Then you can sit at home and write code that amuses you and never share it with anyone else. You would have that option.
I would assume, though, over the course of your lifetime, you would occasionally share a solution to a problem, or at least when you die, if you forget to wipe your hard drive, some of your code may be useful.
You may even decide that you are tired of a meager living, and sell some of your code to afford some sort of creature comforts.
My point is, it would be pretty hard to get through life without doing something useful to society, and even if you don’t, well, it didn’t cost much to keep you alive for the time.
“A bit more financial security”? I thought I was going to be financially secure with the GBI?
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I was talking about the current system, where you need to work for your employer for financial security, rather than taking a risk on your own, where homelessness and starvation is a concern. Under a GBI system, you would be financially secure (in that you would not risk homelessness or starvation) and not nearly as beholden to your employer.
Romney’s “47%,” for a start, which includes the vast number of people who pay no taxes because they don’t earn into ranges where taxes are due, and that group we’ll refer to by the traditional title of “retired,” and the non-adult population, and the disabled population, and then we get into the gray area of “people who are supposed to be able to work but for some reason don’t.”
I’m not sure what the exact count of people who bring home a living wage - above realistic poverty level, with some degree of security, and benefits that protect them from health and other life crises - is, but it’s sure as hell not a majority. And it shrinks while the population of “Morlocks” - who include Walmart workers on welfare - grows.
This trend is reversible only in the minds of those who see the postwar era with rose-colored telescopic lenses and believe that represented some kind of “normality,” and is an achievable goal in the present day. In other words, it’s not reversible, and no amount of inventing “brainpower” and service jobs will do so.
We have too many people - which includes too many potential workers among those not truly equipped to work for a living - and too few jobs, and that disparity is only going to get worse. We can only fix the problems by accepting that and adjusting our economic practices to make the best of things… and that means leaving rah-rah 1950s American Worker’s Paradise notions in the history books, where they belong.
I hope what I’m working on today won’t be of use 30 years from now (or whenever I end up dead), but lets say it is – its still not yours to decide what to do with.
If your plan is to make my living conditions shittier and shittier until I’m forced to go do something I don’t want to do in order to earn money, you haven’t really changed anything – we’re going to have the same problems we have today, except now all the people unable to find work are living in equal squalor.
You all really need to get over this idea that the only reason I don’t start my own business is fear of failure.
Under GBI you’re not paying people enough for a luxurious life, you’ll still have plenty of people who are willing to lay cable in order to obtain a higher standard of living.
They need not be built, plenty of housing currently sits vacant that can be purchased and re purposed. I would not say you should build massive complexes of 8’x4’ tenement buildings, I was just saying that that is the minimum that is needed. I worked the hotel business for a number of years, many of the rooms sit vacant the vast majority of the time. Many hotels go out of business. There are many apartment building that have high vacancy levels, and many of those are out of business as well. There are plenty of places to put people who need a place to stay.
Over time, I imagine many of the properties would be converted, and new ones added, and for those I would say the 8’x4’ room should be the goal.
I think the problem is that you are looking at what would happen if this was suddenly implemented over night, with no warning whatsoever, and using your ideas of what a comfortable living is, rather than someone who has actually risked their livelyhood in the pursuit of something greater. I propose fairly spartan and harsh conditions upon those who refuse to find a way to contribute to society, this is a change from imposing unhealthy and undignified conditions upon those who take a risk and fail. If you believe that a substantial people will, like yourself, refuse to contribute anything to society, and be happy in extremely meager conditions that are just enough to keep you from costing society extra in medical and legal costs associated with poverty, you very well could be correct, but that’s fine. With increasing automation, the cost of keeping all of you in your life support pod for your lifetime will be insignificant compared to the one person who invents or creates the Next Big Thing, because they could concentrate on that, rather than worrying about paying the rent or working at a job that does not fulfill them, and does not contribute much to society either.
This is the solution you’re presenting to that problem:
As far as I’m able to tell, your solution to the problem is to do something different and assume it will work because it’s a different system than we have now.
No, I read it as likely that your skill set is only of use in a large-shop environment. So you can work hammering out code for someone, or you can invent nifty little patentable tricks that someone of that scale can use… or you can stay home doing nothing much of use to anyone.
Not much different from being the best employee on GM assembly line G-67. Can’t install fender bolts as an independent shop.
Which, assuming I’m anywhere in the ballpark, comes back to your choice of career, knowing the limitations and the likelihood of becoming unhappy in it. (And no, Shodan, I don’t believe everyone is unhappy and unfulfilled in their jobs. Only the folks who have made that same choice of playing to win in a system under which they can only win by having the system win bigger, and not a little at their expense.)
It will be fewer people than we have now. Either less cable will be laid, reducing quality of service, or the price of cable-laying will go up, resulting in a more expensive service (that fewer people can afford, already).
I’ve stated expressly what my solution is. If you can only read that I am saying our present system is bad and we need to do “something” different, I hope your coding skills are better than your reading skills.
I don’t prose making your life shittier and shittier, I propose making it barely comfortable, and not getting better. If that is fine with you, that’s fine with me. If you want more, you can work, but you get to work on your terms, not beholden to an employer.
I don’t think that you don’t start your own business because of fear of failure. You have made it clear that it is because you lack any kind of motivation. Not everyone is this lazy.
I do believe, though, and you have stated yourself, that you only deal with shitty work conditions because of a fear of impoverishment. If you could quit, you would. And maybe after a few years of sitting by yourself and writing your own code that amuses you, you may change your mind about contributing to society, in return you could receive either financial or social rewards, if that is the sort of thing that interests you. Or, you could sit in your room the rest of your life, contribute nothing, and no harm will be done. Society will get by just fine without your contribution.
The point I was getting at is your argument for GBI doesn’t argue in favor of GBI, rather against the current system. Your reasoning can work for any presented solution, provided the solution is different than our current system.
Lets say I think the best thing we can do for America is to disband the government and use the proceeds to give everyone 40-acres and an iPhone.
Then make your case that disbanding the govt and giving everyone land and a phone is the best thing to do. We will look at it on it’s merits and it’s flaws, and give opinions on how it could be better implemented.
AB has made a very good case for GBI, what it’s effects both positive and negative could be, and how it could be implemented. Concentrate in finding flaws in the actual case put forth, rather than arguing that you can’t understand it. He is not just saying, “We should do something different.” he is saying, “This is what we should do.” Focus on the latter.
I couldn’t tell you the percentages, but I would be surprised if more than a quarter of the population at large would agree with you that laziness wins out over any sort of accomplishment or luxury in life. And even if it is higher, I don’t see the people with that low level of motivation actually contributing now. I assume that they are mostly the people that get others to do their work for them while they take long breaks, sabotage other’s projects to make themselves look less useless, and generally take more from society than they contribute to it now. Getting the people with that attitude safely out of the way of those who actually take pride in their work and have a desire to leave a positive legacy would increase society’s productivity even if they never do anything else in their lives.
Then how are you not aware that every day, technological progress displaces labor, decreasing the number of people that need to be working, while simultaneously increasing productivity?
The idea that more can be done by fewer people is the entire goal of technological progress.
ETA, mostly LOL, but to illustrate slightly people getting in the way…
