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Comment by avz | Hacker News Reader

The often raised argument in defense of UBI is the automation of production.

Well, work isn't just about producing goods. We work to solve problems. And there are plenty of problems and challenges that machines won't solve for us ranging from cancer and dementia to clean energy to global warming. Not to mention some nice-to-haves for the long-term like space colonization, life extension or nanotechnology.

Saying that humans should not need to work is like saying this is it. We're done here. This is the world we want.

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Work on whatever you want to work on. If you're interested in nanotechnology, by all means, go work on it. But why should we design the world to force others to labor in ways they'd rather not under threat of destitution (starvation, homelessness, etc.), if we could instead allow people freedom from this bondage?

The way the world works now is that the wealthy are free to spend their time however they like, and the poor are forced to work on the projects the wealthy want worked on, regardless of their own interests, just to stay alive. Is this it? Are we done here? Is this the world we want?

People at risk of starvation or homelessness are indeed in exceptional life circumstances and need urgent assistance. This is a matter for social welfare programs. Most developed countries already have such systems in place.

UBI is not a welfare system. It is universal by definition. Most recipients of UBI are not in the dire circumstances you described.

So let's talk about the real beneficiaries. I see no reason why a software engineer or a doctor needs an early retirement scheme that allows them to quit their job on the graduation day.

UBI will be financed by those software engineers and doctors because they are in the higher income tax bracket. Those people will still be paying more to the system than getting from it.

You know what? You're right. I'm tired of doing boring work for lazy rich folks. My basic needs should be taken care of and I should be free to live my life pursuing whatever whims or flights of fancy might make themselves manifest in my mind.

But why wait for our professional policy makers to bring basic income into reality? We can make it happen right here, right now. We'll free all the wage slaves from the bondage of their forced labor, one at time, and starting with me.

Here's an opportunity to act upon your principles and bring the world you want into being.

Send your donations to the following bitcoin address:

1NPgtWa3bR9iKzWdSm9HsTuXhLLDLvTesa

Your comment is exactly the sort that would fit in well on reddit, but sticks out like a sore thumb on HN. Why? Well, because after taking the 40 seconds to read your entire message, I realized that it was nothing but sarcasm through and through.

In short, you added nothing to the discussion, apart from disrespecting the participants (which is what 100% sarcasm is).

The fact that his retort is sarcastic, does not mean that he does not have a point. His point is that someone will be subsidizing his existence, and pointing out that nobody would want to do it, if they were faced with that reality, directly.

This is a silly false comparison.

No, I'm not willing to implement one tiny wealth transfer that could conceivably be part of a Basic Income scheme. That would be stupid.

However, if it were possible to magically enter into a voluntary but binding pact with a large enough group of people to make Basic Income work, then I absolutely would do it even if it would mean lower income for me.

It's a rhetorical device used by right-leaning people in many instances, for example when it comes to taxes. It's also pretty meaningless.

One thing that a lot of people who haven't been unemployed seem to not recognize is that it's really, really, REALLY boring. I've tried the whole "sit on my ass ripping bongs for 16 hours a day every day" thing and it gets old real fast. It's like eating pizza every day, after a while it makes you feel sick and you just want a damn salad.

I have no doubt whatsoever that if we woke up and had full automation tomorrow and everyone could live comfortably forever after, we'd achieve far more than we are right now. The scientists, doctors and engineers of the world aren't going to suddenly throw away their goals and dreams because they don't need to work anymore. If anything, they'd be free to work on the most important things without having to worry about whether they'll be profitable for their companies.

Do you think if we had a full automation society that we would have never gone to space? In a world without work, I have no doubt that eventually enough people would get together and decide to make it happen. People will still have goals they want to achieve and give their lives meaning.

You're saying that, but only today I learned that pharma companies have been using neural networks and machine learning to classify and select chemical compounds to be tried in the development of new medication for the last 30 years.

Saying that automation is like giving up is clearly the wrong view. As we've learned from history, and get to observe even on a daily basis, is that automation gets more and more abundant, and more and more people will lose their jobs. Given that this trend will continue, we, as humanity, have two options: either we will not do anything about this, and will at some point wake up to impoverished masses with no work, or we can actively strive for a maximum of automation with the declared goal of commonwealth for all mankind. The third option of antimodernism to keep up the amount of available non-automated work is so ridiculous that it requires no discussion.

What people nowadays may not grasp and may deny is that the end goal of full automation will mean the end to our economy as we know it. We're talking post-capitalism, post-scarcity. That sounds scary to people, because the mindset of capitalism is still ingrained too much. People can't imagine a world where they may own less, individually, and don't realize that it may not matter if everything is available in abundance due to full automation.

> pharma companies have been using neural networks and machine learning to classify and select chemical compounds

You are describing what someone did at work.

We're nowhere near the state of full automation. We've merely automated some production facilities. Maybe one day, there will be an all-powerful AI solving all our problems without any human help from health to governance to clean energy. Realistically, this isn't even on the horizon though.

Until then, I'd rather that people continue to work on neural networks and machine learning to classify and select chemical compounds that may one day save a life of a person I care about.

EDIT: grammar

How does your notion of post-scarcity square up with the laws of thermodynamics? Even if you have vast amounts of capital deployed the amount is still finite and thus en masse has a finite capacity to transform a finite amount of energy.

While I can imagine having such great amounts of capital deployed and resources available that maintaining an unbelievably high standard of living for the average person could become vanishingly small, I find myself also believing that, with such material available, even grander plans requiring still even more resources would be concocted, plans that could only be achievable at the limits of what would then be available. Plans of that magnitude would be operating under conditions of what we might call scarcity, that is, they would require in those undertaking them the ability to economize.

What do you think?

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