RE: Universal basic income and true economic stimulus.
You understand that by a UBI, they mean money-printing, of course. The Fed has already "boosted" the US economy by a few Trillion... with little to show for it:
- Retail Apocalypse - lots of big stores closing down shops, and empty space at lots of malls
- Car manufacture crash - crazy loans for 7 and 8 years which are now going into default
- Credit Card Bubble - people are completely saddled with debt, and can't afford to take any more on -- they may never be able to pay what they have due to interest rates (which are not, or near zero)
- Student Loan debt bubble - a lot of kids graduated college with crummy educations and useless degrees (because financing was so low), and now can't even afford to pay the loans. Since most of the loans are from the Government, guess who's going to pay for them?
- Obliteration of savings -- since the Fed set the rate so low for so long, people were encouraged to spend (in the hopes of fixing the economy) and now most Americans don't have $500 to their name.
- Big bank bailouts -- too big to fail? They get a slap on the wrist for things you and I would go to jail. The Fed prints money, and they buy the stock market, and get richer.
These are the people who'll give you UBI. What could they possibly have in mind?
I suggest you look up Austrian economics, because where the Fed doesn't understand inflation or how to fix the economy, in the words of Janet Yellen, Ludwig Von Mises and Murray Rothbard give you a play by play, and an analysis of prior attempts by governments to create wealth by printing money.
A basic analogy is: if you and I live in a vacuum and start printing money, it'll have no value. There's nothing to exchange it for. And I can't offer any services, because there's nothing to service. It takes the creation of a product by one of us, which the other can buy. That product is the value (so long as you desire it). You then, must create a product I want, or we can develop "money" to exchange for the goods, instead of barter.
You may also want to read up on Hyperinflation, and what happened in places like Weimar, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Zimbabwe, even Venezuela. UBI will lead down the same path, IMHO. There have been 55 instances of hyperinflation in our history. Why would this time be different?
Yet, we are free men of free will. I have no problem with you wanting UBI or thinking it's a good idea. As a Libertarian, I believe in Live and Let Live. Both philosophies may work simultaneously, and if one fails, we should always be free to change our minds, countries, and economic philosophies.
I feel that automation will completely wreck your vacuum analogy. If AI and automation are the ones producing something that is desired, how much will it cost? What happens when the cycle is complete with solar or fusion power and the labor value approaches zero.
I think the current economic model will have to be radically altered. Especially when space travel is factored in and resources become post scarcity. Furthermore, digital assets are already approaching post scarcity with nearly limitless information, education and entertainment being open source. Even the block chain technology that allowed this platform to arise is open source! I feel Austrian economics was good for a less technologically developed time.
Those are very interesting questions! I have only partially thought about them, but I would guess the laws of exchange would remain the same. When we eventually get to the point where everyone has a food replicator, and a free energy generation device, you'll still need technicians to create and maintain. You'll still need scientists and specialists in many fields to evolve things. AI is grossly overstated. It's just an expert system (IF THEN ELSE), and that's all that it'll ever be. It won't generate new technology or software.
I have no doubts we'll have to evolve a new economic system, however, my only claim here is that UBI won't work, and will just turn us more into SLAVES.
Can you explain what you mean by "approaching post scarcity"?
I don't think you and I will be around for space travel (much to my chagrin) so that's not part of our current equation.
Please don't misconstrue this as a challenge. I've heard people bring up this idea before of free food and energy, but I can't wrap my head around it.
That's a bold statement. What grounds do you have to predict the future of a technology that isn't even mature yet?
I'm a software engineer. I know that electricity only has 2 states. Off and On. And it can't become self-aware and create things for which is wasn't developed to do.
Sure, you can fool people into thinking they're talking to a person instead of a computer for so long (the Turing Test), but code isn't self-aware, and it won't ever be.
It makes for great sci-fi and scary doomsday scenarios like the Matrix, but even that film is a metaphor for the current state of our world. Not for self-aware software that takes over the world.
Not to say the technology isn't useful and amazing. I just want to clarify that it's not going to spring to life and replace human creativity, nor conquer the world.
You do realise that human consciousness is just electrical signals, yeah? To presuppose that humans can do it but machines can't, has to involve some sort of magical thinking about "souls" or the like.