Moving Forward on Basic Income
Why is the underlying assumption always &quot;as technology continues to replace jobs and generate massive wealth&quot; in the world of BI? It seems like BI is an answer to a false dichotomy.<p>What if we fix our society instead? What if instead of massive seeking of profiteering we actually double down on our efforts to improve lives <i>today</i>, <i>right now</i> in this very moment instead of some far distant realization of &quot;when all jobs are automated&quot; which is a highly debatable premise, and if even true, a long ways away.<p>That&#x27;s the thing that is so frustrating to me about my fellow people in tech. Driven to automate. Why? To what end? If you stop and think who really benefits the most from this endless pursuit to automate, you will see it really isn&#x27;t your common neighbor.<p>I will say I feel this way with most fields of research and schools of political thought as well. So much is being done for theoretical problems in the distant future, when we could double down on current issues. Instead we fund obscure research that may or may not reach fruition, or the underlying assumptions might change under this hope that some future results will solve our current problems, meanwhile the status quo remains for those suffering now. And you wonder why people are becoming increasingly weary with science, and even technology.<p>Technology was suppose to make people happier and have endless opportunities, yet it is becoming increasingly obvious society is even more unhappy, more anti-social, more fragmented than ever before. More people are unhappier than ever before, more people are committing suicide, more people are addicted to pain killers and opioids than ever before, more people are addicts in general. Sure we are living longer, long enough to stuff our faces with all the processed junk our wonderful technology has created so cheaply, but we have missed out on the meaning, I am afraid.<p>Maybe I have just become so cynical I can&#x27;t work in tech anymore.<p>What can I say though. It pays good.