EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 3678
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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
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farvacola
United States18838 Posts
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Mohdoo
United States15723 Posts
So while there will of course be negatives, there will also be positives. I also anticipate our population will shrink as education across the world increases and breeding religious (Muslims, Mormons, Catholics etc) lose credibility over time. This idea of robots stealing all the jobs and unemployment skyrocketing is not a well founded fear, IMO. Change happens over time and things tend to go ok, even if growing pains exist. | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
I can think of, for example, the harvest of crops. It used to be that everyone in a certain area would pitch in to harvest crops. It's now work done mostly with sophisticated machinery and diesel fuel. People won't do work which is now automated anymore, but they will move on to other sectors. I can hardly see this as a cause for the need of work to diminish. Demand is what makes work viable in the first place. You can work all you want, if no one buys your product then you'll have worked for nothing. Demand is a fickle thing, but one which is certainly reliable enough either way. There will always be work to be done. | ||
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farvacola
United States18838 Posts
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JW_DTLA
242 Posts
"We’re not a movement where I can snap my fingers and say to you or to anybody else what you should do, that you should all listen to me. You shouldn’t. You make these decisions yourself," Sanders replied. He then said that Clinton will have to court his supporters herself. "And if Secretary Clinton wins, it is incumbent upon her to tell millions of people who right now do not believe in establishment politics or establishment economics, who have serious misgivings about a candidate who has received millions of dollars from Wall Street and other special interests," he said. "She has got to go out to you." http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sanders-clinton-supporters-go-out-to-you **Edit: if you don't like Krugman, then you have to prove him wrong. It isn't enough to dislike his conclusions. | ||
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Krikkitone
United States1451 Posts
On April 26 2016 23:32 Incognoto wrote: Automation can and probably will replace manual labor in some circumstances, but that won't eliminate the need for work either. Those systems would need programming, maintenance, someone to define the right kind of work to do, and then there are still a plethora of tasks which cannot be automated. Some aspects of work may get industrialized, but that will certainly not eliminate the need for labor. Especially when it comes to human on human tasks. And a Basic income doesn't remove the need for labor either. Assuming that <100% of all of the economy is taxed to pay for the basic income, there will be some money that you can only get your hands on by working (or having capital because someone else worked earlier) Now at very high basic incomes you won't have too many people going for that 'earned money'. It depends on what (approximately) the basic income will cover. ...enough for a family of 4 to have a 5 bedroom house, a summer home, 2 international vacations a year, 3 cars, private schools for the kids, and top line medical care*...(95% of the populace isn't contributing anything to society besides cat videos..and society probably collapses) or ...enough for a family of 4 to avoid starvation while they camp under the freeway..(everyone is either working, an owner, or very desperate/dead) *a note that society does provide a lot in terms of stuff given away, they just provide a wide variety of different hoops/strings. (some strings make good sense, most don't) | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21946 Posts
a factory line job can be filled by anyone, regardless of education level (more or less). If they get replaced by engineers/technicians/consultants ect the education requirements not only go up but become more specialized which leads to an increase in unemployment as people find there is no work for their education field. And yes an engineer doesn't want to do factory line work but he can do so if its needed to put food on the table. On April 26 2016 23:55 Krikkitone wrote: And a Basic income doesn't remove the need for labor either. Assuming that <100% of all of the economy is taxed to pay for the basic income, there will be some money that you can only get your hands on by working (or having capital because someone else worked earlier) Now at very high basic incomes you won't have too many people going for that 'earned money'. It depends on what (approximately) the basic income will cover. ...enough for a family of 4 to have a 5 bedroom house, a summer home, 2 international vacations a year, 3 cars, private schools for the kids, and top line medical care*...(95% of the populace isn't contributing anything to society besides cat videos..and society probably collapses) or ...enough for a family of 4 to avoid starvation while they camp under the freeway..(everyone is either working, an owner, or very desperate/dead) *a note that society does provide a lot in terms of stuff given away, they just provide a wide variety of different hoops/strings. (some strings make good sense, most don't) Personally I would say enough for a single person to rent an apartment, pay for food/utilities and household maintenance (replacing broken furniture/tv/fridge) plus a little extra for savings or luxury goods but it all depends on how the math for government income from tax works out. If you want to own a house, go on vacation abroad ect you have to work for it. | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
I'm not arguing for basic income, I'm just pointing out that automation does not spell out mass unemployment. When one kind of job dies out, there are other jobs to replace it. Getting an education is important. Edit it's true that jobs become more specialized though, that's for sure. | ||
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farvacola
United States18838 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21946 Posts
On April 26 2016 23:54 JW_DTLA wrote: Turns out old independent Bernie is a suicide bomber trying to blow up the Democratic party. Check out his statements last night. He is flinging mud (baseless mud btw) at Hillary as he is going down. Rather than trying to unite the party to achieve his much vaunted "issues people care about", he rails against establishment politics and establishment economics**. Bernie has revealed that his whole game of raising $140 million dollars and then spending it all on the Bernie Sanders Brand without a lick of downticket support was really all about Bernie Sanders. Does he not get that his brand is a special interest too? I hate the guy now and relish his every loss. Today will be a great day for him to go down another 100 delegates. "We’re not a movement where I can snap my fingers and say to you or to anybody else what you should do, that you should all listen to me. You shouldn’t. You make these decisions yourself," Sanders replied. He then said that Clinton will have to court his supporters herself. "And if Secretary Clinton wins, it is incumbent upon her to tell millions of people who right now do not believe in establishment politics or establishment economics, who have serious misgivings about a candidate who has received millions of dollars from Wall Street and other special interests," he said. "She has got to go out to you." http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sanders-clinton-supporters-go-out-to-you **Edit: if you don't like Krugman, then you have to prove him wrong. It isn't enough to dislike his conclusions. To respond specifically to the 2 quotes you listed. I agree with him entirely. People should make up their own minds, not blindly listen to what Bernie says and I'm happy (and not surprised) he says that. And yes Hillary should try to convince Bernie supporters she is worthy of their vote after securing the nomination. She shouldn't just get them all thrown in her lap like dogs by Bernie (see his first quote). | ||
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ticklishmusic
United States15977 Posts
Also the establishment economics line grinds my gears. | ||
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Kickboxer
Slovenia1308 Posts
On April 26 2016 22:05 LegalLord wrote: If you can prove by example that people "invest in themselves" in a real economy that doesn't require them to work, perhaps you'd have a point. Otherwise, you're just using pseudoscience (overly simplistic feel-good pop psychology) to push a poorly thought out economic system that will fail worse than the caricatures of economies that you denounce. Just look into psychology 101 and try to understand what drives human beings. I cba to write an essay on such a contingent topic but you can always wait for the results of pilot BI experiments being conducted in Europe and be absolutely astonished. "People are lazy" is one of the biggest lies of right-wing socioeconomic propaganda and should immediately be sacked from any serious debate. Humans are naturally creative, growth-driven and self motivated creatures that strive for social recognition. Conflating their refusal to perform menial labor in return for crumbs offering no room for existential growth or basic dignity with laziness is not only silly but also dishonest. If you force humans into the above position, the best among them will simply revolt or become criminals, because that is the reasonable way to go. The rest will go into "resignation" mode and develop a range of mental issues from depression to psychopathy, which then perpetuates the "culture of poverty" fat people in ugly suits like to mention so frequently. Take a look at any ghetto or project for proof. Furthermore, the "freeloading" argument is built on the nonsense of offering people on the social bottom the following options: 1) be a lazy fuck in exchange for food stamps and some weed. you're also not allowed to work (!!!) 2) 50+ hrs workweek doing menial labor that pays nothing, offers no fulfillment and no dignity / perspective, ever 3) criminal activity with outstanding potential for material gains and social mobility Out of the above any sane person will naturally choose either 1 or 3 which certainly isn't surprising. Does that make people lazy? Most conservatives believe so, and they're being idiots because faced with the same options Lord Whatsitsface would make exactly the same choices any juvenile gangbanger has made, every time. If you want the meritocracy righties cherish so much, the first thing you need is a level playing field. Same goes for free markets. When people are forced at gunpoint (=threat of existential failure) to perform meaningless work, while also having no realistic way of ever amassing enough capital to play the "real game", the market is in no way a representation of the "willing exchange" libertarians keep on babbling about but merely slavery in disguise. Also, who says a person on Basic Income doesn't want a Ferrari? The "motivation gap" between homeless and rich, and between comfortably poor and rich stays exactly the same, it's just that people have the time and resources to actually work towards success. | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
On April 27 2016 00:06 farvacola wrote: Required specialization/increased education requirements, while certainly relevant to the discussion, bring about some very intriguing and difficult to solve dilemmas on their own though. For example, are we confident that the labor pool is, generally speaking, amenable to specialization/education in any sort of uniform manner? In other words, let's say that there is around 20% of the labor supply that is, by virtue of its members' own limitations, simply unable to learn more or specialize beyond basic tasks like those available in the dwindling manufacturing industry; what exactly happens to them without something like a basic income? I'm sure that there will always be a place for such people, especially in the service sector for example. It could be as simple as maintenance for machinery, which itself is never going to stop requiring maintenance. Same for the building industry. | ||
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
On April 26 2016 23:06 Mercy13 wrote: Here's some of the "hard data" he was referring to: economics.mit.edu As automation takes over the economy I really don't see another option besides providing a basic income. If most of the production in the economy is created by capital rather than labor, many people will not be able to find productive work no matter how hard they try. Automation isn't necessarily a bad thing, but we are going to need a much more robust wealth transfer program than we have today to compensate for it. I think you're using a study to conclude something much different from what it is talking about. That program specifically does mention that these programs are social programs, for the very poor, that have specific eligibility requirements (mostly pregnancy support and education support programs). Further, it doesn't show that it incentivizes people to work when that program gives them enough income so that they don't have to. All it shows is that well-targeted social programs with incentives for positive behaviors (such as having children) can be helpful for improving welfare without damaging the economy. Not really support for a basic income. Show me an economy with an unconditional, or close to unconditional, no-strings-attached livable first world income (something that is perhaps a substantial fraction of minimum wage) given to people for free, and perhaps that would work differently. And as someone previously mentioned, automation is gradual and there are means to improve the ability of people to work (e.g. further education). We've been developing automation for centuries. | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
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zatic
Zurich15355 Posts
On April 27 2016 00:13 Incognoto wrote: I'm sure that there will always be a place for such people, especially in the service sector for example. It could be as simple as maintenance for machinery, which itself is never going to stop requiring maintenance. Same for the building industry. Do you seriously believe that? I mean, that might still have been a valid point of view in the 90s, but to hold on to this fairytale today is absurd to me. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21946 Posts
On April 27 2016 00:18 Incognoto wrote: I wonder if basic income limited to food stamps or water would help. And now your no longer talking about basic income but a homeless shelter. Try not to confuse the two. they have very different goals. Basic income is not about stopping you from starving. We already have systems in place for that (well most of the Western world anyway). Basic income is about providing people without work with the money required to keep a capitalist supply/demand structure rolling in a world of large scale unemployment due to automation. Someone on food stamps cannot buy a table to eat at. Therefor the factory has not enough people to sell tables to and closes down which puts more people on food stamps unable to buy goods which means more factories close which means more people on foods stamps ect ect ect. Look at the recent economic crisis and the effect of austerity in for example Greece. It created a downward cycle. Basic Income would halt that cycle at a certain level by allowing unemployed people to spend money in the economy. | ||
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farvacola
United States18838 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21946 Posts
On April 27 2016 00:27 farvacola wrote: Basic income could also be theoretically incorporated into a non-capitalist system too Certainly but is there even a viable theoretical alternative at the moment? | ||
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