UBI cannot give us the freedom we crave because it necessitates a dependency on a system to take wealth from some and give it to others; it becomes a game of who can control the political system and wield this power to their advantage--much like the current game we play. As the economist Hayek says: who is to decide who has excess that will be taken from?
The real question is fundamentally moral in nature. Is it ever right to take from someone through non-retaliatory violence or threat of violence?
if the 'wealth' is generated by machinery and it is commonly worlded then the dividend = the dole. We'll put questions about rent-seeking and AI aside for another day.
I have trouble imagining a completely isolated and self-maintaining system of machinery. Who maintains the machinery? Who provides the land and resources for machinery to work on, who manages and directs or guides it, who improves it.
Machinery seems to me to be a tool, more advanced than others, but a tool nonetheless. The hammer is a tool that improves work efficiency, and everyone benefited from its creation, but we did not distribute the additional 'wealth' created through use of a hammer via direct financial means. The gains were naturally distributed and naturally benefitted both workers and consumers.
machinery here stands in for automation and expert and almost reasoning systems some call artificial intelligence, I recommend reading up on 90s writers on the technological singularity AKA the spike. If a lot of labour from millwrights, to manufacturing to truck driving and marketing replaces human labour, then the need for middle management also disappears, considering they rule the world satifiscing their arses more or less unconsciously this is probably a good thing. In terms of capital structures (ownership) even governance can be trimmed down. SO this then becomes a much more keen political matter, one that even Marx did not appreciate. Even as an owner you will have no say, and there will be no difference between the dividend and the dole as Homo sp. will exists _only_ as consumers, with perhaps not even the want to desire (and as you suggest the force to keep them separate -- but which may seem but a weak thing eventually).
I appreciate the recommendation to do some additional reading, and I did a bit. Though I still fail to see its relevance. If the singularity occurs then what we think should or shouldn't be is irrelevant.
Much like the question of "what if we are living in a simulation?" If there is no way to know or escape it, then whether we are or not is irrelevant to our behavior: we may as well live as though we are not in a simulation.
If the singularity happens, our desires for political and economic systems become irrelevant. We only have a meaningful discussion about econ and politics in a world without a singularity (in which we retain the ability to shape the future of our society/structure).
So I should have said: I have trouble imagining us (human species) maintaining any power to direct distribution of productive output in a world where a completely isolated and self-maintaining system of machinery exists.
I think your position is very reasonable. Mine is more about imagining the possibility and its various permutations as a what-if more than a prediction.
also you may find this interview with Jaron Lanier and requested responses, of interest (it has an early use of the word alignment in regard to AI by Stuart Russell). https://www.edge.org/conversation/the-myth-of-ai
I've used it in my next substack post on the word 'alignment'.
UBI cannot give us the freedom we crave because it necessitates a dependency on a system to take wealth from some and give it to others; it becomes a game of who can control the political system and wield this power to their advantage--much like the current game we play. As the economist Hayek says: who is to decide who has excess that will be taken from?
The real question is fundamentally moral in nature. Is it ever right to take from someone through non-retaliatory violence or threat of violence?
if the 'wealth' is generated by machinery and it is commonly worlded then the dividend = the dole. We'll put questions about rent-seeking and AI aside for another day.
I have trouble imagining a completely isolated and self-maintaining system of machinery. Who maintains the machinery? Who provides the land and resources for machinery to work on, who manages and directs or guides it, who improves it.
Machinery seems to me to be a tool, more advanced than others, but a tool nonetheless. The hammer is a tool that improves work efficiency, and everyone benefited from its creation, but we did not distribute the additional 'wealth' created through use of a hammer via direct financial means. The gains were naturally distributed and naturally benefitted both workers and consumers.
machinery here stands in for automation and expert and almost reasoning systems some call artificial intelligence, I recommend reading up on 90s writers on the technological singularity AKA the spike. If a lot of labour from millwrights, to manufacturing to truck driving and marketing replaces human labour, then the need for middle management also disappears, considering they rule the world satifiscing their arses more or less unconsciously this is probably a good thing. In terms of capital structures (ownership) even governance can be trimmed down. SO this then becomes a much more keen political matter, one that even Marx did not appreciate. Even as an owner you will have no say, and there will be no difference between the dividend and the dole as Homo sp. will exists _only_ as consumers, with perhaps not even the want to desire (and as you suggest the force to keep them separate -- but which may seem but a weak thing eventually).
I appreciate the recommendation to do some additional reading, and I did a bit. Though I still fail to see its relevance. If the singularity occurs then what we think should or shouldn't be is irrelevant.
Much like the question of "what if we are living in a simulation?" If there is no way to know or escape it, then whether we are or not is irrelevant to our behavior: we may as well live as though we are not in a simulation.
If the singularity happens, our desires for political and economic systems become irrelevant. We only have a meaningful discussion about econ and politics in a world without a singularity (in which we retain the ability to shape the future of our society/structure).
So I should have said: I have trouble imagining us (human species) maintaining any power to direct distribution of productive output in a world where a completely isolated and self-maintaining system of machinery exists.
I think your position is very reasonable. Mine is more about imagining the possibility and its various permutations as a what-if more than a prediction.
also you may find this interview with Jaron Lanier and requested responses, of interest (it has an early use of the word alignment in regard to AI by Stuart Russell). https://www.edge.org/conversation/the-myth-of-ai
I've used it in my next substack post on the word 'alignment'.
https://whyweshould.substack.com/p/alignment-prep