[gruez]

>taking from a robot rather than a human

...which is owned by a human. not to mention the ambiguity between a tool and a robot. can we expect SaaS companies to be taxed because their servers are "robots"? that is not to say i'm against UBI, but the justification of "it's okay because we're taking it from robots!" doesn't hold.

[speedplane]

I'm pretty confounded as to why UBI has become so popular. Many people already get a ton of social services from the government. Don't see how getting $20k of UBI per year is better than getting free medical care from Medicaid and subsidized housing from HUD, both which likely add up to the same amount.

Don't see why UBI has to be in cash instead of services.

[TeMPOraL]

Because:

- While it makes sense to restrict some free money to healthcare and retirement (because many people don't plan long-term), for most other services it would be adding complexity and waste. Individuals can allocate money between their basic needs better than state bureaucracy can. Or phrased in another way - UBI in services significantly restricts your authonomy as a person by making all spending decisions basically for you. If you were getting food stamps, you couldn't e.g. decide to eat ramen for two months in order to save up money for fixing your car or buying a computer.

- Service-specific welfare usually implies means testing, which is inefficient, requires huge bureaucracy to work, and - most importantly - it's incredibly dehumanizing. It's no fun when, in order to get additional $50 a month, you have to subject yourself, your family and your extended family to interviews from social workers, who'll surveill and comment on the most private aspects of your life. UBI is a popular concept because it means to be universal, i.e. no means testing.

[speedplane]

I think I can rephrase your points into more basic principals:

- Freedom: UBI gives individuals more freedom in how to spend their subsidies.

- Privacy: By eliminating means-testing, we eliminate the governments intrusive accounting of an individual's life.

- Efficiency - Spending: People can allocate their UBI more efficiently than the government can allocate funds on services.

- Efficiency - Means-Testing: The process of means-testing is expensive and a bureaucratic drain on resources.

The first two I entirely agree with; the third I'm not sure about, but the last I'm almost certain is untrue. Means-testing is expensive overhead, but that process is definitely less expensive than giving everyone the benefit. If it weren't, the government would already be giving everyone Medicaid. I suspect the real proponents of UBI are advocating for freedom and privacy more than anything else.

[rm_-rf_slash]

Services are inherently more inflationary than cash because as long as the customer (government) pays, you can add more and more services to only marginal benefit of the served.

On the other hand, cash means that nobody is entitled to receive it except the recipient, which spurs competition to get their money, resulting in better services and lower costs.

[usrusr]

Because of the U in UBI. Conventional benefits pay for proof of need, they reward incapability. A terrible incentive.

[speedplane]

But universal benefits pay everyone, which remove all incentives.

[usrusr]

The U removes the incentive to seem/feel incapable. Positive incentives stay, except maybe working to not starve, but that one is already eradicated with conventional benefits.

I haven't seen anyone advocate a "exclusive universal basic income", where other forms would not exist.

[zem]

the fact that the robot is owned by a human is precisely why we need basic income. otherwise, it simply leads to a rich-get-richer spiral, as the already-rich are in the best position to develop and/or purchase ways of automating production.

[conanbatt]

It is the weirdest anthropomorphism to give robots a soul for the hope of being able to exploit them.

[lawrenceyan]

It seems like a lot of people have already responded to your comment, but as the original poster, I feel obligated to add on.

My answer was of course a simplification, but yes, fundamentally I think as we step into the future, we not only should but need to be taxing the owners of automation. Because if we don't, inevitably, wealth will become so concentrated within the hands of a minority that the overall functioning of our economies will simply stop working at some point. The current capitalistic based systems we have set up depend on continuous and increasing spending/consumption in order to function.

There's nothing inherently wrong with following this method. In fact, I personally think it's fine. The issue, however, is in the fact that as automation continually replaces humans, money starts getting "stuck" as allocated spending pools from consumers increasingly diminishes. Sure, in the beginning, it'll look great on paper as corporations and businesses enjoy massive cost savings/increased net profits. But at some point, there will come a tipping point where there literally won't be enough money in circulation to support the economy. Think about it, what happens when 30+% of the human population becomes unemployed due to automation? And 30 is honestly a very optimistic number in my opinion. I could easily see unemployment rising to 50, 60, 70, 80, even 90+%. Do you realize how few people we actually need to be working? 99% of the work done today by humans both blue collar and white collar can and will be automated.

Sure, I guess when no one has money to spend, corporations/businesses will inevitably be forced to lower their prices to near zero values, and the “invisible hand of the market will have made all good”. But think about how ugly and messy that transitionary period will be. No profit driven entity will just willingly lower their prices like that. And in the meantime, people will starve starting from the bottom up, from those with the least privilege, opportunity, and means to escape the encroaching unemployment that awaits them. All a Universal Basic Income does is speed up the inevitable while circumventing the mass starvation, rioting, and violence that will occur without it.

And if you can think of a better solution too, I would honestly love to hear it because this isn't some far away issue. We're going to see massive upheaval in the next 5-10 years, starting with self-driving as it decimates the rural American population. Huge swaths of small towns all across America are almost 100% dependent on the trucking industry and the inflow of truckers that stop along the way to spend their income there. When truckers lose their jobs, those small towns go with them. If your answer is to tell them to move somewhere else or find a new job, what about those who can't? For example, how is a 50 year old truck driver who has spent his entire life driving trucks supposed to, on zero income mind you as they no longer have a job, go back to school and learn how to code when he or she likely barely finished high school 30 years ago? And no, even if you choose to completely disregard the inherent value of a human life opting to let people who are unable to successfully transition starve as a solution, you still aren't scot free. Because, what do you know, angry restless starving people riot and protest!

Though I personally think it's important that everyone has the right to fundamental basic standards of living, even if you could care less about whether the person next to you starves to death tomorrow, the purely selfish individual still supports a Universal Basic Income. Any other move is a losing play.