[adrianN]

I would rather that the respectable factory job is done by a robot. I don't think we should force humans to do repetitive work that can be automated just so that they can somehow justify their existence in a society that is obsessed with work. Our goal should be as little employment as necessary paired with a basic income.

[wallflower]

Marshall Brain's Manna which has been mentioned before on HN is an interesting take on where automation and robots will take us.

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

[BrandonMarc]

Interesting read. It starts off showing a nightmare scenario of capitalism gone wrong ... similar themes with the original Robocop movies (without the violence and gore). It finishes with a dreamy scenario of communism gone well, though it ignores many issues, hand-waves others, and ends rather abruptly.

It was interesting to see where one futurist believes we could go.

[brazzy]

"will"?

[wallflower]

s/will/may

Rereading it again. He basically foreshadowed Amazon warehouse workers. Though he may fall short on the leap from Amazon to the rest of the working class.

[JoachimS]

Ok, where are the money for the basic income coming from?

All the people getting replaced by automation will be less able economically to buy stuff, use services - and pay taxes. Automation removes a lot of costs, frees up a lot of resources and increases profits. But all those positive effects does not compensate for the negative effects unless there is real net gains. For most of the society.

[Retric]

A long term stable basic income would be paid for by an income tax + a wealth tax. Suppose you set those numbers at 5% income tax and a 0.1% wealth tax. Now today that's not going to pay for much of a basic income, however it's better than a farmer in 1800. Keep pushing effecency and your quality of life keeps going up.