Social and political issues

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by dre

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.t...rs-data-census

The idea that because technological innovation in the past has created as many jobs as it destroyed, we'll see the same beneficial trade-off in the future is misguided. This time it really is different. The new industries replacing the old ones require far less labour.

Google (Alphabet) has a market cap of $800 billion. It employs 60,000 people. At its peak, GM employed 600,000 people, ten times as many.

What are the millions who are going to lose trucking and retail jobs going to do for a living? Are they all going to become software developers? Start artisanal bakeries? Become Youtube stars? Some will. Not millions.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

If anyone caught it, the last June Waking Up podcast has Andrew Yang on talking about universal income.

Granted, I was already ready to buy in, but he makes a really strong argument, suggesting it’s not just the low-level jobs that will be lost in great numbers to AI (retail, food service, truck driving), but also jobs that require a significant amount of money and training to be qualified for (Oncology for example).

The main takeaway is a very dire look at our future without a universal basic income on the horizon.

I did listen, and it was a good interview. Young seems like a pretty sharp guy, and he's right that we need to start talking about this stuff now, not in another 10 or 20 years. Not sure his presidential candidacy is anything more than a stunt, though.

And one thing I did disagree with was when he said people need to be encouraged much more strongly to move to the urban centres where jobs are. I used to think the same way, but now I think it's perfectly understandable that some people want to stay close to their support networks, especially when they start families of their own. I'm not sure it's a great thing for society when we pull those networks apart and then try to replace them with expensive social services or just expect people to struggle on their own. This is an issue that's dealt with in The Road to Somewhere that I cited upthread. And if half of people are going to rely on UBI for much of their income anyway, I'm not sure I see the value in crowding them all together in a handful of expensive megacities away from their social network.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

And one thing I did disagree with was when he said people need to be encouraged much more strongly to move to the urban centres where jobs are. I used to think the same way, but now I think it's perfectly understandable that some people want to stay close to their support networks, especially when they start families of their own.

From a purely economic perspective it makes sense, but I see the other side as well. Though I took it more as a “you can have a universal basic income, or you can strongly encourage people to move to urban centres, but you cannot have neither.”

I don’t think he necessarily advocated for both in conjunction with each other, but made a pretty strong case that without UBI the only things that stand a chance of surviving are strong urban centres.

[dobbles]

Originally Posted by blankall

In the USA universities are big business. Their combined voting power (including faculty and staff) is huge. They definitely lean towards the far left. I'd argue they are just as big of a voting/lobby group as any other major industry.

I think you are vastly overestimating how far reaching and entrenched this liberal bias is in colleges and universities. Its not as if every single person that decides to work at a college is some hard core liberal activist. Sure colleges often function as a bastion of openness, but I think if anything, they function more like cliffs opening quote. There are a small amount of loud voices that are just allowed to exist as to not upset the apple cart. There are plenty of faculty who aren't at all liberal and there's certainly plenty of staff who aren't there because of political openness or affiliation. Did Janice in accounting take the job because she wants a place to express her liberal values, or did she just take a job with a decent salary and some stability in her field???

I have spent the majority of my career in higher ed having worked at 3 separate colleges including right now. And I even went to a small liberal arts college for my undergrad. But in none of these experiences over the last 20 years have I seen anything like what gets characterized in conservative media.

[Knalus]

So, I've thought a bit about Universal Income, and I have to say, that the problem is real, and serious, but I'm leery of the solution being floated. Not because I disbelieve the problem, but because I feel it's a missed opportunity to make things better, instead of just income. Also, because this is supposed to be universal, I can see a great deal of problems regarding the politics of implementation.

If I were asked, I would propose instead of a universal basic income, a significant increase in Arts grants, in Social Services grants, in child care allowances, and in entrepreneurial grants and bursaries. The types of grants and such that do not require a solid result, like a bank loan, but at least require an attempt. Would this not solve a great deal of the issues surrounding the distribution of Universal Income, without many of the problems? What do you guys think about this??

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Why, or how, would that solve any of the issues that UBI seeks to tackle?

[Knalus]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Why, or how, would that solve any of the issues that UBI seeks to tackle?

Because voters wont pay for it, because they are worried about just giving money to lazy people?

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

That is a reason why UBI is unlikely to be implemented, not a problem that UBI seeks to solve. I'm seriously wondering how arts and social services grants somehow solve the issues surrounding automation and an eroding base of jobs.

Frankly, even UBI isn't going to do it, or at least, a UBI-based system is still going to see massive inequality, but I at least understand the purpose behind it.

[Knalus]

let me rephrase that - it's not an attempt to solve the problems that UBI seeks to tackle, but rather the issues many people have with the whole concept of UBI. UBI seems to be a very utopian solution - it requires a great deal of accepting of certain assumptions. We have seen with Climate Change, even if some of the science, and other assumptions about climate change are true, the more idealistic solutions to climate change just won't get off the ground, because politics will derail it. Make sense?

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Right, I'm with you, and I think you're probably right that fear of change is going to prevent UBI from being implemented, and that global warming is a good analogy in the sense that both would require massive international cooperation that isn't likely to occur. But if that's all you're saying, and you acknowledge that arts and social services grants won't solve the problems we're talking about, why propose them? Just as a sort of social placebo to comfort us all as we obliviously whistle our way towards the apocalypse?

[iggy_oi]

UBI doesn’t work in the long run without a plan to actually fix the problem it is supposed to attempt to mitigate. I’m not sure if knalus’ suggestions are the right solution but there definitely needs to be more done beyond giving people money and accepting they will never have a job.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

UBI doesn’t work in the long run without a plan to actually fix the problem it is supposed to attempt to mitigate. I’m not sure if knalus’ suggestions are the right solution but there definitely needs to be more done beyond giving people money and accepting they will never have a job.

Literally no one is proposing this.

[Ashasx]

In these UBI discussions, how far into the future are these people talking that they feel it could be implemented?

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Literally no one is proposing this.

So we’re discussing UBI because we’re not looking for solutions to address the elimination of jobs that is going to result from automation?

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Hah, weak effort at a straw man. I'm not falling into your BS trolling traps. Go play with yourself elsewhere.

Originally Posted by Ashasx

In these UBI discussions, how far into the future are these people talking that they feel it could be implemented?

Preferably in the next five to ten years. Realistically never, or after the potential crisis has already arrived and people have no choice. Even then, good luck getting states like China on board.

[CliffFletcher]

UBI is a huge step, and there's nowhere near the political urgency to implement it yet. But we need to start looking into it, because this incoming wave of automation is going smash the job market. When we have 30 per cent unemployment and another 30 per cent of people working in insecure gig economy jobs, it will be too late to start talking about UBI because we'll have a revolution on our hands.

Look at how the decline of manufacturing has fuelled populist fury in the U.S. The coming automation will be much bigger in scope. Transportation, manufacturing, retail, food services are going to get slammed. Truck driver and retail clerk are the top two jobs in North America in people employed, and both are expected to be largely automated within 10-20 years. Those retails clerks displaced by e-commerce can't expect to go work for Amazon either, because Amazon in turn is automating its warehouse and delivery roles. White-collar jobs like insurance underwriting and legal clerks are in the cross hairs too.

It will be in the interests of everyone with a stake in social stability - politicians, business leaders, the educated and affluent - to take measures before the whole applecart gets overturned.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Hah, weak effort at a straw man. I'm not falling into your BS trolling traps. Go play with yourself elsewhere.

Good star response Corsi. You really showed me.

[Ashasx]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Preferably in the next five to ten years. Realistically never, or after the potential crisis has already arrived and people have no choice. Even then, good luck getting states like China on board.

I see UBI as an inevitability for our society, but I don't see how its proponents could reasonably propose its implementation within 5-10 years. I can't even imagine the logistical and structural nightmare it would take to even consider it as a possibility in the near future.

[Knalus]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Right, I'm with you, and I think you're probably right that fear of change is going to prevent UBI from being implemented, and that global warming is a good analogy in the sense that both would require massive international cooperation that isn't likely to occur. But if that's all you're saying, and you acknowledge that arts and social services grants won't solve the problems we're talking about, why propose them? Just as a sort of social placebo to comfort us all as we obliviously whistle our way towards the apocalypse?

Ok, my understanding of UBI is that because of automation, jobs, income, and inequality are causing many people to be left behind, right? And UBI suggests that one solution to the problem is to give people money, no strings attached, to allow them to at least have a decent standard of living, while society straightens out the situation, correct? And that UBI is only the solution to people's livelihoods, and not a solution to the structure of wealth generation in society, right?



I know there is an issue regarding how UBI gets funded, with some ideas floating around. One such idea I have heard is to somehow create a mechanism for production gets taxed, as a proxy for income tax - a simplified version of the idea being a robot tax. That's all fine and good, but I think the biggest hurdle is the payments and distribution.



And that's the rub, isn't it? It depends on your definition of the problem. One definition is "in this environment, I cannot earn a decent living and can find no meaningful work". Wouldn't arts grants and social work provide that?? Another definition of the problems would be "if people cannot find a job, they will be a burden to society, instead of contributing to it". Wouldn't creating artists and social workers contribute to society? Another definition would be "how do we structure our society when robots are doing all the work". In my limited understanding of history, artists have contributed greatly to the structure of the renaissance, for example, and from that point our entire concept of western society was based.

In my opinion, these types of grants aren't just easier to implement, but also may solve the underlying structural issues that threaten people's lives? Seems more likely than just giving everyone a fancy kind of welfare, that only looks to me like a recipe for inflation.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

I see UBI as an inevitability for our society, but I don't see how its proponents could reasonably propose its implementation within 5-10 years. I can't even imagine the logistical and structural nightmare it would take to even consider it as a possibility in the near future.

I think it has to start with test cases, gathering data, trying out different options. Which is already happening in some cities around the world. But it needs to at least be on the political agenda. The public needs to be warned that dramatic changes are coming to the economy and workforce.