guaranteed-monthly-income-plan REJECTED

[Mackin USA]

The Swiss are smart folks. BUT

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/swiss-voters-decide-guaranteed-monthly-income-plan-103534182--business.html

In the years ahead, WTF do ya think will happen?

[JasonD]

I think they voted badly and in time more and more nations will implement this kind of thing for all.

[Mackin USA]

As ROBOTS take more jobs from "the working man" and the undereducated people what else should be done?

Learn OR die

[nffc]

We already have this in the UK almost, a minimum guaranteed monthly income.

Maybe it needs to be higher, I'm OK with that. Easiest way to do that would be just to pay everybody the same, cut out all the costs of distributing it.

However I don't think a guaranteed monthly income is compatible with progressive taxation. Choose wisely.

[Rupert]

Maybe it needs to be higher, I'm OK with that.

I go for that idea.  But tie payment into something socially beneficial. not thought it beyond that, and clearly not everyone can.

But visiting the old, anywhere human interaction is good.  Caring.  Robots can do so much, but the human touch is still going to be good for a while yet

[rcjordan]

>tie payment into something socially beneficial

Yeah. A job.

[Mackin USA]

"Yeah. A job."

As a conservative MF, I'd agree but going forward ROBOTS will be taking so many jobs that a different solution is needed because the education system in the USA has FAILED

[Rupert]

So we have to redefine "Job" to be something that adds self worth.   

The big obvious one is Caring... loads of old people.  lonely....  need help. In the west we do not look after people the way we did 2 generations ago.

Well in the UK we don't.  The state has taken that role. Hence a huge NHS bill, disability costs through the roof etc.

[ergophobe]

As Mr Mackin says... we have to start thinking about a world when there are a lot more people than there are jobs.

http://th3core.com/talk/water-coolerextra/terminator-scenario/255

So much of our moral universe is tied up with "hard work" and "keeping your nose to the grindstone." Do people become unchained when it is not just unnecessary to have job, but for most people impossible?

I think guaranteed income will be necessary, but so will a whole rethinking of our moral universe.

I had forgotten, but years ago I had a conversation with a friend about welfare and some years later he reminded me that I had changed his thinking on the subject. I didn't remember at all. He said that he has always seen welfare in moral terms until I told him, "It's not a question of morality. It's a matter of asking a simple question: what is the cheapest way to keep desperate people with nothing to lose out of my living room?"

As jobs contract (which may or may not happen), we are going to have to rethink the morality of work.

[buckworks]

Something else we're going to have to rethink is the assumption that "value" has to be defined by "cash flow".

Many things that a "job" enables us to do, we could do directly for ourselves.

Why does it count in the GDP when I get a job, earn money, and, say, buy an expensive stereo and lots of CDs, but no value is assigned when I practice my instrument to create my own music?

The same question applies to a wide range of activities, from making soup, mending a garment, growing vegetables, even the simple act of walking.

We've organized our lives to depend on cash flow but that's not necessary to the degree that we think.

[littleman]

No doubt this idea will take time to become acceptable, it is probably premature at this point anyway.

As a father of four I think about this topic a lot.  I'm pretty firm on the idea that many jobs will evaporate in the next 20 years.  Too much idleness isn't good for a society, I grew up surrounded by the classic welfare families where a bunch of adults pulled their government checks together and lived off the system without working.  On the other hand my mother was part of a program that got her off of welfare and into a profession that eventually allowed her to have two kids graduate from a university and pay plenty in taxes -- I point this out as an example of a social-welfare program that worked.

I really do not see an alternative to basic income if the predictions of mass-automation are coming, otherwise we are probably heading to a world depicted in the film Elysium.  Yet, I think we will have to be very careful in the way it is implemented -- incentives need to push people to strive, not stagnate.

If we do nothing, then we will most likely have massive crime and it costs an average of $31k/year to incarcerate someone in the US,  £40k/year in the UK.

[JasonD]

> Easiest way to do that would be just to pay everybody the same, cut out all the costs of distributing it.

Agreed.

In practical terms it will be equivalent for a tax cut to many, but guarantee a minimum standard of life for those at the bottom. The bureaucratic cost of means assessment is a waste and in my (simplistic) view, this is the best way to ensure no one is missed and no one is without...

[Rooftop]

The Swiss debate was only every going to go one way.  This came about because of a system where 100k online votes automatically trigger a debate.  Apparently it was backed by no politicians and there was nothing in the proposal to deal with minor details like who pays for it, how much it would be or how to stop all the hardworking tax payers from saying "well, screw this, I'll get paid to watch home under the hammer" (of whatever the Swiss equivalent is).

I keep hearing about guaranteed basic income, but mostly from stoners on reddit who expect to get paid to spend their days arguing online and posting memes between frequent wank breaks. I'm not sure I'm hearing the best arguments for it.  The points above are the best I've heard so far (Sorry for lowering the tone!)

[Rooftop]

Coincidentally this thread surfaced in reddit today.  Pretty sensible discussion and interesting
https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/4mt6xu/universal_basic_income_in_the_uk_discussion/

[Mackin USA]

"incentives need to push people to strive, not stagnate."

I'm still going with Gordon...