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by kodachi 2540 days ago
That is something I thing about frequently. On one hand, I think it's great to have self-sustaining homes/neighborhoods that require minimal manual repetitive work. Then I think that there are lots of people who know nothing but that. knowledge". If you lose the ability to adapt and learn (something we all probably do as we age), then you are left out.
2 comments

There is another side of the coin - to make universal basic income work cost of foodstuff, healthcare, and construction (and thus housing) needs to be pushed extremely low. This kind of automation enables it.

There is no argument that automating these jobs will incur tremendous human suffering by taking away jobs. However, in the long term I don't want anyone to be 'harvesting lettuce'.

Or we could expand wage subsidies like the earned income tax credit. That has the advantage of not causing labour supply to drop precipitously and would cost much less than UBI so it could be implemented far sooner. And if the math on UBI comes anywhere near working out you passed the point of being able to afford wage subsidies long ago.
But harvesting lettuce can be fun - in your own garden on your own time of course. Not back destroying wage labour...
This is why retraining programs are often inneffective and why i support ubi and andrew yang