[FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

I speculate that UBI *could* be very positive for humanity. But there are many reasons why it could not work as well as intended too. Three main criticisms that come to mind are: a) There are many people who need to be employed to have meaning in life. (please exclude me from this group) b) The

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

a) How many people need employment for meaning? 10? 1M? How was that data gathered? Where is that data? Worse yet, in a world defined such that you *die* unless you're employed, it's circular reasoning to argue that employment gives meaning to life. The only way to escape such a vicious circle

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

@Glen, re your *"Ben Shapiro is a troll whose shtick is suckering people into "debates" just so he can get air time for his ideology." * I'm not knowledgeable about Ben Shapiro, what you say could be true about him in general, I just would not know. Did you listen to the video clip before making

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

Yes, I understand you might feel that way. But this is part of the shtick. It's a rhetorical tactic that very smart trolls hone and use well. To get a better understanding of who you're listening to (one of the Five W's), this article lays it out well: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/12/ho

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

@ Glen, Thanks but no thanks. I'm just not interested in Ben Shapiro and not going to waste my time researching him or even discussing him further. So from my side about Ben Shapiro, I'm outa here and I'm not going to make anymore comments on Ben. My interest when I started the thread was in UBI a

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

Hm. OK. If you'd prefer to talk about UBI (instead of my postscript), how about responses to these points: On 5/4/21 6:35 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote: > a) How many people need employment for meaning? 10? 1M? How was that data > gathered? Where is that data? > > Worse yet, in a world defined such that y

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

In an attempt to answer my own question (a), I found this article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/tracking-wonder/201903/you-are-not-your-work It's confirmation bias, for sure. But there are some interesting links. And I get to add "workism" to my basket of modern -isms, like scientism

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

@Glen, I'm a supporter of UBI and mentioned a couple of points I came across from people that're against it. I don't claim to have all the answers and I am open to listen to the arguments of those against it, that's why I mentioned them, but I don't support those claims so I'm not going to defend t

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

OK. Well, if Andrew were here, I'd be happy to discuss it with him. But he's not and you are. The link you sent is to Ben Shapiro's brand marketing channel. Anyone who wants Ben Shapiro to make more money, please watch it and hit those like and subscribe buttons. 8^D On 5/4/21 9:24 AM, Pieter

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

Okay, I'm happy with that. It's just that on UBI we probably have very similar views. I also agree with the views expressed by the psychologytoday reference you gave above about You Are Not Your Work. But, maybe my reading of your comments are wrong? Do you support UBI? On Tue, 4 May 2021 at 18:

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

Well, it depends. My preference would be to replace our money-based subsistence on something else, some collectivist way of cooperating that differs fundamentally from the market-based way we think about these things. But that would be revolutionary, not evolutionary. And, unlike the Marxists, I

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

Ah, now THIS is the Glen I know and love. Your 10:00 post rekindled old rage concerning the incentive-value of money. Here I go. Up on my high horse. Hi, Ho, Silver. Budda bump, budda bump, budda bump, bump, bump. The very little Marxism I know tells me that it is the "triumph" of capitalism

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

Reduction. All things in moderation, including moderation. Reduction is a triumph, if it captures what you're looking for. And fiat currency has done great things for the world, a cultural technology that allows us to explore possibilities we wouldn't have otherwise explored. Financial instrumen

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

I speculate that there is hope for Glen's wish to have some revolutionary change to the current money-based system. With the technological progress that's happening right now all the products and services all of humanity will be provided in abundance by robots and AI without humans at such a low co

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

This bleeds back into my response to (c), which in essence was that we *need* diversity. One huge problem with technology is that tools bias the projects within which they're used. (To a hammer everything looks like a nail.) Hearkening to Ashby, if the diversity of the robots fails to match the

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

Pieter wrote: My speculation is simply based on the premise that the technological progress that's been happening for a long time will not stop. Why will it stop? Well, the first step would be to make a distinction between "progress" and "change", with the former being a subset of the lat

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

""" The very little Marxism I know tells me that it is the "triumph" of capitalism to reduce all relationships to money. """ To reduce all relationships to money is an operation that seeks to objectify things via construal as scalar valuations. That is, two things are considered the same if they

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

I'm glad I held back from throwing in my own $.002 on this topic earlier... I like the general arc it is on and is being articulated much more gesturally than I think I am capable of.   I can't say I *fully* follow Glen's use of reduction and reconstruction in technical detail well, but it suggests

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

Yeah, I agree. But as the miscommunication about the dimension of simplices vs. orthogonal dimensionality seems to indicate, reduction need not imply linearity, and if reduction is used iteratively to discover interestingness, that provenance/method/algorithm need not be lost (1st order Markovia

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

Whether de-objectification, projection pursuit, scaffold-hopping , or asignifying rupture, I am all for germs guiding what follows. Let the capitalists see nails, for who here hasn't opened a beer with a hammer? -- Sent

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

On 5/4/21 4:11 PM, jon zingale wrote: > Whether de-objectification, projection pursuit, scaffold-hopping > , > or asignifying rupture, I am all for germs guiding what follows. Let > the capitalists see nails, for who here has

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

or a BIC? Hopefully, without bending an otherwise interesting thread, I will hint at what IMO might be a serious response to your troll. I was thinking about the rhizomatic nature of both category theory and semiotics. In both the first case, a la the Lawverian approach to foundations, and in the

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

A couple of facts that relate to some of the points raised. I was following a car that had a bumper sticker that said, "Eat the Rich". A man paid $50 million for a penthouse (5 story) in Manhattan. He committed suicide when he couldn't sell it for $35 million. His wife wanted to live where she

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

The simplest case for a UBI is current and past pandemics. Simply put that for some asinine reason our sense of maslow's hierarchy of needs has gone tits up fucked. On Tue, May 4, 2021 at 5:23 PM Frank Wimberly wrote: > A couple of facts that relate to some of the points raised. > > I was fol

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

We have a globe getting pimp slapped by a virus. People getting shit canned for no other reason than breathing. WAstate and one other was/is back to full lockdown, Canada still is. The question isn't reely is UBI a good/bad idea but how fucking fast do we make it happen? and for how much. I'd submi

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

> I was following a car that had a bumper sticker that said, "Eat the Rich". I do understand that some of them are well marbled. - . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfri

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

*Diamond Age: Or, A Young Woman's Illustrated Primer* by Neal Stephenson Required reading for any discussion of economics when the robots produce abundance, or things are too cheap to meter. Nick won'ty read, pretty sure Steve and other already have. davew On Tue, May 4, 2021, at 3:31 PM, Ste

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

I remember listening to "Diamond Age" as a book on tape while driving up the California 1, it was 10 or 12 tapes and the woman who read it did an amazing job. What a wonderful book. There have been a few books in my life that I feel have found me like the illustrated primer found Nell, a book that

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

It's hard to imagine UBI in the United States, when you (we, before I left) can't even get a universal health care system. On Tue, May 4, 2021 at 6:47 PM Gillian Densmore wrote: > We have a globe getting pimp slapped by a virus. People getting shit > canned for no other reason than breathing. WA

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

Well we can *imagine *both. Problem is actually getting either one. On Tue, May 4, 2021 at 9:05 PM Gary Schiltz wrote: > It's hard to imagine UBI in the United States, when you (we, before I > left) can't even get a universal health care system. > > On Tue, May 4, 2021 at 6:47 PM Gillian Densmo

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

I also consumed DA on tape/CD and appreciated the reader as well, but a decade after it was written.   I read it (on paper) when it came out, mostly following up his Snow Crash which I did not discover until just as Diamond Age came out.   I was previously introduced to him via his eco-thriller Zod

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

Dave, No you can’t have read it. Otherwise your life would have been completely transformed because you would have come to belief that sex- and mone- seeking are pathological distortions of human ambition. I pretty sure nobody has read it because, so far as I know, nobody has been thu

Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

I'd like to address a point Nick made earlier: *Well, the first step would be to make a distinction between "progress" and "change", with the former being a subset of the latter. Now, the task is to see if there is any way to define "progress" transculturally. For me, culture bound as I am, ha