
Elon Musk thinks universal income is answer to automation taking human jobs - doener
http://mashable.com/2016/11/05/elon-musk-universal-basic-income/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link#VfVfptagSmqG
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formula1
Pros and Cons to universal income

Pros

\- the average citizen isnt afraid to find out next meal

\- innovation can be more focused on convinience and love rather than people
desperate to succeed

\- individuals or families burdened with loved ones unfit for work dont have
to sacrifice in order to provide for them

\- homelessness becomes purely choice. Poverty is less of a motive for crime

\- small businesses can hire people who simply _want_ to work there without
giving a competitive wage.

Cons

\- it will be hard to employ for difficult jobs such as mining.

\- the realestate or rental prices can all increase to just below universal
income

\- cost of goods can increase knowing people can pay for them

\- the cost of US manufactured goods will increase since companies are now
competing with the US gov to provide a competitive wage

\- may lead to a totalitarian gov if too much slowness occurs

My argument against communism has always been "who works?". I dont think that
more dependence of gov is as important as decentralization. Of goods as many
services as possible.

If your local community has a local greenhouse or robotics or etc you can take
care, you have a job

So long as that service can support more people than have to work it, you can
make money.

Making more time for innovation comes from an imbalance of supply/demand for
jobs and who controls them. If you can survive and thrive locally, the more
centralized entities will be more competitive with their offers. Rents will
only increase enough that people wouldnt be willing to move elsewhere. With
universal income, all rents would increase and companies arent competing with
local work (where an individual can master their skills), they are competing
with the US gov over peoples will to be a self starter.

Im not entirely sure the Universal Income is the answer

~~~
wojcech
> Pros and Cons to universal income

Some criticism: > Pros

> \- homelessness becomes purely choice. Poverty is less of a motive for crime

Unless health insurance is included and we change how we treat mental
illnesses, homelessness will still be a problem(albeit smaller)

> \- small businesses can hire people who simply want to work there without
> giving a competitive wage.

But it will be much harder to find cheap labour if the job sucks

> Cons

> \- it will be hard to employ for difficult jobs such as mining.

Well, it will be hard to find cheap employees. Force of the market right?

> \- the realestate or rental prices can all increase to just below universal
> income

We don't know this, if you can survive just on the income in some rural areas,
whereas the remaining jobs will be left in the cities you will still have
different markets, some of which might have above and some of which might have
below ui prizes

> \- cost of goods can increase knowing people can pay for them

This is a bad thing? There will still be a market for stingy bastards...just
like McDonalds has a market with stingy students

> \- the cost of US manufactured goods will increase since companies are now
> competing with the US gov to provide a competitive wage

...good?

> \- may lead to a totalitarian gov if too much slowness occurs

As opposed to the current government trend which is the epitome of freedom and
privacy

> My argument against communism has always been "who works?". I dont think
> that more dependence of gov is as important as decentralization. Of goods as
> many services as possible.

Those who want more money. This is not communism. This is finally decoupling
humanistic society("we don't let people starve") from capitalistic free market
economy("the government shouldn't control the economy"). An unconditional
income means that you no longer need minimum wages, and even a staunch leftist
like me would ease up on labour protection laws(where reasonable...health and
safety still apply, but e.g. severance pay?gtfo) After all, it will truly be
your choice to work there or not.

> If your local community has a local greenhouse or robotics or etc you can
> take care, you have a job

Unless there is another guy who does that already.

> Making more time for innovation comes from an imbalance of supply/demand for
> jobs and who controls them. If you can survive and thrive locally, the more
> centralized entities will be more competitive with their offers. Rents will
> only increase enough that people wouldnt be willing to move elsewhere. With
> universal income, all rents would increase and companies arent competing
> with local work (where an individual can master their skills), they are
> competing with the US gov over peoples will to be a self starter.

I don't understand this one

> Im not entirely sure the Universal Income is the answer

Not the whole one, and not the last one but I think like our current system it
will be good for 50-100ish years I think

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Lots of talk in absolutes. Prices will go up - but not exactly as much as
income goes up, because (lots of other economic pressures).

Its easy to play a game of FUD (fear; uncertainty; doubt) but the answer is
None of the Above. A BI will change things sure. But so did pensions, and
insurance, and retirement plans. They didn't bring the economy down in flames;
neither will a BI.

Remember the spending of the poorest among us does not drive the entire
economy. Wages will change, a little. Prices will change, a little.

~~~
formula1
The reason the poorest amoung us doesnt drive the economy is because they have
no money to spend. Why would a business pwner accomadate for an individual
that would cause sognificantly less profit margins.

However, when the value of USD is _considered_ the same. But I know that
_every single_ person in american can buy muy product at current price and
higher. I will certainly bump it up. High until I hit a maximum where profit
margins dip then settle.

Health insurance is caused the Skrelli fiasco and epipen fiasco. Probably more
to come.

Universal Income sounds like a great idea from a naive perspective. But the
real issue is there arent other solutions for it to compete with.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Supply and demand determine price for many consumables. Neither changes when
folks have more money in their pockets. It doesn't even begin to make sense.

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saiya-jin
UBI, the topic has been beaten to death. I like the idea, in theory and on the
paper, but it will require complete restructuralization of whole society.

When I look how mankind struggles to get simple stuff right (no wars,
+-democracy and freedom for all humans), this is Star Trek.

But then again, this guy seems very special. I wish all/most truly powerful
people would be like him, not only doing charitable stuff for tax evasion
purposes. His added value to mankind in long term seems to be immense, at
least that's what I hope for.

~~~
manmal
The value he added is already immense - he had a big part in establishing
e-vehicles as viable. I'd say he accelerated the transition by several years
or more. Fear of him is the only thing driving BMW and co to tighten their e
adoption schedules.

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Fr0ntBack
I'd be interested to hear how this very website's basic income trial is going:
www.qz.com/696377/y-combinator-is-running-a-basic-income-experiment-
with-100-oakland-families/

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soufron
That's only true as long as... automation actually takes human jobs for real
instead of simply "displacing" jobs.

Looking at history, you as yourself where is the evidence for automation
destroying human jobs...

... but Elon Musk is not a historian. He's a business man trying to increase
the value of his automation and robotics ventures. It does not need to be
true. It's just PR bullshit.

~~~
addicted
Malthusian theory was completely right about human history until just about
the time it was written.

History is not always a predictor of the future because of technological
changes. Many believe that we are upon such a technological change (and for
good reason. Companies creating billions of dollars of value are generating a
fraction of the jobs they once did. The jobs that are being generated tend to
be part time instead of full time like they once used to be. Big data obviates
a lot of thinking jobs as well. More precise automation makes a lot of skilled
jobs easier to automate. There's just an order of magnitude between technology
today that is easily replicable and intelligent in a way it never was, from
the technologies of the past).

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partycoder
This planet has finite resources, and a population that went from 2.5 billion
in 1950 to now 7.4 billion people, and counting.

By growing we have increased our consumption of fish, arable soil, oil,
freshwater, lumber... everything. I think we will need to also get used to the
idea that we will need to downsize our population to a level in which it is
sustainable.

~~~
audunw
Downsizing has already started. Most of the population growth from now on is
simply young people growing up and having their 2 children.

Further downsizing is not gonna happen without war, which is not something
that will make any of the problems related to overpopulation any better.

Basically, what we have to do is make this planet work with 10 billion people
(a stretch, but not impossible), and from there on it should only get better.

Unless we discover a way to revert aging.

This isn't all that relevant to UBI though.

~~~
partycoder
Probably in select countries but not in all regions. It is still growing fast
and we might hit 9 billion in a couple of decades.

Then, life expectancy and live births are growing, meaning people stay here
longer.

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TomMarius
Why is no one talking about the possibility of a privately backed universal
income (or pensions)?

~~~
wojcech
Because it probably won't happen. Just like the idea that "charity will step
in", history gives us evidence against it

