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Comment by throwawayk7h | Hacker News Reader

> if humans are economically useless, the state does not need them. Why pay out UBI to people who have neither economic nor political power?

Forgive me if I'm naïve. But wouldn't people just vote for UBI in this case?

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The cynical view would be that all of our politicians are already bought and paid for, and existing political establishments would block any "serious" candidates who support those sorts of policies.

Personally I think that's likely the case _today_, but who knows if that would hold if/when there comes a time when UBI becomes an economic necessity.

The US can't even vote for universal healthcare. I have real trouble seeing a path for UBI.

> But wouldn't people just vote for UBI in this case?

Why in North Korea people just does not vote for UBI? For UBI government need control over majority of resources generated by the public. But if government has that control, what people vote for no longer matters.

Ok, then back up a step: Why distribute the power to vote on the basis of people’s fundamental equal dignity instead of descending into warlord-driven feudalism?

Social safety nets have come about because labor movements were able to use their leverage over capital to extract concessions. When the labor movements have no more leverage, capital won't give it to them out of the goodness of their hearts.

Do the downvoters of this comment have an alternative set of examples from history or do they just dislike this uncomfortable fact?

The largest social safety net in the US is the one provided for retired people, who aren't laborers at all.

There were active labor movements and Social Security was a more moderate proposal than others; this was in the wake of the Great Depression after all. Labor movements played a role in it being considered.

What leverage would you have to enforce the will of the vote on those that control things?

I'm not sure why the people in power would actually be making their own decisions; if the other country's leaders depend on superintelligence to make their realpolitik moves, you'd expect yours would need to do the same to match them.

So, the governance of a country comes down to AI alignment. You can't let the other guys get a leadership advantage through AI, or you'll start losing the competition.

When we get ASI, we're at the end of human decision making. Now's the time that we have to make sure ASI decision making is to our liking.

Voting has to have the implication of violent force from the polity to dissuade abrogation of the vote. If people need not apply for a functioning economy, and Palantir/Flock like systems reduce the violence potential of the people, then what incentives remain for the state to be subjected to the people's votes?

The state is made up of human beings too. I don't see why they would want most of humanity to starve. Even a power-hungry psycho wants to have people to rule over, and I don't think the average politician's neurotic traits are so extreme as to want to eliminate 99% of humanity and inherit the Earth.

Positive feedback loop (or how it called in English, idk). You just want to stay at the top, and the better political instruments you have for that, the worse governor you can allow yourself to be. And the worse governor you are, the more you develop and use such instruments. And then you can could be even worse governor. And so on, until you kill 99% of humanity because the were strongly opposing your position on the top.

Who says you get a vote against AI-powered drones though.

Good luck having votes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Nicaraguan_general_electi...

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