There is a documentary out there showing someone who could quit their regular job and become an artist thanks to an UBI pilot (Canada IIRC). It is presented as a positive example in that they did not become lazy, but just work something different and still make revenue close to what they earned on their job by selling art.
How many people will become artists with UBI introduced nationally? Who is going to buy all that art?
My point is immediately jumping to the idea everyone's going to be pumping out shitty paintings and music that no one will want is lacking in imagination.
The incentives are changed dramatically, though. The unworkability of the plan comes down to a very simple question: Why work for forty years, scrimping and saving to afford a meagre retirement, when a meagre retirement is on offer the moment you turn 18?
Or with this proposed UBI, why wouldn't people work 20 years and have a good retirement instead of the a meager one out of the gate? Why not work 40 for a great one?
> A meager retirement is not appealing to most 18 year olds.
The option of shacking up with some buds and playing videophones all day will be utterly irresistible for many (if not most) male high school grads. Basically the college experience, for free, forever.
Most societies up to industrialization had a primary (i.e. agricultural) sector of around 50-70% of employees (numbers vary). Today, it's more like 1-2%, and the number is bound to fall - especially when lab-grown meat really takes off, because slaughtering and butchering farm animals _at the moment_ cannot be done by robots at scale and IMHO it's more likely that lab-grown meat succeeds before we entrust sharp knives to robots to actually kill animals.
> Who will fix our cars?
Modern cars - particularly electric cars - are much less maintenance intensive. That's part of why many established car brands are in serious trouble with their historically grown dealerships... "life long oil fills" and general improvements in technology already cut back on a lot of income from repair and maintenance of dealerships, and electric cars have far fewer failure points (other than crappy software) than ICE cars. We simply won't need anywhere close to the current number of service points, and we also won't need gas stations with trucks that fill up their tanks as the cars will be charged through the existing grid.
> Who will fix our potholes?
I 'member a story of some bloke holding up a sign like "I filled the potholes, pay me instead of your taxes". Local politics is on a downward slope across the Western world (with a common factor being the central government depriving local governments of revenue or loading off expenses to local levels), I think we're going to see a lot more of such incidents.
In any case, the price of trades labor will have to increase to be an effective incentive. And if you ask me, better pay the tradespeople than the vampires and vultures of Wall Street. At least the tradespeople do something to keep this society alive, the banksters do not.
Somewhat related: when do we get a truly user-serviceable automobile, something like a four-wheeled motorized version of a Fairphone or Librem. Set a max speed on them to simplify the safety requirements. Urban putt-putts.
Then you'll find enough mechanics.
Those used to be ubiquitous! Today none are available.
Buy a largely any car from the 60s and it will be fully user-serviceable essentially forever.
I love to do a little paving, once in a while, it's surprisingly satisfying.
I actually really like to work, I just hate having to be employed.
I expect that I'm fairly normal in that.
It's funny that this board can easily imagine AI destroying humanity but can't imagine a world where it enables them to quit their job.
This is the old Keynesian argument I never bought that you can pay people to dig ditches and fill them back in and it would stimulate the economy.
Read more closely.
Umm, that is literally wrong, by your own definition.
>>work something different and still make revenue close to what they earned on their job by selling art.
I.e., they went from an employer paying them to do work to a variety of clients/customers paying them to do different work of nearly the same value.
OFC, if everyone did it, the price of art might decline. Or demand might go up. Or both, or neither. We don't know. But either way, the example subject did NOT convert from productive to unproductive work.
$X from old job ~= $Y from art-gig
$X from old job ~= $Y from art-gig + $Z from UBI>>work something different and still make revenue close to what they earned on their job by selling art
Production of culture seems important and worthwhile to me.
Probably apocryphal: UK's (then generous) dole led to the British Invasion (eg The Beatles).