I might have missed something but when did LDS leaders discuss the two big fears of today?

* That almost every job will become obsolete and that automation is already outstripping job creation worldwide.
* That our descendants will live their lives under total surveillance.

Both of these processes are well underway. Yet the LDS wants to discuss pornography more. The idea that almost evrryone will be unemployed is anathema to Mormonism & its work ethic yet it will come as the direct result of (neo)liberal economics practised by most governnents.

Ezra Taft Benson would be spinning in his grave at this suggestion, but what would be his answer? More neoliberal capitalism.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/31/paul-mason-driverless-cars-uber-artificial-intelligence-unemployment


...Soon there won’t need to be drivers at all. Given that there are 400,000 HGV drivers in the UK, that at least a quarter of Britain’s 2.5 million van drivers are couriers, and that there are 297,000 licensed taxi drivers – that is a big dent in male employment.

The most important question facing us is not whether Uber drivers should have employment rights (they should), but what to do in a world where automation begins to eradicate work. If we accept – as Oxford researchers Carl Frey and Michael Osborne stated in 2013 – that 47% of jobs are susceptible to automation, the most obvious problem is: how are people going to live?

The most heavily touted solution is the universal basic income. With the UBI, people are paid a basic income out of taxation, which they top up with work, which is assumed to be sporadic...

The UBI has keen supporters now in the tech industry, whose billionaires have realised that, through rapid automation and its ability to render regulation useless, info-tech could create mass poverty over the next 20 years. At its most libertarian, the UBI becomes a replacement for state provision: you get a fixed sum from the state and you spend it on Uber-ised public services, hailing the cheapest social care worker on an app, or the cheapest eye operation.

In a way, Uber has done us a favour by making concrete the kind of rightwing libertarian dystopia that would come about if we allowed Silicon Valley to design the future.

Instead, we should begin by recognising that, as machines plus artificial intelligence begin to replace human beings, the entire social, political and moral dilemma for humanity becomes a question of systems.

So you don't like the gig economy ?
And please define "liberal".

"Please define liberal"

Manchester school economics, based on laisser-faire non-interventionism.

Also unbridled individualism at the expense of wider societal needs etc etc.

The gig economy is evil and undermines the rights of low level employees. What do you think of universal basic income?

That is not liberalism, that is libertarianism.

O my, the libertarians are taking over! Head for the bunkers!

I hate Uber Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> With the UBI, people are paid a
> basic income out of taxation, which they top up
> with work...

But, if nobody's working, nobody can pay taxes to support UBI...


You know, much of the same fear was spread when the first steam-powered looms were installed.

And yet, we still have jobs.
How about that.

"If nobody's working, no one can pay taxes"

You ask who will pay for universal basic income? Well, just because jobs are gone doesn't mean the rich won't still make money. The owners of the machines that replace jobs and companies that make them will still make money, as will those with substantial investments in them.

"We still have jobs" - actually the west has massive unemployment right now. The US partly compensates for this by imprisoning millions of poorer people for minor offenses which removes them from unemployment figures.

Jobs are being replaced at a higher rate than they are being created. Middle class jobs are disappearing too e.g. accountancy.

Back in the age of steam, there was no artificial intelligence to perform certain occupations. However a lot of people did lose their jobs especially in the countryside, where peasants were forced to move into cities or emigrate to European colonies and the USA.

I hate Uber Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "We still have jobs" - actually the west has
> massive unemployment right now. The US partly
> compensates for this by imprisoning millions of
> poorer people for minor offenses which removes
> them from unemployment figures.

You need to work on your math skills.
In the US, there are about 2.2M people in all federal, state, and county prisons/jails. That's 0.7% of the population. So if every single one was counted as "unemployed," the unemployment rate would go up by 0.7%. Not even a tiny dent.

> Jobs are being replaced at a higher rate than they
> are being created. Middle class jobs are
> disappearing too e.g. accountancy.

Jobs are *changing.* Like they always have.

> Back in the age of steam, there was no artificial
> intelligence to perform certain occupations.
> However a lot of people did lose their jobs
> especially in the countryside, where peasants were
> forced to move into cities or emigrate to European
> colonies and the USA.

But there were machines that took over manual labor. Whether it's AI or not is irrelevant.
And those people who moved to the cities or emigrated? They got different jobs.

I agree it *is* easier to make money if you already have it (through stock speculation, investment, etc.). But that's always been the case. That's not new in any way.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2018 04:18PM by ificouldhietokolob.

Speaking of math skills.....
2.2 million is 0.7% of 330 million, not 0.007%
Yer welcome.

Yeah, You caught me before I could edit. :(

Thanks!

Artificial Intelligence is entirely relevant. Many jobs are reliant upon thought, reaction and decision making. The more of this a machine can do, the more a threat it is to a human job.

An early example of this was car plant robotics in the 1970s & 80s - which have become more and more impressive.

AI places the threat into middle class jobs - clerical work etc. And it is happening at a greater rate than new job creation is.

People who lived in the 18th and 19th century *were* horribly affected by some of these changes. In many cases, people were evicted from their ancestral homes in farm cottages and became homeless. People even died.

The productive people would work anyway. That’s what productive people do. It’s cheaper to give the unproductive people UBI than McJobs.

In fact, recent research shows that people in the poorest countries are among the most entrepreneurial.

Even today, it's easier to make large sums off stock speculatiin and buying and selling realty at the right times than by sweating away and working hard.

A lot of the most profitable companies rely on a combination of low wages, tax avoidance and charging as much as they can get away with.

If you want to adopt UBI, you'll have to first explain to me how this doesn't sink the economy.

Incomes will lower because employers will not have to pay as much since there is already a guaranteed amount. And over 80% of federal revenue is from income tax, not just individual tax payers but also payroll tax, which is based on an individual's income. The only way to make this is up is by raising the corporate tax, which will in turn discourage all sorts of income generating activities.

Not to mention a heavier burden on states and other municipalities who collect taxes on income, sales, and property.

Even in European countries where welfare is much bigger than the US, corporate tax avoidance is much larger in scale than welfare spending... in fact it could pay for welfare several times over.

Solutions which have been suggested include taxing some of the machines used much as you would a human employee, closing the tax loopholes which allow billions to be removed from the economy of a country, taxation on gambling and larger dividends etc.

If you can tackle the tax avoidance going on at present, then you can solve much of the shortfall.

UBI is not the only show in town. I'd be the first to admit there are major issues with it, and you mention some of these but there are up sides and it is the only system I know which addresses this problem.

Tax avoidance is estimated at about 5% of the total amount collected. High enough to almost pay the annual debt maintenance of about 5.3%. So now that all of the taxes are being collected we can pay the interest charge created by our crippling debt.

I was surprised to learn that Milton Friedman, the conservative economist and champion of capitalism, was an early proponent of UBI. I'm not sure I entirely agree, but his arguments certainly merit discussion. Here's an overview:

1. It cuts government bureaucracy when implemented to eliminate all other welfare programs. Smaller government, more direct aid.

2. It unleashes free markets. Everybody is given a basic pool of money to "vote" with, and markets must compete for these dollars.

3. Stops the welfare trap. No more punishing people for earning more than allowed for their benefits. Once on welfare, it's almost impossible to get off since most jobs will force an end to welfare benefits. This stops that cycle.

4. A truly free society? With a basic income that meets all needs, citizens are free to pursue additional income sources or devote time to charities and other interests.

5. Assures equality. MLK favored UBI (AKA a "negative income tax"). It gives every citizen a starting point regardless of other factors. Those that want more can work as hard as they want to pursue whatever entrepreneurial pursuits they wish.



I'm not sure I agree with any or all of these arguments, but they are very interesting. Especially in light of a society that will likely within our lifetimes see entire blocks of employment rendered obsolete due to automation and AI. I'm sure there are a lot of soon-to-be-unemployed truck drivers, delivery drivers, and taxi drivers that would welcome this.

https://medium.com/basic-income/why-milton-friedman-supported-a-guaranteed-income-5-reasons-da6e628f6070

Automation is going to make most human work obsolete. This is either going to happen or the people are going to be rioting in the streets.

I will write more later if I get the chance.

For now, Milton Friedman was a libertarian. He was also extremely logical and would follow logic wherever it led. He came up with a couple of wild ideas that people laughed at for decades.

One was quantitative easing, which he thought might have averted the Great Depression. Central bankers went for it in 2009 to the present, paying homage to the great man. But they adopted a different form of "helicopter money." Friedman wanted money to go to all citizens since poor spend a higher proportion of their income on goods and services than the wealthy does. The sort employed by the Fed and other central banks, however, gave almost all the money to the rich (by driving up asset prices) and thereby worsened the distribution of wealth. Friedman would have disapproved of that both because it was a less efficient way to stimulate the economy and because of the social consequences.

The other was UBI. It seemed like such a liberal and socialist idea, but it was one that arose from Friedman's considerations of both the Depression and the welfare state. He wanted the government out, to the extent possible, of what he considered a necessary welfare system. He wanted to eliminate distortions in incentives.

Friedman was very conservative, but he was even more logical. He was ruthlessly logical. His thinking was a threat to both the left and the right.

More soon, if I can, about UBI.

UBI is more socialist. Liberal? Nah... that's the current set up.

The challenge for Americans is to accept such a thing is not necessarily tyranny. Other countries can probably stomach it.

I understand what you are saying, but Friedman thought his ideas were libertarian. In particular, he disliked the massive administrative structure of big government. On the one hand, he thought society needed to provide a safety net; on the other, he didn't want the state, with its inefficiency and paternalistic dictation of values, involved.

By making the UBI automatic, he wanted to shrink the size of the government and eliminate the distortion of market incentives inherent in a complex tax and welfare code. He was a small-government guy.

I'm a longtime proponent of UBI *because* of Milton Friedman. Over the decades, I've often been discouraged by how right-wingers have misused him in the same way they misuse Adam Smith, whom none of them have ever actually read. No knock on you, but I'm not surprised by your surprise.


There is evidence for the first point, at the very least.

It use to be in Alberta that the monthly premium for our universal, single-payer health-care was means tested. Everyone payed a different amount on a sliding scale with those on the bottom not paying anything. Turns out the bureaucracy needed to means test everybody was more expensive than simply getting rid of the monthly premium altogether. So that's what Alberta did, no more monthly premiums.

From what I can tell this would even be more true for our welfare, unemployment and disability safety nets.

However, versions of a UBI are poo-pooed by Chamber of Commerce types because they wonder how they could staff their labour and service jobs, jobs with the lowest pay, if no one *had* to work. I can imagine this line of thinking is bolstered in the States because health care etc is tied to employment (an extremely bad idea, drastically curtailing liberty; you ain't quitting your job or looking for a better one if it means risking not having an epipen for your daughter's allergies, say).

Basically, the fear is that no one will take a job at McDonald's if they don't actually have to. I don't buy this fear. UBI is basic: food, shelter, clothing and a few other necessaries of life, that's it. It doesn't cover a trip to Mexico in the middle of winter, for example. There are enough goodies in life enticing enough to get people out for bottom-level jobs, and there is enough intrinsic benefit to continue filling top-level jobs (people become lawyers, believe it or not, because they like it, not just because it pays well).

But if you actually believe in liberty, smaller government and classical liberal ideas like the least amount of rules and the least amount of punishment necessary is best, then UBI must be, at the very least, explored as a serious idea worth implementing, on those merits alone, leaving aside AI and the future.

Experiments are going on as we write, at least one in Canada (Manitoba, I think). We'll see what these experiments show and don't show.

Human

The jobs at McDonald's are already going. I see you can order at a computer at our local ones, so counter staff are soon to go. I'm sure they're working on getting rid of the cooks next.

Mickey D's is by no means the worst job out there. Mining, sewer work and street cleaning will become automated. Our city has robots to cut the grass now - in trial stages, but it's happening.

I don't disagree.

But my point is that UBI, vis-a-vis M. Friedman, should be considered *despite* an AI, automated future. It has merit regardless of the future.

Especially because of AI. The purpose of AI, which is already ubiquitous, is to reduce corporate reliance on labor. Machines are cheaper than workers.

It follows that in an age where the pace of technological innovation is accelerating and the stagnation of wages is already causing intense social and political problems, UBI becomes particularly relevant. That it would have the collateral effect of shrinking government and eliminating the concomitant state-generated distortions in incentives is an added benefit.

Friedman was not a liberal: he was on the ideologically pure end of the GOP. Today he is even more of an outlier because the GOP has given up most of its small-government, balanced-budget, and libertarian ideas. That is why neither Democrats nor Republicans feel comfortable with UBI.

It is generally the technologists themselves, people who see where innovation is heading, who think UBI deserves serious consideration. They are correct.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
--------------------------------------------------
>
> Friedman was not a liberal: he was on the
> ideologically pure end of the GOP. Today he is
> even more of an outlier because the GOP has given
> up most of its small-government, balanced-budget,
> and libertarian ideas. That is why neither
> Democrats nor Republicans feel comfortable with
> UBI.
>
> It is generally the technologists themselves,
> people who see where innovation is heading, who
> think UBI deserves serious consideration. They
> are correct.

This is likely why anything approaching a “pure” implementation of UBI will always be DOA. I just don’t think there’s the political will to pursue it in a manner that would be sustainable.

In some respects, UBI looks and feels like a dramatic expansion of socialist dogma. But the truth is that it can only really work as described if it’s implemented to essentially end the expansion of socialism. UBI needs a dramatically smaller government that runs leaner than anything we’ve seen for generations. At the same time it needs to unleash many of the free market capitalist forces that drive an effective economy. These two vital elements are anathema in most examples of socialism today.

And here’s the rub: Though UBI creates a basic economic equality across all all populations groups, it will still promote the income stratification that is inherent in all capitalist societies. There’s no real compelling reason why the millions of Bernie Sanders supporters would stop being outraged that some CEO’s earn far more than their workers, that education and healthcare aren’t free, and that wealth will still accumulate unequally to those who work harder, smarter, get lucky, or come from wealthy families. UBI will not overcome humanity’s tendency to resent those who have more than we do. There’s no compelling reason why this significant block of our society will not push for UBI AND huge government. And that would likely spell economic doom in an inflationary spiral.

Another problem: UBI won’t work with porous borders. On the surface, it should prove as a deterrent to illegal immigration if we have the political will to offer UBI only to those who are actual citizens. And that would have to be a requirement. You simply cannot offer a free lifetime income to the entire world and expect it to not flood your borders with those who like that idea, (which is pretty much everyone). But there are significant political forces today that label any economic differentiation between citizens and non citizens as racist xenophobic hatred. There’s no reason to believe that those voices will change with UBI.

And caving in on any of these provisions would like produce a level of inflation that rivals that of the worst socialist countries. UBI also depends upon a stable economy with a stable currency. $2000 a month is a great thing right up until the price for a loaf of bread goes up to $600. And when that happens with a society that’s been promised all their needs will be met, there’s really no coming back. There will be riots, mayhem, cats sleeping with dogs... you get the picture.

So, I like lots of what I see about UBI. I just don’t know that as a society we have the ability to implement it in a meaningful, lasting manner.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2018 01:03PM by Tall Man, Short Hair.

There is lots in your post, TMSH, that I think is right.

There is no question that UBI may be impossible to implement politically. The notion that people should get a basic income regardless of their circumstances is very uncomfortable in an atomistic society like the US.

You are also correct that there would have to be strict limits on immigration, or at least controls on immigration. My inclination is that such is close to impossible. Building a silly wall will not solve the problem because walls are symbols and little more. They are easy to go under or around; and most illegal immigrants arrive on visas and simply stay. So this is a serious problem for UBI.

I don't think UBI has to become entangled with debate over the distribution of income and wealth; I think Sanders would lose a lot of steam if it were implemented. But UBI could be independent or it could be part of movement either toward or away from a more progressive tax system. My suspicion is that Friedman would have preferred something like a combination of UBI and a very simple--three rates?--but progressive tax code with few if any deductions and credits, a system that required little oversight and had as little effect on market incentives as possible.

So in general, I repeat that UBI deserves a LOT of attention both per se and because it makes us think of other options. UBI itself may not be politically possible. But we are in a time when lots of things that seemed laughable are quickly becoming conceivable.

Get real please.

The whole "Universal Basic Income" idea is a DEAD TOPIC until (a) the "sovereign wealth fund" is sufficient to cover the program into perpetuity, (b) immigration is basically closed off and/or all the other countries in the world have gotten on board with this idea in preparing their own "sovereign wealth fund" to handle this.

I happen to live in a country that not only doesn't have a "sovereign wealth fund" but it is years behind on paying its bills. Thus my federal government will never have any chance at putting a "Universal Basic Income" program in place until it first gets caught up on its bills and then saves up a sufficient "sovereign wealth fund". Hint: It's in North America between Canada/Mexico and is composed of 50 sovereign regions that each have a republican form of government that are federated indivisibly under a federal Constitution. Until we get the "sovereign wealth fund" up to par then all that would happen with putting in place "Universal Basic Income" would be that those with lots of assets, i.e. the super rich and large corporations, would offshore their assets/income. A federal government can only get revenue from whatever assets, income, and spending they can control.

The only people in my country who can seriously advocate for "Universal Basic Income" are those who want my country to be ready/willing to go globetrotting with wars, invasions, and plundering to grab whatever things we need to pay for "Universal Basic Income" as we have proven to fail miserably here at being able to raise sufficient revenues to pay for the programs we already have, not to mention new ones like "Universal Basic Income". In fact our country's National Debt has gone up ever single year the past 60+ years.

Hopefully the accident from the driverless uber driver delays progress on them. Everybody wants automation but doesn't understand the consequences of everything being automated.

I'm sure a similar sentiment was floated by the buggy whip industry as the first injuries due to motorized transport began to appear.

Technology really is the Borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

But as with virtually every Utopian dream, this one will likely also result in a dystopian reality.

Nothing will stop the next Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos from capitalizing on a great idea that ushers in another wave of technology making them wealthier than 99.9% of other humans. And the wage disparity will again be cited as unfair and the achievers will again be seen as the essence of evil due to their amassed wealth. They may have started equal with us, but they worked harder, smarter, or were just luckier than the rest of us.

And since many humans get a substantial amount of their feelings of self-worth through their accomplishments, we'll likely see drug use skyrocket as we create an entirely new wave of idle citizens who have no job, no prospects of a job, and no real need to seek one.

The more things change, the more they will stay the same. Only worse.

Tune in later for more cheerful thoughts as we usher in a great new world where women will no longer be forced to spend hours laboring over sinks of steaming hot water just to clean the family dishes. By the year 2070, every home will have an automatic dishwasher!

And then it will eat your children due to their obsolescence.

About the only jobs I can't see being threatened by automation are the following:

The arts (maybe not pop music, everything's so autotuned now anyway)

Politics - I bet the politicians keep themselves in work.

Some legal stuff - judges maybe.

Sports? Well with genetic enhancements etc who knows.

But rich people working harder? Many of them inherited their money, some got lucky with their birth timing (Gates and Bezos couldn't have made their money the way they did fifty years ago or fifty years later.)... those who work hard are often found toiling to pay their debts off.

I am going to make an argument for why, contrary to Hie's comments, that automation is a serious threat and why UBI, based on Friedman's analysis, is a possible solution.

It is true that whenever a new technology comes along, the dinosaurs whine. That happened with the railroad, the auto, electricity, computers, the DVR and then the internet. Uber is the same: it undercuts old jobs even as it creates new ones.

Not all jobs, however, are the same. Macro developments most definitely do make a difference. For example, the massive destruction of capital after in the second world war brought greater demand for reconstruction labor and initiated a period of strong wage growth. That was the basis for the middle class societies of Europe and North America.

Then came the entry of China and India to the global labor force from about 1990 onward. That increase in labor put massive downward pressure on wages in the rich countries, which is why middle- and lower-class wages have stagnated since the 1980s. Meanwhile the ability of corporations to get lower-cost labor either directly or through outsourcing increased profitability, which meant that the owners of capital got richer.

Those trends have divided the United States and Europe along socioeconomic lines. Those who have been left behind feel betrayed and vote against the "establishment elite" every chance they get. And while some of their complaints are groundless, a lot of their concerns are very, very real. And the implications for democracy are serious: when an entire class of people lose faith in the system, politics and political stability suffer.

Why this long digression matters is because technology is doing the same thing to wages that Chinese labor did. The whole point of innovation is to reduce dependence on labor, which accounts for 2/3 of corporate costs, and to rely on less educated and less expensive labor whenever possible. So while new jobs are always created--the total number of jobs will almost certainly rise--wages, healthcare and pension benefits, and other forms of compensation will stagnate or even decline. Technology, like cheap overseas labor, shifts welfare from the poor and middle-class to the wealthy.

So what is one to do? Constraining new technologies is not a solution since that would prevent the lifestyle improvements that innovation brings and keep prices of goods and services from falling. What is needed (this is pure Friedman) is a way to limit the damage caused by stagnant compensation but in a way that does not distort incentives. Essentially society decides on a minimum acceptable living standard and sends an appropriate check to every person in the country. According to Friedman's analysis, the system is financed by eliminating the administrative apparatus behind the welfare system, which consumes a huge proportion of social spending.

Friedman was a great man. I disagree with a lot of his political and social views, but when it came to economics he was one of those people who fearlessly followed logic wherever it led. That meant that people on the right and the left both laughed at him and some of his stranger ideas. But when the world finds itself in circumstances that were unimaginable a few decades ago, suddenly the logic informing those ideas becomes apparent.

Society is always going to have unmet needs that need to be filled. Until every one of them is fulfilled beyond our wildest dreams, there will always be entreprenuerism. We've got a very long way to go as a society before we should even think about UBI. Someone will always need to invent, build, program, and maintain the robots that will eventually do most of the repetative work. Most of the critical decision making can not be done by a computer... yet.. and we're still a long way off of having a computer do the average person's job. Low-wage repetative tasks is not the average job.

Schools need to train kids to live in the twenty-first century. Currently, they teach kids twentyth centruy skills. Kids do not need to be taught how to be good employees. They need to learn how to spot market needs, and how to start and run a business. UBI is a concept for and by slackers and young adults who were not adequately taught how to survive in today's world. They put out a few resumes, the phone doesn't ring, and they want a UBI. They're often the same kids that never learned how to deliver newspapers, flip hamburgers, nor sell scouting cookies door to door.

azsteve Wrote:


-------------------------------------------------------
> Society is always going to have unmet needs that
> need to be filled. Until every one of them is
> fulfilled beyond our wildest dreams, there will
> always be entreprenuerism.


No one is suggesting entrepreneurialism is outmoded or undesirable. It is highly desirable. UBI does not discourage entrepreneurialism.


------------------



We've got a very long
> way to go as a society before we should even think
> about UBI. Someone will always need to invent,
> build, program, and maintain the robots that will
> eventually do most of the repetative work.



There is no contradiction between UBI and entrepreneurialism. To the contrary, arbitrary and ineffective government administration distorts the incentives to innovate. UBI would withdraw the government from the picture, giving market-based incentives to economic actors. That is why free-market enthusiasts like Friedman and Schwartz favor(ed) the idea.


----------


Most of
> the critical decision making can not be done by a
> computer... yet.. and we're still a long way off
> of having a computer do the average person's job.
> Low-wage repetative tasks is not the average job.


You should read about Henry Ford and his industrial reorganization: the mass assembly line. Also about the structure of the US economy over time, the reorganization of manufacturing, and the prevalence of service jobs. The fact is that automation has indeed replaced most complex jobs. McDonalds-style service jobs are vastly more common than the old shop-floor managers, and large-scale mechanized agriculture long ago superceded "farming."



---------------




UBI is a concept for and by
> slackers and young adults who were not adequately
> taught how to survive in today's world.

Nope. UBI is in fact a concept "for and by" Nobel Prize-winning libertarians.


-------------------

They put
> out a few resumes, the phone doesn't ring, and
> they want a UBI. They're often the same kids that
> never learned how to deliver newspapers, flip
> hamburgers, nor sell scouting cookies door to
> door.

So you are suggesting that young people learn 20th century job skills and how to be subservient employees? Didn't you just condemn those jobs and that style of education?




PS: paperboy jobs haven't existed for decades.