I’m not sure of that.
Couple of things. I’ve worked with working class people. They may complain about the job or the boss, but if they didn’t do one of those jobs, they’d feel less empowered.
I’ve heard people essentially say I don’t want to be on welfare but I can’t get a job. So they'd prefer a job to being on the dole.
Two, people with lots of time and nothing to do tend to just while away time, either in the form of any kind of entertainment or some times in counter productive activities. Doing “make-work” actually gives people some purpose.
I’m saying UBI will bring other unintended problems. I think UBI could be like people who have dogs and give them all they need [like UBI] but don’t take them out for walks. Work, any kind of work is like taking the dog out for a walk.
Creative intelligence involves always striving for the new thoughts, fresh ideas, novel ways to solve problems....repetition makes people mentally weak and depressed.
Many of the problems we discuss today about humans in the era of automation have already been addressed in ancient Indian philosophy (many millennia ago). This isn't new....
I like what you are saying and thought that perhaps this is why politicians seem to be so hyper-focused on jobs. They may realise better than most people jobs have other roles except producing an income.
Giving people pointless bullshit jobs for its own sake sounds like insanity to me. Yes being able to live without working will pose a challenge to humanity, but it's a challenge we should face. The alternative is mandating that people do something even if it is really useless or impedes a more efficient system because we don't trust their ability to figure out how to live well on their own.
Being on the current analog of UBI(SSI/SSDI) is not pleasant, as much as you might think. A decade of low income idleness, equally low job prospects, and low opportunity for change is very demoralizing.
If it meant that one was fine being the IT/CS equivalent of an overpaid toll booth operator, nothing wrong with that. Either they end up finding something better or finish off their career doing something more than being idle.
When ever someone talks about Productivity they are measuring how many people in the population are obedient and fit into domination based hierarchies. Those that don't throughout history are unproductive.
Now the problem is "Productivity" is stagnating since the 80's[1]. Why? Because most people learnt they don't like being obedient or dominated and there are better and newly available routes to meet ones needs and values. We don't need to prop up a Mark Zuckerberg or Ray Dalio or the Queen of England to live a decent life anymore. You can even do it without exploiting someone else.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workforce_productivity#/media/...
This is the exact opposite of what your chart shows. Productivity, in the economic sense, is growing since the 1980s. It's wages that have stagnated. The wealth generated by increased productivity is all flowing to top.
Dalio recognizes this: "Increased productivity will also substantially increase the wealth gap." He knows this trend is not sustainable.
Go and ask Dalio why wages/worker productivity has stagnated while sector(factory/org) productivity has increased.
Listening to him is like listening to some member of British Royalty while Empire winds down having no clue why the colonies want independence. They too will say the British Empire's increased productivity will increase of the wealth gap. That's just another way of saying nobody wants to work to prop up the British Empire. People have found better things to do in life.
The only thing under threat is their model of reality. And there is no point paying attention to them about what comes next, because they can only see the empire based on obedience and domination as the best model.
> A major federal study recently came to much the same conclusion, finding that school lunches have improved significantly since implementation of the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. And the schools with the healthiest menus have the greatest rates of student participation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/food/school-lun...
¿Por qué no los dos? One of the issues with the current system is that it does not serve people who are only somewhat productive, if only for the time being. We expect that every job (more generally - every production opportunity, at the margin) will pay for itself, but there's no law of economics that says this has to happen.
Because the entire global economy is premised on having enough growth to pay off the debt incurred by previous generations. If people choose to be less productive the whole edifice comes crashing down.
Some people, maybe even most, won't actually achieve much or contribute anything to the furthering of the human race, but that cost is worth paying for if enough actually do. We probably have hundreds of Einsteins, Turings, and Musks working in the roles supporting the innovators because they can't get out of those roles. That's bad for all of us.
A system based on the idea that every member of society must be productive is so hideous and inhuman to me it makes me angry to think of someone seriously propounding this productivist dogma. Why, exactly, is society structured in such a way that most of my waking hours are spent getting ready for work, commuting and working? It's a tragedy to be born, grow up, and spend your days grinding away just to stay alive. That's the one life you have, and I'm wasting it just for the fact of staying alive?
It's no surprise that young people aren't happy with this.
Meanwhile, if one parent in a relationship stays home to care for the couple's children thus rendering a highly valuable service to the family, it is not counted!
Only academics who have furvent faith in the dogma they've been handed down can see such a contradiction and maintain their faith. Recently we have been seeing economists trying to augment gross measures like GDP. And we've seen the rise of behavioral economist who are trying to better integrate human factors into economics.
It's so much better being artistic.
I fear it wouldn't end well.
The market takes care of that problem quite nicely. Lines of work which are less comfortable or appealing should pay more in the first place.
Which is basically “assuming a flat earth and atmosphere approximate to vacuum”. You can't get many useful insights from that.
Why do I need to give them money?
Because every day a typical person needs to consume about 9kJ worth of food We need a system that produces 9kJ food x number of people reliably and accurately. Food is somewhat metaphorical here, there are a bunch of other things that are needed.
Also, that system needs to be fair. The people responsible for producing the food are taking on extra hardships or risks and won't do it if they don't think they are getting a net-good deal.
And there is also the issue of taxes. We need people to be productive to support the institution of government which has become large end free-spending.
says the professional unproductive hedge fund manager. The parasite billionaire who spent his life capturing the profit made and value created by companies
Why can't we let the individual find a way to make themselves productive? And, why do they need to be productive? Some of my best times in life are watching and playing games with my friends. Socializing. Loving people.
I, and most people I know, can look around and see things that need to be done. If our lives aren't so focused on paying the bills all the time, we can relax a bit and be creative.
I remember I used to get great school lunches. I knew the cafeteria staff by name and they knew me because I went back for seconds and thirds and fourths... skinny as a bean pole. Lunches were made fresh every day. The staff were there at 6am cooking for the kids. Fresh bread. I used to love watching that dough bounce around in the industrial mixer. It was bigger than I was.
A decade after I was out of school, I saw one of the ladies and asked how the school lunches were. She said they don't get to make them anymore. The menus are decided in Washington DC now and they have very little control over what is cooked or eaten. Kids don't come back for seconds and thirds and fourths anymore.
The federal government took local control away from the schools and homogenized everything and basically ruined it from what I remember.
Why do we think the federal government knows better how to manage our day to day lives than we do ourselves? Get out of our kitchens and homes.
The government doesn't need to find a way for me to be productive. People who need to be productive to keep their sanity will find a way. They'll clean their bedrooms, volunteer in their communities. They won't be judged by what their job is, but rather, what they do for themselves and the people around them.
The need to grind out a day at the office or the shipyard or in the truck hauling cargo saps a person's freewill.
We need more freewill in the world.