Re:Why a Universal Basic Income Would Be a Calamity
by Aron on Sunday August 20, 2017 @06:12PM
(#15060495)
The embrace of UBI seems entirely too eager for many. It's as if the huge, unpredictable and ambitious nature of it isn't fully felt. Attempts to refactor giant economies according to high modern ideals has been tried to disastrous results, and it is completely valid to bring this up. Most disasters for which the UBI is supposed to handle aren't even particularly present yet, and may be mirages.
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Re:Why a Universal Basic Income Would Be a Calamity
by scarmig on Sunday August 20, 2017 @07:20PM
(#15060744)
It's as if the huge, unpredictable, and ambitious nature of mass automation isn't fully felt by you. Attempts to refactor giant economies according to laissez-faire, high modern ideals has been tried to disastrous results, and it is completely valid to bring this up.
Yes, it's still up in the air whether it will happen, and there are reasonable arguments that it won't.
But it's incredibly telling that opponents of a basic income spend about 100% of their time saying it's solving a problem that doesn't and will never exist.
There's a real likelihood that the economy is going to go through massive, unpredictable changes. Working from that assumption, very few alternatives to a basic income exist, and most are either bad (make work schemes) or immoral (do nothing and let the peasants starve if they don't pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get a nonexistent job).