Universal Basic Income: gaining traction

[dada]

What if for some unexplained reason, there were no more births, beginning today. Chromosomes have broken down across the world. Is it a virus? Electromagnetic? Radiation? Scientists are baffled. Whatever it is, this looks like it is going to be the last human generation. Everybody is sterilized.

My question is, would we give them the basic income? I'd have to vote 'no.' They didn't choose to be sterilized. It kind of goes against the spirit of the contract.

[Luther Blissett]

They didn't appear to be getting a basic income in Children of Men.

[divideandconquer]

It might look good at first, while they lure everyone in, but ultimately, "universal income" is a trap. Eventually, the income will come at the price of our humanity. As I've stated before, the future is an industrial farm where the 99% will be completely managed like animals housed in the most "economical" space (236 square feet), fed solely on the basis of some algorithm, and all activity closely monitored. And these wonderful conditions will only be available to those who cooperate.

Meanwhile, our elitist industrial globalist farmers who rule over us and control our every move as they ration out this "income" to the the cooperative, the collaborative, the collective...will finally have mastered the "universal".

In other words, if you think universal income is anything but a method to enslave, if you still think that the masters of the universe who will control this "income" have our best interest at heart, if you still trust those in control...you are seriously deluded.

[Karmamatterz]

A trap?

Let's get real. It amounts to slavery.

[divideandconquer]

A trap?

Let's get real. It amounts to slavery.

How is it not a trap? A trap is "any device, stratagem, trick, or the like for catching a person unawares". UI is very definitely that: a deliberate trap to lock the 99% into permanent unemployment and enforce brutal austerity. As I said before, the price of UI will be our humanity.

[Luther Blissett]

It certainly doesn't have to be that way. It can be people-powered, especially since we can't expect the ruling class to just hand it over. I expect it to be much more like weekends, the 8-hour workday, the end of child labor, or workplace safety — only won through hard-fought organization and activism. History bears this out much more than the dystopian version.

Not to say we don't have to be careful - existing power structures, and probably capitalism itself, both need to be beaten in parallel to the current oppressive system of income inequality (which is what universal basic income is about). Have a little more imagination.

Besides, we can't stop automation. We can't stop even nonroutine cognitive work from being automated. What is your answer to it?

Economists May Be Underestimating How Fast the Robots Are Coming

Economists may be underestimating the impact on labor markets of increasing automation and the rise of artificial intelligence, according to a post published on the Bank of England’s staff blog on Wednesday.

“The potential for simultaneous and rapid disruption, coupled with the breadth of human functions that AI might replicate, may have profound implications for labor markets,” BOE regional agents Mauricio Armellini and Tim Pike wrote in the Bank Underground post. “Economists should seriously consider the possibility that millions of people may be at risk of unemployment, should these technologies be widely adopted.”

Robots and intelligent machines threaten to replace workers in industries from finance to retail to haulage, with BOE Chief Economist Andrew Haldane estimating in 2015 that 15 million British jobs and 80 million in the U.S. could be lost to automation. Past periods of technological upheaval, such as the industrial revolution, may not be a useful guide as the pace of change was slower, giving society longer to mitigate the potential consequences of increasing job displacement and inequality, according to Armellini and Pike.

“Economists looking at previous industrial revolutions observe that none of these risks have transpired,” they wrote. “However, this possibly underestimates the very different nature of the technological advances currently in progress, in terms of their much broader industrial and occupational applications and their speed of diffusion.”

“It would be a mistake, therefore, to dismiss the risks associated with these new technologies too lightly,” they said.

[dada]

Perhaps I have an idiosyncratic view of the the staus-quo, keeping-up-with-the-Jonses society that surrounds me? It seems to me that the education system, the class system, the consumer-entertainment system, the carrot-chasing dream system, are already designed to enslave, from cradle to grave. People have learned to love their slavery, will defend it vehemently, even call it freedom. From wage-slave to salaryman or woman, from petty thief to hedge fund manager. Journalist, tenured professor. Tech guru, President.

We're looking at it differently. Two types of slavery. Forced servitude, and slavery to power. If you buy into the narrative of power, you become enslaved. It's really that simple.

I don't buy into it. I work many hours a week at low-paying jobs. I live and function on the pyramid. Does that make me a slave to it? Of course not. I'm not a broken ego in a bag of skin, all alone in a big indifferent machiniverse. That's just part of the narrative of power. I've got my own narrative.

[minime]

Perhaps I have an idiosyncratic view of the the staus-quo, keeping-up-with-the-Jonses society that surrounds me? It seems to me that the education system, the class system, the consumer-entertainment system, the carrot-chasing dream system, are already designed to enslave, from cradle to grave. People have learned to love their slavery, will defend it vehemently, even call it freedom. From wage-slave to salaryman or woman, from petty thief to hedge fund manager. Journalist, tenured professor. Tech guru, President.

We're looking at it differently. Two types of slavery. Forced servitude, and slavery to power. If you buy into the narrative of power, you become enslaved. It's really that simple.

I don't buy into it. I work many hours a week at low-paying jobs. I live and function on the pyramid. Does that make me a slave to it? Of course not. I'm not a broken ego in a bag of skin, all alone in a big indifferent machiniverse. That's just part of the narrative of power. I've got my own narrative.

What kind of soup in your narrative?

[dada]

What kind of soup in your narrative?

Pumpkin soup.

I can't eat chicken soup, it makes me feel sick.

I wonder, if enough cross-thread action bleeds together, concentrating in one place, will the gravity collapse in on itself, creating an RI black hole?

My plan all along, you know. muaha. It's why I melt all the thread membrane walls with my flash gordon ray gun, and never stay on topic, and stuff.

[minime]

You would have others eat pumpkin soup because chicken soup makes you sick?

[Elvis]

It certainly doesn't have to be that way. It can be people-powered, especially since we can't expect the ruling class to just hand it over. I expect it to be much more like weekends, the 8-hour workday, the end of child labor, or workplace safety — only won through hard-fought organization and activism. History bears this out much more than the dystopian version.

Not to say we don't have to be careful - existing power structures, and probably capitalism itself, both need to be beaten in parallel to the current oppressive system of income inequality (which is what universal basic income is about). Have a little more imagination.

Besides, we can't stop automation. We can't stop even nonroutine cognitive work from being automated. What is your answer to it?

Thanks, Luther, very well said; I was going to chime in with something along those lines but you nailed it.

We can decide to have a society that values the needs of people first. People can "demand" it but they must command it. What is a society but the sum of its selected cultural traits?

the education system, the class system, the consumer-entertainment system, the carrot-chasing dream system, are already designed to enslave, from cradle to grave. People have learned to love their slavery, will defend it vehemently, even call it freedom.

Again, as the revolutionary anthropologist Ruth Benedict believed, "no civilization has in it any element which in the last analysis is not the contribution of an individual."

It's up to "us" and nobody else.


I work about three hours a day at a friend's business, shipping out orders for Chinese-made crap. I could work more, but I told them three hours is my limit, plus Fridays off whenever I want. It's just enough to pay rent, utilities etc., but leaves the majority of the day to do whatever I want, and if I want extra money (always!) to buy guitars 'n stuff, I have the time to creatively hustle a few bucks while having more fun, and, you know, developing my human potential and stuff. I'm also working on a big cultural propaganda piece, so sorta doing my small part.

I don't pay income taxes (I earn below the threshold) so when I cash my paycheck I get a $5 bill to give it to whichever homeless person is panhandling on my way home. I usually hang out and have a cigarette with them. Last time it was an Alaska Native guy who'd been a tracker in the far North. He's always smiling. "I love it here," he said, smiling, looking at the sky. He told me how his people came from Genghis Khan and were "the first to chase the elk and the caribou into America." He looks like Genghis Khan—he's a prince. He shouldn't have to live and sleep in the streets (though he seems not to mind).

[dada]

It's up to "us" and nobody else.

So I do my thing. I find it's more effective if I say there's no method to my madness. And if you think you see a method, it's just an apophenic mirage.

You would have others eat pumpkin soup because chicken soup makes you sick?

Sounds like something I would do. Does that make me a bad person? I hope so, I have a reputation to maintain.

Oh, who am I kidding. I would make chicken soup for everyone, even though I can't have any. Probably another one of those 'spiritual tests' that I don't understand. The High Chicken is always testing me. Damn you, High Chicken!

If I pass all the tests, and get my holy wings, I'll cut them off, just to stay around making soup for everyone. That's how much I care. I cry for this poor, sorry world. My tears taste like pumpkin soup.

[Iamwhomiam]

Oh, but you have indeed bought into it, dada, though you might not feel you have. The system has you just where it wants to keep you.

THE STORY OF STUFF - Consumerism, Capitalism, & Environment in America



Edited to add,

The Story of Broke (2011)

[dada]

Oh, but you have indeed bought into it, dada, though you might not feel you have. The system has you just where it wants to keep you.

Perhaps, perhaps.

There's power, and then there's power. The system is just a rigormortized social corpse permeating everything. My power grows with each passing day. Deep beneath the shallow surface. Surrounding it from outside. Like a shadow over everything.

Here on the shallow surface, we're typing to each other. I try to say what can't be said. Trace around it. Implicate. I barely pay attention, it's automatic. I'm intentionally directing my attention on my breathing. Giving kitty some pets and scratches.

I don't fight what I know I am. Grandfather Time's grandfather. Stars flicker on and off like fireflies. Goddesses and Orishas are born with the planet, gone in less than ten billion years. The blink of an eye. Yet am I alone? Nope. I am, as they say, another yourself.

The system? Baby-games.

[Iamwhomiam]

Oh, but you have indeed bought into it, dada, though you might not feel you have. The system has you just where it wants to keep you.

Perhaps, perhaps.

There's power, and then there's power. The system is just a rigormortized social corpse permeating everything. My power grows with each passing day. Deep beneath the shallow surface. Surrounding it from outside. Like a shadow over everything.

Here on the shallow surface, we're typing to each other. I try to say what can't be said. Trace around it. Implicate. I barely pay attention, it's automatic. I'm intentionally directing my attention on my breathing. Giving kitty some pets and scratches.

I don't fight what I know I am. Grandfather Time's grandfather. Stars flicker on and off like fireflies. Goddesses and Orishas are born with the planet, gone in less than ten billion years. The blink of an eye. Yet am I alone? Nope. I am, as they say, another yourself.

The system? Baby-games.

Perhaps my ass, dada. Mos def, yo - the system owns you, even after you die they regulate your body's disposal. Few mourn the passing of a consumer, cause there's always a fresh bunch primed and wanting so much to buy and plenty of kindly lenders willing to help you make your dreams come true, for a very small price you cannot afford to repay.

And if you really believe this, "The system is just a rigormortized social corpse permeating everything," you haven't noticed that our boys in blue are now a helmet-wearing Midnight Black military ballistic armored strike force, or realized our military has weapons that could vaporize you into absolutely nothing, to say nothing of what they from a great distance could do to your mind. Don't be fooled by anyone to believe that our military is outdated. They would never let that happen.

Like it or not, you're a player; just another pawn in the game. The system owns your ass, even if you're living like Captain Fantastic.

However, I see where are perspectives diverge. You imagine your power like a growing shadow "over everything. I see myself as one who brings light to dark and shadowy places, to illuminate what lies within the shadows, thereby eradicating growing shadows. Nothing personal though; just the way it is.

Nah, you ain't another me.

dada, are you paying attention?