Tech Moguls Concerned about Massive Job Loss From Automation Recommend Universal Basic Income (UBI) — Some Plan for “Doomsday”
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By B.N. Frank
Many of us have loved ones who are victims of Age Discrimination. Some have been forced out and replaced with younger employees. Some never find work again. This has been going on for decades.
Automation has also contributed to job loss. According to many sources, including the Progressive Populist, this is going to get much worse. That’s why tech inventors have proposed a Universal Basic Income (UBI):
Driverless cars! IBM Watson! News-writing robots! Amazon Go! The future is here, friends, and it apparently excludes humans. People are preparing for the next mass extinction—an evaporation, if you will—not of humans, polar bears or other creatures, but of jobs.
How will people earn enough money to support themselves and their families when all the jobs are taken by robots?
And how to keep from pointing the proverbial finger at the overlords of Silicon Valley?
According to the article, UBI has been discussed in the U.S. before – even in the late 1960s by then President Nixon and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The amount most agreed upon is $1,000 a month.
Tech moguls recommend that everyone receives UBI – not just the unemployed.
How thoughtful. But isn’t that Communism?
And will it work? Maybe not. Finland just called it quits on their 2-year UBI program:
With high-profile champions such as Richard Branson, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, backing the idea of governments giving non-working people money (from working people) to do nothing – what could go wrong?
Well, two years after enthusiastically beginning its experiment with a universal basic income – in which people are paid an unconditional salary by the state instead of benefits – Finland is abandoning the project as government enthusiasm wanes and additional funding requests are rejected.
It’s still unlikely that this will stop tech moguls from recommending UBI. According to the Progressive Populist, it seems to benefit them the most:
The true beauty of UBI, though, lies in its capitalist welfare: Tech giants keep profits high, while the government pays people not to work or to continue to work for ever-lower wages in a gig economy.
It’s a check to keep the masses, well, in check.
Indeed – the masses need to be kept in check so when most of us lose our jobs, we all don’t go completely ballistic and set the country on fire – perhaps with flamethrowers purchased from none other than Elon Musk. Coincidentally Elon announced he was selling these flamethrowers while large sections of California were on fire. Stay classy, Elon.
Tech guru and investor, Sam Altman, on UBI:
- …perhaps 90% of people receiving UBI would “go smoke pot and play video games,
- …if 10% of people go create new products and services and new wealth, that’s still a huge net win.
A huge net win? Tell that to all the parents who hoped their kids would be able to grow up, move out, get jobs, and support themselves instead of having few options other than to “go smoke pot and play video games” until they die. Tell that to everyone who doesn’t like smoking pot, playing video games, has a mortgage to pay, and family members to feed.
Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg referred to UBI as “cushion” that would “enable everyone to try new ideas that could change the world.”
Spare me. It may be possible for some people to change the world on $1000/month. But it’s not possible for MOST people to change the world on $1000/month.
It’s not even possible for most people to live healthy lives on $1000/month.
The article reports that “The data say it’s a great idea.”
Their data is always going to say they have great ideas until they are forced to admit their data was wrong. Ask Mark Zuckerberg about that..
Tech inventors have also told us kids needed tech in schools to be best prepared for the future. Then they’ve sent their kids to private low-tech schools and limited how much they allow them to use tech in their homes.
“Digital Addiction” hasn’t yet been declared an epidemic even though it seems to be affecting a large portion of Americans. Former Facebook president, Sean Parker, recently stated:
… the social networking site exploits human psychological vulnerabilities through a validation feedback loop that gets people to constantly post to get even more likes and comments. It’s exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology…The inventors, creators — it’s me, it’s Mark [Zuckerberg], it’s Kevin Systrom on Instagram, it’s all of these people — understood this consciously. And we did it anyway…God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.
Research says it’s not good for anybody’s brains.
Another former Facebook executive, Chamath Palihapitiya, stated he doesn’t use it anymore since he “innately didn’t want to get programmed.”
In regard to his own kids “they’re not allowed to use this shit.”
Most of us don’t think about how all these devices come with guidelines and warnings. There are reasons other than “Digital Addiction.” But the marketing is so slick that we all take for granted that everything is safe. Warnings have been popping up all along but they are quickly overshadowed by more marketing and legal speak.
No “safe” level of cell phone or wireless WiFi radiation has yet to be scientifically determined for children or pregnant women but that hasn’t stopped tech companies from marketing personal devices to everyone under the sun from cradle to grave.
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