The other day I was reading this post about UBI (Universal Basic Income) and what is happening around UBI in Ireland. When reading the post and reading the comments, I felt (as usually happens when reading articles and comments about UBI) this topic is addressed by most peeps in a too isolations with a too short-term focus on the challenges we will have to deal with in the coming decades. That realisation led me to spend time to try and group my thoughts and voice them through text.
4th Industrial Revolution
When discussing the topic of UBI, whether this is a system that we shall deploy, or not, we shall first understand where the 4th industrial revolution will take us. UBI is not meant for the replacement, or the establishment of a social system just because it may be useful in itself. However, it is an answer to an inevitable future the 4th industrial revolution will drive everything and everyone towards.
This 4th industrial revolution is defined not 100% uniformly, hence I give you my 'definition'. Like all the previous industrial revolutions, the 4th is about automation (some to more may argue all the previous ones are about efficiency, but they are not in my honest opinion). Unlike all previous industrial revolutions, this one will make humans obsolete.
During the previous industrial revolutions, automation resulted in certain types of jobs being removed, and new types of jobs being created. For instance, a machine automates the production not requiring a human anymore to put things together, whilst designing, developing, maintaining and repairing the machine required new jobs carried out by humans.
Humans are not required anymore
This 4th industrial revolution will automate anything and everything (as time progresses we go from a few to more, to a lot, to most, to all) without the need for humans anymore. Automation will not just cover the production of something but will cover also the automation of maintaining all systems that are required for the production process. Additionally, this 4th industrial revolution will not only automate the whole production process but will also automate the creation of new things, like the design of a new object with new features. This industrial revolution will even bring us the automation of inventing something totally new.
All this is driven by quantum computing, robotics and AI (Singularity is not too far out into the future anymore, but that is a different topic for another post). Because of these technologies, over time we'll see more and more job types not required anymore, whilst we see the number of new types of jobs required, decreasing over time. How long it'll take before we don't need any humans anymore to invent, create, design, produce something? That is the big question. This can be anything between a few decades to the end of this century (or longer).
Soon!? Yes...
I'm inclined to believe we get to such a situation rather sooner than later. Maybe we still need three to four decades. Seems still like a long time, but 30 to 40 years is just one or two generations. People starting their first job today will have to deal with such a situation before they reach their pension age.
When we assume we don't need any humans to work anymore, everything is done by AI and robotics, we need to come up with a new system that will allow all of us on planet earth (and outside?) to at least be able to enjoy the basics we need in life. What this new system shall look like, that is the big question. UBI is one system we could go for. If it is the best system, that is to be seen.
Distribution of Earth Resources
When nobody has to work anymore, I believe we shall have a new system in which we make sure that all the earth resources are shared and distributed amongst all citizens with honesty and fairness as the base criteria. UBI is not addressing that part though. The system(s) that we will adopt (UBI+ or any other system that we may still need to invent), must make sure this honesty and fairness are applied in earth resource distribution. For that to happen, we need to make sure the earth resources and everything that is required for the basic necessities in life, is somehow in public hands rather than private ones.
The 'need' for something new
I realise it's not gonna be easy to come up with a whole new system or a combination of new systems. But we have to! When we don't, at some stage we will see our current system fall apart whilst not having anything new to replace it with. The result will be total chaos when this happens. Such chaos will drive us more towards a 1984 scenario. When we see our current financial system crumbling down with more and more people losing their trust in the system, with the USD, Euro and other currencies trending to zero value, we end up in chaos. Out of that chaos, something new will arise. We don't know what will come out of it: Anything goes! Likely this will not be too positive. My 'fear' (more logic than real 'fear') is that this something new is worse than what we currently experience in our systems and societies. My 'fear' (again, more logic than real 'fear') is that this will be more centralised control by peeps that are not driven by concepts of running healthy communities and societies, but mostly by the strong wish to control for own personal gains. We already see this happening more and more. Corporates becoming stronger and stronger, and better and better at controlling our governments, for their own personal gains.
I believe we shall further experiment with UBI. At the same time, I believe we shall have open discussions on local and global levels to try and come up with other systems for UBI. All inclusivity in all aspects shall be one of the main characteristics of a system or a multitude of systems that we have to and will implement. At the same time, we shall also start more (and larger scale) experiments with such known and other still to be defined systems.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
UBI in a world populated by "Transhumans" manifesting itself in the aftermath of The Great Reset, and where you will own nothing and be happy, according to Herr Schwab.
And what does UBI mean to you?
Based upon what I've learned thus ar, UBI is an implementation in a series of measures utilized by governments and central banks to keep popuilation dependent upon their services and under control. In my opinion, once everyday people are freed from the misdeeds of financial institutions deemed "too big to fail" and the corrupt governmental/private bodies that support them, they will have the opportunity to build productive and meaniful lives. Society can shift the mental paradign from scarcity and harmful competition towards abudance and cooperation that benefits all concerned.
Well thought out post .... so are you of the opinion that machines / AI will be the source of artificial 'food' created with optimum nourishments etc. ? Or will good old agriculture be required ... planting, feeding, harvesting all to be done by robotics? What of pesticides, pests, the good old bee?
For me the idea is too far fetched, although I am fully onboard that automation and AI will continue to grow in the future and play an important role but more in 'lifestyle' technologies like VR, Metaverses and medical procedures. That what you envisage is more something that should be pursued by Elon Musk for his Mars settlement.
As regards UBI I think that is a dystopian poorly thought out construct and will never work. The Divided States of America is a perfect example of this. There are millions of Americans who do not want to go back to work because they are receiving more from the State than they would from their employer...
Human basic truth.... the majority of the population 'if their is no incentive to produce..they will not produce.
Ai and food: Most definitely in the future, we will produce food in a factory, from greens to meat. For the meat, we dont need to farm animals, meat will be grown in the factory, without brains and a body connected to it. Some success already in this area. They take some cells from an animal, bring them to the factory, apply s process to get it growing fast. For now, the growth is slow, something like 6 months (if I remember correctly) for the size of a chicken. To become cost-effective, the growth needs to be faster. Give it a few years? Greens: We gonna build vertical farms for starters. Farms that can live on the open sea (no forrest need to be sacrificed anymore), robots will do whatever needs to be done, 100% sure. No humans are required anymore.
UBI: incentive to work... I know (you wrote this) you don't believe in AI/Robots doing everything for us at one point in time. When that is gonna be the case, and plenty of humans need to work to get things done the way we want, then most likely something like UBI may not be required. However, such a future may seem the most likely in your view. Recently our taskmaster hive user posted about the decrease of jobs, which he used to tell the reader with hard figures; These figures show a global decrease in the number of jobs. AI/Robotica will make huge steps coming few decades. I wouldn't be surprised if in let's say western world countries in let's say 2 decades, just 10% of the current amount of jobs are needed. All the rest of the tasks will then be carried out by robots. This will give an income from a job for just a few in our societies. How will the remaining majority get to their income to pay for at least their basic necessities? If you don't believe in such a scenario, try to think about this still under the 360-degree method in which all scenario's how unlikely they seem, are covered in our thinking.
EDIT:
Some interesting results with UBI tests in Finland: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/an-experiment-to-inform-universal-basic-income
In my personal opinion, the 4th industrial revolution will not wipe out the entire work force. As there are backward countries without infrastructure and low literacy rate, there will be still a lot to do.
Yes, the world will look different in a couple of years, this is for sure.
One thing which will not be replaced by automatization will be service, as we still need the human touch.
Also, we as human love individual and unique stuff, starting from clothes to food cooked different way.
The danger with UBI is that it can lead to a form of communism, where no drive is present or where people with a certain drive are killed or slowed down by the envy masses. I'm not against it, as long as there is no limit on how much you can earn and there are normal limits on what you can do.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Any system has its downsides, but it's the question the 'negative' effect you mentioned is a commonly heard one. However, it's the big question if this is a downside at all. With fewer jobs and more peeps around in the next few decades, maybe it is just for the best some to more peeps do not get the 'drive' to be ambitious and 'want' a paid job.
I am pretty sure, most peeps stop to do anything and contribute to society in their own ways. Take for instance my country, about 17M citizens from zero to 100+ with around 7M of them doing some sort of 'community' work by volunteering. Many of them are next to their paying jobs, but also a substantial amount by peeps without paying jobs. A good example of how many (most?) peeps are not only good-intentioned but also show such behaviour.
Don't you think AI will reach levels it can act like a human without the human realising it is AI? Singularity is not too far out in the future. This is when AI is as intelligent as humans. What happens after that, one can only guess.
Interesting how we think something is so far until that time passes by right in front of our eyes. There used to be so much talk around UBI before, it seems it is hardly spoken about these days.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
True, also in my country less talk about UBI. It seems many societies became more self-absorbed these days.
Many to most people underestimate the power of technology and how this will drive big changes in this world coming decades, hence not a popular topic for eg politicians, nation but also local ones.
BTW, I don't think UBI by itself is sufficient.
Think or believe again, this current "crisis" shows you clearly that there will be no honesty, fairness or transparency.
UBI is invitation to a world where you are dependent upon the State, where your access to services and resources will be based upon your social credit score. Do, say or think the "wrong" thing, there goes your UBI.
Rights are made not given. If you have ask some one for your rights, you have none.
Universal Basic Indenture
Excellent riposte !! We already see it today with Big Pharma, big tech and central banks ... they have all thrived during a crisis and the 'intended UBI recipients' have all suffered. The gap has grown so large it is a definite 'them' and 'Us' scenario.
It would now appear that this gap is intentionally being widened, with the aim of a very tiny minority controlling everything. A certain German banker has published a "manifesto" outlining their road plan. "You will own nothing and be happy"... while they own everything, and if you're not happy, your social credit score will take a hit.
Why is UBI a state thing? From a thought perspective: This could also be arranged outside a centralised state? The best case would be, it becomes culture to support those we need it, but that is not too practical these days :)
Any other system or systems that you have in mind to combat the inevitability many peeps on earth will not be able to find a paying job, since the numbers of such jobs will decrease over time next few decades, whilst the world population will increase a lot, like a factor of 2 maybe even 3?
Yay! 🤗
Your content has been boosted with Ecency Points
Use Ecency daily to boost your growth on platform!
Support Ecency
Vote for new Proposal
Delegate HP and earn more, by @mipiano.
🙇🙇🙇
It’ll be easier to give every one UBI once the great culling is complete. People claiming it’s infeasible don’t consider they’re killing off 80% of the globe soon
The timing of UBI has to be part of a larger strategy including other elements that are necessary. Something like UBI will in the end be inevitable imho regardless of what people think of it or not 🙃
😱
😱