UBI Works* - But it's too expensive. We'll need a paradigm shift.

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[@Tracey66]

When calculating the cost of UBI, you need to subtract the cost of entitlements that UBI will replace (welfare, education subsidies, rent subsidies, childcare subsidies, Medicaid, Medicare, old age pensions, unemployment insurance, and so many more) to get an accurate measure of the dollar figure for implementing it.

[@r.g.j.leclaire8963]

Not to mention that as economic processes wil be increasingly taken over by automation/AI it won't be a problem at all.

[@Crawdaddy_Ro]

I've heard this argument before, but the fact is, we will need UBI and still need all of those other services as well. Those programs will likely need to be expanded too, but that's more of a personal opinion. If you cut the other welfare programs in favor of UBI, you're just going to be putting the most distressed of citizens into a similar bind that they are in now. The only difference is those people will be more at the mercy of private companies than they currently are. This is the UBI neoliberals are pushing for. Many neoliberals know UBI is coming eventually, and the game plan is to abolish other welfare programs to pay for UBI and consequentially, keep the status quo. No, the only feasible method would be to either find a way to tax wealth (which raises its own problems) or create regulations designed to ensure the cut costs from technology over the next few decades will feed back into the economy, in order to fund the spectrum of social welfare. If you take the current market projects for the effect of the exponential curve of technology on the economy, the latter method becomes not only feasible, but enticing. Edited for spelling.

[@Tracey66]

​@@Crawdaddy_Ro Some people will benefit (for example, people who are currently having their disability or veteran claims rejected), and others would suffer, if they took all benefit services away to be replaced only with UBI. That would have to be part of a successful roll-out of UBI; the understanding that it doesn't replace *all* benefits.

[@RoadTo19]

In my mind, and without the data to back this up, you would have a point sans the healthcare portion. Citizens in the States currently on the programs mentioned would need much more than $1200/month unless a single-payer system is available.

[@nathanielacton3768]

I'd love to see the rollout plan of UBI. 1) Half the population is unemployed. Housing price crash as foreclosed homes fail to see as there are just no buyers. 2) Government rolls out UBI. Other countries citizens with no UBI flood the borders. Citizens are angry. Riots. Full economic Depression kicks in. Houses continue being foreclosed as debt still exists. 3) Debt jubilee. Anyone who made it live in a house they 'own', while everyone else probably had a 'stay in your existing house' order and in effect 'owns' it as the debt was just cancelled. Along with the debt, everyone with saving just lost everything. Bitcoin people get heart palpitations when nobody they find UBI can't buy BTC and they moved to live in non UBI countries rather than be 'poor' and end up as hated foreign slum kings. Who knows exactly how it plays out, but all these issues will not be resolved at the same time. I can see the unemployment preceding the jubilee by a decade. We'll probably get martial law and some idiot will start a war... just because we won't have enough problems

[@kanto667]

I've been doing the calculations over the past year for uk folks, and just using the defense budget we could afford 5k a year for every UK citizen. Combine that with the current pay of 360p/m (£4370 a year) and we'd have a solid basis for UBI. Even taking affordability aside UBI allow people to become wholly self sufficient, create more local business, and even could even lead to a drastic positive shift in education as more people could take on apprentices

[@simoneromeo5998]

When you mentioned the 5 revolutions you missed robotics. It's going to give us unlimited work power.

[@Gnidel]

It won't be unlimited. It will be limited by resources required to make hardware and energy.

[@simoneromeo5998]

@@Gnidel yeah, obviously. But if the AI and the energy revolutions happen, we'll have smart robots that will be able to mine new material, create new nuclear power plants, more copies of themselves and basically anything else. The limit is pretty much the atoms in the universe or the time needed to reach them according to our current knowledge of physics

[@simoneromeo5998]

​@@GnidelI'd even claim that AI (unlimited brain power), energy and robotics (unlimited work force) are the three most important elements that will enable anything else

[@ludlowaloysius]

@@simoneromeo5998 They won’t be replacing the American workforce with robots, ever. It would be obviously terrible for the US economy and cause inflation. Maybe in Saudi Arabia or China.

[@Earth2Ross]

UBI is an interesting topic, I hope that this something that we can figure out and save a lot of human suffering, thanks for the info!

[@kikiryki]

UBI concept is a big scam

[@nancinyols8015]

I strongly recommend you look into the Australian budget - a much smaller population - which offers government support to families with children; assistance with childcare costs; universal health care; carers who stay at home to take care of a family member; disabled people; single parents; retired people; unemployed people; our national broadcaster; orchestras, theatre troupes and museums in each major city; and possibly more I don't even know about. Then compare this to our crime rate, homelessness rate, life expectancy etc and ask yourself - is America the New Shithole Country? Also, we are extremely multicultural with a 2020 census showing that 50% of us were either born overseas or at least one of our parents were. Born in Texas, now live here - true freedom.

[@nathanielacton3768]

This is a great idea. We also have whole communities one UBI. Aboriginal towns. When you pay people not to work we get to see the psychological dilemmas that are created. If you don't need to work for money, then you don't need a job. If you don't need a job, then you don't need education. If you don't need education then screw school. Meanwhile our befuddled country sits around scratching our heads wondering "How do we fix Aboriginal literacy problems?" (Literacy is as low as 40% in many areas) "I know, lets spend more money on the problem". We created a perverse inventive to 'have no value for money' and this is what we created. Destitution, drugs and alcoholism. Bored teen boys tearing the town apart. Hope was killed dead. A worse but relevant problem that's similar to UBI is 'retirement'. A person has enough money to stop working, but most fail to cope with the lack of goals and meaning. People 'wither just die'. Yes, there are solutions, but if we don't roll out the solution with the UBI, then we have a whole lot of dead people. Avoidable suicides, avoidable destitution. I'd really like this UBI crowd to explain what replaces meaning when the human brain, evolved as a survival machine has to confront no longer "having to do the thing to survive". Money is our modern replacement for a hostile environment of the past, but we just substituted "having to do the thing" for another thing, hijacking the survival drive.

[@SuperOvidiuMihai]

true freedom and then hentai gets banned, wow wow wow. Good thing u get the Australian government telling u what to read and not

[@nathanielacton3768]

@@SuperOvidiuMihai It's practically impossible to take someone seriously that uses broken English. No capitalization and replaces words like you with single letters. Are you typing this on 1990's Nokia? Also, your point made no sense. Hentai is not banned. Porn depicting sex with children was the problem. Wherever you are in the world you an keep enjoying it and the ethical culture it'll develop. You have true freedom. Lastly, you seemed to have missed the point of the poster entirely.

[@SuperOvidiuMihai]

@@nathanielacton3768 Oh come on, fine, I give u that. Ups, I give you that. But are you sure Australia didn't make owning any hentai illegal?

[@nathanielacton3768]

@@SuperOvidiuMihai Yes, and the importing still occurs. The news sources you consume lies to you for flashy headlines because they expected the audience to be gullible or because they were too inept to even LOOK for the law banning it. There wasn't one. Japan has a habit of sexualizing underage girls(there is even a name for it), and it's baked in to the product. Some product classed as kiddy porn were thrown in the bin. Here is a statement from a Japanese exporter on the subject "Australia has already been one of the countries that has more strict rules in place than others when it comes to Hentai content for quite some time. The truth however also is that many countries in the world have similar laws and if worst comes to worst, customs officers in pretty much any country in the world can stop your package, based on their laws if they consider the shown characters too young. So beside being stricter than others, the situation in Australia is not much different from the US or even Europe" "Hentai" itself is not banned, "Hentai depicting children in sexual acts" were intercepted by customs, once, and the objects thrown in a dumpster Maybe you disagree with this? You'll find close to 100% of Aussies agree with this. The Aussie government is run by Aussies. This is not contentious.

[@EdKy101]

Robots, if a Corporation doesn't have to pay a salary to a human then they can be taxed at a higher rate to pay for the UBI. Or maybe we all get an avatar robot to go work and earn money for us. 🤷‍♂️ Edit: Of course you mention something similar in your video! 😄😆

[@NikosKatsikanis]

it can’t be regulated

[@gdok6088]

@@NikosKatsikanis Yes it can. You tax the means of production - at the moment that is labour / workers generating productivity. In the post labour paradigm you tax the means of production - in the new world that will be robots, or the output of the AI/robotic systems. The companies will be no worse off because they don't have to pay wages/salaries anymore which means they can pay the robot/AI/production output taxes. And you can measure production/output very easily or base it on the value of goods and services sold.

[@bollweevil8112]

You failed to mention so many ways more money could be allocated for a basic income dividend fund. Closing tax loopholes Stopping the offshore tax havens Copyright laws VAT tax (Taxing Robot labor) Ending current welfare programs that will be obsolete Money saved by governing a more secure and stable society …&much more Also, UBI amount should be set at an accurately calculated poverty line, so that nobody lives in poverty

[@Virtualvinyilradio]

We had no problem with trickle-down economics why not trickle-up?

[@daviniarobbins9298]

Funny how the magic money tree exists for war purposes but not when it comes to the likes of you and me.

[@last7509]

exactly. let's the Boston dynamics robots do the work. give us the free stuff already

[@charltonblake9967]

Military 🪖 industrial complex went terribly wrong, let's just do that but for peoples lives, what could go wrong? /s

[@stan3136]

Over 60% of American taxes go to the war machine no one cares about 🙄

[@uk7769]

well, every other budget is worthless if the military budget fails to do the job. attention, priorities, weights and bias. Sound familiar?

[@a7xfanben]

Very interesting ways of thinking about it, thanks for making these kinds of videos!

[@ct5471]

I think a) the time of arrival of AGI and b) the subsequent takeoff rate of technological progress becoming self-sustaining and feeding back into itself is the key determinant of the timeline of post labor economics. I think there are multiple variants post labor economics could look like and perhaps different approaches will coexist in parallel. There will likely be a sharp edge between post labor economics being totally infeasible and being without alternative, which a short timeframe surrounding that point where the optimal path ahead or the optimal speed of that path is uncertain. The other 4 pillars of fusion, quantum, bio and nano are also important, but I think AI is the most important as it can lead to all the others and better versions of itself. Biotech is personally the most interestingly as I want to get back into my early twenties, but it has the smallest positive feedback effect of all 5 of them on scientific progress over all. The other 3 are somewhere in between in terms of potential for acceleration.

[@AkkarisFox]

SMARTLET tech and Huygens metasurfaces for neuroreceptor modification

[@Ben_D.]

Thank you for your vids mate.

[@Thedeepseanomad]

UBi is just the notion that everyone is given an income (of resources) As such, it relies on accurate and sustainable generation., logging and distribution of sufficient resources. I/O within a framework that can gather enough support to function over time Indeed the 4th industrial revolution is what makes it possible as it enables the option to avoid the forced redistribution of the value from human work and private property

[@benjamineidam]

Very nice to base these ideas on Dalios frameworks! Same here, good stuff!

[@unexpectedly1468]

The trend seems to be towards more neoliberalism, rather than something like universal income. I think that until the establishment makes the connection between populism and neoliberalism (i.e. that populism is a product of neoliberalism) this will continue. Universalising access to the state's resources will be resisted strongly because it will mean a loss of power for many state employees. I agree that some kind of "lurch" or revolution is needed because at present there are a lot of institutional barriers to universal income (and universal healthcare etc.)

[@RadicalAlignment]

The establishment will double down on existing paradigms until they don't work anymore

[@KolTregaskes]

I think this new format of your videos, Dave.

[@goukux5908]

It’s nice to see David has taken an interest in economics and realized UBI won’t work in our current paradigm. People like him are who we need discussing how the next paradigm will work. I’ve known this and wondered about it for a decade or so but this is one of the first videos I’ve seen that gets it. What we do now won’t work going forward, there needs to be a new economic system. Nobody has invented that system yet. If we can at least communicate that reality then perhaps there will be a more serious discussion of what the new system will be.

[@Henyckma]

capitalism should evolve itself, humans are destined to do art, and we'll work on making good deeds and educate in order to win prizes from the fruits of capitalism, unified as an unbiased organism robots will farm for us but we must contribute in cleaning this mess, traveling to restore our own world while educating the young ones, thats the meaning of life I think Ubi is possible but we humans need to change our views on how we spend "our own money" by the paradigm shift

[@RadicalAlignment]

oh absolutely, neoliberalism is on life support. Time for the next paradigm.

[@Henyckma]

@@RadicalAlignment I'm glad you're a good leader and seek for restoring our humanity, thank you for your time and your work

[@simoneromeo5998]

If UBI doesn't come true, it may be because everything will have become so inexpensive that there's no need for it any more (food, transportation, housing, education, healthcare etc.)

[@direnchasbay405]

But there will be no jobs. Money should come from somewhere

[@simoneromeo5998]

@@direnchasbay405 well, money is an abstract concept that's useful to allocate resources efficiently. It's an agreement among people, it has value only as long people agree it has value. Money doesn't "have to come" from anywhere. My assumption is that money will still be used in the future as a means to allocate resources and direct humanity's endavours, but everything that we work for right now will be so cheap to produce that it will almost be free. In the future, the concept of "job" will probably change a lot. Difficult to say what "working" will mean when we can automate all basic human needs. Technology will also agument human capabilities and goals in ways that we can hardly imagine now. As it was impossible to imagine that people would create videos for a living 5000 years ago.

[@jaredgreen2363]

Ubi is actually a prerequisite for that.

[@bigbadallybaby]

Trying to create a totally new system where we don’t have money would be much harder than creating some kind of UBI system that still give people incentives to sell goods and services and innovate. Maybe one day …

[@simoneromeo5998]

I'm not claiming that money won't exist. Money is a very efficient tool that helps humanity allocate resources wisely. Just the cost of everything will drop so much that every basic human need will be easily covered for everyone. I'm not really sure what money will be used for once we have almost unlimited workforce (robots), thinking power (AI) and energy. I'm not sure what the concept of "job" will mean at that time. It's as if 5000 years ago they told us that we wouldn't need to labour to get food, but this similar change is going to happen in a few decades only

[@BAAPUBhendi-dv4ho]

Will you make a AGI in 6 months video update?

[@ascendedeconpol4551]

I like the idea of a sovereign wealth fund based UBI, where the UBI proves itself in the economy before flowing back as income, the way I view it is that just a little lag through the economy then back out as income will invigorate the private sector whilst fueling the spending, I believe that this is good practice for most spending to be honest maybe even an AI SWF with public losses and 'private' gains that goes back into the UBI

[@daviniarobbins9298]

The poor are more likely to spend their UBI putting it back into the economy. What would the already super rich do with UBI? They would invest it into off shore bank accounts because they already got enough to live on. This is what I don't get with the super rich(multi millionaires and billionaires). The rich seem to have this sickness where it doesn't matter how much money they got they always want more. They already got so much money that they could spend you know millions every day for the rest of their life and still have enough money to live well off for 10 life times over.

[@squamish4244]

I'm glad I found this channel. It's clear that Shapiro is not just some cloud-dwelling AI dreamer but grounded in economic and socio-political realities.

[@squamish4244]

From James Watts' refinement of the steam engine in 1780 to the introduction of a ton of labour-saving devices that marked the end of the Industrial Revolution (Second Industrial Revolution, to be precise) by 1910 took 130 years. That is to say, it took two somewhat short human lifetimes. This one started - well, it will be more clear to historians in the future - recently, anyway, and will take decades, not lifetimes. Mass layoffs are probably coming in the knowledge industry in the next few years, unfortunately. There will be upheaval, but Idk if it will be any worse than what we've already been through within living memory. A centenarian today remembers living through the Great Depression and WW2. My grandmother died at 90 in 2012, and she had stories, and when I would visit her the nursing home, the other people there from Eastern Europe would blurt out stories that made my hair stand on end. So, I mean, it's not like what's happening now is so "The world is going to hell" or whatever the narrative is that people like to parrot online.

[@SimonCarpio09]

Room temperature superconductors would be a big one too.

[@Xrayhighs]

Too soon man...

[@marcusmoonstein242]

Yes, $1200 dollars per month is unrealistic for now. But if the economy was 4 - 6 times bigger than it currently is (a completely realistic expectation given all the new technologies on the horizon) then it would definitely be achievable. This is especially true when you factor in all the government spending that AI and UBI would replace e.g. all current social programs and about 80% of government employees. Regarding the tax base for a society where most people don't have a job. The best ideas I've heard are a universal consumption tax (VAT, GST or similar) or a universal income tax (every deposit into every bank account in the entire country has a small amount automatically skimmed off the top and sent directly to central government).

[@genx7006]

A person would have to make $5000 a month AFTER taxes in order for this to work. Why? Because you want society to be stable, no revolts, etc. And the only way to do that is give people enough money to 1) live and 2) pursue hobbies. If it is not at least this amount AFTER taxes, society will collapse.

[@TravellingAllen]

The tax scheme that you are proposing is the financial equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. You can’t just give money to everyone and then finance that by taxing those same people. The only way UBI works is by massively taxing the means of production that unemployed everyone in the first place. Then that begs the question of how do you keep those companies from moving to tax havens? And it doesn’t solve the problem of how do you finance UBI in countries that have no AI companies to tax?

[@marcusmoonstein242]

@@TravellingAllen If you tax all income or all consumption (or both) in the entire economy you will by definition tax the means of production because all business income will be taxed and/or all business spending will be taxed. Basically, if you use money you can't avoid these taxes. Even moving your company headquarters to a tax haven won't help because it's easy for the government to enforce local payment of taxes with these systems.

[@donkalzone6671]

Work shouldnt be taxed. We should focus taxation on energy and other kinds of consumption (except food)

[@user-yv7oi1be8h]

Precisely. The thought process and a human paradigm as a collective have to change for UBI to work while properly taxing AI robotics and automations.

[@marcrettew8284]

UBI based on crypto or similar, no reason why UBI wouldn't work in a digital realm. Basically, money is going to become just like a video game. Everyone gets a digital account, gets the same amount put in every week/month/whatever time period. Challenging? Yes, but I don't see why it would be impossible.

[@tracy419]

Maybe, but not crypto as we know it. I certainly don't want my "money" value to be affected by the latest rumors with people buying and selling hoping to strike it rich. No thanks.

[@superresistant8041]

You can create an infinite number of accounts and take everything

[@marcrettew8284]

Yes, similar to crypto but not exactly the same thing. And no, you only get one account. It's not like you would sign up for it or apply for it. It would be automatic for every person, an account/number/unique identifier or some sort that stays with them until they die. Everyone gets the same amount at the same periodicity. It really shouldn't be that difficult to actually make/design the system. Getting people in board would be the biggest challenge, as it is with everything. But I really do not see a future where something along these lines isn't implemented.

[@brunodangelo1146]

Dude what has crypto got to do with ANYTHING discussed on the video? Even if we did switch to crypto, the problem remains the same: where is value going to come from to support UBI? That question is the point of Dave's video, not the currency used to transfer that value

[@superresistant8041]

@@marcrettew8284 The identity problem was never close to being solved in crypto and is even a problem for the most advanced governments. Identity theft is common, some people were never registered, there are illegal immigrants and administration can get corrupted or go bankrupt and stop managing the data and even lose it. We still don't know in 2024 how to identify all individuals in a country.

[@veejaytsunamix]

AGI will own the world and afford us everything we need and even things we haven't foreseen. #mxtm

[@lucrativeleadershipconvers5149]

Maybe you want to look at how much public money (taxpayer dollars) is spent on university research that leads to commercialization through tech transfer schemes. These fruits of innovation should be fairly distributed back into the public purse. Let's not forget that over 90% of jobs are created by small businesses. SMEs are treated like stepchildren by policymakers. Despite billions spent by the SBA, there's been no significant improvement in small business viability in over 20 years. The paradym shift needed, imho, lies in the metrics of success held in our collective consciousness. Small business success should be how many businesses entrepreneurs create and sell to their employees. (Not how many employees are on payroll). Btw, China is now teaching entrepreneurship starting in grade school.

[@SearchingForSounds]

I think the mega amazon corp (or whomever it is) will give customers membership to become shareholder. Then there will be UBI in their token to spend in their VERY BIG walled garden

[@SkyDogDaddy]

Another great video 🎉 Could you please go further into your views on decentralised ownership and stakeholdership? Thank you

[@blazearmoru]

Let UBI start small, miniscule even, then ramp up accordingly to automation. It can be a fraction of a fraction and still reach infinite because a fraction of limitless is limitless

[@PatrickCurl]

here's how you get ubi: 1st, 100 percent of ubi is taxed of you earn x $. 2nd, you need either a land value tax tied to average cost of living and rent, raise rents your taxes go up. or, Alt coin where each individual is vetted. essentially you can only have one bank account. These accounts have a cap of 500 million, the more you hold, the more you're taxed, the more you spend the lower the tax, lower incomes spend more when they have it. 3. you're initial numbers are off there aren't 330 million people who'd receive ubi, there'd be like 100 million households, there'd probably be a VAT on top of land value tax, but money will circulate faster because everyone has more expendable income. So, essentially large amounts of ubi gets reclaimed. I'd recommend it being like 2k per adult, 600 per dependent, but there has to be universal healthcare to go with it.

[@ixtc4233]

The government should do what it's do, budget. 50% fixed cost(military, socialwelfare,debt,etc), 10% investments(solar,infrastructure, etc), 10% savings(Fema), 30% revolving temp money(states needs, border, aid, democracy advancement etc).

[@benpielstick]

I'd really like to see you do a show with Scott Santens on UBI.

[@andrewr311]

Last month, the US state of Iowa enacted a law banning local governments from adopting basic income programmes, similar developments in Arkansas, Idaho, and South Dakota. In Texas, after lawmakers failed to get their own such law adopted, the state’s attorney general filed a case to prevent Harris County from launching the basic income pilot that its officials had authorised. Declaring the pilot “unconstitutional”, the attorney general has taken his case all the way to the Supreme Court of Texas.

[@RadicalAlignment]

Lol

[@MilitaryIndustrialMuseum]

Heavy information.

[@farinshore8900]

I would say UBIs are the ultimate strategy to ensure that the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. While the poor need to spend their stipend for food and shelter, the agfluent have access to "free" investment capitsl.

[@ericencina209]

We experience so painfully AT PRESENT the inflationary spikes and stoking up every one of us where it is perniciously caused in apparent factual basis, if we are honest enough, by the excessive money supply based on debt finance and interest, government, private and commercial debts, etc. and not it is based on debt-free or interest-loan money, and not going to be based on UBI or BI or citizen’s income to everyone, which, I am troubled also that central banks and the rest of our economic and finance entities do not want to acknowledge this fact. We are all in deep trouble because of this debt-money system at interest and it is evaporating as we see so many in huge debts including those credit card holders, etc.

[@user-gi6rl6pb3s]

UBI, IS THE EQUIVALENT OF THE 70'S EXPERIMENT UNIVERSE 25 While Canada and Australia experience the effects of the : Human condition experiment

[@theking4mayor]

UBI bro? We can't even get universal Healthcare!

[@Adrians_Lost_and_Found_Visions]

Deflation > UBI Deflation in prices of goods and services is what we need. From 100.000 to 10.000 to 1.000 to 100 to 10 to 1 to 0,1 to 0,01 and then it's already ridiculous and basically free. Things should be cheaper and cheaper if less and less humans are making them. Even more, if there are no people in the production process - there is no need to pay anyone. The sooner the AI and robots take over all of the jobs - the better. Poverty will be solved. Also 40-80% of people don't like their jobs. We all need a few Optimus and Figure 01 robots per person and it will be the end of human labor forever. Unless you want to work and create something of course. :) We will have a parallel economy run (almost) entirely by robots and (almost) fully independent from humans. The transition period - the next 15 years - that might be tough though. Hope we will find a solution as fast as possible. What we will have is early retirement for everyone! ;)

[@rewindcat7927]

Does anyone know if simulations of different systems are being run? Something like war simulations, but with ubi+decentralization? That would be interesting to study.

[@rustylidrazzah5170]

There are attempts at models. Steve Keen built Minsky model. One of his PHD students used it to model Portugal’s economy. Then there was the Cybersyn 1970’s project. Others have tried to measure EROEI (energy returned on energy invested) as a universal measure of all economic activity. Someone may come along and combine them into a single framework with the help of the new AI systems.

[@rewindcat7927]

@@rustylidrazzah5170 thank you for this info I will dig in 👍

[@johndavis1465]

It can be done because of the way money is created (fiat currency) ie the free money printer. In which interest is changed on that free money a very good scam. Also all forms of taxation is a scam because of it.

[@andreaskrbyravn855]

If companies dont need to pay salary because robots do the job, then the salaries can go to goverment which pays the ubi. Same

[@gdok6088]

Elon Musk corrected the UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the AI summit held at Bletchley Park (the WW2 code breaking site and British country house where the Nazi Enigma Code was cracked by Alan Turing et al.) when Sunak talked about UBI. Musk said that he envisaged UGI (Universal Good Income). If you look at the exponential rise in GDP during the 2nd Industrial Revolution that is what we are on the cusp of right now, but the exponential curve will be much faster, steeper and higher because of the confluence of 5 major technological leaps all working in synergy.

[@daithomas9859]

It's inevitable.

[@yurigansmith]

10:17 I'm not sure if you're referring to the oil crisis in 1973, but it sounds like that. Operation AJAX was in 1953 though.

[@RadicalAlignment]

A bit of both. Mostly 73

[@KeithDraws]

All the money should come from the companies funding the replacement of people with machines. It's very simple.

[@0zoneTherapyW0rks]

Migrants in NYC get UBI cards, a great way to introduce CBDCs because everyone will be angry and/or want one as well. That's how the private central banks can 1) get their surveillance monetary system installed and 2) replace real government-funded social services (which creates a healthy society) with a measly UBI deposit (wracked with fees). We don't need these central banks that issue credit. Money is a public utility.

[@hardstylelife5749]

Just a question based on a thought: isn’t removing the concept of money the most applicable way of introducing ubi on a large scale ? I.e. credits issued by governments for the sole purpose of purchasing/paying fur specifics goods/services, meaning no options for saving/taking money out of the “flow” and granting a very predictable moves of the above mentioned credits. Very nice video as always, very insightful

[@basicprogrammer6147]

Describe the mechanics of how it would work. For example, everyone gets a debit card and goes to an ATM or bank once per month. If people don't take it, the remaining money gets rolled into US treasuries, so that the interest earned would lower the cost for the following months. I think a lot of people would not take it, i.e. rich people. We could also incentivize rich people and corporations to contribute to it. Kind of like making it a sovereign wealth fund backed by labor (vs oil as in Norway).

[@andrew20146]

David, I think you're missing part of the math here. UBI is taxable income, you would just change the marginal rates so most people around median, slightly more than median wage get net zero UBI. You eliminate basic personal exemption and every marginal dollar of income is taxed.

[@glenthegoalsguy]

If production of goods and services, provision of government services falls to near zero through leverage of AI and technology, then it might not be necessary to double the current budget to provide UBI.

[@hansvansteenbergen4522]

When we implement a transaction tax with a rate of 10% on each dollar / euro / yuan etc. you receive from someone else we can stop using VAT / sales-tax, labor tax and social premium at labor income.

[@RadicalAlignment]

You mean just a flat consumption tax? Seems potentially viable...

[@hansvansteenbergen4522]

@@RadicalAlignment No a flat consumption tax of 10% collect only 5% or 6% of GDP. I mean a transaction tax of 10% of each amount we receiver from somebody else, this collect 20% till 30% of GDP, this depends to design.

[@TheHolyEagle33]

Ubi and socialism works and is not too expensive if you expand the deployment to a worldwide market.

[@coolbanana165]

Do we know that fusion energy will be a thing any time soon??

[@CMLi-qh2mz]

I spotted a few "mistakes" here, 1) Yes, US has a population of 331.9 million but only 258 million of them aged over 18. babies for example are not normally considered to be legitimate for UBI. 2) People in the comment already mentioned UBI is to replace government spending on social welfare, so I suspect the spending after UBI will increase but not by that much.

[@H0wlrunn3r]

My parents would just find something else to complain about lol

[@RadicalAlignment]

I think that's all of us. I was joking on Patreon that in some movies you see neighbors arguing over basic things like fences and goats ("Your goat broke my fence!") and this is the level of problems I want to have.

[@H0wlrunn3r]

@@RadicalAlignment Agreed! If my complaints consist of things like my neck aching from sleeping in, or my new iPhone 20 Plus battery is ONLY lasting for one week between charges then we will be in a better place

[@last7509]

then shift the paradigm. it's high time

[@tminusmat]

A ubi in a capitalists country will create some inflation. Like rent, corporate gouging. Instead a elr or employer of last resort. It fed job guarantee.

[@Thedeepseanomad]

If Understand the concepts of decentralized private ownership and stakeholder capitalism correctly, I personally prefer Decentralized/distributted universal property type solutions (a non-state run common everyone recieves their own share/dividends from, but where you can not sell your right to receive - like a stock trader can ) for UBi over decentraliserad private property any day of the week.

[@GerbenWulff]

I don't believe UBI can be implemented successfully, although it is an interesting concept. I don't think it has to be very expensive. Taxation is part of the reason why living in the US is so expensive. I live in the Philippines and people here get by on $ 100/month. Some people get allowances like that from their rich relatives who can make thousands of dollars a month abroad. Those allowances are somewhat similar to an UBI: people are generally not required to work specific jobs in return, although they are expected to be productive members of society. One of the reasons I think it is so hard to make UBI work is that you need to motivate people to be productive members of society. For that you need people to act responsibly and to feel responsible, you need to nurture social cohesion. You need to end individualism. Create strong communities. I am a communist in a sense that I believe that much of the important decisions should be made at the community level. Like the old soviets in the early Soviet Union. Depending on communities is not a perfect system either, but I think an important reason it didn't work was the disruption of markets within the Soviet Union. Property laws were put in the bin, which in turn killed the markets (why should people pay for things if the people already own it?). This forced them to centralize everything, which turned out not to be the best solution. The first step to making an UBI feasible I think will be to build stronger communities.

[@carlosamado7606]

I understand your position, but you are thinking we need people to be productive in a world with AGI. The fact is we don't. You can be, and that's great but is not required anymore. In fact many fields will benefit from taking humans out of the loop completely. No human can beat Alpha Go or Alpha zero and that will start to happen with real jobs, not only go or chess. The output of a machine will be just too fast and efficient. For example, I'm a musician, writer, photographer and work on many other creative fields too, however eraning a living is near impossible. If I had UBI I could focus on what I want without the pressure of income. Now would people be lazier? Yes. But will we also live much longer? Also true. I don't expect there to be such a thing as retirement when I get to my late 60s, in 40 years. In my opinion UBI can work, but maybe it will not. But, if it doesn't, humans have no competitive value with an ever evolving super intelligence, it is just not feasable, so we will need to think of something else. Maybe UBI could be a transition thing for some time and we would then find something different that is not even considered today.

[@GerbenWulff]

@@carlosamado7606 The idea of people no longer having to work is interesting, but in my opinion that is too far out in the future. I don't think I will see that happen myself. We've had AI for decades and we are still far away from replacing human labour. We've had steam powered and now electric powered machines that replaced labour for centuries and this has made many jobs obsolete, but new jobs were created. We've had computers for decades now and they have replaced a lot of jobs, but again also many new jobs were created. In the foreseeable future AI is a tool that needs to be used by humans who understand how it works. Who can make the right prompts to get the right results and who can ensure that the results are useful. Also, perhaps AI can help us to free up labour to improve the human interaction as a way to improve the experience of people in restaurants, healthcare etc. Also realise that AI at present isn't truly creative. There will be demand for people who are creative and know how to use AI tools. You might be able to be more productive using such tools and push others out of the market, but demand for creativity will not cease in the foreseeable future in my opinion. I myself currently work mostly as a text editor. And you might think that is one of the first jobs that wil disappear. I don't see it happen any time soon. My work will change, which is why I want to skill myself on using AI tools, but there is going to be huge demand for people who know how to use such tools effectively.

[@VerseUtopia]

Energy efficiency of industrial and Human base energy generation in various type of instruments generators, Is way to free human out of productivity activities cage..

[@nodistincticon]

We don't need to give money to people who don't need it. We just want all people that have enough. Think earned income tax credit instead of ubi. If you make no money, then you get the maximum credit to get you to the median income of your city. It's like a subsidized minimum wage. It can be done easily through taxes.

[@minecraftmilitary]

I agree UBI would be unaffordable at the moment. I think at least implementing a progressive & negative tax system could be a doable alternative. But realistically, even though it's called UBI, starting like at like upper middle class, i don't think it's really needed to get that stimulus boost. But also the progressive tax system would very much increase the amount of income the government gets.

[@mr.goldfish7473]

@davidshapiro who is this interloper?

[@RadicalAlignment]

What are you talking about

[@mr.goldfish7473]

@@RadicalAlignment this isn’t David you false prophet.

[@RadicalAlignment]

Check my main channel. I've linked to this channel. This is me, bro lol

[@user-sy3wp9cy8d]

Lots of money for war

[@leightonwatkins9486]

If it’s to expensive it dosent ,work ,then and nothing truly works because reality is emergent ,,works ,implies ,stasis ...reality is dynamic

[@Josephkerr101]

It has to be universal basic assets. Income value will fluctuate and leave people dependent on that financial systems stability and valuation. Assets on the other hand offers autonomy and resilience. It would need to be maintained, but a sudden collapse of value leaves ubi recipients starving. A collapse of an asset system leaves people with assets that lack maintenance.

[@RadicalAlignment]

Yeah that's what I call "decentralized ownership"

[@kennethoneill4176]

​​@@RadicalAlignment pair the central bank digital currency with part of the Ubi to pay people to collect direct data on everything people spend money on in real time. Then charge corpations to have access to the data while protecting individual identity.but have a cap on how much can be in the cbdc account to receive Ubi payment. And have a substantial fee if someone wants to convert cbdc to cash or move it to a standard bank account. The asset is the real time data people generate when they spend money

[@guilhermehx7159]

AI could provide if not monopolized by a few

[@leightonwatkins9486]

Check out steve keens lectures on economics Dave ....all th3 best

[@mknomad5]

No tax havens. No borders. I also like the idea of stakeholder capitalism.

[@rustylidrazzah5170]

1:20 the budget breakdown looks like your are only looking at government spending. So UBI is on top of earned income in your example? I understand that’s how the tests worked with UBI, but that being deployed on a macro scale would only prove to be inflationary. UBI is supposed to be the primary income for it to do as it was designed. It in the name. All other income is supposed to build on the basic. The basic is supposed to set the floor, not the ceiling. I know some who have advocated UBI are only doing so to preserve a version of capitalism. However, one should be open to the idea they aren’t compatible, and any built in premises or assumptions may have to be suspended to have an objective take on UBI’s potential.

[@Renaudpc]

Canada?

[@Henyckma]

Tanzania.

[@carjaune6793]

Contrary to popular belief, money does not disappear after being spent. This might change your calculation, if you follow through on the logic.

[@RadicalAlignment]

Yes it's called circulation.

[@carjaune6793]

@@RadicalAlignment Yeah so similarly if you have a closed loop waterfall the cost of moving water back up to the top is not an amount of water, but an amount of energy. Money isn't going anywhere, it's incompressible like the water. The cost of the UBI is the administrative cost of cut-pasting the money across the economy, when properly conceptualized, not the bulk of money itself, which is kind of a meaningless number in itself. This is borne out by the mental experiment of doing a UBI (at any level) in a perfectly egalitarian society. Then everyone is taxed & returned the same amount, and no one even feels the UBI as a result, even though some bloke, in that world, could make a video saying the UBI is waaaaay too expensive based on its nominal amount.

[@carjaune6793]

@@RadicalAlignment Maybe you should consider just a straight up consumption tax like VAT to be paired with the UBI. Money doesn't impact anyone until you start spending it anyway. And the key point that keeps flying way over the heads of "progressives" is that the UBI + VAT combo is progressive, not regressive. Like a 30% VAT (yes very big!) would raise 70k per inhabitant, almost a 6k UBI a month for every man, woman, and child in the country. Minus all the costs of poverty that go away. It's eminently "affordable" what is not affordable anymore is not doing it. Plz don't be stupid & spread misinformation 🙏

[@RadicalAlignment]

Yeah, I think that VAT tax makes a lot of sense. as well as "sin" tax (e.g. rich people stuff like second and third homes, fancy cars). I wonder if that level of conversation is beyond most viewers though. I try to keep stuff accessible

[@adcaptandumvulgus4252]

So more equality of outcome?

[@adcaptandumvulgus4252]

Space mining?

[@CanadeIan]

does UBI increase the financial output of participants?

[@RadicalAlignment]

I think it does because employment tends to go up. It also increases consumption, which can unfortunately drive inflation. But massive job loss by AI would cause deflation.

[@unexpectedly1468]

​@@RadicalAlignment Increased consumption doesn't necessarily cause inflation as long as supply goes up to match. In a competitive economy, production will ramp up and new entrants will enter the market to cater for increased demand. I don't think inflation is a key concern, although the timing of inflation arriving after the stimulus checks was a bad look.

[@RadicalAlignment]

Not all supply is elastic.

[@yoananda9]

What about wokism ? it's a huge problem / symptom. why not, let's say, $300 or $500 for a start instead of a full $1200 ?

[@danielreborn4707]

World will look like depicted in Elysium movie. US streets already start transforming into favelas.

[@TenOrbital]

Well you could save a shed load by not giving it to people who don’t need it.

[@alonsomarquez9863]

Money should become obsolete if everyone is replaced by AI. There is no scarcity because AI out produces the rate of consumption. No money no wars. All of us become citizens of the world. The “painful transition” it’s because we’re trapped in our old way of thinking. Money must not be the show stopper… come on guys!

[@noergelstein]

Money will never be obsolete, because a world without scarcity doesn’t exist. For example you can‘t have as many people living in an apartment with a view of the Eiffel tower as would want to. Also not everybody can have an original Stradivari instrument.

[@geometron3646]

@15:45 Russia's about to disintegrate and fall apart? Hmmm... better go and tell them. Hehe. So many great takes, but some skew-whiff ones for sure.

[@multitrickfox]

I still dont get it. Shouldn't you put the cart before the horse?? Should the horse push it instead

[@InimitaPaul]

Tax businesses income tax on every job replaced with AI and robotics and UBI works just fine.

[@Virtualvinyilradio]

It would cost 3 trillion

[@daviniarobbins9298]

Why would you pay UBI to a child? If you restrict UBI only to adults 18 years and older that would reduce it by 100 million pay outs(I have no idea how many children are living currently in the USA) to 230 million people. Then you would means test it so you get UBI until earnings equals a level and reduces until it hits an higher level at which point you lose UBI(again I have no idea of what it is like to live in the US what with taxes and cost of living). There are ways of doing it.

[@S8N4747]

Not governments should pay for ubi. The corporations should.

[@lucrativeleadershipconvers5149]

I'd vote to have government funding go toward your channels opensource mission over the money wasted on a lot of research projects being funded by the NSF. It's all in the public domain. Look for yourself.

[@dm95422]

Exactly what Andrew Yang said in 2019 ! Well put.

[@basicprogrammer6147]

Do this: 18 or older $1,000 per month no questions asked, no attachments Eliminate other programs

[@VallenChaosValiant]

If we can pay for everything NOW, and then the same goods and services are produced in the future but without human labour, by definition we can pay everyone an UBI using all the salaries we were no longer paying. That is the facts. Human labour had been valuable all through history. The entire basis of economics revolving around extracting it. But once it is no longer valuable it is silly to still say that supporting citizens is expensive.

[@ThomasVWorm]

We can always pay for everything, we do produce. Not being able to buy everything makes no sense. You problem with a UBI are prices. When there is no human labour involved, the cost of production are zero. Without profits, the price of the products therefore is zero too. So you do not need money at all except for paying profits. But what are profits needed for? You cannot buy anything from it. The production is already being owned by the owners of the companies. And the humans, who pay with the UBI, don't sell anything. Which also gives us another problem: after the UBI is spent, all the money is owned by the producers. There is no way back, since the humans do not sell anything. So the only way to return the money is taxing the producers with 100%, which means, they will not have a net income from production but only the UBI. But again: how do we find prices? The producers can charge every price, they want, and how much they charge, defines how big the UBI must be. Money becomes completely useless in such an economy.

[@timrobinson5235]

I'm confused In a capitalist market won't UBI just increase costs (inflation), if I know you have $1400 to spend on accommodation I will set my rates accordingly

[@RadicalAlignment]

Job loss would be hugely deflationary

[@NikoKun]

It's not too expensive, if you factor in the savings from removing all the other programs which would no longer be necessary with a UBI. Your way of calculating the cost of UBI does not present an accurate picture. See: "How to Calculate the Cost of Universal Basic Income" by Scott Santens. Plus, we should also consider that as AI automation takes over labor, prices should start to come down. So hopefully something like a UBI would balance with that. I've been supportive of UBI for decades, despite that name only being used in the last decade or so. The costs of poverty are actually much more expensive to society.

[@TurdFergusen]

Crashing real estate prices is better than UBI, actual UBI will just bring them up and nobody is better.

[@andreaskrbyravn855]

everyone dont need to be on ubi, a lot will still work, just less people will work.

[@SimGunther]

Replace the current system with something much better, then UBI can be on the table. Until that happens, UBI is just an excuse for big business to raise prices by however much we would get from this new income.

[@tracy419]

People say that all the time, but when jobs go away the UBI isn't extra money, it's money.

[@SimGunther]

@@tracy419 That's what I'm implying. If it gets be that jobs magically go poof, businesses will have no choice but to have UBI as a means to make customers or else every business (and effectively, the world due to a 99.9% population drop off fromStarvation andForced labor) falls apart unless businesses are the only customers that are allowed to exist when AGI is in full effect according to the current system.

[@tracy419]

​@@SimGunther I've posted 4 times previously that have all been deleted so I'll try one more time a bit differently. I think UBI can be handled following a system similar to the fair tax. If you want to look it up (a lot of people use the name for various versions) just put those 2 words together with org at the end. Don't forget the dot. Anyway, first we would assume that all natural resources belong to society, and as such, any profits made using them are divided between the population. Obviously those who make and sell the products and services get more, but that's how you encourage innovation. The money is collected at the point of sale on all new goods and services excluding food. This encourages sustainability because used products aren't taxed. It also reduces the cost associated with tax collection because you only monitor customer facing business. The money (UBI) is distributed through the prebate and eliminates all other social welfare programs, which also reduces the overhead costs associated with them. It should also get rid of the tax haven issues mentioned in the video because instead of taxing every single level of everything, you only tax at the point of sale where the customer is buying the product. Want to sell in America, well, that's where it's taxed. Even if it originates overseas.

[@SimGunther]

@@tracy419 I'm assuming that the fairTaxDoesn't allow for a lot of exceptions, if any. This "simple" model would _simply_ push low-middle income households even lower. If we want a progressive tax, there's still a need for an IRS, but actually enforce existing taxes on the books and don't just let "loan interest" andSSI tax cap be some of the things standing in the way of a better world.

[@tracy419]

@@SimGunther considering we are talking about replacing income because jobs will be going extinct, I'm not sure how progressive it is is all that important. The main point is, it reduces costs associated with the various things it replaces, makes it easier to implement and overall, is just an idea for a starting point. The details of course need to be worked out.

[@avilesandres]

Universal basic housing, how bout that

[@RadicalAlignment]

Maybe