Originally Posted by rickair7777

Boy this is a tough one.

How much would UBI be? Who gets to decide that? What if UBI recipients spend all their free time reproducing such that they overwhelm the available resources? Hopefully some tech genius can build a star-drive...

Who decides how much the actual workforce participants get paid relative to UBI? The workers themselves?

The fundamental problems with UBI is (like all socialism) it assumes that everybody has an inherent right to the spoils of "society".

But society is actually a buzzword that represents actual people, who have their own desires and beliefs, and are harder to herd than cats...unless they are enslaved of course.

With a system like that you need either tyranny to keep it running, or it will typically collapse under it's own weight.

And guess what? UBI would probably not solve society's problems. Given UBI as entitlement people would likely not appreciate it. They would find reasons to be unhappy...religion, the fact that the workers have nicer houses, etc, etc. You what they say about the devil and idle hands.

I don't see it working without a strong hand at the helm. Anybody want to run for Emperor?

Originally Posted by brownie

Great summary... Now put the bottle down and stepaway from the keyboard; )

Originally Posted by Whiplash6

I'm not sure why you think I would disagree with anything you just said. Pilotless airplanes aren't operationally capable now and won't be for some time, but they are coming. That's all I've been saying.

Originally Posted by Bigapplepilot

The large majority of our time was hunter gatherer, after that then the agricultural revolution, then the industrial revolution and now the Information Age. We have never been through this before. Computers are going to be smarter and faster than humans and that is coming quick. Google's 'Deep Mind' already beat 2 players at Go. And this will only continue to accelerate exponentially. I replied to your post above by linking to an article who's title quipped 'Googles AI is creating AI better than its own engineers.' The terms 'Machine Learning' and 'Deep Neural Networks' comes to mind. You replying that we should bring back horses and elevator operators misses the point. We won't be able to be 'freed up' to do higher tasks when Machine Intelligence will surpass the human brain (which stopped evolving thousands of years ago) and do those things with exponentially faster speed.

Originally Posted by Ludicrous Speed

No UBI when there are no jobs and the top only benefits? Just be ready for torches and guillotines. If I were living in that age, i would be with the rebellion.

Originally Posted by C130driver

The ice caps are allegedly melting into the ocean drowning millions of people, the sun will also eventually burn out causing the earth's temperature to reach absolute zero, but not before it gets so hot it fries everyone on earth. These phenomena are also coming but not in our lifetimes.

Originally Posted by Whiplash6

You're not making any sense. Categorizing one inevitability with inevitabilities that will happen millions of years in the future, that makes no sense.

Originally Posted by Ludicrous Speed

Translation; Communism is one extreme, laissez faire capitalism is the other. Both are as insidious to society.

The fact remains is that with a growing population and and growing automation that replaces jobs, UBI will not only be a necessity, but also the morally correct solution.

Originally Posted by SonicFlyer

Are you American or a foreigner?