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[MetalSlimeHunt]

Automation is cool and all but you basically have to overthrow capitalism for it not to immediately degenerate into a sci-fi hell dystopia. In terms of a realistic policy that keeps people alive now, we need shortened working hours and increased worker power.

[sluissa]

I just don't see how that's any less of a stretch than a UBI is.

[smjjames]

Automation is good in the long run.

Except to those that it steamrolls over in the process.

Automation has a long trail of bodies, beginning with the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Also, we're probably further from a post-scarcity society than you think, but we're definetly on the verge of some sort of transition we haven't seen in human history.

Automation is cool and all but you basically have to overthrow capitalism for it not to immediately degenerate into a sci-fi hell dystopia. In terms of a realistic policy that keeps people alive now, we need shortened working hours and increased worker power.

Automation can also actually be bad for capitalism because it needs people to be paid to buy things, no workers getting paid, no cashflow, nothing being bought.

[Egan_BW]

The advance of technology isn't always good, but trying to stop it is like trying to halt the earth's rotation by building a really big wall.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The problem with automation and UBI is that it takes us one step closer to 95% of the population being ready for extermination by the capitalist class. Like I said, worker ownership and drawing down the work week are only stages towards disarming capitalism before it...uh, well...

Explodes.

[hector13]

D’ya know what happens when current employees become former employees?

[SalmonGod]

We're absolutely materially capable of post-scarcity in regards to food, shelter, and utilities.  Just not politically capable.  And there's no reason those things can't be distributed in a separate manner from a capitalist market economy.

[smjjames]

And yet employee owned companies get thrown off as being baby eating blood gurgling communist by Republicans. *throws hands in air*

Though it technically is a socialist ideal because workers rights, it's still capitalist because money.

We're absolutely materially capable of post-scarcity in regards to food, shelter, and utilities.  Just not politically capable.  And there's no reason those things can't be distributed in a separate manner from a capitalist market economy.

If you're talking about the economic version, sure, but I kind of use the sci-fi definition with nanomachines and all that.

[sluissa]

Plenty of studies have shown, and it's been done on small scale successfully in practice, that it's actually cheaper to just provide a bare minimum of survival for people than it is to deal with the effects of them falling through the cracks of society.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm not gonna say that UBI is all bad, but its biggest benefit is making sure nobody gets missed by the welfare system. The downside is that UBI takes away people's power with increasing intensity the higher the percentage of the population is on it. Labor is the primary source of power in society, and even in bad scenarios people who labor have the ability to enforce their will when they act collectively.

UBI recipients who act collectively have a good chance of being machine-gunned in the streets. Not like it'll close the factory.

[SalmonGod]

I'm not gonna say that UBI is all bad, but its biggest benefit is making sure nobody gets missed by the welfare system. The downside is that UBI takes away people's power with increasing intensity the higher the percentage of the population is on it. Labor is the primary source of power in society, and even in bad scenarios people who labor have the ability to enforce their will when they act collectively.

UBI recipients who act collectively have a good chance of being machine-gunned in the streets. Not like it'll close the factory.

Yeah, there's longer lists of both upsides and downsides.  But the point is it's something that can end up doing more harm than good if not implemented sincerely and cautiously, and doesn't coincide with some deeper reforms to broader power structures.

[smjjames]

I'm not gonna say that UBI is all bad, but its biggest benefit is making sure nobody gets missed by the welfare system. The downside is that UBI takes away people's power with increasing intensity the higher the percentage of the population is on it. Labor is the primary source of power in society, and even in bad scenarios people who labor have the ability to enforce their will when they act collectively.

UBI recipients who act collectively have a good chance of being machine-gunned in the streets. Not like it'll close the factory.

Yeah, there's longer lists of both upsides and downsides.  But the point is it's something that can end up doing more harm than good if not implemented sincerely and cautiously, and doesn't coincide with some deeper reforms to broader power structures.

Implementing it sincerely and cautiously seems like it'd be difficult to do in the political realm, as we saw in Finland.

[PTTG??]

I'm not gonna say that UBI is all bad, but its biggest benefit is making sure nobody gets missed by the welfare system. The downside is that UBI takes away people's power with increasing intensity the higher the percentage of the population is on it. Labor is the primary source of power in society, and even in bad scenarios people who labor have the ability to enforce their will when they act collectively.

UBI recipients who act collectively have a good chance of being machine-gunned in the streets. Not like it'll close the factory.

You're not quite right. People who the powerful do not need, in general, stand a good chance of being machine-gunned in the streets. If anything, this suggests that we should establish UBI and (while we're at it,) eliminate the bourgeois now, while we still have leverage.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

That was the point? People on UBI are not needed by the powerful.

But yes, socialism or collapse, etc.

[wierd]

You realize that the alternative to the UBI, is social luddism right?

When you embrace inefficiency, you create LOTS of demand for labor.


Really, those are our choices:
 
Embrace willful inefficiency by outlawing automation, for the express purpose of assuring that a market continues to exist. 
--OR--
Embracing 100% automation, with a UBI, with all the consequences that entails.

Pick a poison.