Slashdot Mirror
Another Universal Basic Income Experiment is Underway, This Time in Canada (technologyreview.com)
Lindsay, a compact rectangle amid the lakes northeast of Toronto, is at the heart of one of the world's biggest tests of a guaranteed basic income. Technology Review: In a three-year pilot funded by the provincial government, about 4,000 people in Ontario are getting monthly stipends to boost them to at least 75 percent of the poverty line. That translates to a minimum annual income of $17,000 in Canadian dollars (about $13,000 US) for single people, $24,000 for married couples. Lindsay has about half the people in the pilot -- some 10 percent of the town's population. The report outlines that the Canadian province's vision for a basic income -- and the underlying experiment -- differs from that of the one we have seen in Silicon Valley. The report continues: The Canadians are testing it as an efficient antipoverty mechanism, a way to give a relatively small segment of the population more flexibility to find work and to strengthen other strands of the safety net. That's not what Silicon Valley seems to imagine, which is a universal basic income that placates broad swaths of the population.
The most obvious problem with that idea? Math. Many economists concluded long ago that it would be too expensive, especially when compared with the cost of programs to create new jobs and train people for them. That's why the idea didn't take off after tests in the 1960s and '70s. It's largely why Finland recently abandoned a basic-income plan after a small test.
The most obvious problem with that idea? Math. Many economists concluded long ago that it would be too expensive, especially when compared with the cost of programs to create new jobs and train people for them. That's why the idea didn't take off after tests in the 1960s and '70s. It's largely why Finland recently abandoned a basic-income plan after a small test.
The smarter way would be to pay students or people in vocational training programs a stipend for a maximum of a certain number of years. Encourage self-improvement without the situation becoming permanent.
The problem with this approach is it removes incentives to work.
Isn't that the same argument against providing unemployment benefits, food stamp, and homeless shelters?
...was it Finland that did this experiment first?
But it's a modern PR thing, oh-we-are-so-progressive, we're going to try this, we're ahead of the heard. I've seen so many countries try this by now (and later ditching it, when it wasn't making the news anymore) that I don't quite believe in the sincerity behind the project.
I'm all for Universal Basic Income, because I personally believe that no one should starve to death, and everyone should have a basic platform where they could work themselves up from rock-bottom to a worthy place in society. And of their own choice, not what WE think is a worthy place. We're all different - there's a place for us all.
But these half assed experiments aren't impressive, just depressive. And they always make the news, as if they where amazing, innovative, new and fantastic.
There's nothing fantastic, new or amazing by it. There's only "PR - LOOK how innovative we are, we're giving it a go".
No you're not. 4K is a drop in the ocean, in fact - it's a drop in a freaking POND somewhere. If you want to see the real ramification of it all, if you want to see the actual effect, it got to be introduced as a WHOLE for everyone. People aren't automatically going to ditch their job, no one wants to live on existence minimum. but it will give oddball individuals a chance to grow into their position in life. It will give people who lost their jobs to automation - a chance to re-educate themselves, it will give people time to reflect, and not just shrivel up and die on some street corner somewhere.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
But what if Peter is an overpaid asshole who doesn't deserve his big fat pay checks for sitting on his ass in an air conditioned office pushing a mouse and entering numbers into excel?
Ah! Just kidding, Peter.
(/me waves at Peter from the cubicle across the room)
#DeleteFacebook
I think this is just an experiment to gather information about UBI's in general, not solve a specific problem in Ontario. These are the kinds of tests we (as a species) should be doing now to prepare for a future (50-100+ years off?) when perhaps automation has supplanted enough jobs that we simply have more workers than work. There's no doubt automation will continue, and AI will eat up all kinds of jobs. The question of whether there will be enough new jobs is one I don't think we can definitively answer.
It's tough to imagine that future, but it's better to find out what does and does not work now than when it's too late. These things will probably need to run for a very long time to prove or disprove viability, with lots of different approaches all seemingly hinging on the fickle idiosyncrasies of the human experience.
In the end, we may find that UBI simply doesn't work AND that there will not be enough jobs. In which case there will likely have to be limits placed upon how much a company can automate (or how much people can procreate).
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
means things are pretty different today then they were in the 60s. And we've got a massive, massive push for automation coming. Basic income doesn't make sense when you need everybody working. Those days are coming to and end. We can't all be Doctors and engineers. A lot of us just aren't smart enough. And we can't retrain everybody. Not everybody can learn a complex new job. Most can't past the age of 30.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
With automation, as well as outsourcing, there will be a growing percent of people in 1st world countries who's IQ will no longer allow them to be productive citizens.
Indeed. One of the first jobs being eliminated by AI is radiologists. They have an average IQ of 125. We need to find a way to lower their IQs so they are happy being plumbers. In "Brave New World" they did this by injecting alcohol into artificial wombs.
Doesn't have to replace all radiologists. It just needs to read the MRI and write an automated report so fast and well, that a single radiologist can sit at home in his jammies and double check AI radiology reports for entire regions of hospitals. One radiologist doing the work of dozens.
Horses are still around despite the existence of cars. Just a whole lot fewer of them.
Actually, a UBI would likely see an INCREASE in overall wages, even if it does remove the need for a minimum wage. Because we're arming workers with the power to say "Fuck Off!" if given a lousy deal.
There might be some exceptions for jobs where most of the job is waiting for something to happen.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.