• spaceghoti
    +6
    @SMcIntyre -

    Jobs are already scarce, and it's not because those damned furriners have been taking them. Income has become divorced from productivity, and increasing automation is gradually making human labor obsolete. Even skilled jobs like medical diagnosis and computer programming are starting to encounter methods for automation.

    So it's unreasonble to assume everyone will be able to find or create jobs. Sooner or later we're going to have to face reality that people who can't find work deserve to live just as much as everyone else. It's not about pandering, it's about basic human decency, a concept that the politicians of California seem to grasp better than most.

  • Appaloosa
    +4
    @spaceghoti -

    Decency is often a casualty of desperation and anger. We are on an unsustainable path. If we do enact a basic wage, it will only keep a lid on, even further magnifying the underlying proclivities of human behavior. The disparity will grow, not diminish. I don't have an answer and I am fearful of the future as I will most certainly be caught up in a great struggle within my lifetime.

  • AdelleChattre (edited 7 years ago)
    +4
    @Appaloosa -

    How‘s this for a viable, near-future dystopia then: in return for a lifetime basic income stipend, one must be irreversibly sterilized? Optionally, to extend the basic income further, one must kill or otherwise permanently incapacitate some set number of ”the enemy,“ for some given definition of ’enemy?‘

  • spaceghoti
    +4
    @Appaloosa -

    I don't see that trend happening in countries where basic needs are met. Rather, people are free to take more risks in entrepreneurial pursuits since the consequences of failure aren't so dire. They're also free to engage in more artistic pursuits without worrying about pandering to current fads.

    I'm sure there are weaknesses in the system that will reveal themselves in the long run, but humans are like that. Human institutions are notoriously prone to points of failure. We'll keep trying out solutions and hopefully going with the ones that work best for the prevailing circumstances.

  • Appaloosa
    +4
    @AdelleChattre -

    I have said this before, I don't like the idea of basic income....for some of those exact reasons....and they will continue to push for a cashless society...and ultimately chipping. Tis' a dark view ahead I see.

  • Gozzin
    +3
    @AdelleChattre -

    This is something I have thought about. I've also thought the same thing about life extenders..If you opt for that, your also fixed so you can't reproduce..This could make for some interesting sf and i suspect some on this topic is already out there.

  • Appaloosa
    +4
    @spaceghoti -

    I admire your optimism, and history is full of those very transitions. I'm struggling to find one that has not happened violently (war) or without great loss of life (disease or climate change). Things will change though, as you say, to the prevailing circumstances.

    • spaceghoti
      +4
      @Appaloosa -

      It all depends on whether or not we can get past the people looking to protect the status quo. Humans have been known to regress as well as progress, so yes, I'm optimistic but cautiously so. We're also prone to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.