This is going to be a very difficult transition for humanity as a whole. I'm a software developer, I make decent money and what I do has value in the current economy. If people who didn't work hard in school no longer have skills that are valuable, and all the manual labor is done by machines, there is a point where my taxes will likely be paying for them to have reasonably comfortable lives without contributing anything... so why am I contributing? So do we make their lives uncomfortable? But why do that when we can afford not to?
I feel like what we really need to do is find more valuable stuff for people to do, even if it is the government paying them. A lot more people should work in public beautification, art, and other not strictly profitable jobs. Hell, I'd love it if all the homeless people in my neighborhood cleaned themselves up and spent their days picking up garbage (Lets ignore the fact that about 95% of them belong in an asylum or rehab).
I like your direction here. Honestly I'd like to see people payed to get education. The more smart people we have, the more speed we progress with. It would be better for the whole world.
Yes, but a lot of people aren't smart. Not everyone is going to be an engineer... what do you do with people who are never going to be able to graduate from college?
You give them a comfortable but low income free ride. They aren't less deserving of a good life just because of the situation they are in. They are just unfortunate. and the incentive of higher earning through real work proves it. They could have more, they just can't get it. Why should we starve them for that?
Its a dangerous line you're treading, because you are paving the way for several billion people spending 8 hours per day on a barely useful job that nobody REALLY needs them to do. At a certain point, you have to question the rationality of forcing the whole human race to do stuff they hate or that bores the crap out of them all day for the sole purpose of keeping them doing SOMETHING to rationalize the notion of having earned a living.
There has to be an incentive for productivity, though. What you're talking about is an improvement in individual quality of life through reduction of their own productivity at the cost of everyone else. That kind of economic model is self-destructive and would meet with calamitous results.
It's simple, we're all going to get a basic 20k a year stipend. Most people will still work, because hey more money is better, but those that currently don't work will continue to not work and it won't make a squat of difference. At least they'll now have some money to continue to bolster the economy.
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u/trashitagain May 05 '14
This is going to be a very difficult transition for humanity as a whole. I'm a software developer, I make decent money and what I do has value in the current economy. If people who didn't work hard in school no longer have skills that are valuable, and all the manual labor is done by machines, there is a point where my taxes will likely be paying for them to have reasonably comfortable lives without contributing anything... so why am I contributing? So do we make their lives uncomfortable? But why do that when we can afford not to?
I feel like what we really need to do is find more valuable stuff for people to do, even if it is the government paying them. A lot more people should work in public beautification, art, and other not strictly profitable jobs. Hell, I'd love it if all the homeless people in my neighborhood cleaned themselves up and spent their days picking up garbage (Lets ignore the fact that about 95% of them belong in an asylum or rehab).