[UweSchmidt]

"The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed."

There won't be the big UBI day, where we make the big switch globally. It's a creeping expansion of social benefits and transfer payments and an easing of work conditions. Some people will somehow stay in the unpleasant jobs, by inertia or the unfairness of a class system or, increasingly, by wages that compensate for the trouble. People will drop out of individual job categories and certain businesses become unsustainable; society will adapt around it, with automation or higher prices.

The conclusion for the individual is to not tough it out in a shitty job, instead look for opportunities where companies will pay a contractor or company to do work that used to be done conventionally in-house for a wage. Also, and I hesitate going that route, don't see the redistribution opportunities as shameful handouts, but rather as an income stream that will make up a larger and larger pie of the economy.

[CharlieDigital]

    It's a creeping expansion of social benefits...society will adapt around it

I think this will never happen (in the US). The modern political environment in the US won't allow it.

If it appears that there will be an expansion of social benefits, the wealthy class will work to sabotage it (a la ACA; not that there weren't benefits, but net-net the shareholders and executives of insurance companies won). There's nothing stopping them.

What's more likely to happen, IMO, is that as the cost of existing increases, the birth rates will continue to decline. Rather than address this population crisis, the wealthy class will continue to advance automation. LLMs, AI, robots, autonomous driving, etc. With their left hand, they'll import cheap labor. With their right, they'll pit the rest of us against this cheap labor to distract from reality. The corporations want this cheap, imported labor -- they just don't want to pay the taxes to support social services for anyone.

The wealth gap will continue to widen without a voting base willing to increase taxation. And to suppress this, the wealthy will use a narrative that is driven by the media consolidated and owned by these mega-rich. There are increasingly few politicians on either side that feel like they are genuine about solving this issue. The flood of money in politics feels like it's broken the system.

[jjav]

> the wealthy class will continue to advance automation. LLMs, AI, robots, autonomous driving, etc.

The end game is something like the planet Solaria from Asimov.

[UweSchmidt]

Everything you say may be true, but is orthogonal.

I do think social benefits are expanding in the USA also, more and more people find it viable to be a NEET. The wealth gap will surely widen; this implicit UBI is certainly not communism in any way. Truth is, today western societies can afford to provide the basics for everyone, so ultimately withholding in order to keep the masses in the jobs is not tenable.

[Joeboy]

> There won't be the big UBI day, where we make the big switch globally. It's a creeping expansion of social benefits and transfer payments and an easing of work conditions

I agree, in the sense that I think UBI proponents would do better to lobby for that than a big, deus-ex-machina version of UBI. But I don't see it happening "naturally", without a lot of political effort.

[UweSchmidt]

I do see it happening naturally; the very idea that an UBI idea is floating around is a product of the wealth and automation we enjoy. It's a realization that sets in on a broad front, from bullshit jobs, to new generations of products that are not improving much or even regressing, environmental concerns that discourage producing more, massive government budgets squandered ("why not give it to the people who need it?"), and COVID giving people a pause in their respective hamster wheels.

Imagine a technological reset and/or war: Under those circumstances one could still argue for a socialist system of work, but not for people doing nothing getting UBI.

[Joeboy]

Maybe things are different where you live, but it seems like the opposite is happening here (the UK). The State Pension (UBI for old people) is getting further restricted. At least anecdotally, it seems like it's getting harder to claim benefits like Disability Living Allowance or Personal Independence Payments. We introduced additional caps on benefit payments in 2013 and again in 2017. Our new government doesn't show any obvious sign of reversing the trend, and I don't see any popular movement to encourage them to.

[UweSchmidt]

All right, there are certainly other major forces affecting western societies and various scenarios could play out in the future. Let's put our weight behind the movements that would lead to some positive outcomes...