[closeparen]

>wealth is not increased, only distributed differently

When we have the technology to meet the population's needs without its involvement in production, we have something much better than wealth: we have our lives back, our time and energy, our freedom from wage slavery.

We have government for the distribution problem.

The most viscerally disturbing thing I've ever seen a human do, is wish that others be forced to expend useless, unnecessary effort to "earn" what we could just hand out.

I understand the argument about stealing person A's labor output and giving it to person B, but no individual has a legitimate moral claim on the output of a fully automated process.

[coolgeek]

> The most viscerally disturbing thing I've ever seen a human do, is wish that others be forced to expend useless, unnecessary effort to "earn"

Seriously? That tops eating out of a dumpster (literally, like eating unwrapped, half-eaten discards)? Or defecating in a stairwell?

> what we could just hand out

It didn't work as charity. It isn't working as redistribution through taxation. What's your proposed solution?

[closeparen]

>That tops eating out of a dumpster (literally, like eating unwrapped, half-eaten discards)? Or defecating in a stairwell?

Neither of those things are wishing lifetimes of drudgery as a condition of survival onto your fellow human beings.

> It isn't working as redistribution through taxation

Which companies are paying taxes on their automated output comparable to what the payroll would cost?

[coolgeek]

>>That tops eating out of a dumpster (literally, like eating unwrapped, half-eaten discards)? Or defecating in a stairwell?

> Neither of those things are wishing lifetimes of drudgery as a condition of survival onto your fellow human beings.

You're either not communicating your point effectively, or you don't seem to have any understanding of reality.

Who, exactly, is "wishing lifetimes of drudgery as a condition of survival onto [their] fellow human beings"?

And who, in their right mind, would willingly forego stable access to the necessities of life (food, a home...) because they find such stability intolerable compared to a lifetime of drudgery?

>> It isn't working as redistribution through taxation

> Which companies are paying taxes on their automated output comparable to what the payroll would cost?

We seem to agree that redistribution through taxation categorically does not* solve the problem of providing people with the necessities of life. So what is the point in discussing a specific aspect of taxation?

Instead, I'll ask again - what is your proposed solution, such that people's basic survival needs are accommodated, given that charity doesn't solve the problem either?

* I'm not saying that it can't. I'm saying that it doesn't - primarily because the wealthy have bought 6 decades worth of across the board, increasing tax cuts (among other things) by buying government.

[mitochondrion]

Man is an economic animal. If you want to see what purposeless leisure looks like, look at the underclass: rampant drug problems, animalistically promiscuous women, broken families, bastard, fatherless children, trash culture, and crime.

50 years ago, those people, except for the absolute worst of the worst, were productive, law-abiding citizens with intact families, functional homes, and a place in the world.

When a man is made economically useless, he ceases to be a man. He becomes just another useless mouth to feed, like an animal in a zoo, but unlike the zoo animal in that people do everything in their power to avoid seeing him.