RE: The lady who drove a Mercedes to pick up food vouchers.
July 22, 2014 at 1:50 pm
(This post was last modified: July 22, 2014 at 1:58 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Quote:advanced automation will make almost every product much less expensive due to reduced labor costs. It may even put small communities or even individuals in control of their own means of production, where they can make almost anything out of energy and raw materials.Which makes a prediction of some future government welfare state based upon such advanced automation a non-starter. Who is the government taxing, and what are they taxing (in order to foot the welfare bill) - when anyone could simply create what they required with their own privately controlled means of production? Further, if they have such means - what would the welfare be needed for - even if they had the fund to accomplish it, which, as above...I don't see how they would.
If, just as an example, the government were to tax energy (wondering where the user would get the funds to pay the tax still......)commensurate with a rate that would allow for some basic income to citizens - why not cut out the automated middleman, and just have the people continue to perform those functions and receive that wage for that service?
That sort of automation is not the beginning of a welfare state - but the end of money (possibly even the end of commerce by any means), and thusly the end of any need for welfare. Everybodies all good, the robots have "got this"
(Somebody please say they've read some Ian Banks...lol?)
@Welsh
Automation stands in direct opposition to human welfare at present from the view of the worker at ground level, but only insomuch as we are currently wedded to other principles- which are themselves the ultimate source of the issue to begin with. Automation could lead to other things, it's just that we're currently not interested in (or capable of) pursuing them.
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