alt Hacker News> The government hands cash to displaced people, who immediately send that money right back to the tech companies to pay for subscriptions, automated food delivery, or digital entertainment.
No plausible UBI system gives people so much money than they can relax and order food delivery while they watch all of their entertainment from their paid subscriptions.
Funding UBI is extremely hard. We would have to more than double our tax intakes to even begin to give a reasonable UBI as a social survival safety net, even if we consider eliminating all other social services.
UBI isn't a life of luxury and food delivery. It's a roof over your head and enough to afford groceries.
It's also confusing that this article thinks the wealthy are going to eliminate all the jobs and then ask to have their taxes raised so the money can be recirculated back to the people to spend on companies. Where do they think the UBI money is going to come from? Or do they believe that UBI is a money faucet that produces new money?
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Yeah there has been a weird belief here for a long time that if something bad happens to us then extremely generous welfare benefits will materialize.
Ask the people who used to work in the auto plants if that's how it goes.
No one will get a dime unless they organize and fight for it. Otherwise things are more likely to go in the other direction, what safety net exists now gets reduced.
If they've eliminated all the jobs then presumably the economy has the idle productive capacity required to either produce the goods demanded by ubi recipients or produce the (real) capital required
I don't understand UBI.
Let's say a burger costs $10. Then UBI is implemented. But not just like $1K/month UBI... $1M/year UBI... for everyone! There's no way that the burger is still $10 now. Right?
Won't the economy just soak up all the extra UBI money? So a burger will cost $1000 in world where everyone gets $1M/year? And like $20 when everyone gets $1K/month? Isn't it all just a wash?
It could perhaps work economically if AI automation also reduces the price of goods. What about automation-backed universal basic necessities? Mass-produced tract housing in the Midwest? Sounds awful but better than spending 90% of income on rent. Bread and circuses; subsidized mobile homes and Netflix.
But it won't work if necessities are captured by special interests, e.g. doctors ban AIs giving any medical info, even if it is technically capable of replacing them, so they can keep their own jobs.
Agreed. 90% of UBI would go to rent and 10% to food. That isn't some kind of artificial demand; people have always needed food and shelter.
As for higher taxes, they're trying to get ahead of the pitchforks.
At _current_ prices. The idea is that labor and energy prices would be close to zero before this would happen. So it wouldn't be that "expensive" to provide basic food, clothes, etc. A lot of goods and services would be automated.
> It's a roof over your head and enough to afford groceries.
And plenty of free time to figure out how to eat the rich.
Made harder by the fact that we make it illegal and hostile to build housing
This is also what I was thinking... how did this article get so many upvotes when it has some glaringly weak points?
oh for fucks sake are you making an excuse for them now so you’re not disappointed when you’re starving?
I strongly doubt it will even provide us with a roof over our heads. In an unconstrained market, the pressure to extract as much as possible from the UBI will be enormous. The amount of UBI will probably always lag years behind the actual amount required to create a liveable situation, and increasing its amount will be a constant political struggle.
UBI in an unconstrained market is nothing else than enslavement.
Fair and progressive taxation and proper social systems are far more efficient. UBI is just an excuse to get rid of social systems and leave everyone individually stranded with problems no one can solve alone.