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Agree about future technology causing issues and resulting in some type of UBI.
After 16 years i've left local gov
- Thread starter [TFU] Thegoon84
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Caporegime
Tax credits is and always has been sick.
The government basically funding the private sector allowing them to pay crap unliveable wages at your expense.
The government basically funding the private sector allowing them to pay crap unliveable wages at your expense.
The realisation of this (and claiming myself) was the first moment of "WTF has the government done?" for me. I saw how my employer would tell us straight to our faces that we weren't allowed over 30 hours p/w on our contracts and we should all claim TC to make up the difference.
That was quite common with minimum wage jobs I was in around 2006-2014.
Those of us on the inside have heard the early warning sirens, but those on the outside won't believe until services start falling down.
Which they are going to. I've heard of heads of service reduced to tears when they've learned their already shoe-string budget needs to be shaved down by another 25%.
Things are going to fall apart in the not too distant future. The Tories are literally dismantling local government piece by piece.
We recently had an address by one of those heads of service, who basically said that unless significant swathes of her service could be fully automated, the service itself would no longer be able to function with the money they have. That was adult social care btw. They want to replace human care givers with automated systems - the way they see it they have no choice. Wages for care givers are too expensive.
Where this doesn't make any sense, however, is that the outcomes directly contradict the reasons why automation is being embraced.
Automation is being embraced as it can increase profits. That is basically the #1 reason.
If automation renders vast swathes of the population unemployed, such that UBI is required, then the money to pay that UBI will have to come from... the increased profits of the people who embraced the automation (since people with no income can't be taxed...)
And without UBI, another strange effect I don't understand... You fire all your workforce for automation (and so does every other industry/employer), then the spending power of consumers is greatly diminished. Such that the people making products by means of automation kill their own markets, because nobody can afford their products (without UBI).
It seems that should we move towards "full automation", that the consequences would be directly contrary to the motivation to automate in the first place. Either a) You end up having to pay UBI for everyone from your increased profits (thus not having increased profits) or b) You have no market for your product because the unemployed have no spending power.
Admittedly I'm not Einstein*. But it seems to me that whichever route you go down, full automation is an unworkable idea. The people automation is supposed to benefit (the producers/suppliers) will be indirectly hurt by their own automation. To me that appears to be an unsolvable contradiction/paradox.
*You can say that again.
Soldato
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Yep. It's egregious at this point....
Just want to elaborate on this a little bit. Maybe somebody can fill in the holes for me.
Today, if you make TVs (for example), your ideal world is one in which everybody is rich enough to buy a new TV from you every year. At least from company's perspective. From the shareholders perspective, you just want the biggest return on your investment (as always).
Now the CEO/shareholders potentially are just happy to increase their pay-packet year on year, with some stock options. Perhaps they're not so concerned about shrinking markets... after all they can restructure and lay people off to maintain profitability.
But should we move to a situation where the (design,) manufacture and distribution of TVs is fully automated, then we might very well be living in a world where employment is very scarce, and incomes are just enough to meet basic needs. In that case people certainly aren't buying a new TV every year. Maybe there are still enough middle-class people to buy a few TVs a year, and maybe you've downsized your output to compensate.
Anyway, from the perspective of the CEOs/elite tier, selling things to the masses is just a means to an end. The end? Owning yachts, houses, quaffing champagne. If you can somehow remove the need to provide anything to the masses, but still maintain your lifestyle...
See this is where I see a much more bleak future emerging. Once we have full automation - we don't need workers. We also don't need to produce things on the kinds of scales we see today. Only the elite need TVs, cars, etc... They will have the means of production AND control the resources, and will have no need of a working class population at all.
Thus I keep seeing a future where not only are the majority out of work, but are actually not needed in any way, shape or form. There is no need to sell them things. There is no need to even keep them alive. They will have no income of their own barring that paid by the state, via income taken from the producers/elites. Thus the general populace becomes a drain, a leech.
In that world the elite would be happy for the general population to die off. They would have no use for us.
I think the idea of full automation is a long way off (if it ever becomes a reality).
You still need the ideas to make the ‘stuff’, even if the ‘stuff’ is mostly made by automated systems. You also need people to design and manage the automated systems.
Then there’s sectors/industries that (currently) still require a human touch like healthcare and legal services. Even though a lot of the paralegal tasks are heading towards automation, it’s going to be a long time before robots are representing people in court.
I think that automation will remove quite a lot of low-skilled jobs, but the potential for new and unexpected work will take up the slack. It’s happened time and again throughout history, there’s no reason to believe it won’t happen this time.
Having a UBI just means that people won’t have to worry so much about making ends meet, which should free up time for bettering themselves with training/education/entrepreneurial ventures.
Trials of UBI have shown improved health and education outcomes for those involved, which will ultimately benefit wider society.
So I think there will be plenty of people still wanting to buy those TVs.
You still need the ideas to make the ‘stuff’, even if the ‘stuff’ is mostly made by automated systems. You also need people to design and manage the automated systems.
Then there’s sectors/industries that (currently) still require a human touch like healthcare and legal services. Even though a lot of the paralegal tasks are heading towards automation, it’s going to be a long time before robots are representing people in court.
I think that automation will remove quite a lot of low-skilled jobs, but the potential for new and unexpected work will take up the slack. It’s happened time and again throughout history, there’s no reason to believe it won’t happen this time.
Having a UBI just means that people won’t have to worry so much about making ends meet, which should free up time for bettering themselves with training/education/entrepreneurial ventures.
Trials of UBI have shown improved health and education outcomes for those involved, which will ultimately benefit wider society.
So I think there will be plenty of people still wanting to buy those TVs.
This is spot on... Anyone inside can see clear as day that the public sector is close to collapsing, which is why i've left.... Thankfully i managed to find an amazing job with another housing association
Do you think that UBI will be set at a level where its recipients can fully partake in the economy?So I think there will be plenty of people still wanting to buy those TVs.
As far as I've read UBI will be set at a level which is purely sufficient to meet basic human needs. Food, shelter, clothing.
Buying a new TV on UBI? Hmm, not sure about that.
e: And in a world of full/near total automation, getting a job to top-up your UBI is not an option.
Given that we are working towards full automation, the premise is simple. If we ever do reach full automation, there will surely be, as a consequence, a large die-off of the human race, as most of us will have no function whatsoever.
No, that’s not the point.
UBI will allow people to educate themselves to get skilled jobs, because their basic human needs will already be met.
That’s how they will partake in the economy.
In previous discussions on this topic it was claimed that there are very few skilled jobs that can't be automated (in future).
Design may be the exception. But anything that doesn't involve R&D, design... can potentially be automated, if financially viable.
Every company should be charged a bot tax, when a company replaces 1 human for 1 bot\software then that company pays lets say 30% of what the equivalent wage would be for a human, the company still make profit because they are no longer paying a wage\salary to the replaced human employee.
How about an "Outsource" tax.
Much the same concept for much the same reason.
Any UK company that "Outsources" production/services to a non-UK location should also pay a similar level of tax.
Yeah, I have hardly heard it talked about in the news etc, Shirley they can't be allowed to just swap out humans for bots and make an absolute fortune in savings by not paying a salary anymore.
Sure, anything is possible eventually, but we’re not going to go to full automation overnight.
It will be a process that humans will have to adapt to over time, just like with the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution and the information revolution.
I also think people underestimate the need for human contact in many situations. Ultimately there are some jobs that humans will just prefer other humans to do.
But that's my point... the more humans are laid off, the more the overall size of the economy shrinks. If A makes microwaves and B makes TVs, and both A & B lay off their staff for automation, then there are both less TVs sold and less microwaves sold. Since who can afford to keep buying when they have no job?
Shame they don't seem to consider that when laying people off :/
It's considered, but if the cost of not adapting to modern techniques raises the cost of the product significantly above the competitors equivalent, all you do is put the whole company at risk instead of just the workers no longer required.
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