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RE: Universal Basic Income: The Answer to Automation

in #futurism8 years ago (edited)

To answer your question, yes. I do believe that people will do all those things for free, and since they are, they will research the quickest and most efficient method to get it done, since the effect of an hourly wage will not coerce them into working at the slowest rate possible to earn the most profit. Try thinking like this, if you had all the means to survive, what would you do with your life? A lot of people would probably say that they would spend the rest of it relaxing and doing nothing. Lets take a look at that mindset for a second though, shall we? It is absolutely awesome to have time to relax and do what we want when we want, but I hold that this is only so nice, because it is a luxury. If this is your every day, is it still going to be just as special to you? I sincerely doubt it. Sure a lot of people definitely will take some time off and do nothing. However, I really have a hard time believe that a hedonistic lifestyle will be fulfilling. There are a lot of people out there, who want to help their fellow man, but cant for various economic reasons. When you eliminate the barrier to entrance, suddenly these people can actualize their dreams. A universal basic income would spur massive amounts of innovation, because there wouldn't be any sort of coercive force keeping you tied down to any one job. So to answer your question, who is going to plant the crops, harvest food, and distribute it? People who WANT to, rather than people who are coerced to. You cant think of it as getting something for free, because chances are that in this UBI world, you would be doing something with your time that in some way assists your fellow man as well. Humans are naturally giving. Deep down inside, we all wanna help each other. However, for most of us today, life just gets in the way of letting us do that, because we have to earn money to keep ourselves afloat. So why would we share our means of survival with anyone else when we're barely staying afloat ourselves? When you remove all of that and give everyone a UBI, suddenly theirs no more struggling to stay afloat. Everyone has breathing room. When you have this, you get freedom to pursue your desires. "If you arent interested in changing the world, it just means that you're one of the people who wont." - Jaques Fresco.

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"I do believe that people will do all those things for free". Really? How could they? To put in the physical effort, the time and resources to do that would swiftly drive the person doing so into destitution. Even the altruistic need to provide for themselves and their families. If they were not remunerated, how could they?