"If there’s a robust public healthcare and UBI type system in place to pad the fall, people will bounce back and adapt when industries break down."

This would be great, in theory. The reality is that people would live on it and never work, have kids, and the same thing would happen with a new generation. As it expands, you run out of tax payers and the system collapses.

A 'robust' healthcare system that the government runs is a pipe dream.

"have nothing to lose and decide to attack the source of their misery. Bread and circuses will only distract so much."

"If instead we stick our head in the sand and ignore the human cost so that we can temporarily enjoy maximum technological progress AND maximum wealth accumulation for shareholders, as we have been doing for the better part of a century, things will slowly break down and eventually collapse when the pace of change accelerates to the point that enough people simply can’t keep up, have nothing to lose and decide to attack the source of their misery. Bread and circuses will only distract so much."

I suppose the people that are actually working will just need to get more guns.

> A 'robust' healthcare system that the government runs is a pipe dream.

That "pipe dream" has already been achieved by most EU countries decades ago. Sure, you might argue it's worse in quality than American healthcare and that wait times are horrible, but I guarantee you most Americans would see it as an improvement over their current situation.

The American system existing is a travesty both because of the struggles it gives Americans but also because it's used as a comparison to make the European systems look good. The NHS in the UK is an expensive bureaucratic nightmare and doesn't come anywhere near to performing as it should (for instance a recent government boasted cutting the waiting list by a high number, but they accomplished it by removing people that had been waiting for too long). It costs a lot of tax but any criticism of it generally gets met with "would you prefer the US system?" as though it's the only other option.

I live in Eastern Europe now where they also have free health care, and it's so bad that almost everyone pays for private medical insurance - essentially we pay twice because the first system is mostly not fit for purpose.

To compare the US and UK: In the US, the life expectancy is 76.5 years for males and 81.4 years for females. Annual healthcare spending is $14,885 per capita. In the UK, the life expectancy is 79.1 years for males and 83.0 years for females. Annual healthcare spending is $6,747 per capita. Even if the UK system is bad, it seems like the US system is much worse if they pay more than twice as much for poorer outcomes.

I think you have to account for multiple factors like Americans are generally unhealthy people, the people have better access to the top of the line medical technology, people actually spend and consume more compared to the EU. This blog post explains a lot more.

https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/why-conventional-wisdom-o...

In most countries with universal healthcare, the universal healthcare provider plays a major role in preventive medicine, nudging people towards healthier lifestyles and influencing government policy on a wide variety of topics, such as food standards, consumption taxation, traffic laws, or pollution regulation. Because it's in their interests to do so, because a healthier population saves them money.

Is there the same motivation to help people live healthy lifestyles in the American healthcare system? Are there any lobby groups with the kind of influence and reach as a universal healthcare provider?

I think you inverted the causation, the provider doesn't nudge but their culture is more oriented being healthy which in turn makes providers provide the services for that. The people of the USA are generally centre right and they say that they support universal health care but the minute anyone proposes solutions to implement them, the support inverses. The same happened with ACA, it did raise costs for some people but that was enough for democrats to get brutalised for that in midterms. The solution is to implement more free Market oriented Health care like singapore etc and let people choose their options.. it would suit Americans as it isn't that burdensome compared to universal health care without private options.

The causation is correct. In countries with socialized healthcare, promoting healthy lifestyle is a cost cutting measure. So the government does it a lot, through various public campaigns and annoying laws like banning free drink refills or 300% taxes on tobacco. Usually it doesn't work, but occassionally it does, pushing the entire society toward slightly better health. Done consistently over 70 years, it naturally leads to a much more health-conscious culture, almost entirely due to government intervention alone.

The kicker is that it's provably not worse in quality. Sure, maybe in the absolute, meaning if you have infinite money. But on average, health outcomes are better.

So I’ve gotten this retort (i.e. threat of starvation being the only valid motivator) from a few folks in person as well, and I always feel like it’s them telling on themselves more than the truism it’s presented as.

Most of my friends are in some form of tech or creative work, so perhaps that is my bias, but with the threat of destitution removed the vast majority of people I know would turn into maelstroms of creation: art, crafts, coding, building, organizing, civic participation, scientific experimentation, and raising strong families.

Instead they are trapped spending the majority of their time navigating corporate politics to deliver a fraction of their value to society. Seems… dangerously inefficient and corrosive to the human spirit, no?

“This would be great, in theory. The reality is that people would live on it and never work, have kids, and the same thing would happen with a new generation. As it expands, you run out of tax payers and the system collapses.”

Are there historical or contemporary examples of this? I googled but couldn’t find any specifics.

The reason I ask is that I in the US, employer-provided health insurance is a large expense for businesses. And anecdotally, I’ve never spoken to any US small business owner that feels that choosing employee insurance plans is a real competitive advantage. But perhaps the historical/contemporary alternatives are worse?

I mean we've got multiple generational families that have been living on council estates all their lives and raising the next generation to do the same at the same time the NHS is collapsing all around, so there's that example.

Do you have any citations, or just your assertions that this happens?

I mean asking ChatGPT got me this answer that around 49% of 30-34 year olds grew up in social housing in the UK. Sources and reasoning included in response. So I'd say that's a pretty strong signal.

https://chatgpt.com/share/6a7750bd-1538-83ea-840c-57266e366f...

If you don't think the NHS has any problems then I don't know what to tell you on that you either don't follow any information about it or don't interact with it.

Tax payers don't fund governments, governments fund tax payers. Taxes are there to encourage certain economic activities and discourage others.

Today, many of those activities are either toxic, like fossil fuel subsidies, or useless, like casino stock markets which force everyone to play PR con games that are divorced from bedrock physical fundamentals - like clean water, a safe food supply, and a stable climate.

Guns won't help anyone when farming dies.

Not for long, anyway.

I think taxes predates that by a lot and probably had more to do with feeding management.

Money and trade as we know it today was invented by the Romans because soldiers were raiding their own villages for supplies. Paying soldiers with coins then demanding them back from villagers got them to start trading. That’s where incentives started.

> A 'robust' healthcare system that the government runs is a pipe dream.

Oh yes, the usual argument of how what most industrializes nations (and many poor nations as well) have achieved, is somehow seen as impossible just because the US can't manage to do it (because it doesn't profit the oligarchs).

>I suppose the people that are actually working will just need to get more guns.

If shit gets as bad as people are hoping it will get, workers aren't going to be in the "gets things" class anymore.

There are lots of countries that have a form of this and survive. Almost every country in Europe has a social welfare system and free healthcare for instance. I

I just don't see this with our current safety nets, particularly SSI disability. SSI disability will pay you not to work if you have a disability. A lot of people think that surely it's abused. No. Everyone I have seen on SSI disability is doing everything they can to not be on SSI disability. They would MUCH rather work and earn a reasonable wage than be forced to live on SSI disability.

Now, not everyone can, because some people are very disabled. But the internet has brought new capabilities, and some disabled people are able to work remotely. And guess what, they do. They willingly give up the "free", say, 900 dollars a month on SSI to work for a salary.

I think I understand now.

You see "work" as a transactional unit.

I'm probably an outlier, but as someone working a non-physical job, I have been talking about how I personally would still keep working and doing jobs even if all of my basic needs are met.

I do work purely because of idealistic reasons. I'm not actually owed anything, I'm working because of us, humanity. Yeah, people are going to slack, and that's just life. It's just statistics, optimize society to such a configuration that people acts have a place and get the support they need. Most of the "slackers" who represent the people just living on the UBI type system you described, probably don't do it as a direct choice. Most likely they feel like they can't contribute to society, but that's something that's solvable. It's a matter of education and culture.

About your quote:

  "have nothing to lose and decide to attack the source of their misery. Bread and circuses will only distract so much."

There's a theory directly relating to this that I have about the modern golden age of punk and rock in the nordics. When people had all of their basic needs met, they finally had the time to take a breath, take a look inwards and face their own inner demons. I suggest that this was one of the big things that created the conditions which made the nordics the rock/punk powerhouse that they were.

Of course, the good times also had their downsides, lots of complacency in politics and not feeling the need to fight for better, because things were already better than they've ever been!

Maybe I'm too pessimistic but i doubt how this can work out worldwide. It can work out maybe for some few wealthy countries but in this AI revolutions most likely we will have only 2 winners: USA and China.

Smaller EU countries cannot even today introduce a fair revenue tax on big tech so that they pay any tax without being threatened about retaliatory steps by US administration.

Which is why I still think that the only way forward is that the EU becomes a country of its own. I'm aware that's deeply unpopular, partially due to The forrogn influence, but thr alternative is catastrophic - stagnation and letting US, China and Russia dictate our way of life.

I, too, have come to this realization. But boy, oh boy, do Europeans get disgusted by the idea. (My partner is European)

I’ve never even thought about this - what does the EU get as a country that it can’t get with its current structure?

That's a very large question. I'll keep the answer as short as I can:

* politically, we have a unified economic policy that is working wonders. The Brussels Effect is a thing. But, we don't have a unified foreign and defence policies, which partially made Ukraine War possible, and is making a Russian invasion further in Europe a distinct possibility.

* however, economically, the market is not really completely unified yet, especially for digital services, but for many other branches of economy as well. I can drive through 5 countries in a day, and my Netflix and Play Store selection will be different in every one. That doesn't make any sense.

What does winning even mean for the USA here? I'm not going to benefit if OpenAI or Anthropic become trillion dollar companies, and I sure as fuck won't benefit when more myopic business leaders become billionaires that have some of the most anti-human ideas that decide they want more control of society.

Americans would largely languish if big tech wins, big tech is already profiting of our misery now they want to profit in other domains too?

80% of this country is not going to benefit at all from any American corporations because American corporations have open disdain for workers.

We never talk about social welfare programs? Odd, I hear chatter all the time. How about we never talk about rewarding management-by-breaking-things?

> How about we never talk about rewarding management-by-breaking-things?

Have you seen who we elect to run our countries?

I thought my previous comment made that obvious. And unlike in the private sector, mismanagement in government is a given.

maybe because every time UBI is tried it fails?

Can you provide any links that show that every time it’s tried, it fails?

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

Skimming this list, there seems to be one really marked failure, in Finland, but that’s disputed I read also.

Can you list more failures?

This link says very explicitly that it did show people were discouraged from working, making the experiment obviously a failure.

> Among all the people, only two key groups were found to be discouraged from working by the Mincome project – new mothers and teenaged boys, who, instead of entering the workforce at an early age, decided to study until grade 12, increasing the proportion of students who graduate high school.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but neither of those outcomes sound like failures? They sound like a net positive for society. New mothers get to spend more time with their children, which has a ton of societal benefits, and teenaged boys decided to study more, and become more educated, something that also helps society out a lot. I admittedly didn't read the entire link yet, but both of those sound to me like a positive outcome of UBI, or at least neutral.

It sounds like you understood. I find the disconnect between the summary above and the quote below really funny. Almost as funny as explaining the joke here!

Really, many jokes of this nature have to be signalled out-of-band somehow due to Poe's law (particularly applicable in this case). I wouldn't be surprised if a non-negligible number of users here actually held this view (due to a variety of reasons and justifications perhaps, but nevertheless still possessing such a perspective).

you will need to provide evidence for that assertion

When? Where?

It has never been tried.

Remind us what the U stands for?

Then it will never happen regardless, let alone the fact that any attempts to do as such will collapse before reaching "universal" status

Communist countries are opposite of UBI by design! You are actually expected to work and work hard and freeloaders are punished. Of course work is extremely inefficient in communist systems and this system leads to poverty, but thinking that communist countries have anything to do with UBI is just dumb.

> UBI type system in place to pad the fall, people will bounce back and adapt when industries break down

If you mean UBI that would allow anyone to stop working and live a modest life, that just doesn't work. UBI is essentially redistribution from those who work to those who don't work. That's not just a "safety net" because you could decide to stop working forever just because it's more comfortable than working.

I would possibly exploit such a system. Take 4% from my portfolio + UBI on top. Maybe work 3 days a week if I find a job that I enjoy.

> If you mean UBI that would allow anyone to stop working and live a modest life, that just doesn't work. UBI is essentially redistribution from those who work to those who don't work. That's not just a "safety net" because you could decide to stop working forever just because it's more comfortable than working.

This is, IMO, why UBI has to be timed almost perfectly for when the AI is ready to be the one who does the work.

>UBI is essentially redistribution from those who work to those who don't work.

That is what earned income tax, payroll taxes, and Medicare and Social Security taxes are.

Your list is the "from" part, UBI could be the "to" depending on how people choose to live when they don't need to work.

Free public services are similar to UBI but have little effect on the incentive to work because they don't provide all of the basic needs.

> UBI is essentially redistribution from those who work to those who don't work.

If you believe this, then surely you also believe pension plans are the devil? If we can't have UBI then we can start by tearing away pension plans for all of the old people my tax money is being wasted on.

There's a difference between a plan someone worked and paid into and one where you never have to work and get to free ride on someone who does

But yes National pensions can have the same problem, as is currently the case in France. The elderly vote themselves higher and benefits, waiting to back breaking taxes on the diminishing number of middle-aged workers

Pension systems don't have a huge effect on the incentive to work. They have some effect but not enough to collapse the system. But we could possibly see a collapse in the future in a country like Italy.

By the way, I support some level of rich-to-poor redistribution, not sure what's the optimal level but to get a reasonable range of where the optimum could be, look at the top 20 countries.

You have a distorted definition of UBI. The B stands for "basic", as in "not dying in the street of starvation" and a "a roof over your head".

It is NOT about enabling "a modest life" or stopping people from working! On any serious UBI proposal everyone is still incentivized to work.

I didn't imply that this is how I define UBI. Look at the exact wording I used.

You mean some redistribution from those with massive capital to those whose careers have been disrupted. There will always be people who don't want to work or can't. It's better for society if they live comfortably than end up on the street or in prison.

No UBI is taxing the surplus productivity achieved by replacing humans with robots or AI AND redistributing it to all the citizens.

AI is just a technology, nothing fundamentally different from what has been happening for centuries.

Once AI is able to replace all human work, that's a new situation. But this is not happening in the next 20+ years.

Definitely agree with this! Given the pace of technological development, we should basically expect entire groups of people to constantly drop out of the competitive labor market. Don't get me wrong, new jobs will be created as well, but it's also very possible many people will also not be able to reskill into those new roles without some sort of structural support. People have faith that technology will create new markets and roles, and while that's historically been true, I think people also tend to forget that this happens in aggregate, and that someone's personal career trajectory can be largely luck dependent. You may happen to find the role of the future or you might get stuck with depreciating skills, hard to say which unless you can predict the future!

I think we've largely been able to avoid large scale disruption in society for the past several decades because the groups losing their careers were small enough, but we can see negative effects in things like health data. I think Deaths of Despair by Deaton and Case does a pretty good job at talking about this. However, AI now threatens a much more visible work segment, the upper middle class, so I do agree that now is a very interesting time to see what happens.

I can remember the Thatcher years when redundancies for hundreds of thousands was routine, with the unemployment figures going stratospheric.

The miners, auto-workers, ship workers, BT (phone) workers and other swathes ended up leaving the workplace as a general rule.

To massage the figures, the government were able to expand the education sector and take the 'long term sick' off the books.

For the education sector there are mature person degrees, however, education mostly takes the young off the books, the people that did apprenticeships.

Long term sick can be an easy skive, if you have taken up the bottle, can claim to be depressed and have the doctor in the job centre believe you. The incentive is more money than dole and no need to check in with the job centre on a fortnightly basis.

IMHO AI is the fig leaf for what is going on, with further financialisation of Western economies (rent seeking) and absurd energy costs, due to the Anglo-American 'war for oil against humanity', making most Western economies doomed to never be competitive ever again. Soon the only jobs will be 'multi-drop delivery drivers' and 'care workers for seniors'. Immigrants and young people will fill these roles, not whomever is being laid off 'due to AI'.