Re:Moving Forward on Basic Income
by duaneb on Tuesday May 31, 2016 @07:06PM
(#11810974)
How is [1] distinct from rational control of population (eg birth control by default), which will presumably be necessary to avoid food and resource waste (or war/starvation)? Health care seems to be just another factor affecting population cap.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
[1] Differs from normal population control in it's extreme application of reducing costs by any means. Also population control has additional concerns beyond just reducing costs by not having people to deal with like sustainability of resource consumption and to me there's a large difference between a person never being born and dying early. Really my [1] wasn't meant to be seriously at all.
Another way to think about this is if a person comes into existence, then BI demands their immediate universal right to the resources to sustain their life comfortably without any contribution from that body.
So really, those who multiply the fastest win the resource war of the future? Or having kids is somehow constrained now through other hoops, like a "procreation license."
> Or having kids is somehow constrained now through other hoops, like a "procreation license."
Possibly, though better educated and better off people tend to have fewer children so there are other ways to limit population beyond strict China or Ender's Game style limits.
Or maybe asteroid mining will finally break and crash the whole materials economy making everything but space, food, and water extremely cheap.
My point is this: universal BI requires some level of population control (to prevent poverty and misery), and eventually some level of reproductive planning.
Universal BI leads to universal resource control.