Comment by bluefirebrand
3 days ago
> Large scale automation is only a problem if society allows it to become a problem.
When I look around me I see a society that I think would happily have jackboots round up excess labor and execute us rather than redistribute money fairly
So I wish I had your optimism
Well, I didn't say I'm confident that society won't allow it to become a problem. But I don't think a society that triggers mass unemployment and poverty at the same time will remain like that for long before it'd face uprisings. A society like that would also face the problem that without people having money they have no customers.
If you redistribute money evenly, how would you get anyone to do anything?
If you gave everyone $10k a month UBI, who is going to change your tire? How much you have to pay them to go to work if they get $10k while sitting at home?
If a town has a lack of apartments, how much will an apartment cost if a young couple has $20k a month to spend?
The scenario we are discussing is one where "the number of jobs automated approaches 100%", so the point would be that it is explicitly a situation where most people are not needed in the job market.
> If you redistribute money evenly, how would you get anyone to do anything
Currently, people need money to pay for necessities like food and shelter. Therefore either money is redistributed somehow or people have jobs to earn money, or we change the paradigm entirely to something else
We cannot have both no wealth redistribution AND replace all labour with automation without really messing this system up
This seems pretty obvious to me?
It seems totally not obvious to me. It seems so confusing. If you gave everyone a million... Eventually someone needs to buy a house... What does it cost to buy one? Would you sell your house for 2 million if everyone around you had a million? No, some Indian family would pool everyone's government pool of 1 million and bid 8 million for it. So how does a single person buy one? Same as today. Except you screwed up inflation too.
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