the wax had melted out of their ears, and one could talk to them. ..."

Anyway, as a socialist, I can't say the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 "shouldn't have happened, because USSR in the end collapsed and now we're left with a tainted reputation". It did. That's history, and whatever happened, happened. And it happened because people were hungry and desperate and wanted bread. Lenin promised bread, and land, and peace, and they followed him. The sure thing is, USSR is dead, god bless her sinful soul, and China is very much capitalistic now, just without "democracy". I just think, with 20/20 hindsight of course, that it did end giving socialism a "bad name", and in final analysis, it made the "recruiting job" for us socialists of the 21th century more difficult, because we always face the same question : "What about Stalin". A common theme in "Darkness At Noon" is : "does the end justified the means"? Or, more accurately, "does the end justify all means"? Turns out, you should at least be careful with the methods that you use to change the world...they will end up changing you too.

All of this is theory of course; and theory usually goes out of the window when people are hungry and want to be fed now. They don't want to wait for when "the conditions are better". So I won't judge the revolutionaries that in their time thought this was the best for their people. In the end, without Stalin and his "brutal methods", we might be living in the world of Wolfenstein:New Order today.

Anyway, it's an ugly situation right now. Many people, as you say, want a "plan", because they can see the whole thing going off the rails. But most reject socialism, because "what about Stalin". And, deep down, I don't really blame them - from their point of view. So...I don't know. My personal opinion is that the Western World in 2017 is not the half-feudal Russia of 1917 - not only we don't have nearly as much social and material inertia as then; but even people like the OP who rejects communism can still see that the system pretty much "begs" us to change it.

So, I don't know. We socialists have a "contigency plan", but the "brand" unfortunately is tarnished. So...we'll see.

That's all as far as the "First World" goes - something a fellow socialist said the other day made an impression on me: "The world is not on the same page". 3rd world countries have much diffent, much bigger problems. Even the working class of the 1st world countries, while being exploited by capitalists, still benefits by the exploitation of the working class of the 3rd world, which lives in utterly tragic conditions. It's a pretty f-ed up situation. So...I guess we'll see.

(End of TLDR; socialist rant) :P

I fully agree with Frob's assessment of the problem and ChaosEngine is exactly on point with describing it as well.

The question is, how do we get from our current point (point A) to the utopian position (point B), with the least amount of disruption and upheaval? Is it a step backwards to get rid of money and currency all together? Is that an artifact of the capitalist system which is necessary to dismantle before advancing? Is there a way to do a phase out / phase in from one system to another, or is a violent revolution the only viable means for change? (violence being the force which pushes those who resist the change because they have the most to lose). I'm certainly not condoning it, just speculating. As frob points out, we could very well slip into a dystopian vision for the future, and I think that if we do nothing but continue forward as is, we will slip into a dystopian future with almost 100% certainty as capitalism reaches its final form.

A few years ago, I read about this tropical island in the middle of the ocean which had a very small population (50 people?).
http://www.sunnyskyz.com/blog/83/No-War-No-Money-No-Problems-The-Island-At-The-End-Of-The-Earth-Where-Life-Is-Good
They had no money. Nobody worked. The article said that the inhabitants were probably the happiest people living on the face of the earth. If they were hungry, they'd just pickup a coconut from the ground and eat it, or catch a few fish. Food was bountiful and always within easy reach. The islanders just spent their lifetimes doing whatever they pleased. One of the residents said that the reason they were all so happy is because nobody had money. They understood the concept of currency, and they weren't primitives, but they just didn't use currency. The concept of going to do a job every day to earn an hourly rate of money was very foreign. By all accounts, this small remote island is a utopia with a very small community. In my humble opinion, this is what the ultimate end of modern society *should* ideally look like. So the question is, how do we gradually transition into this with minimal pain and maximizing happiness? Is this kind of a future even possible, or are we all doomed to work 9-5 jobs for all eternity? Is that what the human spirit and human condition is meant for? To slave away a lifetime for an increase in numbers in a bank account?

Yea people are employed, but just look at the recent election campaigns, at least in the US. There was one common theme: loss of manufacturing jobs.

This is why I said the main issue is retraining.

Look at it this way. Say you have a system which can get the raw material, put into a factory, manufacture it, then spit out a finished product and deliver it to a customer all without a human in the loop (which is by no means unrealistic). What happens then?

You're talking as if that's a massive step. In fact, all you're doing is talking about taking the last 10 people out of a process that used to take 1000. In richer economies, most of the other people moved to service roles. Almost everything around us is almost entirely made by automation, when it used to be made by armies of craftspeople.

it is simply impossible for a worker in a country in the West to compete with people who are practically willing to work for a penny.

Totally. That's why Western countries need to exploit their advantages in education, literacy, etc and train for different roles.

Camp A believes the "function" is a line that always "goes upwards". It has done so in the past, does so in the present, and will continue to do so in the future. The trend will continue as always; no matter how many jobs will be automated by a new generation of machines, enough jobs will be created that are more cost-effective to be performed by humans than the current generation of machines.

Camp B believes the "function" is a curve, that so far has been going "upwards". On that, like everything else, we agree with Camp A. Our difference is that we believe that, eventually, we will reach a tipping point, when most of the jobs created by the new generation of machines can (and is cost-effective to) be performed by the very same generation of machines that created them in the first place. The curve will "slow down", and eventually "go downwards". And, at that point, a new situation, a new "quality" will arise that humanity hasn't dealt with before.

Do I have this right? :)

Guess that puts me in B-2? We have been generating 'jobs', in that people go to work somewhere and get paid at the end of the week/every two weeks, but we haven't been generating direct replacements for those jobs with equal purchasing power.

Far too much of the population is stuck working low paying jobs, often working far too many hours, and are wearing themselves thin all in the name of just making it to next year, or next month, or in far too many cases just trying to keep things together till next week. This in turn leaves them no time for self improvement. You can't "Get a better job" if all your current waking hours are already focused on getting to/from and doing your existing job/surviving and you don't even have time to go to an interview, let alone much time to read job listings.

The fact that in a country like Canada we can allow educated young talent to fall into this kind of employment death-spiral if they happen to be unlucky enough to have limited family support to avoid it says to me that something has gone terribly wrong.

I agree with retraining and revamping the education system. Automation can only go so far. It still needs human intervention to make automation useful. What if the machines break down, what if the code is outdated. How to make automation itself adapt to the change in the way human lives? Automation should be perceived as a tool for human well being and livelihood, not the thing that steal people's jobs. There is always going to be change in what people do. Maybe in the near future there would be a licensed drone operator, or a drone traffic controller, or a 3d-printer inspector. Who is preparing for those jobs now? Just that 8 years ago there is no such thing as a "social media marketing", there is plenty of those now.

There are people out there who are quick to adapt to the changes in the society, then there are those who sit and complain because they are not keeping themselves to the demand of the society. We should not reward laziness.

I feel like this "basic income" has to be treaded very carefully. It can work, but only in limited amount and cover basic necessities only such as housing, food, clothing, transportation, and medical expenses. The monies cannot be used to be spent on luxurious or irresponsible things like a new tech gadget or gambling, etc. So it's not that the government gives out everybody a paycheck every week or so, but rather vouchers similar to food stamps that can be used toward these basic necessities. I feel like this is the only way to make this "basic income" work. It's not free money you can cash out.

So it's like a secondary currency for that country, except it is always backed by the primary currency, and can only be used on the basic necessities defined by the law. If the food costs goes up, then it doesn't lose its value. I think this is where cryptocurrency technology like Bitcoin can actually help. Rather than the governments shun that away, and label them like some sort of underground currency, they should think how to make it useful. Think about it, you can control its distribution, and you can create a system where people can't hoard this money since it's all digital. Give out like 500 Bitcoin or something that expires every month if not used. Digital and non transferrable (except to merchants obviously that sell the goods). You get to keep the real money as they are now.

So, using a family of 4 as an example, if nobody in the family is working, the parents get to live in a basic standard housing, able to feed and clothe their 2 children, and move around using the public transportation. This can continue to go on until whenever they feel like to, all using the cryptocurrency. But if they want that new tech gadget, or that fancy car, or that 4-bedroom house, or gamble their (real) money way, well they better get themselves a job.

Obviously the problem is multi-faceted. It's not just "people stealing our jobs", there is that problem too, but also the education needs to match the current demand, and the government especially needs to be quick enough in adapting and writing regulations to meet the growth in the technology instead of bickering among themselves, which I think is the main problem.

Yea people are employed, but just look at the recent election campaigns, at least in the US. There was one common theme: loss of manufacturing jobs.

This is why I said the main issue is retraining.

Look at it this way. Say you have a system which can get the raw material, put into a factory, manufacture it, then spit out a finished product and deliver it to a customer all without a human in the loop (which is by no means unrealistic). What happens then?

You're talking as if that's a massive step. In fact, all you're doing is talking about taking the last 10 people out of a process that used to take 1000. In richer economies, most of the other people moved to service roles. Almost everything around us is almost entirely made by automation, when it used to be made by armies of craftspeople.

it is simply impossible for a worker in a country in the West to compete with people who are practically willing to work for a penny.

Totally. That's why Western countries need to exploit their advantages in education, literacy, etc and train for different roles.

Well here's the crux of the difference in perspectives here: you seem to believe that there will be service oriented jobs that people can transition to whereas I don't really see that remaining as an option in the near long term.

I agree with retraining and revamping the education system. Automation can only go so far. It still needs human intervention to make automation useful. What if the machines break down, what if the code is outdated. How to make automation itself adapt to the change in the way human lives? Automation should be perceived as a tool for human well being and livelihood, not the thing that steal people's jobs. There is always going to be change in what people do. Maybe in the near future there would be a licensed drone operator, or a drone traffic controller, or a 3d-printer inspector. Who is preparing for those jobs now? Just that 8 years ago there is no such thing as a "social media marketing", there is plenty of those now.

There are people out there who are quick to adapt to the changes in the society, then there are those who sit and complain because they are not keeping themselves to the demand of the society. We should not reward laziness.

I feel like this "basic income" has to be treaded very carefully. It can work, but only in limited amount and cover basic necessities only such as housing, food, clothing, transportation, and medical expenses. The monies cannot be used to be spent on luxurious or irresponsible things like a new tech gadget or gambling, etc. So it's not that the government gives out everybody a paycheck every week or so, but rather vouchers similar to food stamps that can be used toward these basic necessities. I feel like this is the only way to make this "basic income" work. It's not free money you can cash out.

So it's like a secondary currency for that country, except it is always backed by the primary currency, and can only be used on the basic necessities defined by the law. If the food costs goes up, then it doesn't lose its value. I think this is where cryptocurrency technology like Bitcoin can actually help. Rather than the governments shun that away, and label them like some sort of underground currency, they should think how to make it useful. Think about it, you can control its distribution, and you can create a system where people can't hoard this money since it's all digital. Give out like 500 Bitcoin or something that expires every month if not used. Digital and non transferrable (except to merchants obviously that sell the goods). You get to keep the real money as they are now.

So, using a family of 4 as an example, if nobody in the family is working, the parents get to live in a basic standard housing, able to feed and clothe their 2 children, and move around using the public transportation. This can continue to go on until whenever they feel like to, all using the cryptocurrency. But if they want that new tech gadget, or that fancy car, or that 4-bedroom house, or gamble their (real) money way, well they better get themselves a job.

Obviously the problem is multi-faceted. It's not just "people stealing our jobs", there is that problem too, but also the education needs to match the current demand, and the government especially needs to be quick enough in adapting and writing regulations to meet the growth in the technology instead of bickering among themselves, which I think is the main problem.

I don't think anyone is trying to argue that automation is "stealing jobs", rather that it is a good thing, and we need to realize that we are moving towards a time when there will be less work available for human beings to do as automation gets cheaper and better.

Even to oversee drones or something, one doesn't need the scale or amount of people that were employed in manufacturing and in general low skill sectors to do so. And even this ultimately can be replaced. Certainly there will be jobs created (for now at least) in the tech sector, for programmers and engineers, but simple fact is that not everyone has the ability to be that.

The education system in the US is something that really needs to be reexamined. There's something quite wrong with it when college is costing something like $50000 per year. But again, there is merit to the argument that not everyone can go to college. High school education also needs to change. Retraining is certainly important, but imagine if you're a 55 year old man who still has a family to support and has spent his entire life working an assembly line. It's kind of tough for people like that to retrain.

Certainly even I don't know how well basic income can work or be implemented, but we are societally changing from a time of scarcity to something else. Capitalism was chiefly a means of allocating resources in scarcity. It's going to need to evolve to reflect changing times. We aren't there yet, sure, but you have to start at some point imo.