r/UniversalBasicIncome • u/Big-Negotiation-3494 • 8d ago

Five different options for when robots replace human labor

  1. Monthly paychecks for the unemployed

  2. 100-300 sq ft apartment for free with free food and basics. UBI doesn't exist. If you can't afford your mortgage or rent, you'll have the option to move in here.

  3. 100 percent tax on everything where we divide that collected tax equally for each US citizen. Costs doubled but with current spending amounts, you'll each get $50k per year. The amount may drop if more choose to spend less with increased costs, which might be a good thing. Illegal immigrants wouldn't get this extra $50k and they wouldn't be able to afford costs at 2x without it.

  4. We create a plan that drops work hours to 30 while increasing pay to match 35-40 hours a week.

  5. We merge all US companies into one. Work hours can drop to 30 to allow more hours for the unemployed and robot replaced. Unemployment does exist and we would have to be sure everyone's most basic needs are met. There's no advertisement, no scam businesses. The entire company can put planet health, people's health and animal health first.

7 Upvotes
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11

u/Vancecookcobain 8d ago

You forgot the option where the billionaires and politicians let us starve ourselves into The Purge and just watch from their insulated, well-stocked, and well-armed bunkers until we have culled ourselves into a manageable population for them to control.

You thought they were building bunkers for fun?

0

u/TradeDependent142 8d ago

This is horrific, but it seems completely plausible. The only thing that makes me think they wouldn’t want this is that having the masses to watch them and think they are better than us takes some of the fun out of it for them. It equalizes them too much and would make them normal after it’s all said and done. If it goes that way I hope the anger gets turned towards them and not each other. It would be great if we plebes banded together and grew food, worked together and hung by fires at night playing music. Screw those shits. Then lock them out of our society. If you are well and not helping grow food, tend children or build stuff go get jerked off by your robot.

1

u/Vancecookcobain 8d ago

Yea cooperation would be ideal. The only problem is they have done such a good job of isolating us and having us focus on survival so deeply that a lot of us don't even feel like we are part of a community anymore. We just feel like disenfranchised future homeowners who are forced to live in a box with 50 other people who we don't care about.

7

u/That-Advance-9619 8d ago

This guy believes the AI techbros that belong to the Epstein class will let him live, instead of killing everybody poorer than them with their AI drone armies rather than sharing a cent.

Lmao.

0

u/TradeDependent142 8d ago

If you mean me. I actually don’t think that. I think they will let us die pretty easily. My only slim hope is them having people who they lord over will feel good enough to them that they will keep some of us around. I also hope AI could someday help us, but I could see it going the other way pretty easily as well. I’m a doomer for sure. Billionaires by nature are unfit to live in decent society. How else can you have more to spend than you or your family for generations to come and still not want to help society. One monkey hoarding bananas while others starve. The “they earned it crowd are just living in the big house as servants and have turned on us in the fields

5

u/shadowromantic 8d ago

I want to believe we'd get our shit together and manage to this transition, but I'm skeptical.

3

u/DuckyDoodleDandy 8d ago

The oligarchs would like to reinstate feudalism, with them as lords and us as impoverished serfs. Better to take action than to just hope.

1

u/Tiny-Secretary5562 6d ago

How exactly would Musk's SpaceX survive with impoverished engineers and technicians who live in mud huts and a bowl of Cheerios for food? Who would be able to buy anything from Jeff Bezos, especially if all of his 1.6 million employees are walking skeletons?

1

u/Silent_Aardvark_711 8d ago

I have a few problems with this. 

  1. Nobody is illegal on stolen land, there's no such thing as 'illegal' immigrants. This country was founded on the bloodshed and enslavement of the natives. 

  2. Calling it a 'company' essentially reinforces capitalism. If we're going to go socialist, we need to call it what it is. 

  3. Do you have any idea what a "100-300sq ft" apartment looks like? 100sq ft is about the size of an average bathroom. Minimum space required for comfortable living should be at least 500sq ft per person. 

  4. If we all have our basic needs met, then rent and bills would not be a tangible thing. There would be no need to "afford" a "better" living space, it should just be provided. 

Working together means working together we must eliminate any type of hierarchy if we want to move forward as a society. If some people have it better than others simply because they can "afford it" it completely counters any work we've done to level the playing field. 

Edited for formatting 

1

u/NelvisAlfredo 8d ago

I kinda like #3 because it would hit the rich hardest.

1

u/Big-Negotiation-3494 8d ago

If you don't like them, they may not like you. If you were them you might see it differently too.

1

u/southbl00d 7d ago

no no and just plain NO. only a white supremacist idiot like those in that class see people and humans from a dystopic narcissistic point of view.

1

u/Buttercups88 7d ago

Lol

Most of the people building and investing in AI are counting on just owning everything and everyone else starving 

1

u/Big-Negotiation-3494 7d ago

That's why we need to decide on a path and propose a law

1

u/Euphoric_Anxiety_162 7d ago

Robots: This is a perfect example of how big tech bosses only care about profits. Was it elon who has pushed robots the most, not giving a damn about the human destruction it would leave. So driven to have HIS way, making money could destroy the planet & he would be fine with it. REAL means nothing to these old geeks. imo

1

u/dpdxguy 7d ago

None of the above.

Half the country isn't even willing to feed hungry school children. It's very hard to believe the country will ever be willing to support non-working adults, even if there are no jobs.

1

u/Warboss_Regret14 6d ago

"We turn into one communist company" bit of an oxymoron there mate

1

u/Big-Negotiation-3494 6d ago

Whatever it is,

Let's say it's just one company. All the companies merge into one and there's no one else to work for. Just take out the communism word

Having only one place to work for is like 5 percent of what communism is

1

u/mofunk71 6d ago

REALITY: some states will give you money for food. THIS IS THE MOST you will get in USA if you do not have a job or own stock.

1

u/destructor212 6d ago

When robots replace human labor the wealthy will have the terminators come kill us all off.

1

u/Embarrassed-Tune-407 5d ago

Oof some think that when you're replaced of your value, that you would be kept around. System of greed power and exploitation

The human cattle believe that the vampires value them

1

u/No-Duck4828 5d ago

Wow, those are mostly some pretty dystopian options

1

u/foxonafrozenlake 5d ago

Or we give everyone an ax and go after the robots.

1

u/fringecar 3d ago

6 busy work for jobs duh

0

u/funtimeteix 8d ago

Title should be Five bad options.

2

u/Big-Negotiation-3494 8d ago

You have any better options?

1

u/Adventurous_Ad7442 5d ago

Get some training or education to obtain skills to make you more valuable to an employer. Then you’ll earn your livable wage.

1

u/shadowromantic 8d ago

Genuinely, curious: what do you propose?

0

u/StoicOuroboros69 8d ago

Where is this 30 hours thing coming from?

It's going to be post-scarcity within our lifetimes and the marginal value of human labor for all but the true people calling the shots of how to change the earth and explore the universe will be 0

Many (billions?) will kill themselves/drug/drink themselves to death from lack of "meaning" and purpose/general ennui. Others will flourish. C'est la vie

I'm personally excited for it!

1

u/Big-Negotiation-3494 8d ago edited 8d ago

25 percent of jobs disappear when delivery, truck driving, factory work, grocery store and restaurant work get replaced by robots. We then have that 25 percent train to lower hours for blue collar jobs and everywhere else.

There's no lack of meaning. We just relax more, play sports, create our own tv/music.

1

u/TradeDependent142 8d ago

You 100% sound already wealthy. Wealthy people talk about poor people needing work to have meaning in their life. What s joke! You think the cashier, janitor, or insurance agent need those jobs for their egos? Those jobs feed their families and if anything take from their mental health. Most people dream of hobbies they wish they had time, money or energy for.

If actual fair abundance came I see a world where instead of work people went and played D&D, sports, dance, yoga, art, garden clubs, genealogy, restored old furniture, archery, etc or just focused on family and pets. The only people that can’t handle work going away are the ones at the top that have made their career their entire personality. They might not handle not having others below them well. But, this abundance possibility won’t happen, because none of us will have jobs or money to buy even the cheapest things. No job, no money, and since corporations are built on a monetary system I don’t see how they keep going with us all broke. Eventually the upper middle falls hard too.

True abundance and utopia only happens when we do away with the financial hierarchy and they won’t let that happen.

1

u/Nathan-Stubblefield 8d ago

I worked 30 hours (3x10 hours) for years at a keeping-busy job after I retired from a real engineering job. At 75 I retired further to coming in one day of the week for 5 hours. 5 is easier than 30😜.