And yet you cheer on the loss of jobs and hand wave away issues as someone else's problem. That makes you part of the problem as the side cheering on the destruction of people's lives. Seriously how do you "workless utopia" fuckwits not see this?

I know how actually: you don't work these jobs and it will make you feel better about your demand for more and excessive consumption because "well at least it didn't hurt a human" but it does and will. You speak from an ivory tower and say it will be good when you hear less screams from below without caring for how the screaming stops.

I have really mixed feelings about automated UBI societies. UBI needs to be tied to some form of "adulting" otherwise you're just going to end up enabling people. The idea of tying people's income to performing certain tasks is also very scary for the potential of abuse. Letting people sit at home and be slobs all day will get us Brave New World.

I think the way to help people is to drastically lower the cost of housing and other essential costs. A government allowance just makes people slaves to the government.

I feel like UBI only works out when people have very strong religious morals that give them discipline and will stop them from becoming fat slobs if they don't need to work.

Oh I know!

Let them build more homes, big neighbourhoods of high-density living spaces. And give them for free to everyone.

Then focus energy on growing and distributing enough food.

While we're at it, give everyone healthcare.

Then watch those 'unemployed' people generate 'value' like we've never seen.

Housed fed healthy people will have great ideas and all the time to implement them.

Automation moves our society forward.

It's been happening since the industrial revolution.

When electricity was becoming widespread people feared for the lamp lighters. When the automobile was invented people feared for the farriers.

Jobs will be created in new spaces. That is how it has worked in the past. This is at a level that we younger folk haven't seen. It can be scary to some. I also won't deny this will happen at a faster pace than most other changes.

The genie is out of the bottle.

Your likely know everything I've said up to this point. Here's where we differ.

Most businesses in developed countries revolve around selling things to the middle class. Those businesses that don't directly, usually play a role to that end. Without a middle class to sell things to very few businesses will exist. If you don't believe me, browse the fortune 500 list. The Fords, GEs, Home Depots all depends on a middle class.

Philosophically, if the middle class ceases to exist were fucked. If it gets to a point where ford is failing (again) those people with political influence will be asking for ubi. We don't need to stress over this. I have no political influence. I can't call in favors with senators. Over half the country is opposed to ubi. Let it play out a little. See what happens. We'll get through this.

There are so many factors at play right now and they're all changing so fast that it's hard to even guess at what strategy might be beneficial. AI development and automated manufacturing could theoretically bring down the costs of making in America to the point where American companies bring manufacturing back to the States again. On the other hand it could exasperate the rust belt trend that killed many Midwest cities.

I think in the short term it's going to be pretty bad for unskilled labor and it already has been pretty bad especially in certain areas of the country like west Virginia. The problem is all of Scandinavia has a population lower than California's let alone the entire US. It's amazingly easier to adapt when you have a small densely populated populous. Wyoming has a population density of 6 people per square mile.

Only time will tell but if Congress's current misadventures is telling at all I'm not overly optimistic.

Not Kiva bots specifically, but similar concept, different vendors. Lots of new companies popped up in the years after Amazon bought them, but their protectionism definitely set the industry back at least 5 years. I don’t want to share any specific vendors, because that would cause the info that I’m sharing to violate my NDAs.

And yeah, you’re totally right about the environmental and reading constraints, but I’m talking more the internal problems that I’ve noticed in a few different vendors’ logic. I’m also an engineer so i totally get what you’re talking about, and the dumb robot problem that I’m talking about is simply insufficient engineering. Problems like sending a robot to pick up a rack to move it, then setting a path that is impassable despite the system having all the necessary inputs and correctly recording and storing all the data necessary to make a more informed decision and choose a better path. But instead the robot takes the impassable path, then when its censors notice there is a blockage, it stops but it’s too late to get another path at that point because of system constraints. If the logic had properly validated the path with the available data at the time of assignment rather than visual cues much later, it would cause much fewer issues. So that’s one example the sort of thing I’m referring to when I say they’re too dumb.

I think you're missing the point, those who lose their jobs to automation are somewhat random / due to environmental factors and not up to choice so it's a bit weird suggesting that.

What they are suggesting is politicians will only act once enough people are suffering in the streets. Not necessarily saying it's morally justified, just that's what it takes for governments to take action. Nobody is defending how our politicians are failing us.

Is that what you gather from my comment? 😳

I didn't say keep people in shitty jobs. I said pretty much let's make Amazon pay back all the tax breaks theyve got and if they want to remove employees tax them for it. Why do you think all the cities in America threw themselves at Amazon and offered $100s of millions of tax breaks to open facilities near them. It was for the jobs they were bringing locally. They want to remove, fine. Other corporations that effectively pay $0 in taxes each year want to dump workers too, that's cool. They better pay for doing it tho. For running small businesses out of towns. For using genuine antitrust practices to prevent real competition that would have kept wages and jobs safe all these years. They owe the American people. All you guys defending them, defending the failure of capitalism can suck my dick. I'm done fighting this with you.

Me too! Or at least I’m in the industry. Software side though.