Universal basic income and what it may look like

[porkpiesinthepark]

I've been thinking for a while about the criticism of UBI and I think it's due to people not being able to imagine the government trying to 'match' peoples wages. In my opinion, it never will but there will be alternatives to what we have now, which will be able to offer something better.

So say the UBI is £1000 a month for a single person.
We could change the housing market to allow much more public housing with rents set at an affordable level, much more stability, no private landlords and the option to customise/ change your home. Let's face it, home ownership is out of reach for the majority at present. I don't find people are dying to own their own homes but desperate to be out of the instability of the private rental market, out of parents houses, out of house shares etc. If you could offer the next best thing to owning your own house, I think people would go for it.
There would be much more community linked to people having extra time due to not working or not working as many hours. Now, not having enough to do in the day is bad but most people have these huge dreams for retirement and this would just allow them to do some of these things now instead. Also more volunteering, looking after elderly relatives etc.
I don't think that private car ownership would be a thing. There would be a big system like Uber who you could call rides on. There would be a cheaper option, say if ten people wanted to go to the city centre at the same time, they would have to walk to a hub and then the van would pick everyone up, like public transport but based on demand. It would be a status symbol to be able to call a car out just for you.
I think a lot more people would wfh getting the cost of transport and childcare down. Schools might even go remote, as there wouldn't be both parents working and so in theory they could help facilitate the lessons. Then teachers would have small classes of Sen kids like mine, key workers and vulnerable children. Kids would interact with others through volunteering groups with parents, or just playing out as there would be less cars and more parents around to keep an eye on them.
People will either hate this vision as it's so different to what we have now. Or they will like some parts. But what we have now can't continue.

@chupachucks AI is going to decimate the job market. The only question is whether you want the population to be supported in the event or not.

75-80% of the uk population is adults . There are 67million people in the UK. So let’s go with a round figure of 50 million adults.

If we give them all £1000 a month, that’s £50 billion a month in UBI. DWP’s spent about £225 billion delivering welfare last year. That makes UBI much more expensive than the current system if set at that level.

The GDP of the UK is about £2.2 trillion. £600 billion is quite a substantial chunk of that.

And that’s without considering any of the children. Or how to help with the additional costs of disability.

I would not want to live in a world where myself and most of the population had no job, had never had a job, and had no prospect of ever getting a job. What would the point of having children knowing that the same fate awaited them? What would be the point of being alive? It would be a bleak dystopia. A nightmare world.

Retired people have all that free time, and yet we often hear of elderly people who barely see anyone.

I think a lot of people are getting AI the wrong way round. It's going to be the white collar jobs most at risk. Banking is the best example, AI can easily be trained to identify investment risk and opportunity. Why pay real people huge amounts of money with a risk of massive losses when a computer can do it for free without greed or human bias?

@Florenz There's more to life than having a job, though UBI wouldn't stop you having one anyway. But there's all kinds of things people love to do which aren't jobs, like caring for people and animals, writing novels, playing an instrument, inventing things, planting trees, cleaning up your neighbourhood, hiking, making films, crafts, the list is endless. Is having a job really what makes your life worth living?

The point is that there will be huge productivity gains. You tax them to provide for everyone. Resources are considered a public good, to be distributed. There's no other way to make society function when large parts of the workforce - far more than in the last industrial revolution - become obsolete. It's literally changing the entire structure of society OR total destruction and meltdown.

And why wouldn't anybody want it? Surely the argument for capitalism, from anybody not psychopathic, was to find an imperfect (like all systems are) but stable way to distribute limited resources "fairly". Interpretations of "fair" vary from social democracies in most of Europe to the USA system or worse, with UK somewhere in the middle.

If the resource scarcity is no longer a problem, then what is the argument for or need for capitalism? It is about distributing required labour effectively (very little will be required anymore) and distributing scarce resource. And using the latter to motivate people to provide the former.

Unless you enjoy suffering, there will be no need to link work to resource anymore. Do some thought experiments. If there is plenty of everything you want and need for you and your family, why do you need a system linking work to "deserving" tokens to get resources anymore?

How incredibly sad that you feel that way. Your statement implies you derive value in your life and those of others from work.

Why did humans start making tools? To reduce the work required to do the tasks that needed to be done. All technology since has been an extension of that.

Surely a world in which work is not required or needed and people can spend their time on what they value be that literature, art, reading, gardening, music, spending time with family and friends or even just sitting in the garden doing absolutely nothing but soaking up the sunshine is not such an horrific idea? Nobody would be stopping people doing whatever they feel like doing. It's a bit tragic if you think only work can provide a meaning to your life.

I recommend reading Betrand Russel's In Praise of Idleness.

Retired people have all that free time, and yet we often hear of elderly people who barely see anyone.

Partly because younger people are so busy working they can't spend time with them...

Tbf the arguments are making me think about a new structure. I think UBI just reminds me of this one with something not that appealing added on

One part of it is keeping tax revenue here, so not finding ourselves unable to tax although huge profits are made elsewhere from activity here

So the state needs to use AI as a resource a bit like oil and gas. If we’re going to change society on the back of it we need the funding

It would a be an absolute nightmare and I truly hope it never happens. It would be the end of humanity.

Everyone in every country will be in the same boat. So it won't be a case of decamping to another jurisdiction. Although international cooperation will be crucial to stop an undercutting war, hence why isolationist policies during this period are suicidal.

And yes: immediate funding of the important stuff. Infrastructure, reservoirs, education, sustainable energy, food security...

Interesting that none of even the basic foundations like this seem to form part of any party's election manifesto plans when this should be centre stage, if we want any future at all worth having.

I want to travel. Will that still be possible? Predictions please 😂

I don't know when jobs started, but humanity did OK for millions of years without them. Also, I never heard the aristocracy complain their lives were not worth living without a job. But you could keep working and give your UBI to charity.

This. Fucking ridiculous!

Nothing wrong with benefits.

No idea @Beezknees it depends on so many things like I said: will proper planning be done, will the resources be used for the right purposes? In our country, ostensibly it is a democracy so are people putting pressure on politicians to use the resources we have to get energy and water and food security in place? It doesn't seem like it. Is the money we have being invested into the right tech like hydrogen power which might make your travel dream feasible in future? And where will you travel to? Will those places be too fucked and dangerous to go to? Also if some countries invest in the right stuff and create some stability, imagine the wars that will ensue, the migratory pressures. This is why all of these issues require a global approach which is sadly lacking even now.

There was a thread a few days ago about "what should the Government do as its highest priority to make lives better?" and many of the responses were so myopic, self-centred and ridiculous that I can imagine there is too much noise and they are therefore focusing on entirely the wrong things, which need to be the medium- to long-term priorities. Given short terms in office, they will not do so unless the public demand they do. And are they? Or course not.

So I predict it will end up an unholy mess, because of human weaknesses: selfishness, short-sightedness, inability to consider the big picture. From the politicians and voters. And by the time they act or the public demands they do it will be crisis and too late. Which brings us back to this being the answer to the Fermi paradox, potentially: that technological change is exponential and despite this being absolutely clear, nobody does anything to prepare for it. If they don't, it will be catastrophic.

Who does the jobs then lol? Answers phones, works in shops, doctors dentist nurses care etc? What the fuck are you on about 😂

Almost all of that will be done by machines.

Machines will speak to you on the phone - far more politely and efficiently and actually have the knowledge to resolve your query. In fact there will be far less need to phone them anyway, thank God.

Shops won't need people to work in them. Machines can pick and pack things, deliver them.

Nursing/ care robots already exist and will get more advanced soon. Again better and more responsive as more knowledgeable and actually do their jobs and proper ratios and not need breaks.

Already there are robots/ machines that have better outcomes in fine surgery than the most experienced surgeons. AI will be far better at diagnosis than humans because it can process large quantities of data much faster than a human brain and again already does this, processing images etc.

And we are only at the start.

@Room102 At the same time due to hugely falling birthrates outside subsaharan Africa there is a massive population collapse underway. In their usual way Governments seem oblivious. There is a tipping point with it where it becomes hard to reverse and that isn't actually too far off now..

But why do falling birth rates matter if AI will be taking over most labour currently done by humans?

Lots of people I think are unaware of the extent to which even the primitive AI we have now is involved in many aspects of their lives, let alone any concept of how quickly this is going to increase.

Ok so do you think we’ll have access to the profits from the companies that implement this?

I know you say we’re all in the same boat but will the owners just be off shore in tax havens and we’re a bit stumped with how to pay people who don’t work?

They won't matter so much because of the AI, if the transition is managed properly. This is what I mean: the various factors interact. If the AI revolution wasn't coming the population collapse that's coming would be catastrophic. It may well save us from that. But will cause many other problems unless it is used in the right way and for the right purposes and social systems/ structures reconfigured to cope with the fact that there will be very little work for people. Plus the climate change impacts and how internationally we ensure tech is shared to mitigate that and cope with the huge population movements that will ensue and distributing food and water to everyone globally. Unless all of that happens the only outcome will be large scale war. And probably the end.

Who is going to do all the actual jobs? The things that aren't fun or fulfilling, but need doing? There are a lot of people doing work that needs doing, because it gives them money for a roof over their head, who would stop working if they got £1,000 a month to not work. Society would fall apart.

I don't want schools to be remote. I want all the social benefits of my child being among peers.

Minimum wage essentially is a UBI it just requires that you work for it. I can't see the point of a system where healthy adults are paid to not work.

Ok so do you think we’ll have access to the profits from the companies that implement this?

Not unless there is a fundamental reimagining of social systems and societal structures, no. Hence my points about capitalism being necessary in a system of limited resources. In a time of productivity explosion, but little requirement for labour, something new will be required.