Speaker Pelosi signals openness to Universal Basic Income.

[The Romulan Republic]

Holy Fuck. Pelosi is about as mainstream a Democrat as you can get.

I think today UBI officially became a mainstream position in American politics:

https://cbsnews.com/news/guaranteed-bas ... cy-pelosi/

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday that Congress might want to consider a guaranteed minimum income for Americans as part of the economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis. Her comments are the latest sign that Democratic lawmakers are seriously considering an idea that gained traction during the party's primary, thanks to the candidacy of Andrew Yang.

"We may have to think in terms of some different ways to put money in people's pockets," Pelosi said in an interview with MSNBC.

"Let's see what works, what is operational, and what needs other attention. Others have suggested a minimum income, a guaranteed income for people. Is that worthy of attention now? Perhaps so."

WATCH: Speaker Pelosi: A minimum guaranteed income may now be "worthy of attention." pic.twitter.com/19W3gwKGm4

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) April 27, 2020
Pelosi did not give specifics on what kind of plan she'd like to see, or how much money Americans would receive. CBS News reached out to Pelosi's office for comment.

Millions of Americans are receiving one-time checks of up to $1,200 from the federal government as part of an unprecedented $2.2 trillion relief package passed in March. Many Americans have already expressed concern that this is not enough.

Pelosi said in a letter to House Democrats this month that she wanted "additional direct payments" to families in future bills.

As Congress prepares for the next round of relief measures, some Democratic lawmakers are pushing for payments similar to a guaranteed income. Representatives Ro Khanna of California and Tim Ryan of Ohio have introduced a bill to provide at least $2,000 a month to Americans making less than $130,000 annually until employments numbers return to their levels before the coronavirus.

Near the end of his presidential campaign, Bernie Sanders called for $2,000 direct payments to every American household for the duration of the crisis.

Congressional Republicans have been going in the opposite direction, calling for a pause on government spending.

Yang, an entrepreneur and philanthropist, promoted a universal basic income of $1,000 a month for every American during his presidential campaign. He ended his campaign in February, more than a month before the coronavirus crisis sent unemployment soaring. After President Trump signed the bill allowing direct payment to Americans, Yang said in a statement, "I'm pleased to see the White House adopt our vision of putting money directly into the hands of hard-working Americans. It's unfortunate to see this development take place under the current circumstances, but this is exactly what universal basic income is designed to do – offer a way to ensure that Americans can make ends meet when they need it most."

[Zaune]

I wasn't expecting it this decade, but it had to happen sooner or later. Not even the GOP has the balls to propose the only really sustainable alternative, which is the forcible sterilisation or worse of anyone who doesn't meet some arbirtary definition of "useful".

[The Romulan Republic]

I wasn't expecting it this decade, but it had to happen sooner or later. Not even the GOP has the balls to propose the only really sustainable alternative, which is the forcible sterilisation or worse of anyone who doesn't meet some arbirtary definition of "useful".

Well, as long as we're talking about despotic and insane "solutions", there's always banning all automation.

But yeah, realistically, there is no alternative that doesn't involve the total breakdown of modern civilization, and/or a boot stamping on a human face forever. Coronavirus is just driving the point home a little early.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

Well, as long as we're talking about despotic and insane "solutions", there's always banning all automation.

But yeah, realistically, there is no alternative that doesn't involve the total breakdown of modern civilization, and/or a boot stamping on a human face forever. Coronavirus is just driving the point home a little early.

That will absolutely never work because more automation trumps less automation by fair margins. The more automated you are, the more powerful you are. It is that simple.

So, the only way to keep in the game is to continue to automate or be screwed over by someone that does.

[FaxModem1]

Whoa.

They better pass that bill soon, before a bunch of people are homeless and on the streets. Oh wait, too late.

If the Republicans block this in the Senate, they'll be telling a lot of people to fuck off and die.

[ray245]

Whoa.

They better pass that bill soon, before a bunch of people are homeless and on the streets. Oh wait, too late.

If the Republicans block this in the Senate, they'll be telling a lot of people to fuck off and die.

The republicians are more than happy to die on the hill of Hoover.

[LadyTevar]

Well... it's either that, or fall back on the Civilian Conservation Corps.

[Zaune]

Well... it's either that, or fall back on the Civilian Conservation Corps.

That would honestly not be a bad idea anyway, at least in the short to medium term; catching up on all the deferred maintenance and delayed upgrades to the road network and the utilities, investing in better broadband access in rural areas and doing all the other stuff that every American with any interest in having a functioning country has been saying the federal government should have been doing for decades might create enough employment to kick the structural unemployment problem down the road for a few years.

[Nicholas]

I'm not going to post again about this. I have seen too many people get to emotional on this subject for me to believe arguing about UBI is worthwhile but I do think permanent UBI (lasting beyond the anti-COVID19 lockdowns) is a bad idea. Having read what has been said on the subject in several threads I believe my objections stem from several disagreements with other posters regarding how humans would react to UBI. I wish to share those disagreements. I don't think limited studies can resolve this because the promise of permanent money is radically different then any short term study and so you can't see the effects without doing it.

First, I think you are seriously underestimating the percentage of the population that will take the UBI and do nothing. Yes, doing nothing makes people unhappy but intrinsically meaningful activity takes a significant amount of effort, skill and perseverance. I believe lots of people currently find their meaning in life from work which earns them the resources to care for others. If UBI is significant enough to do what posters want it will remove or reduce this source of meaning from their lives. They will struggle to find new meaning in their life but many won't succeed, some won't even realize what they are missing. Add the people who already lack a reason to get up in the morning beyond meeting their bodily needs and I expect within a year or two of introducing permanent UBI at least 10% and more probably 20% of the population would cease productive activity.

Second, I think you are seriously underestimating the rate at which the percentage of the population taking UBI and doing nothing will increase. A meaningful life or intrinsically meaningful activity requires a lot of hard and (in the short term unrewarding) work. The perseverance to do that work is itself a skill which must be developed and practiced. We work hard as a society to instill that skill in our children because our current social structure causes severe hardship for those who don't have it (this type of perseverance is necessary to hold a full time job). A UBI significant enough to remove that hardship is necessary for it to have the effect posters want but if the hardship is removed so is the incentive to develop this skill. Without the skill meaningful economically productive work is impossible. Since very very few people will learn the skill without being taught it and those who aren't using it are unlikely to bother to teach it the percentage of people living on UBI and doing nothing is going to steadily increase at a quite significant rate.

Third, I think you are seriously underestimating the percentage of the UBI dependent population that will get involved in extreme and violent political activism. Meaning is a necessity for human life and people doing nothing will miss it but there are very few things someone without the skill and motivation to persevere in an activity though periods of boredom to do to get that need met. One of them is political activism, it doesn't matter if the cause is increasing the UBI, stopping police abuse or making an orange orangutan president for life, crusading for the cause on the internet and showing up at demonstrations and riots in support of the cause is a way for people to do something meaningful. As the population on UBI grows I believe this will quickly become problematic for the government. I don't expect it to actually threaten the government, organizing a revolution requires the same set of skills as most meaningful activities and those I am talking about here don't have those skills, that is why they are doing political activism of this type but it will be a problem.

Fourth, I think you are seriously overestimating the effects of automation on the labor force. You are mostly assuming that computers are going to learn to do most everything humans can do and so put most people out of work. But they are actually very far from that and while they have been improving dramatically for the last few decades if you look at history such dramatic technological changes usually stop at some point. I expect the improvements in computers to stop well before they actually threaten most jobs. Self driving vehicles will be indicative in this regard, if they truly start making deliveries outside of tightly controlled situations where a large chunk of the work can't be foisted off on the person receiving the delivery it would indicate I may be wrong. In addition the last forty years have seen the incorporation of most of the population of China into the capitalistic system as well as much of the population of the rest of the world that had been living at subsistence level. Despite the increasing automation and the large increase in the labor force the US was at full employment before COVID-19 hit and the Eurozone wasn't at full employment more because of government policies at suppress both supply and demand for labor then lack of potential uses for labor.

In sum my judgement is that because of human nature permanent meaningful UBI will significantly reduce living standards and significantly increase political instability over the long term (fifty to one hundred years).

Nicholas

PS - I am aware that my arguments are also shaped by a belief that working to support yourself and your family is a noble activity and living off of others (whether that is a government check or inherited money) is degrading.

[Gandalf]

I don't think limited studies can resolve this because the promise of permanent money is radically different then any short term study and so you can't see the effects without doing it.

Is there anything specifically wrong with these studies, aside from "I think...?"

PS - I am aware that my arguments are also shaped by a belief that working to support yourself and your family is a noble activity and living off of others (whether that is a government check or inherited money) is degrading.

Unrelated note for your nobleness, but does that extend to inherited land?

[Raw Shark]

I think UBI is a nice idea in theory, but also that every landlord I've ever had would promptly and cheerfully raise the rent by whatever monthly amount is decided upon.

[Jub]

I think UBI is a nice idea in theory, but also that every landlord I've ever had would promptly and cheerfully raise the rent by whatever monthly amount is decided upon.

UBI + Strict Rent Controls and Eviction Laws + Pegging Prices for Essential Goods and Services to UBI rates.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

I think UBI is a nice idea in theory, but also that every landlord I've ever had would promptly and cheerfully raise the rent by whatever monthly amount is decided upon.

That would go... poorly because either a) the government will step in and go 'fuck that noise' or b) people will simply get tired of it and go all via la revolution because now they have nothing left to lose.

Governments tend to want to ensure B doesn't happen.

[Ralin]

That would go... poorly because either a) the government will step in and go 'fuck that noise' or b) people will simply get tired of it and go all via la revolution because now they have nothing left to lose.

Neither of those things are happening now, so

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

That would go... poorly because either a) the government will step in and go 'fuck that noise' or b) people will simply get tired of it and go all via la revolution because now they have nothing left to lose.

Neither of those things are happening now, so

Problem with your thought process is that it isn't a preventative measure when UBI sadly is. Our technological context basically goes 'fuck you' to us humans as a source of labor, and we're pretty much on the verge of having what happened during the Industrial Revolution (the collapse of the skilled labor market as a whole) without alternative jobs to fill the void (i.e. skilled labor either becoming part of the masses of unskilled labor or semi-skilled labor).

So, 'humans may not apply' is coming far sooner than you think...

[Ralin]

Problem with your thought process is that it isn't a preventative measure when UBI sadly is. Our technological context basically goes 'fuck you' to us humans as a source of labor, and we're pretty much on the verge of having what happened during the Industrial Revolution (the collapse of the skilled labor market as a whole) without alternative jobs to fill the void (i.e. skilled labor either becoming part of the masses of unskilled labor or semi-skilled labor).

So, 'humans may not apply' is coming far sooner than you think...

How does any of that relate to what I just said?

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

Problem with your thought process is that it isn't a preventative measure when UBI sadly is. Our technological context basically goes 'fuck you' to us humans as a source of labor, and we're pretty much on the verge of having what happened during the Industrial Revolution (the collapse of the skilled labor market as a whole) without alternative jobs to fill the void (i.e. skilled labor either becoming part of the masses of unskilled labor or semi-skilled labor).

So, 'humans may not apply' is coming far sooner than you think...

How does any of that relate to what I just said?

You think of it as something that shouldn't be deployed when the reality is that it is going to be deployed no matter what you do just because we've out modded ourselves as a labor force.

... unless you want vastly destructive revolutions and civil wars to the point where you can't have stability...

[Zaune]

First, I think you are seriously underestimating the percentage of the population that will take the UBI and do nothing. Yes, doing nothing makes people unhappy but intrinsically meaningful activity takes a significant amount of effort, skill and perseverance. I believe lots of people currently find their meaning in life from work which earns them the resources to care for others. If UBI is significant enough to do what posters want it will remove or reduce this source of meaning from their lives. They will struggle to find new meaning in their life but many won't succeed, some won't even realize what they are missing. Add the people who already lack a reason to get up in the morning beyond meeting their bodily needs and I expect within a year or two of introducing permanent UBI at least 10% and more probably 20% of the population would cease productive activity.

I think you're slightly missing the point here. The purpose of UBI is to give these people some basic means of surviving because there is no useful work left for them to do. There are no ditches to be dug by hand, no sacks of grain to be manually removed from a conveyor and loaded on a pallet for shipping, no mounds of iron ore to be shovelled into a blast furnace. Anyone without the intellectual capacity to operate any tool more complex than a broom or a spade is completely surplus to requirements, because machines can not only do the same job for a fraction of the pay but are absolutely guaranteed to never go on strike, flip their shit and punch out the manager or sneak off to the pub on their lunch break.

Whether their lives have meaning or purpose afterwards is ultimately their own problem; all society can do for those unfortunates who can't fill the void with creative or intellectual pursuits is make sure they have adequate food and shelter.

[LadyTevar]

Well... it's either that, or fall back on the Civilian Conservation Corps.

That would honestly not be a bad idea anyway, at least in the short to medium term; catching up on all the deferred maintenance and delayed upgrades to the road network and the utilities, investing in better broadband access in rural areas and doing all the other stuff that every American with any interest in having a functioning country has been saying the federal government should have been doing for decades might create enough employment to kick the structural unemployment problem down the road for a few years.

That has been my thought for a few years now, yes. We know it worked, it got us out of the Great Depression, because people were getting paid to work. Even if it was more boot-camp style, men-only work.

[Ralin]

You think of it as something that shouldn't be deployed when the reality is that it is going to be deployed no matter what you do just because we've out modded ourselves as a labor force.

... unless you want vastly destructive revolutions and civil wars to the point where you can't have stability...

You are missing the point. The American public hasn't revolted under all sorts of other stresses. What, other than your usually crazy hysterics, makes you so sure that the government not stepping in to control rent prices post-UBI (already a significant thing to be assuming) would touch that off when the police constantly murdering people in the streets hasn't? The concentration camps on the border?

[madd0ct0r]

First, I think you are seriously underestimating the percentage of the population that will take the UBI and do nothing. Yes, doing nothing makes people unhappy but intrinsically meaningful activity takes a significant amount of effort, skill and perseverance. I believe lots of people currently find their meaning in life from work which earns them the resources to care for others. If UBI is significant enough to do what posters want it will remove or reduce this source of meaning from their lives. They will struggle to find new meaning in their life but many won't succeed, some won't even realize what they are missing. Add the people who already lack a reason to get up in the morning beyond meeting their bodily needs and I expect within a year or two of introducing permanent UBI at least 10% and more probably 20% of the population would cease productive activity.

I think you're slightly missing the point here. The purpose of UBI is to give these people some basic means of surviving because there is no useful work left for them to do. There are no ditches to be dug by hand, no sacks of grain to be manually removed from a conveyor and loaded on a pallet for shipping, no mounds of iron ore to be shovelled into a blast furnace. Anyone without the intellectual capacity to operate any tool more complex than a broom or a spade is completely surplus to requirements, because machines can not only do the same job for a fraction of the pay but are absolutely guaranteed to never go on strike, flip their shit and punch out the manager or sneak off to the pub on their lunch break.

Whether their lives have meaning or purpose afterwards is ultimately their own problem; all society can do for those unfortunates who can't fill the void with creative or intellectual pursuits is make sure they have adequate food and shelter.

Second point of order.

The jobs going are not necessarily the manual labour ones. The flexibility and adaptability of the human chassis means labour gangs will have uses in situations where tasks are varied and short term. Small construction sites*, repairs and extensions, hospital porters, animal handlers ect.
Nor should such jobs be considered low skill sack movers.

The jobs under threat are also the high paying, cerebral wrangling of abstract structured data. Paralegals are under threat of extinction. My proffesion, bridge engineer, will be very very different in a decade. It may not exist any more, or if it does, it exists in a 'Trigger's Broom' way, with every single task replaced by something new.
Unlike hospital porters we will very rapidly hit the point for professionals where you cannot be trained faster then your job is automated. 4year degree, 3-5 year experience for an engineer/lawyer.


*One of my early jobs was site labourer sweeping, tidying and delivering pallets of stuff to different and moving teams spread across six floors and three buildings. Ideally it would be craned in, but the cranes were often at full capacity and we were working in weather windows.

[Vendetta]

Yeah, we've actually hit the point where mental labour is easier to automate than a lot of menial labour.

A computer can replace roomfuls of accountants and let one engineer do the job of a dozen, but it can't clean the floor for shit.

[Vendetta]

Yeah, we've actually hit the point where mental labour is easier to automate than a lot of menial labour.

A computer can replace roomfuls of accountants and let one engineer do the job of a dozen, but it can't clean the floor for shit.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

You think of it as something that shouldn't be deployed when the reality is that it is going to be deployed no matter what you do just because we've out modded ourselves as a labor force.

... unless you want vastly destructive revolutions and civil wars to the point where you can't have stability...

You are missing the point. The American public hasn't revolted under all sorts of other stresses. What, other than your usually crazy hysterics, makes you so sure that the government not stepping in to control rent prices post-UBI (already a significant thing to be assuming) would touch that off when the police constantly murdering people in the streets hasn't? The concentration camps on the border?

Actually, we almost did. Several times in US history with the biggest being the Gilded Age and -oddly enough- the Great Depression.

Yeah, we've actually hit the point where mental labour is easier to automate than a lot of menial labour.

A computer can replace roomfuls of accountants and let one engineer do the job of a dozen, but it can't clean the floor for shit.

Actually, it is oddly both on the chopping block, we're just seeing mental work getting all the spotlight while the physical work automation simply slides on by in the shadows. We've got burger-flipping robots now undergoing testing.

[Knife]

In sum my judgement is that because of human nature permanent meaningful UBI will significantly reduce living standards and significantly increase political instability over the long term (fifty to one hundred years).

Nicholas

PS - I am aware that my arguments are also shaped by a belief that working to support yourself and your family is a noble activity and living off of others (whether that is a government check or inherited money) is degrading.

I disagree with your first. Jumping to the other end of the spectrum as an example. People who have money tend not to do 9-5 jobs, don't do the 'grind', don't do jobs that put you in mud and shit. They do, however; tend to start doing other things with their time. Start other businesses relating to their interests or do volunteer work and/or non profit work that relate to their interest.

Basically, you think if you have money given to you, you will no longer want to do anything. Yet, we have plenty of rich people to look at who didn't necessarily do anything for their money and they tend to still 'do things'. There are very few Howard Hughes type rich people holed up in their mega mansion just playing Xbox or swimming in their golden swimming pool. Fundamentally, their basic needs are taken care of, so they can then venture off and start doing the things that interest them. It's basic Maslow's hierarchy.

I do agree with your second, but probably not for the reasons you do. If it is ever discovered that the majority could live without constant stress and worry of basic needs, or the grind of meaningless work, yeah... they'd rise up against the system and the people who maintained the system quickly.