RE: Humans need not apply - the case for the universal basic income
January 21, 2015 at 9:48 pm
(This post was last modified: January 21, 2015 at 10:06 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(January 21, 2015 at 7:35 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: 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.It already is, in this field (and always has been), and more than that, it allows one ordinary individual to feed hundreds, but with every extra person that one ordinary invidual can feed his ability to feed himself is decreased. Twilight zone shit, if you think about it.
Quote: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.We already do......and invoking widgets doesn't help because the same effect is in play as the above. Your widgets will be worth more doing other things just like they are now, just like your labor is now.
Quote: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.and yet...............
Ultimately, Im an optimist too, but widgets aren't going to impact our food in such an immense way (though they'll likely be badass elsewhere). It's already dirt cheap - there just aren't that many pennies to pinch, widgets are already doing it, and that's -part- of the problem. If we wanted food to be any cheaper we'd have to give it away - and that's where I think we're headed. State run central distribution. It's the next step for our current model of ag, really no other way for it to go unless we take a sharp turn to the left all of a sudden.
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