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.

@kitsuneghost Yes, it sounds a lot. 1000 might be feasible, and if it's cheaper than administrating the current benefits system, makes sense.

Yes, sterile and boring. My thoughts exactly.

Advances in tech are great if used properly.

Ppl need to not lose sight of the bigger picture. Things are moving very fast, but in a lot of ways I feel like maybe we should be moving backwards (but with the better tech).

For exaample - take some of the good aspects of lockdown - slower pace of life, less unnecessary travel and commuting, home baking, more acceptable of flexible / home working.

Combine it with the greater freedoms that AI can bring and hopefully have a slower pace of life with a focus on sustainability and climate action and possibly even a declining population which has been discussed a lot lately and which to be honest I think is no bad thing.

The Jetsonesque / Terminator futuristic view of AI does not appeal to me at all. I feel very much that a lot of the older ways of living were better and if AI can be used to make improvements whilst still affording people a lot of freedoms to live their lives, earn their money, travel etc without this sterile, futuristic communism type stuff, I think it would be great.

I want my kids to be able to travel and to go to school and play out in parks and in nature with their friends. I don't want them
to be schooled remotely and then sit at home getting paid UBI for doing nothing because robots are doing all the jobs.

That's the problem. It will solve what problems it is given. Humans can tend to assume some "common sense" or "human values" in that decision making. There will not be: it does literally what it is asked to do. So retaining human control over it is vital and really nobody has figure out how to do that yet, that is the fear that prompted senior people to raise public concerns recently.

For example: one of the newest systems was recently asked how to resolve the acidity issues in the oceans. Its solution would have lowered the oxygen level in the atmosphere to a level where all humans and other animals slowly suffocated...

You have to be very specific about what you ask it to do and the parameters and boundaries!!

Any large scale society requires state "intervention" to organise, administer and enforce its systems.

Of course. I have no misunderstanding on it, it takes some intervention.

But I know that reactions to Covid approach were varied and how I feel about increase state intervention. Some might like heavy involvement but a lighter amount (not zero) is more my comfort zone.

Do people not get outraged when high income levels get benefits?

I recall energy supplement and people complaining it wasn’t targeted, then some pensioner benefit (warm home?) gets same

That's the mindset that needs to change. Firstly because the fastest way to undermine public support for any benefit is to means test it. Then the thresholds for it will just be gradually lowered with fiscal drag etc until it is effectively phased out. Secondly, it costs more generally to means test it. Child benefit withdrawal is a perfect example: that money now goes on additional HMRC staff to administer the scheme rather than to families, and costs the taxpayer more than when everyone received it. Good outcome?

And when EDF switches off the supply because they're not getting enough money? Or it's impossible to buy gas/oil or source the materials to build home based energy generation? How would you police food prices when the majority comes from overseas? Could you force the supermarkets to pay a fair price to their UK suppliers? What if there's a drought or crop failure? How much could it be worth to a major multinational food manufacturer to 'encourage' their items to be exempted from the basics? And for the supermarkets to run out of the capped versions, creating an even higher demand for the non capped (and fuelling a black market in ripped off food because you can't get hold of cheap pasta or bread, but you can get stuff through that). What happens when the US, for example, decides that the price of maize, wheat or vegetable oil products is too low and refuses to supply any until this is rectified (taking into account that supplies from Ukraine/Russia/etc are already destroyed through Vlad's expansionary batshittery)?

Do you punish somebody charging over x amount for rent through tax that will be evaded, do you seize their property, their bank account? Try to locate their offshore funding? Do they charge x amount on paper, but in reality, you only get to stay there if y amount is handed under the table?

We aren't talking hundreds or thousands of pounds here, we're talking billions, of pissing off foreign governments, international politics, security.

The restrictions that would have to be in force in order to make UBI not cause hyperinflation are such that it would have international consequences.

I'd like it to work. The concept that it's cheaper to pay everybody rather than piss around trying to avoid paying benefits isn't new. Everybody having enough has been the dream for humans forever. But the appeal of the idea belies the absolutely fucking disaster it would be due to people's inherent desires, particularly those of the people at the top of the food chain.

All socially ingrained ideas. What you think is the norm or comfortable to you is entirely the case because that's the social system more or less you were raised with plus values you've developed from your family/ mix of friends and experiences. If you'd been raised in Finland or Saudi or Japan or the Congo you'd have a different set of values and references and comfort zone. Or the 18th or 12th century. There's nothing inherent about your particular cultural references that makes them the most beneficial structure for a society, particularly one that is about to be transformed where - if it is managed correctly - resources become much less scarce and therefore there is not such a need to try to make everybody so competitive with each other. Provided there are systems in place to make sure they are not hoarded by a very small number of people...

It will take a reimagining of what resources are, that they are the property of everyone to be used for everyone's benefit. To get rid of the mentality that our social systems have been designed to indoctrinate and instill into people from pre-schooler age, that work is virtuous and without it nothing is deserved. The competition mentality. If resource is no scarce that is no longer necessary. Sadly I think much of the human race is not capable of such a shift in mindset so it may end up with complete destruction, but that does not have to be the case.

Not really. It’s clear some people raised in the U.K. feel differently to me and would love UBI etc

And I wasn’t raised here anyway but I have benefited from a range of systems. Some feel more right for me than others. The US wouldn’t be my choice but neither would say, East Germany during Berlin wall times

If it were just a socially engrained preference we’d all feel the same and we don’t.

I loathed the Covid reaction, others welcomed it.

Provided there are systems in place to make sure they are not hoarded by a very small number of people...

This is also why cooperation and global systems will become more necessary, not less. Many of the issues humanity faces including this one but also climate change etc cannot be resolved by isolationists, so if they win out all they will win for everyone including themselves is destitution and misery.

Because people do value equitable outcomes. Giving an extra £1000 a month to, say, Ed Sheeran is completely different to giving the same amount to an unemployed single parent of two kids with extra needs. Or think about it in reverse - consider taxing everyone at a flat rate of say £8k/year (right ballpark for income tax paid per taxpayer).

If it were just a socially engrained preference we’d all feel the same and we don’t.

No. Because there is your personality, your experiences, your influences from family, friends and work. Culture even around the UK and what is considered "the norm" varies hugely.

But someone from the UK will have more in common generally with someone else from the UK on cultural issues than someone from Japan, or Nigeria, or Pakistan, on average. Because the social and cultural environment is the biggest influence on what you think is the "norm" or acceptable. Many ideas are ingrained in early childhood hence change in human culture being slow, large scale events that cause a shift aside.

You'd also have way more in common with someone from modern Japan than with a British person from 12th Century. But that is many generations of gradual change.

The problem people will have here will be the huge scale of change happening very fast indeed, and whether mindsets and "values" and beliefs and social structures can adapt fast enough. That is the part where it will all fall down IMO.

We may well be coming upon the "great filter" which solves the Fermi paradox. It is part of the human condition sadly that people find it very difficult to step outside their frame of reference and imagine any other way of doing things.

No. Because there is your personality, your experiences, your influences from family, friends and work. Culture even around the UK and what is considered "the norm" varies hugely.

This applies to you too does it not? Of course we’re all influenced to a certain extent

It’s not really selling in UBI though

Yep. It applies to all of us. I am terrified about it. Especially given that I have young children and no idea how to prepare them for what is coming.

AI is bad for humanity and most people sleepwalking into it. We should be resisting it before it is too late.

Yes okay you (not you, but many people) have your nice middle or highish salary wfh job, bought house, not in poverty etc.. but what about all the people who have health problems which limit them working? what about all the people who aren't academic enough to find work after AI takes over the jobs they can do now? It's degrading, someone who works in a low-paid job now can at least have their autonomy.

People with limited choices are already screwed over by the benefits system. Those of you who are saying that £1000 a month UBI couldn't possibly be enough to live on... UC for a single person 'to live on' is not even £800 a month and rent has to be paid out of that too.

AI is just making the working class have much less power. Note the strikes - train workers etc had the power to go on strike and it affected the country. AI and robots don't go on strike.

AI is going to leave the super-rich wondering what they can do with a very large pool of now 'dependent' people who cannot make money for them, and somehow I don't think they are going to be too charitable.. I doubt UBI will be the solution.

It could easily work if we change people's mindsets, but the powers that be have done a number on us, making the majority not capable of understanding or even be willing to really consider it.

I urge people to read The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists to start with.

Ok that’s interesting

Can you describe what you think this is like?

You may have said already but I admit I’m not feeling this way, can you sum up what you’re most terrified about

I used to have this mindset when I was in my 20s. I would debate with my mother and make this very same point as you have in the above quote. Now, in my mid thirties, I cannot believe I ever aligned with any socialism/communism leaning.
I now have the same opinions that I was so passionately arguing against 15 years ago .

Then you could work. Those who would be quite happy not working would balance that out. Or we encourage a two-day working week, and get a better work life balance. Those who love to work are welcome to work more. Those who want to spend more time with their young children are able to do that. Or with their along parents. Or their teens who need more parental interaction or help or whatever.
Or just to do art, or whatever they like.

And if you need to work because UBI isn't enough to live on but there aren't enough jobs available?

I’m pretty sure that if UBI were introduced, the privately-owned Utility Companies would just up their charges to swallow it up…

So all those against UBI would you be ok if the Government did the following. Firstly, move ALL Government departments out of London. Most people could work remotely and they could have hubs in various main cities throughout the UK. Secondly have a flat rate of housing benefit that's the same for everywhere in the country. Thirdly get rid of London weighting for pay, there's no good reason a teacher or nurse should get paid more because of where they live. Fourth, stop subsidising transport. Make roads pay per mile (by vehicle weight) and let the market sort out buses, trams, trains and the tube. As some people think the market should be allowed to flourish the above government interference should be removed to allow it to do so.

Sod that. How dystopian.

UBI is not going to happen. Would make an interesting drama though.

I agree with those with concerns about AI and how it is used, which to me is a separate topic.

Government does not pay more for public sector staff in London. That's why in cheap areas they are very well off and in London and SE they are struggling.