Do we all agree now that UBI is the right thing to do?

[Gadianton]

Elon Musk recently came out with a tweet that (presumably) said (I have not validated this):

Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI. AI/robotics will produce goods & services far in excess of the increase in the money supply, so there will not be inflation.

Sam Altman has recently said similar things. Now, in certain ways, Elon's post defies basic logic. There is no such thing as high income for the average person if everyone is getting the same government check. The technocrats bringing an end to the scarcity problem, putting everyone out of a job, and seizing control of government might cement their winnings for the rest of their lives by this play. He might be right about inflation, deflation could be a bigger issue. Especially when combined with the promises of his SpaceX IPO filing: we're right around the corner from mining asteroids for precious metals -- the day that appears to be a realistic possibility, the price of gold will drop to near zero. Well, there's a lot of things he's not thinking about, but then again he doesn't have to, I'll give him credit for that.

The reality that is more likely, is that Elon and Sam are lying, couldn't care less about helping anyone, and are in desperation to say whatever they need to in order to keep the AI play running as long as possible. 60% of SpaceX capital investments are into AI. If AI doesn't work out, it's going to be a big wash out. But, for the sake of this post, we're assuming that far-right people who post on X are usually telling the truth -- as per people like Ajax. I'm sure Ajax believes Elon is telling the truth.

So the question is, does anyone disagree with Elon? (and we're assuming that Elon isn't a drug addled pathological liar at this point in his life)

If AI really does take over, then UBI must kick in - I tend to agree. It's the endgame of capitalism that Karl Marx pointed to long ago. Elon is agreeing with Marx's insight. Well, does anyone disagree? If AI kicks in and takes over all our jobs, should the model be unrestricted capitalism at that point? I mean, if AI is as good as Elon and Sam say it is, optometrists will be among the first ones out of business from the medical profession. I've noticed that a lot of people on the right substantially below Ajax's economic class aren't as confident in the party narrative that they were a couple years ago.

[Philo Sofee]

So THEY decide how much anyoner gets, and when? And if one has an argument with them or disagrees with an action then is their paycheck cut off? I ABSOLUTELY DETEST THIS TOTAL CONTROL OF US. IT IS POSITIVELY ****SLAVERY**** They tell us WhAT to do or don't get our money. They tell us where to go or we don't get our money. We want to buy something and THEY say no, too expensive? THIS IS THE DEATH OF ALL FREEDOM. You're going to go along with the billionaires enslaving us?!?!? ARE YOU F*****G KIDDING?! Well why not let them build 20 AI centers in EVERY state and total takeover of ALL resources so they get richer and we get literally nothing.

[Some Schmo]

I think the billionaires are getting scared (the big hoarders, anyway, which I think are most of them - there are exceptions). People seem to be waking up to the reality that it's billionaires and big corporations damned over Americans. Only the most willfully ignorant are holding onto idiotic narratives that it's immigrants and poor people sucking us dry.

The state legislature in Hawaii passed a law (unanimously, total bipartisanship) that bypasses Citizens United by saying that corporations are a state created entity, and as such, are no longer granted the power to contribute money to any political campaigns. Apparently, it's a creative bit of law that reinterprets the power that US states grant corporations in the first place (given that they aren't born entities, they are created and granted power by the state, and as such, don't deserve the same voice/power as human beings). When you think about corporations contributing money to politics, it's basically giving these people at least double the votes. They vote as themselves, and as their corporation.

Montana has a new movement called The Montana Plan which is trying to get a ballot measure to enact the same law as Hawaii. Big business in Montana has already gone to court trying to throw it out before it could even be voted on, but that got thrown out. I watched Pete Buttigieg giving a town hall in Montana talking about this subject (how I learned about all this - it's sent me down a rabbit hole). They're talking about violations leading to the inability to do business in Montana. Every campaign contribution would have to be attached to somebody's personal name, not their business's.

This is great, a small ray of hope in the current political darkness. I sure hope Montana comes through. It could be the start of something bigger.

[Some Schmo]

In direct response to your post (which I thought was implied by my response, but upon reflection thought it might be vague), I think Musk is saying what he thinks he needs to say in this moment to pacify the masses because of current public sentiment. He's dangling a pipe dream he has no intention of actually fighting for. He's scared, like he should be.

I don't think there's any more to it than that.

ETA: Of course, this all assumes the quote is accurate. I have to admit that I've been consuming a lot of material lately on how the lack of affordability for most people is making them wake up to who the real problem is, so the quote seems plausible to me.

One more thing I'll say about that new legislation in Hawaii: that was a Republican-led effort. I listened to part of the floor speech that Republican gave, and I agreed with every word I heard her say. It feels like the first time I've agreed with a Republican that hard in 20 years.

Wanting to get corporate money out of politics is a bipartisan issue. I can't remember the exact number, but it's something like 75% of Americans are against corporate money in politics.

Sorry (not really), but one more thought.

There is a serious tension about AI happening right now. I don't get the impression that Gen Z is that hot on AI overall. Sure, some like using it to do certain tasks for them, but I think between data centers that are an underrated environmental threat to a downsizing of white collar jobs apparently replaced by AI, there's a pretty significant backlash happening. My daughter's friend circle calls AI evil.

So the tension is about public perception. Big tech is racing to see who can become the biggest money maker in a market that might not be as receptive as they're predicting. From that perspective, anything any tech bro says about AI feels like it's motivated by profit, not by human wellbeing, not addressing real, current societal concerns, making it all suspect.

[Physics Guy]

Universal high income is an oxymoron. High compared to what? The only meaningful comparison is to the income of other people. If you only get what everyone gets, your income is the lowest possible, not high.

On the other hand, there is nothing contradictory about the idea that increased productivity can deliver a higher standard of living, in objective rather than relative terms, to everyone. This has been happening steadily for the last few hundred years, to the point where even very poor people in rich countries enjoy luxuries that no pre-modern emperor could have imagined. In my grandfather’s childhood, the poverty line was not having shoes. Today it’s maybe not having a smart phone.

A guaranteed minimal income that is enough to provide necessities already exists in rich countries. It’s called “welfare”. The idea of UBI seems to be to raise welfare benefits above subsistence, to a point where a large proportion of the population will be unable to get more by working, thus establishing a large and permanent class of non-workers. Instead of the distribution of real income in society having a smooth humpy shape, with most people in the middle and a few on each end, UBI means having a huge spike at the lower end of the curve. Nobody gets less than the UBI, but only comparatively few people have any chance to get more.

That may sound good if we think about all the people that would have been below the UBI getting boosted up to an objectively more comfortable lifestyle. And efficient mass production may indeed be able to give all these people in the UBI spike class a modest 21st-century standard of living.

Giving that standard of living to a lot of people for free, however, necessarily inflates the price of anything which is too scarce for everyone to have it. People with more money will offer more, to be sure to get theirs, until the price is high enough that the small supply is enough to go around to the few who can afford it. If UBI is issued in cash that can also be used for luxuries, rather than in vouchers that are only good for fast food and cell phone service or whatever the new bread dole may be, then some people in the UBI class may skimp on burgers to save up for concert tickets, or whatever counts as a luxury. The wealthy few will have to outbid all those people—and they will. So I expect that a chasm will form between the goods that everyone gets to have, and those that are only available to the elite. There will be no mid-range brands; there will be no middle class.

So I think it will be very difficult to avoid an unwanted side effect of UBI: dragging a lot of people down to the UBI minimum, inasmuch as they can only afford the same minimum that everyone gets, because the flood of free UBI cash inflates the price of everything that is at all scarce into luxury ranges that only the elite can afford.

Okay, maybe squishing middle and lower class into one big UBI class could do about as much good as harm, at least in the short run. I have a feeling, though, that things like this have been tried.

Didn’t the ancient city of Rome provide free bread and circuses to its unemployed masses? Panem et circenses became a metaphor because at one time it was literal. And wasn’t it the basic deal of feudalism that the lords had to protect the serfs, and allow them enough food to live, in a time when these basic physical needs were by no means secure? Didn’t masters have to feed and house their slaves?

In more recent times, Eurasian Communism really did deliver a good lifestyle to all the workers, by the standards of 1915. It just kept them at about that same level into the 1980s, while the capitalist West kept upgrading. I’ve seen a nice museum exhibit of East German “Trabant” cars over decades. The first models from the 1950s looked a lot like West German cars of the 1950s; the 1980s Trabants looked like 1950s cars, too. They didn’t improve, because the Communist system offered nobody any incentive to improve anything, ever.

A “high” UBI may not be exactly like serfdom or slavery or Communism, but I’m having a hard time seeing how it will avoid some of their serious problems, long-term.

[huckelberry]

Physics Guy, I think your warning observations are on target. I did however wish to observe that the US does not have the broad welfare you mention. Poverty is not lacking a good phone it is having no place to live and scrounging for sustenance.

There is subsistence help for permanently or long term disabled folks. Time limed help families with dependant children and some food assistance.

[Res Ipsa]

So THEY decide how much anyoner gets, and when? And if one has an argument with them or disagrees with an action then is their paycheck cut off? I ABSOLUTELY DETEST THIS TOTAL CONTROL OF US. IT IS POSITIVELY ****SLAVERY**** They tell us WhAT to do or don't get our money. They tell us where to go or we don't get our money. We want to buy something and THEY say no, too expensive? THIS IS THE DEATH OF ALL FREEDOM. You're going to go along with the billionaires enslaving us?!?!? ARE YOU F*****G KIDDING?! Well why not let them build 20 AI centers in EVERY state and total takeover of ALL resources so they get richer and we get literally nothing.

Don’t they do this now? We just call it salary and wages paid for a job.

[Philo Sofee]

So THEY decide how much anyoner gets, and when? And if one has an argument with them or disagrees with an action then is their paycheck cut off? I ABSOLUTELY DETEST THIS TOTAL CONTROL OF US. IT IS POSITIVELY ****SLAVERY**** They tell us WhAT to do or don't get our money. They tell us where to go or we don't get our money. We want to buy something and THEY say no, too expensive? THIS IS THE DEATH OF ALL FREEDOM. You're going to go along with the billionaires enslaving us?!?!? ARE YOU F*****G KIDDING?! Well why not let them build 20 AI centers in EVERY state and total takeover of ALL resources so they get richer and we get literally nothing.

Don’t they do this now? We just call it salary and wages paid for a job.

This is different. We won't have any jobs, and THEY will determine how much we get. I have no idea how that will work. What if they just do a flat rate of $1,000/month based on good behavior as THEY define it? Just an example. No overtime, no extra work available with side jobs etc. Just ONE way to get money, not based on skill or loyalty through time of sticking with a job, just on what THEY think you NEED. And if you do something they don't like, then no money for you this entire month. It's a nightmare scenario in my opinion.

[Jersey Girl]

Schmo although I didn't reply I read all of your recent posts here. I see at least 3 points/observations you made that shed a positive light on the total situation. There is reason to hope, I am sure of it.

[Jersey Girl]

So THEY decide how much anyoner gets, and when? And if one has an argument with them or disagrees with an action then is their paycheck cut off? I ABSOLUTELY DETEST THIS TOTAL CONTROL OF US. IT IS POSITIVELY ****SLAVERY**** They tell us WhAT to do or don't get our money. They tell us where to go or we don't get our money. We want to buy something and THEY say no, too expensive? THIS IS THE DEATH OF ALL FREEDOM. You're going to go along with the billionaires enslaving us?!?!? ARE YOU F*****G KIDDING?! Well why not let them build 20 AI centers in EVERY state and total takeover of ALL resources so they get richer and we get literally nothing.

Everyone needs to calm down around here. Looks like you, too. Remember. We're in a marathon.