Are you prepared for UBI?

Pkiernan

How about UWE?

Universal Working Expectation.

Those who are physically able to work must do a minimum amount of work before they qualify for any social welfare.

Could be as easy as picking litter from the side of the road and cutting council greens.

Better than sitting on your whole till 1pm.

"To each according to their need, from each according to their ability"

FVP3

daheff wrote: »

UBI, while a nice idea, won't work in the long run. All it will do is give people money to have a basic lifestyle....like the dole.

If everybody gets UBI and works, then nobody is better off as we'll see the price of everything inflated because of higher demand.

No, we won't. If all increases in wages or income led to the same increases in prices historically we wouldn't be better off now than the 19C. Luckily companies can increase production when demand increases.

FVP3

Pkiernan wrote: »

How about UWE?

Those who are physically able to work must do a minimum amount of work before they qualify for any social welfare.


"To each according to their need, from each according to their ability"

To each according to their need would mean that you get more money for larger families than smaller families regardless of what you actually do.

That said you are right in assuming that communism didnt want idle people.

Article 36 of the Soviet Constitution, article 12:

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/12/05.htm

In the USSR work is a duty and a matter of honor for every able-bodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: “He who does not work, neither shall he eat.”

Remember though that communism was gaining traction when a large percentage of the population were idle because they were rich. There was little social welfare then either, the idle in the early 20C were the rich.

EmmetSpiceland

The one, major, “upside” of a UBI is that you’d have people working who actually want to work. Offices would be free of the, ubiquitous, resentful malcontent.

Having an office where only staff who wanted to work, instead of being filled with those who “have” to be there, would increase productivity and save the company money wasted on “presenteeism”.

completedit

There isn't going to be jobs for people to do. This time is different. History is full of examples where things that weren't meant to happen, happened. There's a limit to human ingenuity. There's a huge difference between now and the Industrial Revolution. Of course jobs will be created, but the whole point is not enough jobs. This will lead to long term structural unemployment and in my view growing inequality.

RandomViewer

Pkiernan wrote: »

How about UWE?

Universal Working Expectation.

Those who are physically able to work must do a minimum amount of work before they qualify for any social welfare.

Could be as easy as picking litter from the side of the road and cutting council greens.

Better than sitting on your whole till 1pm.

"To each according to their need, from each according to their ability"

Work is dependant on work being required, I expect you intend to displace paid workers and machinery with some form of community service crap with people in hi-vis scratching their nether regions to keep you happy

WhiteMemento9

One eyed Jack wrote: »

It’s wishful thinking to imagine that the rules have been thrown out and machine learning and AI are going to displace employment opportunities. All that will actually happen in reality is the same as has gone before - new employment opportunities will emerge. We’re nowhere even close to machine learning and AI being at the level you’re thinking of though, and quantum computing is, if you’ll pardon the pun, still light years away from being scaleable

This is different though and people haven't really thought about it enough when they trot out the line about different jobs. Automation in the past has tended towards replacing jobs. Automation now is tending towards being able to replace people. This is a new paradigm in which computers are outstripping people in all areas of human endeavor. We are reaching a tipping point in which humans can't compete on any level be that physically, mentally, speed, cost etc. New types of jobs we can't imagine will exist in the future that don't exist today but the fact is computers will be able to do them better.

SEPT 23 1989

Bring that in and the price of everything goes up

RandomViewer

This will never happen but if it does I'd expect UBI to include some sort of basic housing, large brutalist buildings with multiple for want of a better word "cells", I assuming civil rights will be minimal in this new world order as well, sometimes we should be careful in what we wish for.

RandomViewer

WhiteMemento9 wrote: »

This is different though and people haven't really thought about it enough when they trot out the line about different jobs. Automation in the past has tended towards replacing jobs. Automation now is tending towards being able to replace people. This is a new paradigm in which computers are outstripping people in all areas of human endeavor. We are reaching a tipping point in which humans can't compete on any level be that physically, mentally, speed, cost etc. New types of jobs we can't imagine will exist in the future that don't exist today but the fact is computers will be able to do them better.

Computer is only as good as what it's programmed to do , the Ferguson tractor displaced more workers than any computer , it's the simple thing that can have the biggest effect

Pkiernan

RandomViewer wrote: »

Work is dependant on work being required, I expect you intend to displace paid workers and machinery with some form of community service crap with people in hi-vis scratching their nether regions to keep you happy

Plenty of litter needs picking up.
Especially in high dole areas.

The council workers seem to look like they could do with some help.

But you'd rather see people fester at home for some reason. Maybe when you start to pay real tax you'll change your mind.

WhiteMemento9

One eyed Jack wrote: »

You can go further back than the 80’s if you like, social inequality has always existed, because it is the basis of social progress. If everyone were equal, society would remain stagnant and there would be no such thing as economic growth and development. The role I do now for instance didn’t exist 20 years ago, and likely won’t exist in 20 years time, but other roles will exist which present opportunities for employment. The products I buy now didn’t exist 20 years ago, and likely won’t exist in 20 years time either.

UBI has always been something of an ideological pipe dream, and will still be an ideological pipe dream when the vast majority of people are more interested in providing a better quality of life for themselves and their families, than caring about people who want everyone to be equally impoverished in the pursuit of a more equal society.

Productivity has increased massively due to technological advancement. We produce far more than ever with far lower human involvement. If you look at trends since the 80's productivity has kept increasing massively while wages have not followed that trend. We are producing more stuff than ever but working the same hours and for less money indexing in inflation. That doesn't make sense unless you look at where the money goes. The idea that this isn't a growing problem is head in the sand stuff.

As for your comment on the UBI. I support it but I don't know that I am a huge fan of it and there are many people on the left, idealist whatever you want to box them off as who have major problems with it. If everyone receives it how does someone think that this benefits the worst off in society? It is about as far removed from socialism as you can get and will only further widen the gaps between the classes.

The current issues though as shown during this pandemic is that we need some sort of safety net and while I can see many ugly problems with the UBI, I still haven't seen better suggestion that can be actually implemented that make some kind of sense. Solutions though need to be thought about and implemtned now because as seen during this pandemic if this is left in the hands of business/Governement it will be a disaster. It won't be until unemployment rises hugely, demand drops massively and a lack of disposable income leads to an inability to fund the current consumer economy that things will change. That will be a slow process that maybe only really enacts significant change when enough people are effected to cause mass revolt.

The problem is that if things do play out this way it will mean extreme hardship for many who don't deserve it and it will be a particularly painful period in history for the majority of society.

WhiteMemento9

RandomViewer wrote: »

Computer is only as good as what it's programmed to do , the Ferguson tractor displaced more workers than any computer , it's the simple thing that can have the biggest effect

This is utter nonsense. Computers are now training themselves.

RandomViewer

Pkiernan wrote: »

Plenty of litter needs picking up.
Especially in high dole areas.

The council workers seem to look like they could do with some help.

But you'd rather see people fester at home for some reason. Maybe when you start to pay real tax you'll change your mind.

I guess I pay a lot more tax than you but let's just randomly judge people

Blazer

WhiteMemento9 wrote: »

This is utter nonsense. Computers are now training themselves.

ah would you stop ffs.
All that AI nonsense you currently read in the papers and mags is just a snazzy catchphase etc.
I work in IT and while I agree that AI will be the single biggest threat to face mankind we're at least 30-50 years off it.

Ipso

Isn’t what we are calling AI really just faster processing power?

WhiteMemento9

Blazer wrote: »

ah would you stop ffs.
All that AI nonsense you currently read in the papers and mags is just a snazzy catchphase etc.
I work in IT and while I agree that AI will be the single biggest threat to face mankind we're at least 30-50 years off it.

It doesn't have to be a threat? Why do you frame it so negatively? It should be one of the greatest things to happen to humanity and free us from the slavery of the daily grind.

We already have neural networks which can learn on there own and do things which were considered completely beyond the scope of computers a couple of years ago. They are solving tasks which are completely impossible through brute force or repetition learning. These are machines that learn without instruction from humans, so they are not given the bounds, goals, strategies or previous examples but end up implementing solutions far far better than any human can even comprehend currently.

We don't need to create the AI you see in the movies and televsion that is some kind of singularity but rather one which can learn, practice and exacute based on goals in the same way humans accomplish things, aquie skills and apply that to 'work' which we are well on the way to doing and are doing currently.

WhiteMemento9

Spain is about to bring in a basic income scheme which the government thinks will 'stay forever'

https://www.businessinsider.com/spain-to-approve-basic-income-scheme-response-coroanvirus-outbreak-2020-5?utm_source=reddit.com&r=US&IR=T

Capra

WhiteMemento9 wrote: »

Spain is about to bring in a basic income scheme which the government thinks will 'stay forever'

https://www.businessinsider.com/spain-to-approve-basic-income-scheme-response-coroanvirus-outbreak-2020-5?utm_source=reddit.com&r=US&IR=T

Spain has a socialist government so obviously they are keen on handouts and high taxation. I'm delighted for them to trial it though and we can see how it works out on a large scale.

Geuze

completedit wrote: »

There isn't going to be jobs for people to do.

In 2019 there were labour shortages in many countries.

RandomViewer

Geuze wrote: »

In 2019 there were labour shortages in many countries.

Place near us used to be constantly looking for people, they wanted lots of qualifications but were only willing to pay minimum wage, in the end up they hired people with the qualification from India, there's around 20 of the sharing 2 houses, poor guys must be stir crazy at this stage as place is down since March