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UBI as transition to RBE

An RBE is certainly the goal and UBI is an important step towards getting there. It isn't really so much about the amount,$1000 a month. UBI does something far more important that I have almost never heard talked about. Our current system depends upon the idea that you have to "earn" your right to exist. If you do not have money, be it inherited, worked for, stolen or otherwise, then you might as well die. This is the complete opposite of the basic RBE train of thought. Changing this fundamental thing that capitalism depends on is the number one first step towards the RBE. I really feel that as long as that simple fact of capitalism remains, we will not make progress to the RBE.

"If you do not have or 'earn' money, you have no actual right to live".

This is like a primary line of code at the heart of the global operating system we live in. UBI erases that one simple line of code, changes it to:

"You have value because you are human. You have the right to exist because you exist."

This is important on an epic level! This is the thing I urge everyone who craves for the better world to grasp. It is not a small thing and needs to be understood. It is not so much about the dollar amount (although that also matters). It is more about changing the story that capitalism requires for its survival.

NAC 6/29/2019

UBI and environmental consumption

ANON-

"I love the fact that people are waking up to the #FreedomDividend and how great it will be for the country, but I hope it doesn't fuel more excessive consumption of cheap products that are not good for the environment. Is there an angle to work with here so people would, ideally, use their dividend responsibly?"

Neil Adam Collins It seems like there is an assumption here hidden in this worry. The hidden assumption is that if people don't have the Freedom Dividend, the $1000 a month, if things stay as they are, without UBI, with a large group in poverty THEN... the environment will be better off, that the environment will be ok. So, is people being poor and struggling... is that the thing that is protecting the environment right now??

I don't think it is. I think that the things which are really destroying the environment are on a scale larger than what the average and below average income person would effect if they had $1000 a month. If we care about the environment we will have to realize that the consumption habits of the average consumer is a very small part of the problem.

The vastly larger harm done to the environment lies in the choices of industry, the way mining and logging is done, the way products are made, the way they are packaged, the way they are shipped back and forth around the world, the massive pollution caused by cruise ships, by the excessive air travel of the wealthy who fly around the world many times a year for business or vacation etc... These structural decisions, economic decisions are made by governments and corporations on gigantic global scales. Yet the average person is busy worrying about how to recycle an extra can or use a couple less plastic straws a week. I can't help think this way of thinking, of putting all the blame into the mind of the small time consumer is a smokescreen.

Milton Fang Yang proposes a UBI to solve a basic problem, a transitional shift from manual labor to automation and AI. This constantly has devolved to what will people spend UBI on or will they decide to be lazy or what not. Yang believes that it really does not matter what people spend their UBI on at this point. I don't think he believe UBI will solve all the problems in the world, but it's gotta start by solving some basic problems. So by providing UBI, this solves some basic problems in 3 folds. 1 - it gives everyone a floor so that our moral basis is covered (over population / consumption is an entirely other issue that needs to be tackled). 2 - it provides for a more equalized say/participation in capitalism (and eventually when the people/government is the largest capital holder as they should be, corporations will naturally need defer to the people/customer). 3 - get people's minds off economic survival, and into larger issues like climate crisis, over consumption, moral values, and start putting human intellect and ingenuity to solve future problems, instead of wasting it on present woes.


(Notice point about "Scarcity mindset".)

Global Tech Forum 2018: Blockchain:

"How we approach Universal Basic Income is a heated debate. I actually debated against UBI in Oxford Union, Not because I don't support individual people... if they don't get a job they shouldn't be helped, but because I don't think there will be a sensible model for government to produce UBI.
However, if we give the pricing power to individuals, in an AI economy where data is really the fuel of an AI economy then selling data is potential income source for UBI."
-Jennifer Zhu Scott, Founding Principal, Radian Partners

"The reason I am excited about blockchain is that it is really transforming the world in the sense that... redesigning the role of corporations and redisigning how wealth is being distributed. If you look at the past 30 years, internet has become the driving force of wealth growth but internet is a very monopolizing economy. Theres no other industry that has such a big networking effect that has favoring the guy on the top. I even think the internet boom could be blamed as part of the reason for the populism politics because even though the global wealth is being driven up tremendously because of internet and digital economy, only a fraction of the population got richer. If you look at blockchain it actually transformed the relationship between consumers and enterprize. Consumers are stakeholders in the beginning of the project. Secondly I think it will challenge the current data ownership mechanism scheme of today. Because I think data of the people should be by the people and for the people. I believe 10 years down the road when we look back we will see peoples data, a person's data the same way we are seeing her intellect and her labor. If you are making a profit based on the users data the user needs to be compensated. I think blockchain can lay the foundation for that and it really has a much deeper and social impact for the entire world.
-Chen Lei, Founder and CEO, Xunlei




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AJmafRdkSs

Self checkout meme

I love self-checkout. When Albertson's bought out my local Safeway they got rid of the self checkout machines and I really miss them. I really believe that the purpose of machines is to free humans from mindless tasks. I think we should support automation rather than try to "save jobs".

So many things are done now by machines which used to be done by people and this is actually a good thing. There used to be switch-board operators and people who took down phone messages. Now we have answering machines and computers. There even used to be a man whose job it was to operate the elevators. The list of obsolete jobs is vast. Should we bring them back? Should we move backwards for the sake of "jobs"?

I don't like the idea of another human standing on that hard concrete floor 8 hours a day ringing up groceries when such a thing can easily be done by a machine. Humans are so much more valuable and creative than this.






Bring back the elevator man too!! And the "switch board operator". Get rid of your answering machine or voicemail app on your phone so that we can all hire some worker to write down our messages for us. Bring back the pony express. So many jobs have already been automated. Automation is a long process, not an event. Why choose this particular step in the process to be against and ignore the






Seriously though. I absolutely hate going to a register and having someone stand there serving me, asking how my day is. They don't care about me, they ask because of MONEY. They are paid to smile, paid to bag the food that I will eat. Am I a child? Am I a prince to be served? Surely a human has not evolved on this planet for millions of years to stand 8 hours at a stretch to scan products, going "Beep Beep Beep". To think that labor for income, for the right to exist, is some thing to perpetuate and defend until the indefinite future... this is a sad result of brainwashing.






Unions should be embracing automation rather than inhibiting it. The gains from automation could be something that is dispersed among the people (call them union members if you like). If unions cannot adapt to new technologies, if they cling to the protestant work ethic then perhaps they belong on the dust bin of history where they have been headed. Where are the Union Members who face modern reality?






Joe Biden is a great example of a fossil who lives in the past when it comes to the issue of work and automation, telling stories of how his father and grandfather viewed the subject. "A job is about so much more than a paycheck, its about having dignity, its about being able to come home and tell your kids its going to be ok." -Biden says.


Well, WHY does a job allow you to go home and tell your kids 'its ok'? Because of the PAYCHECK. Circular logic. So why not just get the paycheck without the job? Have the machines do the work and we the people collectively benefit via UBI? This is the old fashioned thinking disconnect. As for a job giving "dignity"? The fact is that for the majority of us, the paycheck IS the only dignity involved in our jobs. Jobs with intrinsic dignity and a sense of meaning do exist but those are not the kind of jobs most of us have.

10/11/2019

So, I read the book "In Sam We Trust" about a year ago. It is an exhaustively detailed book about the history of Walmart. It is so detailed in fact that the writer also researched the histories of retail in general, Sears, Target, Kmart, Kroger and a bunch of other retail giants you never heard of.


One of the interesting points in the book to me relates to the complaints about self-checkout. 100 years ago a similar change took place and some people also complained but history forgot and we don't really care about it anymore. In fact we assume the way shopping is done now, is how it always has been done, but it isn't. You know, walking around the store, pushing a cart, putting items in the cart, pushing the cart to the front of the store where a clerk rings up your items and you pay them, then you push the cart to your car and load them in and drive off.


100 years ago, you would walk into a general store, and order items from the clerk at the front. He would send the "bag boy" into the back and the boy would put your order together. Then you would leave. You had no business wandering around in the back of the store. Later that day if you were lucky, the "boy" would deliver the groceries to your house or farm. They would send you the bill or it would be added to your tab.


Larger Department Stores were the only places you might wander around in where the items were kept. But they had clerks standing at counters in each separate "department" to help you and take your orders. You didn't walk out with the items right then. Your order was put together form the various departments and sent to your house or farm after you left.


My point is that the system we have now is not the way it has always been. It has changed and it will change again. When the system we have now came into practice it was called the new "self-service" shopping store. Some people claimed it got rid of jobs, but here we are used to it and not remembering or caring about the obsolete ways of the past. And so it will be again.

rh bal

Deposit Nov 7, 2018+$50.00
Deposit Oct 25, 2018+$50.00
Deposit Oct 23, 2018+$20.00
Deposit Oct 18, 2018+$20.00
Deposit Oct 5, 2018+$50.00
Deposit Sep 28, 2018+$15.00
Deposit Sep 21, 2018+$50.00
Deposit Sep 19, 2018+$5.00
Deposit Sept.18,2018+$5.00
Deposit Sep,17,2018+$8.00
Deposit Sep 17,2018+$10.00
Deposit Sep 12,2018+$30.00
Deposit Aug 27,2018+$25.00
Deposit Aug 23,2018+$4.00
Deposit Aug 16,2018+$25.00
Deposit Aug 14,2018+$25.00
Deposit Aug 10,2018+$25.00
Deposit Aug 9,2018+$1.00
Deposit Aug 1,2018+$10.00

Deposit Aug 1,2018+$1.00

Deposit Jul 26,2018+$25.00

Deposit Jul 19,2018+$5.64

Deposit Jul 11,2018+$50.00

Deposit Jun 27,2018+$50.00

Deposit Jun 12,2018+$25.00

Deposit May 25,2018+$25.00
Withdrawal May 18,2018+$1700.00

Deposit May 14,2018+$50.00

Withdrawal May 9,2018-$100.00

Withdrawal May 8,2018-$23.00

Deposit Mar 2,2018+$25.00

Deposit Feb 7,2018+$20.00

Deposit Feb 2,2018+$25.00

Deposit Feb 1,2018+$160.00

Deposit Jan 23,2018+$63.75

Deposit Jan 19,2018+$40.00

Deposit Jan 11,2018+$700.00

Deposit Jan 5,2018+$25.00

Deposit Jan 3,2018+$25.00

Deposit Dec 28, 2017+$50.00
Deposit Dec 28, 2017+$150.00
Deposit Dec 26, 2017+$40.00
Deposit Dec 22, 2017+$50.00
Deposit Dec 21, 2017+$10.00
Deposit Dec 18, 2017+$200.00
Deposit Dec 13, 2017+$50.00
Deposit Dec 13, 2017+$150.00
Deposit Nov 30, 2017+$100.00
Deposit Nov 28, 2017+$100.00
Deposit Nov 16, 2017+$40.00
Deposit Nov 9, 2017+$50.00
Deposit Nov 1, 2017+$35.00
Deposit Oct 25, 2017+$125.00
CHK Oct.29,2017+$3.78
GRPN Oct.22,2017+$4.82
ZNGA Oct.21,2017+$3.94
ZNGA Oct.19,2017+$3.91


Total= $1,086.84
Actual=$804.
Difference=$282