(January 21, 2015 at 1:34 pm)Minimalist Wrote: What do you do with the ones who blow the whole thing on gambling or booze in a month?

You could deposit the income into peoples accounts daily(or even hourly) instead of monthly. When a gambler or alcoholic gets hungry enough, they will buy food. Alcohol and food will be so cheap anyways the casino's and bars will give it away.

Set it up so people, if they choose, can have some portion of their income paid directly to their land lords/debtors. Land lords will probably start offering free room service to attract renters. The food will be prepared and delivered by robot butlers.

Quote:You could deposit the income into peoples accounts daily(

What accounts?

Many poor people do not have bank accounts and let's not pretend that banks are out there trying to get them in the door.

https://www.stlouisfed.org/Publications/...nderbanked

Quote:The most common groups of unbanked persons include low-income individuals and families, those who are less-educated, households headed by women, young adults and immigrants. As part of the Census Population Survey sent nationwide in 2009, the FDIC asked finance-related queries to help build the database on household banking habits. Responses showed that almost one in 10 households do not use a bank at all.

I do not think machines/computers will ever be completely human independent. And even if that happened you still have human greed, humans will always find a way to monopolize something to set up power. But I do think it is extremely important to always pay survivable wages no matter how much technology takes over.

(January 21, 2015 at 4:39 pm)Minimalist Wrote: What accounts?

Many poor people do not have bank accounts and let's not pretend that banks are out there trying to get them in the door.

If the government was going to start offering a basic income, banks would be falling over themselves to offer accounts to the poor. Just imagine the fee schedules they could come up with for millions of new (and ignorant) account holders!

You're missing the fact that these welfare programs you want to get rid of are, more appropriately, corporate welfare programs. Food stamps, for example, are a subsidy to food producers and processors (and retailers)- and only incidentally to the people who receive them. They are already designed specifically to benefit the business sector.

Give people the money directly and they'll still spend it on the products those guys produce, but those guys will charge more for those products because they will be assuming greater risk than they currently are by making the short term (already high risk) production investment which is what this welfare program is actually subsidizing. It's on the farm bill...that should have tipped you off.....even more importantly, it's a lever by which agricultural futures are manipulated(for the financial sector). I know, I know, it all sounds so shitty...but remember...this is why food is cheap here in the first place. Stimulating business is best done, with this tool, precisely as it's being done....and as a side effect people get fed. Remove that, and people won't get fed as a benefit, quite the opposite...-and- you'll be putting the squeeze on business.

It's welfare either way, so any ideological stance against one and for the other is just shameless positioning. The only relevant factor if we're ultimately discussing -what sort- of welfare would be best is based upon it's results (and not upon our fantasies, or misapprehensions). You want business and John Q to benefit...what we're doing is actually a good way to do that. You want business to benefit...what were doing is actually a good idea.....You want John Q alone to benefit?

Good fuckin luck to ya sir.

The forces that seem to be in play would result in the necessities of life becoming dirt cheap, along with many of the luxuries. This is what makes a universal income that people can live on without collapsing the economy plausible.

I have optimistic tendencies, though I can't quite envision how, I have hope that people will find new ways to keep themselves productively occupied that are now hard to envision. They may spend less time on that kind of thing and more on diversions, but I think robot-assisted human creativity can (not necessarily will, I'm not optimistic enough to discount the more dystopian scenarios) rise to the occasion.

The transition is probably going to be a bitch though, so I'm glad we can see it coming. I'll be retired by then, which may be an advantageous position to be in, in 2030.

(January 21, 2015 at 4:59 pm)Brian37 Wrote: I do not think machines/computers will ever be completely human independent. And even if that happened you still have human greed, humans will always find a way to monopolize something to set up power. But I do think it is extremely important to always pay survivable wages no matter how much technology takes over.

I agree with you Brian. Problem is, the greedy corporate shit bags who are paying them do not.

Counterintuitively, when some things become "dirt cheap" they become so cheap that no one is willing to produce them, then they either get expensive from lack of supply or no one has them. Constant fluxuations between ludicrous expense and "so cheap I'd pay you to take this" is, generally, poor form (and makes for poor policy). Food, sadly, is one of those things.

(and remember, that shit is already automated to the n'th)

(January 21, 2015 at 6:07 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Counterintuitively, when some things become "dirt cheap" they become so cheap that no one is willing to produce them, then they either get expensive from lack of supply or no one has them. Constant fluxuations between ludicrous expense and "so cheap I'd pay you to take this" is, generally, poor form (and makes for poor policy). Food, sadly, is one of those things.

(and remember, that shit is already automated to the n'th)

I take your point, but the technology of which we're speaking has the potential to do a strange thing: put the means of production in the hands of ordinary individuals. By the time we have nothing to offer that anyone is willing to give us the means to get basic necessities for, we may have widgets that can make them for us.

And as I've pointed out before, I'm a little optimistic. I have hope that there will be sufficient people who wouldn't let millions starve in the streets if it cost them next to nothing to prevent it...to prevent it.

We are no where near a time that requires a universal income. When it gets here money will be obsolete. People will have a food replicator and a hologram for a doctor.

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And one other thing to consider is by the time machines take over, we will be machines. More specifically we will be cyborgs. Our brains and body's will have integrated technology in them.