Apart from being egregiously out of touch, it's also a huge power move, one that I don't think people grasp.
The polarisation of society into those deriving an income from return on capital - capitalists - and those deriving an income from labour - workers - has been driven in large part by venture capital and their hunger for new asset classes.
Housing is an asset class, it's no longer social infrastructure.
Stocks are an asset class - they're no longer a way to ensure survival of the best organisations - because many companies with little revenue have high valuations.
Compute is now an asset class. It allows organisations to gain advantage, and create a moat from their competitors. Compute is an asset.
By substituting compute for money (another asset class), Altman is trying to substitute compute for currency more broadly.
And who creates currency?
Typically, the state. Who now creates currency, sorry I mean compute? The MAANGs that have taken the place of the state.
Compute is currency.
Replacing currency with compute is a form of wrestling control from the state.
Our #aurora generating magnetosphere, a geophysical #UBI, an environmental, ecological, economic UBI we don’t even think of that billionaires and their pet economists say they are competent to substitute for.
Consider the enormity of their egotistical folly.
Even Star Fleet would choose a 7C warmer Earth or an irradiated nuked Earth over a Mars. Technology has nothing to do with it. Wisdom does.
File this one under the #comingLaborApocalypse. Really, I can't think of a job that is safe, but these are soon toast. Consider supporting basic income #ubi before it's too late.
I'm against student loan forgiveness, not because I'm against giving the money out... but because I'm against giving it out only to student loan debtors. Here's the idea... give everyone equally a #UBI and let the people with student loans repay it from there. I'm ok with limiting interest rates too, and rolling back capitalization of back interest... totally fine with that. But if we're creating money out of thin air and giving it to anyone, it should 100% be equally distributed.
...And it would generate a huge pool of disgruntled policemen, possibly a new source of societal instability.
However, crime could be greatly reduced by simply removing the need for a huge part of the population: introducing #UBI and #UBS. People who have "everything" they (basically) need are very much less prone to commit crimes, as losing their freedom becomes a much greater fall in personal quality of life. Less...
...crime, less police 🚔, less power, less controls, less unnecessary searches, less costs for law enforcement and the judiciary, more money for #UBS,...a virtuous circle.
Just to be dure: tons of studies on #UBI in different countries over decades have all shown that it works. It just would need to be implemented...and refinanced (#WealthTax, #WindfallProfitsTax!)
Hey @scottsantens and #UBI friends! This Canadian House of Commons petition needs some help to get across the finish line in the next couple days! Can you help spread the word for more signatures!?
"We, the undersigned, Canadians supporting GBI, call upon the Government of Canada to implement a national framework for GBI that tests various funding and implementation models and their effects on poverty, inequality, innovation and labour productivity.”
There is always quite a lot of discussion about universal basic income in my timeline, and its an approach that has its supporters & detractors.
So, for those with time on their hands you might want to look at Ellis Winningham's pretty comprehensive series on UBI posted last year @BylinesScotland
There's lots to get your teeth into & I hope you find it helpful.
Drained from a few days of much social interaction, so looking at #UBI data. So far I only found two studies that didn't have obvious great outcomes, but that includes one that was cancelled early.
Also:
"When the project was finished in August 2023, Mein Grundeinkommen calculated that a tax-financed universal basic income of €1,200 per month could be financed for every adult in Germany that would make 80% of adults better off."
A natural basic income experiment began in the mid-1990s and how the kids (now in their 30s and 40s) are doing is incredible. As adults, they have fewer drug problems and their average IQ is higher. By age 26, the benefits of the UBI exceeded its cost by 3-to-1 thanks to better educational outcomes and reduced spending on crime and medical care.
Notice: I reply to any #UBI advocacy posts seen on my timeline with some variation of “it’s not yours to give.” Then I immediately set the thread to ignore any replies. I’m also ignoring replies to this post.
RANDOM REMINDER
house chores, errands, laundry, cooking, mowing, care-taking, repairs, schooling, all domestic activities are work and as such, LABOR.
there's so much talk about #tradwives these days, it bears repeating: #capitalism completely devalued the labor of housekeeping, turning it back to its original condition as a form of, if not slavery then, domestic servitude.
the Wealth of Nations is built on the Stolen Labor of Home keepers. yet another reason for #UBI and #Medicare4All
I'd love to see #ubi in place for all Americans. Like others, I agree that taxing billionaires, companies, reducing military spending, and such would all be good sources. But to my untrained math mind, it still doesn't add up.
Order of magnitude: GDP ~20 trillion $/yr, Population 330 million.
Assume $10 /person / day. (Not enough, I know) But even that modest number would be over a trillion a year.
That's 5% of GDP to buy everyone a nice sandwich a day.
I don’t know….that doesn’t sound half bad to me! Obviously 5% of GDP is a lot, but it doesn’t seem totally infeasible.
And a sandwich a day might not sound like a lot but $300 per month isn’t nothing, and that calculation included the whole population, including kids. So, if a family of 5 is getting $1500 per month, it seems like a useful chunk of money.
And the #ubi is on top of whatever people make working, no strings attached.
@pseudonym To be fair #UBI is a nice concept but it’s just a mechanism to avoid capitalism collapsing on itself. It doesn’t address the root causes of poverty.
If the government just printed money (and it could) to build houses for people until every family owned one with no mortgage all the calculations would seem different. But rest assured that the powers in place will get you fascism before that.
It breaks all these unsustainable practices and con tricks, AND IT SAVES MONEY.
Oh, and it doesn't funnel money to offshoring wealthy sociopaths.
Money for UBI ends up in the pockets of people who need it to live, who spend it, and will spend it in their communities reducing the need for centralised support, means testing and other inefficiencies.
When you are poor, in many ways you can't afford to work, which is why so many basic income pilots focused on low income households show increased work.
When you have some non-zero amount of money, UBI assists work.
There is then some amount of money high enough to reduce work.
I wish more people who are worried about FOSS supply side attacks would realize that universal basic income and free healthcare would result in an almost infinite stream of excellent software from people who care more about quality than profit.
The shitty jobs still exist and still need to get done, even when there's #UBI. The difference is, with UBI people can say "No" to shitty jobs with poor pay. So to get the shitty jobs done they have to pay enough so people want to do them. UBI makes shitty jobs a bit less shitty.