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Y Combinator Announces Funding For UBI-Supporting Political Candidates (latimes.com)
Most people "feel like they have great potential that is being wasted," argues Y Combinator president Sam Altman -- a Stanford dropout whose company's investments are now worth $65 billion, including Airbnb, Reddit, and Dropbox. Now an anonymous reader quote the Los Angeles Times:
A wealthy young Silicon Valley venture capitalist hopes to recruit statewide and congressional candidates and launch an affordable-housing ballot measure in 2018 because he says California's leaders are failing to address flaws in the state's governance that are killing opportunities for future generations. Sam Altman, 32, will roll out an effort to enlist candidates around a shared set of policy priorities -- including tackling how automation is going to affect the economy and the cost of housing in California -- and is willing to put his own money behind the effort. "I think we have a fundamental breakdown of the American social contract and it's desperately important that we fix it," he said. "Even if we had a very well-functioning government, it would be a challenge, and our current government functions so badly it is an extra challenge..."
Altman lays out 10 principles including lowering the cost of housing, creating single-payer healthcare, increasing clean energy use, improving education, reforming taxes and rebuilding infrastructure. He has few specific policy edicts, and floats proposals that will generate controversy, such as creating a universal basic income for all Americans in an effort to equalize opportunity, public funding for the media and increasing taxes on property that is owned by foreigners, is unoccupied or has been "flipped" by investors seeking a quick return on an investment.
Altman argues that he wants to "ensure that everyone benefits from the coming changes," and specifically highlights the idea of a Universal Basic Income. Altman writes that "If it turns out to be a good policy, I could imagine passing a law that puts it into effect when the GDP per capita doubles. This could help cushion the transition to a post-automation world."
Altman lays out 10 principles including lowering the cost of housing, creating single-payer healthcare, increasing clean energy use, improving education, reforming taxes and rebuilding infrastructure. He has few specific policy edicts, and floats proposals that will generate controversy, such as creating a universal basic income for all Americans in an effort to equalize opportunity, public funding for the media and increasing taxes on property that is owned by foreigners, is unoccupied or has been "flipped" by investors seeking a quick return on an investment.
Altman argues that he wants to "ensure that everyone benefits from the coming changes," and specifically highlights the idea of a Universal Basic Income. Altman writes that "If it turns out to be a good policy, I could imagine passing a law that puts it into effect when the GDP per capita doubles. This could help cushion the transition to a post-automation world."
Much of what he wants is good and maybe possible. However holding back automation is 100% wrong headed. People have been trying to hold back automation for centuries. In fact automation can lower the price of housing in a huge way. And yes, we will have social unrest and some tribulations as humans become obsolete in employment situations. However that very same automation that provides homes and miraculous health care is also the same automation that will eliminate your jobs. In the past it was the guy who shoveled dirt or coal that became jobless due to automation. now it is book keepers, accountants, lawyers and even doctors and they tend to have far more social power to resist changes. But the very reason that automation will win is the same reason the crackpot notions about hiding cures for cancer exist. We are supposed to believe that a doctor can cure a cancer when he wants to but there is so much money that he will never do it. We are asked to believe that doctor will watch his parents, his kids his wife or even his own life to end from cancer when he has that secret cure at hand at all times. and that is exactly why doctors will yield to automated medical care. It is also the reason that lawyers will support automated medical care and you can bet your last penny that insurance companies love quick, easy and inexpensive cures for any problem. In other words there are huge numbers of people hitting the go fast button on automation and they tend to be the bright and highly paid people among us. The worst thing we are against is not exactly regulation but more of allowing a permissions based society. In other words you build a home and government and others will tell you just how you can build that home. The idea of permits or permissions allows so much abuse of individuals that absolutely everything turns into a money issue with a whole bunch of people feeding off the side effects of those permissions.
You mean like Harrison Bergeron?
Things are going to get very ugly before they get better. The investor class will not relinquish its power without a fight. These guys will fight to the bitter end. They have everything to lose. They will use their resources to keep the status quo in place. Expect the skirmishes between main street and wall street to escalate. The outcome is very hard to predict, but there will be a conflict. Best case: We are able to wrest control from the investor class, and restore democracy. Worst case: Think Second Civil War, Robots killing citizens en-masse, biological agents released, or US military thermonuclear bombs targeted intra-US.
This may be the dumbest post I have seen in a few days.
I did the math on UBI and found scrapping existing welfare, EI and veteran payments in favour for one UBI program would not only supply more income to more people, it would actually save the government money.
UBI is not magic, the money doesn't just come from the air, it comes from taxes. To pay for UBI the government merely needs to shift taxes to apply to wherever the money currently is. In other words, people who are making profits end up footing the bill for the people they laid off to make those profits.
The national debt is likely to go down, not up, if UBI is implemented because it saves money in the long run. Not just by unifying programs, but by reducing social housing, medical and emergency responder costs which are a result of poverty.
Or maybe you dont have a strong grasp on what UBI is for or how it would work.
What it is for: a future where automation is cutting large numbers of people out of work. While there have always been people who have lost their jobs to automation the worry now is that robotics may be replacing manual labor almost entirely in the future. What are the manual laborers in this country going to do if that happens? Furthermore, advances in "ai" threaten many traditionally well paying jobs which makes the problems even worse.
How UBI works: UBI isnt as expensive as you make out. With UBI there's no unemployment payouts, food stamps, or any other number of social programs along with the large bureaucracies needed to make them work. While that money saved wont cover all the costs there's enough static wealth at the top even right now (let alone in a world so heavily automated) to make up the difference.
And really, I havent heard any viable solutions to what looks like a looming labor crises that isnt "let them all starve" or UBI
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
The thing you UBI-detractors do not understand is that the UBI is Universal. It has minimal overhead, quite unlikely the system in place now. That is the whole point. It just distributes mostly the same money as is distributed now, but with almost no bureaucracy and nobody falling through the cracks. It eliminates a lot of value-destruction the current system does and fosters.
However, there are certainly problems with an UBI. For example, many people will find it really difficult to live without work and not because of financial aspects. That is the real killer here. With an UBI, all the make-work things currently done will fall away and that is going to hit hard. Just look at how many people run into massive issues when they retire or how many dies soon afterwards. People need something to do and many cannot create that by and for themselves.
That said, an UBI will happen, there is no way around that. The numbers just do not add up any other way, unless the whole world agrees to go back to a non-tech model of society. That is not going to happen.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Giving people a free income makes the fat and lazy.
So we should ban capital-derived income? And inheritance over some threshold?
Ezekiel 23:20