Elon Musk: Universal Basic Income will be necessary

[Grooveriding]

I get Musk is a 'hyper' capitalist in his opinions, but I think capitalism is a failing system and we're already seeing those failures right now with the fruits of it concentrating in an extremely small minority. It's the best of a group of bad systems, but I don't believe it's sustainable as it operates right now. If we're still here in a thousand years, I don't expect we'll still be using it as an economic basis. The main value it brings is one of motivation; getting people to educate, innovate and produce. Also, some of the largest concentrations of wealth in capitalism are being generated among people not producing anything, just playing a game of numbers to accumulate more wealth.

I also think a drastic population reduction is inevitable, whether by protocols brought in to control reproduction rates vs. deaths, or via a crisis resulting in significant population reduction. We're not running a sustainable system on the planet, it will eventually catch up to us and I expect we'll see significant population reductions. Not in our lifetimes, barring nuclear war, but not that far off.

I think both of these could prevent or change his prediction.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I get Musk is a 'hyper' capitalist in his opinions, but I think capitalism is a failing system and we're already seeing those failures right now with the fruits of it concentrating in an extremely small minority. It's the best of a group of bad systems, but I don't believe it's sustainable as it operates right now. If we're still here in a thousand years, I don't expect we'll still be using it as an economic basis. The main value it brings is one of motivation; getting people to educate, innovate and produce. Also, some of the largest concentrations of wealth in capitalism are being generated among people not producing anything, just playing a game of numbers to accumulate more wealth.

I also think a drastic population reduction is inevitable, whether by protocols brought in to control reproduction rates vs. deaths, or via a crisis resulting in significant population reduction. We're not running a sustainable system on the planet, it will eventually catch up to us and I expect we'll see significant population reductions. Not in our lifetimes, barring nuclear war, but not that far off.

I think both of these could prevent or change his prediction.

Soma in exchange for food and clothing. Kill ambition, strong emotion, desire for sex. Population drops and only the Purple left to control all.

The survivors are pacified perhaps by eugenics. A controlled small population with those at the top eventually moving into a virtual reality by direct brain stimulation and be a god or demon and the rest can die off or form tribal associations since knowledge is bet supressed in that scenario. In the meantime machines provide support for the Purple and lure the rest of the survivors to prevent advancement and rebellion.

 

[Lash444]

I just appreciate the fact that one of the most forward thinking people on the planet, is being called out by one of our forum members for "not having a crystal ball."

 

[ch33zw1z]

It's all about fairy tales for some people lol

 

[Grooveriding]

Soma in exchange for food and clothing. Kill ambition, strong emotion, desire for sex. Population drops and only the Purple left to control all.

The survivors are pacified perhaps by eugenics. A controlled small population with those at the top eventually moving into a virtual reality by direct brain stimulation and be a god or demon and the rest can die off or form tribal associations since knowledge is bet supressed in that scenario. In the meantime machines provide support for the Purple and lure the rest of the survivors to prevent advancement and rebellion.

This seems like the best solution. Who has contact information for Musk to send this plan forward?

 

[mect]

Low- skill human labour that is replaced with capital is what I'm talking about. Not everybody is going to be jobless all of a sudden. Automation happens gradually and mostly in retail and manufacturing sorts of businesses. You'll still have high-skill jobs like programmers, engineers, doctors, lawyers and a plethora of ones I can't think of ATM. These people will be spending money while low-skilled, high-labour workers would be made redundant.

Actually, I think high-skills jobs are in greater danger than a lot of low-skilled labor. Look at doctors and lawyers, for instance. They are incredibly expensive to train, and yet a lot of what they do can be easily replicated even right now by computers. While I don't see them going away entirely, I think the demand, particularly for general practitioners, could easily drop. I think more and more, the value of traditional high skills jobs will be the very best being involved in improving a computer's ability to replicate these jobs.

 

[interchange]

I don't feel a threat to my job being replaced by robots ever. Healthcare costs are ballooning, and it's not going in the doctor's pocket. And although execs are lining their pockets, they don't make up the disparity either. The number of people employed to satisfy the administrative systems -- well that's just huge.

Funny also -- manufacturing employs less than 10% of US workers.

It's funny to me how much people reduce humanity to logic and needs-based decisions. As if that's what motivates people.

 

[bshole]

If robots can supply abundance making human labor for huge numbers of people impossible to find, that very abundance will obviate a need for much income since abundance means cheap. But the question of meaning is already real today. People have material goods at least in the Western world but they have no satisfactory sense that their wishes for the directions society is taking is under their control. People are angry about that in my opinion and an angry public isn't a good thing. Our democracy needs a lot of work. Maybe robots will give us more time to do something about that.

Why do humans need meaning anyways? No other lifeform gives a shit about meaning, they simply exist.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I don't feel a threat to my job being replaced by robots ever. Healthcare costs are ballooning, and it's not going in the doctor's pocket. And although execs are lining their pockets, they don't make up the disparity either. The number of people employed to satisfy the administrative systems -- well that's just huge.

Funny also -- manufacturing employs less than 10% of US workers.

It's funny to me how much people reduce humanity to logic and needs-based decisions. As if that's what motivates people.

What matters is what people who have the real say in society believe. Consider the concept of black and red ink. When the ratio becomes unfavorable then people become casualties of progress. Note it is never those making the decisions who suffer even when their utility is in question.

Some of us can get beyond dominance and submission, the need control others for our benefit, but the species seeks a pecking order like dogs in a pack. That's why we have the Trumps or Clintons in the world for that matter. Some alpha to look up to as a better. Others to look down on as inferiors.

You and I might be the most brilliant people with the "right" solutions but that does not mean if correct decisions and and paths are laid out in the clearest terms they will be paid heed.

Humans are not rational, or I perhaps they are but rationality is ultimately self determined and not always for a greater good.

 

[Moonbeam]

Why do humans need meaning anyways? No other lifeform gives a shit about meaning, they simply exist.

They don't simply exist. They are. The search for meaning is the search for being, to be because we are not. Our being is fragmented, we are divided against ourselves. We live in our heads with hearts that are dead. Being is love.

 

[Moonbeam]

It's funny to me how much people reduce humanity to logic and needs-based decisions. As if that's what motivates people.

I would like to understand this but I do not know what you visualize when you say 'reducing humanity to logic' or 'needs based decisions'. Can you give me examples of that kind of behavior instead of abstract ideas to describe them.

 

[interchange]

I would like to understand this but I do not know what you visualize when you say 'reducing humanity to logic' or 'needs based decisions'. Can you give me examples of that kind of behavior instead of abstract ideas to describe them.

When we examine this enterprise, we are thinking that jobs = human beings producing things for us to meet our needs, and that we will be obsolete is need-meeting is overtaken by robots.

Look around your life. Tell me how much of what you do addresses a need. And if you think it does, tell me whether that need is efficiently met. What food do you eat? Own a car? Live in more than 200 sq. ft. of space per person in your household? Granite countertops? Own a TV? Smart phone?

 

[woolfe9998]

🙄 He have a crystal ball.

No.

I didn't think so.

He's right though. It isn't a question of if. It's when. I don't see how what he's predicting won't eventually be true.

 

[Jaskalas]

This will lead to the bigger social problem of self fulfillment and how people are going to have meaning in their lives if they don't feel needed.

I know a family member who believes that is an issue... but I cannot comprehend it. Surely only the mentally ill require being pressed into labor in order to "find meaning". Instead of being forced into doing something you do not want, people will have the time to take up tasks that actually interest them. Want to keep busy? You'll find a way. How is self motivation even an issue?

Maybe it's beaten dog syndrome. Or more aptly, something slaves once experienced the day they were freed.
I for one welcome that day.

 

[blankslate]

This guy is a commie-mutant-traitor.

Hopefully Trump recognizes the threat he poses to 'Murica and kicks him out for spewing vile hatred against the job creators.


______________

 

[Atreus21]

I don't buy it. Elon Musk is no super-human oracle just because he's rich and successful. I don't reject that the pace of automation will accelerate, but no intellect on earth can confidently predict what near-complete automation would mean for humanity, especially not this early in the process.

 

[momeNt]

There is always land and living, house on the prairie style. If the consumer economy becomes a model train set, there is no reason to keep drones (consumers with UBI wallets) to make the model train set owner rich.

The usefulness of an economy is the ability to participate in it, not the goods it produces, if you eliminate economic participation by getting rid of the need for large amounts of labor, I am not sure you can expect people to participate in it for free. So unless the participation is forced, by way of property taxes and land/resource control, I think there might be a market check on how much labor can be removed before you just start removing participants.

Interesting conundrum that's for sure.

 

[Moonbeam]

When we examine this enterprise, we are thinking that jobs = human beings producing things for us to meet our needs, and that we will be obsolete is need-meeting is overtaken by robots.

Look around your life. Tell me how much of what you do addresses a need. And if you think it does, tell me whether that need is efficiently met. What food do you eat? Own a car? Live in more than 200 sq. ft. of space per person in your household? Granite countertops? Own a TV? Smart phone?

When we examine this enterprise, we are thinking that jobs = human beings producing things for us to meet our needs, and that we will be obsolete is need-meeting is overtaken by robots.

Look around your life. Tell me how much of what you do addresses a need. And if you think it does, tell me whether that need is efficiently met. What food do you eat? Own a car? Live in more than 200 sq. ft. of space per person in your household? Granite countertops? Own a TV? Smart phone?

For me this raises the question as to where desire comes from, why I desire more than I need. If I am filled with self loathing and a sense of worthlessness I am likely to have a lot of emotional neediness, things to fill the hole where my soul should be. Other so called needs may arise out of creative interest or self fulfillment ambitions of a less prurient nature, perhaps, not so driven by what I'm induced to lust after via propaganda and ads from the 'needs' of people selling things. So I wonder, what would I really want if I had grown up in the lap of emotional security will good mental health. Could it be I might have just basic needs? What would society look like that had no economic fears, no need to worry about real needs?

 

[Jaskalas]

I don't buy it. Elon Musk is no super-human oracle just because he's rich and successful. I don't reject that the pace of automation will accelerate, but no intellect on earth can confidently predict what near-complete automation would mean for humanity, especially not this early in the process.

Sure, but UBI is needed now, not later.
Putting it in place ensures a level of stability not found in our present system(s) for subsidizing underemployment.

 

[interchange]

For me this raises the question as to where desire comes from, why I desire more than I need. If I am filled with self loathing and a sense of worthlessness I am likely to have a lot of emotional neediness, things to fill the hole where my soul should be. Other so called needs may arise out of creative interest or self fulfillment ambitions of a less prurient nature, perhaps, not so driven by what I'm induced to lust after via propaganda and ads from the 'needs' of people selling things. So I wonder, what would I really want if I had grown up in the lap of emotional security will good mental health. Could it be I might have just basic needs? What would society look like that had no economic fears, no need to worry about real needs?

You grew up with enough emotional security to possess the mechanisms of a developed mind. Your experiences and traumas shape how you view them and connect to your memories, but they were sufficient to make the question of "where desire comes from, why I desire more than I need" the same regardless.

If you are curious about it, I highly recommend: https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Years-Understanding-Handling-Childhood/dp/0684825503/

 

[Moonbeam]

I don't buy it. Elon Musk is no super-human oracle just because he's rich and successful. I don't reject that the pace of automation will accelerate, but no intellect on earth can confidently predict what near-complete automation would mean for humanity, especially not this early in the process.

You seem to take a man's answers to questions he was asked as some sort of attack on your integrity. What does he threaten you with? Jesus, where did he claim he was some super-human oracle? I think he was asked because he's at the forefront of technological progress and billion dollar successful. It makes sense to me that people would seek his perspective on where technology is leading us. He has a front row seat. I would not ask him to diagnose my fever. I would go to a doctor for that. Maybe if you started with the assumption that nobody knows anything and everything they think they do know is wrong you wouldn't get so upset about somebody expressing an opinion.

 

[woolfe9998]

I don't buy it. Elon Musk is no super-human oracle just because he's rich and successful. I don't reject that the pace of automation will accelerate, but no intellect on earth can confidently predict what near-complete automation would mean for humanity, especially not this early in the process.

How does automation and IT not eventually take away a high percentage of our jobs? It isn't even just in manufacturing. We're already seen automated checkout taking away retail jobs, chat boxes taking away jobs in telephone customer service, robot cleaners taking away jobs in home services. Not everyone can be retrained for brain intensive work that can't be done by robots or computers. It may be very far off, but like I said above, it isn't if, it's when.

 

[pcgeek11]

Do you think he is wrong? Why?

Not even close to the near future is this going to happen. I work in automated production for a worldwide corporation. Yes we do use robots which require repairs and programming adjustments daily. Robots are not cheap and they are far from being able to replace humans in the sense and level that is implied.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

I don't buy it. Elon Musk is no super-human oracle just because he's rich and successful.

says the guy who follows the dogma attached to a 2000 year old book as gospel.

 

[Jaskalas]

Not even close to the near future is this going to happen.

Chinese factory replaces 90% of humans with robots, production soars - July 30, 2015
More like near past. Tooling up is a process, it starts here and snowballs. There will be no stopping it.
Our destination of "full" automation is, of course, not "near future" but the impacts will be felt far and wide before long.

We need to prepare our society for the changes ahead.
If that means restructuring social services, already (largely) provided, then why not?