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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   4403 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 30, 2023

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To be clear, I think there will be UBI, but I think every government will attach strings to it that involve a hybrid of existing incentives, social credit and new incentives.

I don't think it actually changes your point, but I don't think "UBI" is an appropriate term for the type of welfare / economy design you're talking about. The key distinguishing factor between UBI and welfare is that UBI is universal, paid out at the exact same rate to all adults (although I guess I've seen discussions over exactly how to handle payments to people in prison, with some versions stopping UBI payments to them).

I don't think this is an argument against expecting the world to possibly look like this or even an argument against expecting politicians to implement it and call it UBI.

UBI obliterates the 'carrot'.

I assume the idea is that we're predicting a society where there's no jobs (since AI does all of them) so there's no opportunities for income other than welfare? If that's the case, then not having a welfare scheme is sentencing all of the non-owners to death. If it's not the case, then there's still a carrot. Maybe there's some in-between here where somehow neither is the case?

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