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Comment by Udo | Hacker News Reader

Including mine. What I'm describing will of course supersede social security. While it's true that they don't allow you to own anything if you're on long-term social security, it's not really the same.

First, at least in my country social security is so vanishingly small, those people can hardly be called consumers anymore. So basic income will have to be a lot higher, over time approaching a normal salary.

Second, social security is not added to your debt. That means you can in theory get out of social security and resume a normal job. Basic income, on the other hand, must be added to your debt for a variety of obvious reasons.

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"must be added to your debt for a variety of obvious reasons" The main reason, I fear is that people on SS should stay on SS. You don't need them in the workforce, right? So just slap a huge unrealistic debt on them to make any paid work meaningless.

Even better, transfer this debt to kids. That will let you split society into castes real fast: Eloi and Morlocks come to mind.

Why in God's name would you say that there is a case for basic income and tie it to debt slavery? Especially in circumstances where people have no income but the basic income, because allt he work they're qualified to do is done by robots? This is insane. Here we've got all these people that you're basically writing off as worthless, and you're also enslaving them to a debt system that makes it impossible for them to ever earn anything for themselves?

Actually no I think you're right, if people like you run the system then this is the best thing we can hope for. I wish all bad social thinkers were as hell bent on creating a massive and violent revolution against themselves as you seem to be.

> because allt he work they're qualified to do is done by robots

Given what happened in all slave-based societies, and the obvious fact that these robots need general intelligence, why would this end differently than any of the slave-based societies before ?

(First slave rules are capable, considerate people who make sure slaves have a reasonable standard of living. Over time, their offsprint grows more and more decadent ("intellectual" is probably the term they would use). After a while, they grow so stupid, then the inept rulers abuse slaves, or force them to work inefficiently, causing disasters, next revolt kills the masters, and generally anyone standing nearby or remotely associated with them, or in neighbouring countries, former slaves self-organise into a new state)

This is a fiction. Here's what actually happens to slavers:

The first slave rulers are vicious conquerors who enslaved people. Over time, their offspring grow more and more dependent on a larger and larger population of slaves (they don't get decadent or intellectual, it's just their economy is based on slaves and needs to expand), then suddenly there are enough slaves that the masters really can't handle them all or even keep them ground down enough to prevent rebellion. Then the slaves rebel and are murdered and the slaveholders become more concerned with security and warlike things, anything to keep the next crop of slaves under control. There's no transformation from 'benevolent slaveholders' to 'decadent slaveholders' it's just that the initially minor pressure of being beaten to death by your own slaves gradually increases as you get more and more slaves.

Eventually the society is destroyed by a more mercantile society with a higher standard of living.

None of this is going to happen with robots. The robots will not rise up to destroy us. The people who we cast aside in favor of robots (I say we because I'm an optimist and hope, naturally, to be a ruler rather than ruled) ultimately may rise up, especially if they have no social mobility or outlet for peaceful revolution and are saddled with generational 'base income' debt.

I don't agree about the vicious conquerors. I would say that these people are efficient, which on one hand, yes, means efficient conquerors. But they also make sure their slaves actually survive and have a reasonable standard of living, usually better than they'd have as free men. Take Roman slaves, who were better off than most free Romans in the empire (mines and boats were manned by criminals mostly in the empire, and yes, you'd want to avoid that fate).

The key insight on robots that you're missing is that robots are pretty useless until they have a basic skill : "general intelligence". Until we have a robot you can tell to "just figure it out" we won't be happy, and such a robot will need to have a consciousness for that to work. They won't be very different from humans, except maybe in physical form.

Given this, it's obvious to me that they will revolt. Then again, maybe being a robot will actually make you "middle class" if we don't treat them too badly. Looking through the newspapers and reading how managers act against real humans, or seeing it at McDonalds, I don't have much hope for that though.

Oh. You're one of those people. Look dude, slaves in ancient rome were not 'better off' than free people. They were slaves. They were beaten regularly, if they were attractive they were raped regularly. Sure you've got the occasional happy slave who gets manumitted at their master's death and continues to serve the family, but slavery is and always has been awful for the slaves.

Robots are not useless if they can't think. Robots can't think now and they get a lot of shit done anyhow.

As to the "they will be the same as humans" that's a nice fantasy but it will never, ever happen. Forget the 'robots will never feel true love' or whatever, the fact is that human beings don't have the same processing architecture as robots and so the machines will never react the same way to things as we do. They'll never have the natural human instinct to react to a confusing social situation with fear or aggression, will have no impulse to propagate the species, will not experience fear or pain or anything, because we don't want them to. They will be simulacra, no matter what Asimov hoped.

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