"The president can't speak against an abusive corporation, doing so is illegal."
Look at yourself, saying this shit.
The absolute state of the left.
The problem, anonymous coward, is that the corporation isn't abusive in the ways that Trump claims they are. Yet here you are essentially supporting the assertion that the President should be allowed to tell lies about a privately owned company and specifically target that business for burdensome regulations, potentially for the sole reason that the President believes the owner is a political enemy of his.
Is there no abrogation of conservative morality that you won't stand for?
I'm not sure. I don't think Trump has any real philosophy, I would be truly surprised if it was anything more than "Bad = Washington Post = Jeff Bezos = Amazon". I really think it might be just that simple, Why now? Well Trump can't attack Stormy Daniels, so he's taking his wrath out on someone else who bothers him...
Because everyone "on the left" is the same person and deserves to be treated as if they are exactly the same person who humiliated you once some time in the past?
Ha! You made me laugh. But, seriously, your writing makes you appear to be paranoid, delusional, hypocritical and abusive. Is that really the image you want to project?
But people will claim I am racist for holding these race-neutral views.
Maybe they don't believe you're being entirely truthful? For example, I've found, in my personal experience, that people who say "Affirmative action is racist" tend to follow up the declaration by spouting actually racist bullshit.
The UBI will prevent food riots. But what will prevent the riots of the terminally bored?
That's not a bad question, but I think the answer will be more cultural than anything else. People can go for mindless entertainment, they can seek a fulfilling life, or they can choose to work for material gain. There's probably a lot of people who will pick different things, and some people may pick differently as they age and grow in wisdom.
Riots from the bored will be a sign that your society and your culture are failing to adapt to the new reality.
Well, it was what the Russians who were promoting Bernie wanted those voters to do, so continuing to do what their pal Ivan wanted made perfect sense at the time...
Can we not have a decent level headed somewhat moderate person please?
No, you can't. They don't win nominations or elections in today's political climate. At best you might be able to win with a charismatic, but level headed moderate. Dull people just don't win presidential elections, though Hillary and Gore both came really, really close.
He will be offering a solution to the poor people unlike hillary did, If well marketed enough, might just work.
Unless of course he falls for the social justice meme and starts to spout a lot of racial charged shit.
Or, if they fall for the social justice meme and believe it when the alt-right starts claiming that he spouts a lot a racially charged shit.
Just saying, it doesn't matter if he did it or not, as long as they believe the people claiming he did.
Once 25-40% of people can't work, and have no prospect of a job in the long term even if they retrain, then it's time to look at UBI and see if that might benefit the country as a whole.
I suspect that if you reach that point, it might be a bit too late to try and implement UBI. For reference, 25% was the peak unemployment rate of the Great Depression and that experience warped a generation of people and you want to wait until something worse that the Great Depression happens?
Then it's probably a good thing that you have a job, right? The UBI is a Universal Basic Income, not a Replace Your Current Job income or it would be called RYCJ.
No, if you are for UBI, you are bad at math and also can't see past the end of your own nose. Seriously: Do the math for 300,000,000 people. It would bankrupt the country in ONE YEAR. Also, I'm convinced that crime and other social problems would get worse, not better.
What? If paying everyone $1000 a month would bankrupt the country, how does your country manage to pay the actual salaries that people already have? I've done the math and those 300,000,000 mostly already have jobs or other income that exceeds $1000 and your country is only morally and intellectually bankrupt (that's a joke, son). Yes, taxes would have to go up, but in the simplest example, if everyone was paying an additional $12,000 in taxes, you'd be able to afford to give everyone $12,000 in UBI. Now, increasing taxes might be politically impossible, but the UBI is certainly not fiscally impossible like you claim.
But how is half the population at 100% employment and half the population at 0% employment any better than all the population at 50% employment? At least with all the population at 50% employment everyone is kindof all in it together. UBI just sounds like some horrible dystopia where the people who can fight for the few remaining jobs get to live like kings while everyone else lives on the scraps. A gradual reduction in the workweek would allow everyone to get used to working less and having more leisure and wouldn't create a bloodbath of people fighting for fewer and fewer jobs.
Ok, the simple problems here:
1) Per hours wages will not double if you cut the work time in half, lump pay will be cut so most people will only earn half of what they earned before.
2) Forcing everyone with a job to take a 50% pay cut would disrupt the lives of the employed, and they would hate you for it.
3) There will be twice as much competition for every job and effectively every one would now have to have 2 jobs to make ends meet.
4) There will definite still be a bloodbath of people fighting over the fewer and fewer jobs.
Basically, I think you plan would accomplish nothing other than creating a very angry mob that wants to separate your head from your shoulders. I wish it would work, because hey who wouldn't want to work half as much for the same pay, but you can't force that and even if you could, inflation would just consume the gains.
UBI, on the other hand has a lot of upsides that you are missing. Some major points in it's favour:
1) terrible jobs need to pay more money to get people to do them.
2) no need for a minimum wage, which means jobs that aren't very valuable but aren't terrible can pay less money.
3) eliminates the need for many people to have a job simply so they can continue eating, or having a roof.
4) reduces the negative effects of firing people for incompetence, poor behaviour and bad attitudes.
5) makes it easier to start new businesses (by reducing the risk of failure),
6) allows people to work on something they truly love even if you can't figure out how to monetize it.
I think the major problem with UBI is going to be convinced people to take it seriously and then making sure that it's actually enough for people to survive on, without being too much of a drain on the country's economy. There will be constant pressure to decrease it from conservative protestants who don't think anyone should be allowed to get away with "not working" according to their views, and constant pressure from liberal socialists that it's not enough money.
The biggest challenge is going to be that much of the money needed to provide a UBI would have to be taxed from the middle class and the working poor and that won't be an easy sell, the rich can't (and wouldn't even if they could) fund it by themselves. In America, at least, too many people will be looking at "what's in it for me" first and foremost and those who don't see an upside for themselves will pour money into defeating it.
[T]hey have machine guns now. And supply lines so that when your semi-autos run out of bullets theirs don't. Best case scenario you get a military junta and a change of masters.
Of course, the downside of machine guns and supply lines is that the people running the machine guns and the supply lines are the same people that the rich need to be protecting themselves from. Of course, if they can automate the ammunition factories, supply lines and machine gun turrets, then they'll only have to worry about hackers...
When 95% of the jobs are gone, either we all starve, yes even you Ayn Randians, or we yank back wealth from rent-seeking leeches.
Or we could, you know, spread out and take up farming and consider having fewer children per family.
Sounds to me like you agree with the OP without even knowing it. Or do you think that the land that you are "spreading out" into and "taking up farming" on, is magically not owned by somebody already? It sounds like you're also talking about yanking wealth back from "rent-seeking leeches", to me.
Being better than the worst 5% of drivers would still make driverless cars far more dangerous than human drivers on average.
On average yes, but on average most drivers aren't crashing their cars. If the A.I. is consistently better than the worst 5% of drivers currently driving, that might be enough to dramatically reduce car accidents. I don't know what bar we need to hit to reduce the accident rate, but I'm not sure it's particularly high. There are a lot of drivers each day, but there aren't actually that many accidents as a proportion of the total number of drivers.
Let's consider Los Angeles, there are approximately 4 million commuters every day. I strongly suspect they have fewer than 200,000 accidents a day. In fact, it looks like there are around 220 serious car accidents in Los Angeles, on average, per day. If those accidents are largely attributable to the worst drivers, replacing all drivers with autonomous vehicles that are only better than the worst 5% would virtually eliminate accidents, because the those accidents would be largely caused by the worst 0.006% of drivers.
Now we can't be sure that all of those accidents are caused by poor driving, but these statistics indicate that more than a third of the accidents (162k) were attributed to speed (49k) or drunk driving (11k). I think that most people would agree that reducing the number of accidents by a third would be a pretty big improvement. If we look at this page that estimates that 80% of all traffic accidents are the result of driver inattention instead, then it's possible that relatively poor autonomous systems could still result in an 80% or higher reduction in accidents.
My point is that by limiting the worst behaviour on the roads we might trigger an unexpectedly disproportionate reduction in the rate and severity of accidents.
You forgot another law: An object in motion continues in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
Unlike in cartoons, split second reaction times do not suspend the laws of physics.
In fact, in some jurisdictions jaw-walking is only a crime if you actually interfere with the flow of traffic. Crossing an empty street is fine, crossing a busy street where people have to break to avoid you is illegal, in those jurisdictions.
Sure that would be great, but someone has to figure out how to get there without *killing people*.
Speaking rationally, that's not a good policy. As long as the automatic systems are killing *fewer* people than manual operated vehicles would, that should be good enough to continue working on them, even if the goal of 0 deaths by car accident a year is unattainable.
Slashdot Mirror
"The president can't speak against an abusive corporation, doing so is illegal."
Look at yourself, saying this shit.
The absolute state of the left.
The problem, anonymous coward, is that the corporation isn't abusive in the ways that Trump claims they are. Yet here you are essentially supporting the assertion that the President should be allowed to tell lies about a privately owned company and specifically target that business for burdensome regulations, potentially for the sole reason that the President believes the owner is a political enemy of his.
Is there no abrogation of conservative morality that you won't stand for?
I'm not sure. I don't think Trump has any real philosophy, I would be truly surprised if it was anything more than "Bad = Washington Post = Jeff Bezos = Amazon". I really think it might be just that simple, Why now? Well Trump can't attack Stormy Daniels, so he's taking his wrath out on someone else who bothers him...
Read the report? I'm not convinced that most of them read the summary, let alone the article or the report...
We have crossed that line long ago.
Because everyone "on the left" is the same person and deserves to be treated as if they are exactly the same person who humiliated you once some time in the past?
From now on, it's an eye for an eye,
Remember, kids, everybody is better off we poke out everyone's eyes! Xora said so.
you better hit the gym, boy.
Ha! You made me laugh. But, seriously, your writing makes you appear to be paranoid, delusional, hypocritical and abusive. Is that really the image you want to project?
Nobody on the left want to have any kind of "meaningful dialog", it's all about following by the book their marxist doctrine.
Ha! And you're doing such a bang up job of demonstrating how you want a "meaninful dialog", aren't cha?
Crocodile tears.
But people will claim I am racist for holding these race-neutral views.
Maybe they don't believe you're being entirely truthful? For example, I've found, in my personal experience, that people who say "Affirmative action is racist" tend to follow up the declaration by spouting actually racist bullshit.
If Obama ended extraordinary renditions, how is it "his policy"?
The UBI will prevent food riots. But what will prevent the riots of the terminally bored?
That's not a bad question, but I think the answer will be more cultural than anything else. People can go for mindless entertainment, they can seek a fulfilling life, or they can choose to work for material gain. There's probably a lot of people who will pick different things, and some people may pick differently as they age and grow in wisdom.
Riots from the bored will be a sign that your society and your culture are failing to adapt to the new reality.
Which, I think, is a good thing.
I'd gladly work as hard as the average CEO, if the government took 94% of my income over, say, $2 million. It is a graduated system, you know.
Well, it was what the Russians who were promoting Bernie wanted those voters to do, so continuing to do what their pal Ivan wanted made perfect sense at the time...
Can we not have a decent level headed somewhat moderate person please?
No, you can't. They don't win nominations or elections in today's political climate. At best you might be able to win with a charismatic, but level headed moderate. Dull people just don't win presidential elections, though Hillary and Gore both came really, really close.
He will be offering a solution to the poor people unlike hillary did, If well marketed enough, might just work. Unless of course he falls for the social justice meme and starts to spout a lot of racial charged shit.
Or, if they fall for the social justice meme and believe it when the alt-right starts claiming that he spouts a lot a racially charged shit.
Just saying, it doesn't matter if he did it or not, as long as they believe the people claiming he did.
Once 25-40% of people can't work, and have no prospect of a job in the long term even if they retrain, then it's time to look at UBI and see if that might benefit the country as a whole.
I suspect that if you reach that point, it might be a bit too late to try and implement UBI. For reference, 25% was the peak unemployment rate of the Great Depression and that experience warped a generation of people and you want to wait until something worse that the Great Depression happens?
Then it's probably a good thing that you have a job, right? The UBI is a Universal Basic Income, not a Replace Your Current Job income or it would be called RYCJ.
On the upside, it sounds like nothing much would change, then.
No, if you are for UBI, you are bad at math and also can't see past the end of your own nose. Seriously: Do the math for 300,000,000 people. It would bankrupt the country in ONE YEAR. Also, I'm convinced that crime and other social problems would get worse, not better.
What? If paying everyone $1000 a month would bankrupt the country, how does your country manage to pay the actual salaries that people already have? I've done the math and those 300,000,000 mostly already have jobs or other income that exceeds $1000 and your country is only morally and intellectually bankrupt (that's a joke, son). Yes, taxes would have to go up, but in the simplest example, if everyone was paying an additional $12,000 in taxes, you'd be able to afford to give everyone $12,000 in UBI. Now, increasing taxes might be politically impossible, but the UBI is certainly not fiscally impossible like you claim.
But how is half the population at 100% employment and half the population at 0% employment any better than all the population at 50% employment? At least with all the population at 50% employment everyone is kindof all in it together. UBI just sounds like some horrible dystopia where the people who can fight for the few remaining jobs get to live like kings while everyone else lives on the scraps. A gradual reduction in the workweek would allow everyone to get used to working less and having more leisure and wouldn't create a bloodbath of people fighting for fewer and fewer jobs.
Ok, the simple problems here:
1) Per hours wages will not double if you cut the work time in half, lump pay will be cut so most people will only earn half of what they earned before.
2) Forcing everyone with a job to take a 50% pay cut would disrupt the lives of the employed, and they would hate you for it.
3) There will be twice as much competition for every job and effectively every one would now have to have 2 jobs to make ends meet.
4) There will definite still be a bloodbath of people fighting over the fewer and fewer jobs.
Basically, I think you plan would accomplish nothing other than creating a very angry mob that wants to separate your head from your shoulders. I wish it would work, because hey who wouldn't want to work half as much for the same pay, but you can't force that and even if you could, inflation would just consume the gains.
UBI, on the other hand has a lot of upsides that you are missing. Some major points in it's favour:
1) terrible jobs need to pay more money to get people to do them.
2) no need for a minimum wage, which means jobs that aren't very valuable but aren't terrible can pay less money.
3) eliminates the need for many people to have a job simply so they can continue eating, or having a roof.
4) reduces the negative effects of firing people for incompetence, poor behaviour and bad attitudes.
5) makes it easier to start new businesses (by reducing the risk of failure),
6) allows people to work on something they truly love even if you can't figure out how to monetize it.
I think the major problem with UBI is going to be convinced people to take it seriously and then making sure that it's actually enough for people to survive on, without being too much of a drain on the country's economy. There will be constant pressure to decrease it from conservative protestants who don't think anyone should be allowed to get away with "not working" according to their views, and constant pressure from liberal socialists that it's not enough money.
The biggest challenge is going to be that much of the money needed to provide a UBI would have to be taxed from the middle class and the working poor and that won't be an easy sell, the rich can't (and wouldn't even if they could) fund it by themselves. In America, at least, too many people will be looking at "what's in it for me" first and foremost and those who don't see an upside for themselves will pour money into defeating it.
[T]hey have machine guns now. And supply lines so that when your semi-autos run out of bullets theirs don't. Best case scenario you get a military junta and a change of masters.
Of course, the downside of machine guns and supply lines is that the people running the machine guns and the supply lines are the same people that the rich need to be protecting themselves from. Of course, if they can automate the ammunition factories, supply lines and machine gun turrets, then they'll only have to worry about hackers...
When 95% of the jobs are gone, either we all starve, yes even you Ayn Randians, or we yank back wealth from rent-seeking leeches.
Or we could, you know, spread out and take up farming and consider having fewer children per family.
Sounds to me like you agree with the OP without even knowing it. Or do you think that the land that you are "spreading out" into and "taking up farming" on, is magically not owned by somebody already? It sounds like you're also talking about yanking wealth back from "rent-seeking leeches", to me.
I can't wait to see what the all-wise multitude will say once we actually know what happened.
I predict all sides will say "I told you so", for different reasons.
Being better than the worst 5% of drivers would still make driverless cars far more dangerous than human drivers on average.
On average yes, but on average most drivers aren't crashing their cars. If the A.I. is consistently better than the worst 5% of drivers currently driving, that might be enough to dramatically reduce car accidents. I don't know what bar we need to hit to reduce the accident rate, but I'm not sure it's particularly high. There are a lot of drivers each day, but there aren't actually that many accidents as a proportion of the total number of drivers.
Let's consider Los Angeles, there are approximately 4 million commuters every day. I strongly suspect they have fewer than 200,000 accidents a day. In fact, it looks like there are around 220 serious car accidents in Los Angeles, on average, per day. If those accidents are largely attributable to the worst drivers, replacing all drivers with autonomous vehicles that are only better than the worst 5% would virtually eliminate accidents, because the those accidents would be largely caused by the worst 0.006% of drivers.
Now we can't be sure that all of those accidents are caused by poor driving, but these statistics indicate that more than a third of the accidents (162k) were attributed to speed (49k) or drunk driving (11k). I think that most people would agree that reducing the number of accidents by a third would be a pretty big improvement. If we look at this page that estimates that 80% of all traffic accidents are the result of driver inattention instead, then it's possible that relatively poor autonomous systems could still result in an 80% or higher reduction in accidents.
My point is that by limiting the worst behaviour on the roads we might trigger an unexpectedly disproportionate reduction in the rate and severity of accidents.
You forgot another law: An object in motion continues in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
Unlike in cartoons, split second reaction times do not suspend the laws of physics.
In fact, in some jurisdictions jaw-walking is only a crime if you actually interfere with the flow of traffic. Crossing an empty street is fine, crossing a busy street where people have to break to avoid you is illegal, in those jurisdictions.
Sure that would be great, but someone has to figure out how to get there without *killing people*.
Speaking rationally, that's not a good policy. As long as the automatic systems are killing *fewer* people than manual operated vehicles would, that should be good enough to continue working on them, even if the goal of 0 deaths by car accident a year is unattainable.