General Politics Discussion (VI) [ARCHIVED] • Page 375

isn't yang caping pretty hard for the white supremacist vote? coulda swore i've seen lots of people talking about that

 

is this charisma

 

Hmm

 

every single issue only has two possible perspectives and they’re completely equal and binary, always

 

Can’t wait for him to launch a site full of mandatory disgusting viewpoints in a fake act of bad faith bipartisanship

 

Hm

 

When I think of the many millions of voters out there, I think that a jobs guarantee is so much easier to sell than UBI. UBI, to a huge chunk of people, is going to come off as an unearned handout funded by taxpayers.

 

it will also be used as an excuse to slash existing social welfare programs

 

It will be necessary in our lifetime though. Automation isn't going to slow down.

 

That is a fair point. According to polls I have seen, a jobs guarantee has between 46-52% support. A UBI got support from 43-48%.

In the short term, I think a jobs guarantee is both more feasible to accomplish and more likely to be able to convince voters to be on board. But, I think as time goes on and AI and automation become even more developed, support for a UBI will go up and become something that a majority of people support. We will need UBI sometime in the near future because even with a jobs guarantee, the effects from automation will be seen. There are some kinds of jobs that will never be necessary again

 

We should just get rid of money instead.

 

The casual dismissal and mocking of Yang just reaffirms how far afield I feel from a lot of the left nowadays. If the dude makes the debates, gets UBI into the national discussion, and moves the Overton window on that issue even an inch, he's a hero.

 

Automation usually leads to more but different jobs, and it should continue to do that in the future. We still have a major problem with educational barriers, poor working conditions, and depressed wages for labor across the board. Those are gonna need to be solved before any realistic UBI discussions take place.

 

Why? There are people like Michael Tubbs actively trying out UBI programs right now.

 

As I see it, the fundamental problem is that true automation shoves a large proportion of necessary jobs into a category that requires well above average intelligence (possibly even exceptional intelligence). Meanwhile, the distribution of human intelligence isn't changing. This is a long-term trend that's already underway, but it's likely to accelerate greatly at some point.

Of course, there are likely to be niche lower skill occupations that can resist automation a lot longer than most... but that won't add up to anywhere near enough openings for all the people with IQs under 120.

Bernie's answer above deferring to the GND, infrastructure, etc. is probably halfway reasonable in the short term, so I don't fault him for it. But I still admire the shit out of Yang for starting the conversation -- something that should've happened a decade ago, probably.

 

I also agree with many on the left that UBI is not the silver bullet panacea to solve upcoming job and labor issues. It’s one idea, but it’s too often been used to harm organized labor and strip entitlements and things like health care.

 

The difference is that Yang is bringing this issue to the national level. He's already gotten a lot of articles written about a UBI in mainstream media, being on the debate stage would further push this into the media. Yeah, there are other people trying UBI programs around the country, but that isn't getting national attention

 

The issue shouldn’t be on the national level. It’s a much better issue to tackle locally because it avoids the ability of federal programs being cut. I don’t want congress cutting Medicare and giving out a small stipend.

 

I agree that the bigger fight should be toward raising wages and expanding unions but I think getting the ubi in the mainstream as a concept is a good thing. I kinda wish it wasn't from yang though.

 

That's something I hadn't thought about.

 

this this this

 

The UBI Bait and Switch