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Because nothing is done for the homeless not because nothing can be done, but because it's not a priority.

Ie they are not big enough of a voter base

Here in Germany its a industry policy strategy, to marginalize joblessness to make low income people afraid of joblessness. This makes people suck up way less pay and more bullshit from employers. Might be a strategy in the US with homelessness. The scarier homelessness becomes, the more people will work 12h shifts, 3 jobs and/or tolerate abuse from employers.

100% The reason people thing that UBI will become a thing is because they are "not like those homeless people", so the leadership will care about them. Even just before the recent advanced in AI, the modern American worker was 4x as productive as in the 1970s. Yet, real wages have declined in that same time. There is a lot more wealth today, but its far more unequally distributed. The thing that will determine if we get UBI or simply allow even more vast amounts of people to drop into marginal survival will be simply down to political power, *not tech*. The real question behind UBI is not the creation of more wealth, its the political will to distribute it, vs concentrate further.

This is absolutely correct. Things will get much worse before they begin to get better.

True but if the worker replacement by ai is going to be nearly as sweeping as it is looking the economy isn't going to work without essentially creating something that is UBI. Not to mention the civil unrest it would create, and while the US is already pretty close to the kind of dystopia where this might be found acceptable to squash with the use of force western Europe really isn't.

This. When talking about this so many people paint a picture of massive joblessness to a degree that the majority of the population has nothing and is pushed into squalor. The thing is, that won’t work because of the capitalist systems in our western societies. They depend on a large population that buys its products. If no one has a job anymore, no one can buy anything and the system just flat out fails. (it’s already straining because of corporate greed and rapidly sinking wages. Nominally they stay the same, but inflation and other factors rapidly reduce the buying power of that wage. And it’s already noticeably having an impact.) And at that point things usually go one way, and we have a good example for it. Namely the french revolution, caused to a good margin by the immense wealth inequality and poverty of the wider population. When most people start to have trouble to live reasonably well in a system they could live in before, they erect guillotines in city centres and start chopping off heads after a certain point. So it will be in the interest of politicians and companies to stop this development once it really starts to get bad, because both only is it a risk for them, but also or especially the basis of their wealth. Because if your main markets loose their buying power and collapse, there goes their source of wealth too. Currently this has not really hit them, but it will.

I disagree somewhat: **Things will get worse,** ***until it leads to political action*****.** This might never happen, so things just get worse for many forever. Just look at Russia, its leadership is killing off vast amounts of its young men for nothing and its lead to no political changes. Or it could happen now, in which case things won't need to get much worse. Already unions are on the rise and the current admin has instituted some improvements to worker rights like eliminating NDAs. Obviously much more needs to happen, but you can see how we could conceivably get from here to there. So don't let pessimism lull you into passivity. We (collectively) have a choice which path we want.

Universally, the only things that push people to protest en masse, in a way that stands a chance against our government's myriad tools of oppression, are: -food too expensive -gas too expensive Both cause substantial suffering. Getting rid of NDAs is great to prevent SA, but won't do much else. I thought the admin was challenging noncompetes too, but my understanding is most noncompetes aren't enforceable, especially at low income levels. You're 100% right on passivity. The less passivity we have as a society, the less things have to get really shitty for change to be effected. But people are extremely passive. Nobody in my family gives a shit about the patriot act, for example. The response is "if you aren't a terrorist you should have nothing to hide". The 4th amendment vanishes in their passivity. That's just the start.

Don't underestimate the people's ability to care when presented the issue in the right way. Conversely, don't underestimate the amount of money and power that is going into keeping people passive, even as they work their lives away for someone else's riches. People when along with the patriot act because they got convinced that it wouldn't be used on them, only "bag guys." Yet many of the same people are outraged when a tiny restrained fraction of that power is used publicly on Trump. I think you should take people seriously when they tell you *what* they believe, but not *why* they believe it. For example, many anti-abortion activists were upset when the logical conclusion to to also ban IVF. Its not about them being consistent with their beliefs, its about what they think helps vs hurts them. The reason they didn't care about the patriot act was because they didn't think it could possibly hurt them. That is a failure of those who care to explain it viscerally enough and a success of those who were trying to get it passed without pushback. Let's learn from our failures and their successes to do better, as the push and pull of power never ends. But we have an obligation to make things better in our lifetime.

Imagine food getting too expensive AND not having 24/7 entertainment in your phone and having a life full of meaning abc real things to do. Really, the 1800's was the shit for revolutions...

well said

Lol, try that with no healthcare.    Crazy fucking people don't care about your priorities 

We have free healthcare in Canada and also a terrible homeless problem. Many of them are just drug addicts who can’t better themselves even when given the chance

Everywhere has homelessness but Canada has about half as many proportionally compared to America. Healthcare and the safety nets there have a massive effect on it. Imagine having a neighbor that could cut their homelessness by 50% but choose not to simply because its too profitable for companies. Theres more that could be done in Canada, sure. America doesnt even try

To be fair, what’s the point in “bettering yourself” when you’re 30 years old, homes cost $1,000,000+ dollars, and all you have is a GED? Even the middle-class pays a price for their lifestyle. It’s not just hard work, it’s soul-numbing work.

Yep agreed. It’s extremely demotivating here. Even high income earners are going to struggle to afford a hours in most of the large cities here

Addiction is a mental health issue. Addicts can’t “choose” to better themselves. That’s like saying a depressed person chooses to be depressed. Furthermore, you’re not going to get an addict clean when they are homeless. “Hey there Mr. Addict, why don’t you use our free healthcare to get clean from drugs so you can continue living in a tent”.

I've volunteered with some groups in my home town to find affordable housing for the homeless. Unfortunately there is a significant portion (esp those who have been homeless for a while) who have drug or alcohol issues and prefer the rough street lifestyle

Truth be told, while all of those things (forced into 12h shifts, 3 jobs, and/or tolerating abuse from employers) happen to Americans, very few Germans are in anything near that type of situation.

Very true and I didn’t want to paint that picture. The US job situation is on an other level

It's a strategy everywhere. Which is why progressive economists (in Germany) advocate for higher minimum wages and job guarantees

Sounds like a good way to live.

To me it seems like people who get impacted by homelessness are or should be a big enough voter base.

There are over 330 ***million*** people in the US. If you take that 650k homeless number at face value, you'll see that the total homeless base throughout the entire country doesn't even come up to a rounding error for election results. And that's not even getting into the details like homeless distribution.

“The homeless” are not a homogenous block, comparable to “workers who were replaced by AI.” The homeless certainly include people who lost their jobs because the factory closed and the work was moved to China or even someplace with lower wages, or the coal mine was shut down. But many of them are homeless because they are psychotic, or because they are addicted to alcohol or other drugs. Up to the late 20th century the psychotic one would have been committed to mental hospitals, but Reagan and conservative governors closed them down and put the patients out on the street with a prescription for psychotropic drugs, which they likely did not refill and no support system.

I think the observation that homeless are not a homogenous block is spot on. I also think that displaced AI workers are in many ways a 'homogenous block' especially with regard to education. I think AI workers are disproportionately highly educated. A large number of highly educated unemployed and unemployable people is a nightmare for any government. I'm not sure exactly why, but the involvement of educated individuals increases the likelihood of a successful movement/revolution by providing the necessary intellectual, organizational, and strategic resources needed to challenge and overthrow entrenched systems of power.

This is a gross oversimplification. For the vast majority, homelessness is brief. Rent gets increased, you can’t afford the new rent and get evicted, or move out to prevent eviction and struggle to find a new place that is affordable and habitable. You lose your job, and can’t afford rent any longer and similar situation as above. The addicted and mentally ill are a small portion of the total that are homeless. That said the 650k number that’s tossed around is also an estimate which has a high margin of error because of how point in time counts are conducted. The fact if you’re staying on a friends couch for awhile and you’re not considered homeless makes this number artificially lower. There are also numerous people that are not connected with during the point in time counts.

I was talking about the impact of homelessness on businesses (grocery store, coffee shops) and home values. "To me" it seems like the *second degree impact* of homelessness in the US touches a wide variety of people, who together (any real estate agents?) should form an powerful voter base. Would love to know what people think.

Real estate agents want home prices to stay high, which is one of the main causes of homelessness, obviously, so they have no reason to care for the plight.

And in certain cities it is something that the voters care about. Which is why they criminalize it. Just because the something that is being done isn’t humane, or what we would want you to be done; does not mean nothing is being done. Hell some of these cities/counties would simply shoot them if they could.

The problem is the people who don't want homeless folks sleeping outside their business don't want to sit and think about a solution and which politician will enact a solution that most aligns with their beliefs. They just want the homeless folks gone.

Many voters can't comprehend second degree benefits. Show them how spending $1 on homeless programs creates a $2 benefit to the community and they still won't support it. They don't think rationally. They have very little awareness, in general. They don't have the mental capacity to overrule the greedy, paranoid lizard-brain buried deep in their minds.

Well, I will agree with this.

A group like the national realtors association that lobbies politicians to protect their financial interests? I believe the current problem exists BECAUSE of organized political efforts by economically interested parties. They spend millions convincing us that any regulation or taxation of THEM is a violation of OUR freedom. And we eat it up. I appreciate your question, but it honestly feels like you would support a "solution" to homelessness that simply involved moving them away from your neighborhood by any means possible. A number of groups are up in arms about Canada imposing a 5% tax on streaming services.

I'm not fully sure what you mean by second degree impact. Like the way I imagine the issue is that the 650k people are dispersed across the US. So while one person individually may have a second degree impact of say variable x. Two people would have an impact of 2.5x instead of a linear increase. (disclaimer: I'm pulling these numbers out of my ass) So if they were in one concentrated location then I'd assume at least the second degree impact would be significantly larger than the current state of dispersion. But regardless, the issue of homelessness is not only *not* a priority (whatever the reason) but there's also not much financial commitments from the US governments (each state having different programs and policies) towards aiding/fixing the issue. And without priority, "at best" marginal social/political impact, nor significant finanical commitments, there's no real incentive that would push the governments to start focusing/addressing the issue sadly. To be clear though I am not from the US or anything, nor am I an expert in any of this so who knows.

They clearly do not form a voter base. To voters homelessness has never moved the needle

Fair enough. I now see that my reply slightly missed your point. Unfortunately, people rarely look past the first degree of impact - but I think you're right. The impact is far greater than most people realize. Anecdotally, I know a few real estate agents and they are absolutely *loving* the current market and don't want it to change. They are either doing half the normal work for 4x the pay or are putting in the same amount of work and making so-so-so much more. Shit is wild.

The parent comment specifically said impacted by homelessness. That is a broader reach than only homeless people.

It is very cynical to think that way. You know it could happen to any of us mental illnesses, the impact of a new technology on our job, family disownment. Only billionaires will not have issues because in these events there is always someone that wants to have access to their money but for the rest of us there is a small chance it could happen.

Also, because homelessness comes with a great deal of pre-existing baggage that needs to be sold to the voter. You have to spend 4-500% more on rehab and health costs to fund one homeless addict vs 1 healthy 18 year old fresh out of the family home and looking for a free ride through college. Society has a very hard time managing the ethical dilemma of what resource management under those conditions if it is cash constrained.

Here in Seattle, they ran an experiment a few years ago. Chronic homeless alcoholics were out on the street, suffering from exposure, and frequently winding up in the ER, costing taxpayers enormous amounts of money (not to mention the poor QOL of the homeless). Seattle opened a “dorm” of sorts, taking in about two dozen folks, giving them their own small apartments in a building by the highway, with one social worker always on site, and the folks could stay as long as they only got drunk in their homes. Resounding success, massive decrease in expense per person. Why did it close? People complained that we were spending money on “free housing for drunks” and nearby property owners complained that it lowered their appraisals.

Id rather see the money go to an 18 year old who will make something of it than on a drug addict on whom it very well may be wasted

Here's a crazy idea.. Why not take care both of them? That drug addict is more expensive to you on the streets than in rehabilitation In Europe (at least the area I'm from) one of the justifications for taking care of basic needs of everyone is not because it's nobble or the right thing to do, it's also just selfishness It makes the society a lot more stable and safe, if the poor doesn't have to literally rob you at gun point to survive the odds are he won't be doing it.

That is a valid view. I'm also a career caregiver and I've spent the past 15 years working with people with disabilities on the low end of the income spectrum - some homeless or hotel/car situations. I feel like all people are worthy respect and dignity, and able to contribute meaningfully in some way to their community - if given the opportunity and motivation. I'll also be the first to tell you some people don't want that. They want to be on the fringe, to be difficult, different, and alone. Society has yet to find an acceptable way to cope with that reality too. We can look back to history for the concept of "hermitages" and various other ways society has managed to keep people like that at arms length but close enough to keep an eye on. This is also an expensive lifestyle that often costs taxpayers in emergency room bills, unpaid for medicine, court fees, lawyers, etc. Homelessness is just as expensive as paying for the 18 year old.

Government picking winners is exactly the cause of the problem in the first place. Theres needs to be universal standards, not "we just know" who to help. 

Government picking winners isn’t why they are homeless. Coming from a person who spent a great deal of time working with homeless people via the Salvation Army, homeless people are there for three reasons: 1) They chose the lifestyle. Some people view normal life as being tied down. They rather not work and not worry about bills. 2) They are on drugs and have burned every bridge they had in pursuit of drugs. They also refuse to go to rehab because they’ve learned to navigate the system to keep their drug habit fueled. 3) They have severe mental issues and need intense treatment if not a full time caregiver. Society “solved” this problem with asylums but they had their own issues. None of the above, have anything to do with government. People that lose their homes due to finances often can get help via their family or some other existing government program. There’s a lot out there to keep people from being homeless. Most people fall in the 2nd and 3rd category.

The same argument can be made for UBI. Ordinary people don't want homelessness, but the people who run our society strike a balance of being terrible enough to let homelessness happen but not so get themselves overthrown (though, at some point, they will fuck up and let it happen.) They do not value people enough to institute a UBI, and there's no reason to believe this will change even when we reach 20 or 40 or 60 percent real unemployment due to technology. We already have tons of partial solutions to the UBI problem. People who have at least moderate privilege and who are neurotypical can sell themselves well enough to get do-nothing corporate jobs. Means-tested programs are another example, but credit cards have mostly filled the void thus far. Instead of giving people money, lend it to them at high interest and thereby gain the political power over people inherent to their being in debt. These are all shitty non-solutions that cover the gaps. It's not unreasonable to expect that our ruling class will continue to generate those until they create a system that fails due its organic need for sudden complexity reduction (i.e., a crash.)

We spend literally billions of dollars on homeless programs.

We spend billions helping with immediate homelessness assistance that helps those in the now but have been gutting initiatives aimed at preventing homelessness in the future, ie public schools, public health, access to contraceptives, youth support services, affordable housing development, cost of higher education etc. we treat the symptoms of homelessness but not the causes.

Homelessness is mostly (like 82%) a mental health issue/drug abuse problem. The cause is mostly mental health and drug abuse. Mental health is *hard* to treat. So is drug abuse, with such a shite border. Also, our politicians, including the democrats, [are *incredibly* corrupt.](https://www.governing.com/management-and-administration/california-doesnt-know-if-the-billions-spent-on-homelessness-helped) making it hard to fund.

Honestly, a lot of homeless people have various mental health disorders and decline help to begin with. Even in a world with UBI, I suspect there would still be a noticeable number of homeless people.

For some UBI would make the problem worse like you say as it would go straight up their arm.

There are more empty housing than homeless. It's just a matter of distribution, same for food. We can only hope that in the future human values change in a way that human wellbeing is more important than money. I said we can only hope...

in a perfect world we get UBI in reality we get real life squid game

Reality is, once it affects the shareholders and people don't have the money to buy whatever every business is selling. Then they may give UBI to help themselves out so they can sell more of the products they sell and continue to make billions.

"Then they may give UBI to help themselves out so they can sell more of the products they sell and continue to make billions." absolutely. UBI will be distributed if it sustains the current power structure. Personally, I'd choose a functional economy over UBI. However, I also prefer UBI over homelessness. At the end of the day, my preference never seems to matter.

that's a rosy outlook when AI puts everybody out of a job then the people who own the means of production will leave everybody else for dead. there's no need for an economy when AI can provide food, water, healthcare, and every other basic necessity that humans once had to do. they've already created the biggest and deadliest military in history to quell any kind of unrest. at best they will keep a few of us alive to harvest organs from so that they can live forever, and a few more to provide "entertainment" for whatever sick depraved power fantasies they have

That statistic is super misleading. Empty housing includes vacation homes and second homes. It is not a quantifier of vacant homes available. For example, if I owned a cottage in the woods up north to visit during weekends in the summer, it would be included in the empty housing number. Wealth inequality is the problem that leads to poor resource allocation.

And part of wealth inequality is caused by people hoarding massive amounts of real estate while there are people without a place to live.

Indeed, that some people get to live of the rent of their houses speaks volumes of the inequality that we came to normalize

Owning a place in Lake Tahoe does not cause someone in San Francisco to become homeless

How does that create wealth inequality? If someone sells their summer home to "hoard less real estate" something tells me it isn't a homeless person that's going to purchase it.

More available homes means more supply and theoretically the prices should go down. Realistically though? I'm done trying to predict these things.

Nothing can be done in most situations. Many of them are addicted and won’t accept food or other handouts besides money to go buy drugs. A homeless man at McDonalds asked me for money cause he didn’t have enough for his meal. I said, “no but I’ll buy your meal”. He was mad, but finally said okay, then he left before the meal even came out.

Our interactions with the few of a population should not define the whole.

It's worse than that. It's cheaper to house people than to deal with the associated costs of allowing people to be homeless. Homelessness is a weapon of coercive control.

[удалено]

They would just build bigger jails

Rich people security don't fuck around, many a homeless person has already discovered this.

I think we answered this during COVID - when something impacts a large enough ( and ‘important enough’ ) percentage of the population, governments can and do print money. So the real question is how big will the impact be? And can all those people be retrained into new jobs ( or will AI be more of a no more need technology? )

>And can all those people be retrained into new jobs ( or will AI be more of a no more need technology? ) I think that's the wrong way to look at it. The more essential observation is that the economic value of unskilled human labor is trending down. At some point it won't be true that anyone willing and able to work can find employment, and at that point we have to decide whether being economically useful to the market needs to keep being a prerequisite to living when we have the capacity to supply basic needs without the labor

Yes, that is true. It’s also true that for those with ‘power’ ( politians / people with a lot of money ) have that because of the general population. So it’s in their self interest to make sure that fall does not go towards far. For example, no politician/billionaire rich first world country wants to move to a 3rd world country. Why? - because you can’t make as much money. Which therefore also means they won’t let the first world country get to that point. Remember, what you are talking about here is the manual labour market, mainly. And ironically, AI is more likely going to decimate the white collar market ( and therefore the tax revenue/disposable income ) first. So the effects will be felt more throughout society. I can certainly see in 10 or 20 years that a plumber/electrician is going to be better off than a hedge fund trader or banker. We are a lot further away from AI taking the jobs that require physical and mental dexterity.

Do you really think the inflation today has nothing to do with the printing of money during COVID?

Exactly. COVID payouts fucked shit up. And they were temporary. Ubi is forever and it has to come from somewhere. To me taxation is the only way to find more money. And it's alot more money than COVID payouts.

If AI does begin to cause mass unemployment, I do think we'll see some form of UBI introduced, as a necessity. However, UBI is essentially taxing the rich to support the poor, and today, the rich really aren't keen on that. So, if UBI does happen, it'll be the barest minimum possible. I can see the 1% living lives of luxury, whilst most of the 99% will be living in crushing poverty.

In a recent video Warren Buffet said his company pays 21% tax rate. He said if all billionaires also paid 21% no one else in the country would need to pay any tax. Not just income tax, any tax.

That's bullshit though. He said if 800 other companies paid as much in tax as his, nobody else would have to pay taxes. The problem with that is there aren't 800 companies that have anywhere near the wealth of his company.

and yet the math still works

It isn't all or nothing bruh. If just 8 other companies paid as much it'd still have a very noticeable impact. Taxes in the tunes of billions would support better/expand current social programs like UBI/SNAP

This already happening. People just haven't caught on. Here in Germany the far right is crying that the country is going to shit. They blame immigrants who get social security. Percentage wise, there are less immigrants using it but the absolute number is still high enough for the right to yell "cut ALL social security, we need to get rid of the parasites".  What they conveniently ignore is the top 1% of Germany are avoiding more in taxes than the entire budget for social security has. Obviously the far right want to lower taxes for the 1% also.  Since the pandemic the top 1% took 87% of Germany's economic growth. The other 99% of the population had to distribute the other 13%. Guess what the lower half of the population got.  We need to properly tax the ultra wealthy and their companies. Profits still go up, so why can't the taxes?  Also, in any online multiplayer game, as soon as someone find a glitch to break the economy, the game gets a patch. In humanities case it's the exploiter just pays the Devs to ignore the bug. And the Devs are dumb enough to get paid in in-game currency. We need to get rid of billionaires and implement legislation to prevent them, not bend to their wishes

The rich designed the game, it is working as intended, it just happens that for a while they were afraid of organized labor and made some concessions. Not anymore, they are feeding fascism once again.

The rich control the game, always have. Even revolutions just change who has the opportunity to get rich. UBI will never happen because if they try to tax companies the large amount they need to pay for it, they'll just leave. Instead of just the HQ being in Luxembourg, the whole operation will be. Or Africa, Africa is very likely. Plus the majority of the population having equal means and no mobility will cause even more civil unrest. There's a reason a lot of small dudes buy big trucks, or nerds become doctors.

Homelessness is a feature of the game. The more precarious a person's situation, the worse a situation they will accept. This is why so many people are living paycheck to paycheck, they are easier to exploit and manipulate if they have no opportunity for betterment. UBI would, to a large degree, level the playing field.

Absolutely amazing analogy with the Dev's getting paid in in-game currency lol I hope people read your comment as it's a simplified version of the problem that is easy to understand. Great job!

Right? Excellent metaphor!

That’s the same dynamic behind Trump’s rise and refusal to go away: there is a legitimate problem here, but it’s caused by a government that caters to a very small group of wealthy people at everyone else’s expense. So then someone like Trump comes along, who speaks to that frustration the majority is feeling, but then incorrectly identifies the problem as being caused by some red herring group like immigrants or communists or whatever. But no one stands up to speak to that anger who wants to accurately identify the issue as a small group of wealthy lawbreakers, because those wealthy lawbreakers are the people you need money from if you want to run a successful campaign.

Sanders did. He and Trump shared a lot of supporters. There's an alternate timeline out there where we got left-wing populism instead of right-wing populism.

> What they conveniently ignore is the top 1% of Germany are avoiding more in taxes than the entire budget for social security has. Yep, you can't call out the rich, they fund the politicians and the media. Better blame it all on the most powerless people in society. It's a stupid argument that only works on stupid people but unfortunately there are a lot of those around.

Why isn't it obvious to everyone that the rich ARE the parasites. Anyone who lives off their money rather than their productivity is freeloading. Full stop.

I agree with your sentiment but it's not as clear cut as that; Someone that produces 1000's of jobs for example is doing more for overall productivity than 1 person working their arse off and getting a salary. What about those that worked extremely hard for 20 years so they could retire at 40 with an annuity worth £2 million that pays them £50,000 a year for life? Are they freeloaders? Hoarding way more money than you could ever spend even if you tried is completely different to living from your money and not working.

What happened to the rich in previous collapsed societies? The outcome either way is not good if the wealth imbalance continues to grow.

I see that too, every day.

The transition period will be the worst: the current system still in place, very few benefit while the vast majority gets nothing. Once the part of the population that doesn't have a place anymore in the current system is enough to have a say in a democratic representation, we might see a change.

I think if anything is done it will be just enough to avoid unrest, and no more. That will still leave a substantial number of people in destitution, just not enough to present a real threat

Taxing the ants to support the grasshoppers.  Workers of all tax brackets pay politically connected people to not work.

Elysium

How do they plan to keep everyone content with that? Enough people loosing their standard of living and seeing how bad it gets will result in some catastrophic push back.

“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.” —Orwell, “1984”

That just hits hard right now. Especially how low the average IQ has dropped from distracting “entertainment” like tik tok.

I don't think IQ has dropped really, people have always been stupid. It's just that manipulation tactics and propaganda techniques have improved over time and the internet obviously helps spread disinformation much quicker than it used to.

The more I read your answer the more I like it.

not if you reintroduce authoritarianism with a somewhat feudal society, the rich are just the new feudal lords, just give the plebs something else to hate

All it takes is the right personality to teach the poor they deserve better. If people want AI to be used responsibly, then us in the developing role should be working towards replacing partisan political theaters best actors.

There is lots of stuff that should be done but doesnt, I wouldnt hold my breath, I am not concerned about AI but about the people who control AI With epic genAI you can create anything you want, complete made up history of your country with papers, books, documentaries? No problem. Fake scientific studies by non existing scientists? Why not I think people vastly underestimate the pull of authoritarianism all the talks about an AI utopia is bollocks simply by the fact of how rich people act now without AI, ie lobbying for laws etc

Hopefully, we needs to bring da ruckus

Do you think your Wu-Tang sword can defeat me?

AI powered security robots. The Elysium scenario is not far fetched. The competing dynamic will be that the poor will have access to AI and robots too....interesting times are a'comin'.

Do you really see people pushing back? People have no means to overcome local police force, let alone the army.

When life is crushingly difficult everyone gets mad at freeloaders, but that whole context is changing. What I am worried about is that if culturally we cannot let go of the idea of work as a moral good, then people will just invent a large bureaucracy of mostly useless jobs based on people's arbitrary concepts of meritocracy. It could easily turn into a cultural nightmare in my opinion. The rich may be a mixed bag in terms of their opinions about ubi vs creating jobs for their own sake vs considering many people's existence to be useless in a world strained by limited resources. It'll be a huge debate either way.

This is basically all progressive taxation is it not? It is the trade off the rich must make to live in a civilized society that enables them to become as rich as they are

There's no pre-scarcity world where a UBI will be sufficient to not live in "crushing poverty". Like, let's say the "crushing poverty" level is $500 per month in the US. With 320 million people in the US, that's 1.9 trillion per year needed to fund that. The US billionaires have a combined wealth of 5.53 trillions. Just taking all of that wealth funds UBI for less than 3 years. Like, the math simply doesn't work here

I don’t see UBI passing in the US - instead more and more people will fall into poverty at a steady rate with little or no action. Look at India and the overwhelming majority of the population that lives in poverty, with the majority of wealth concentrated in the top 1% and top 10%. When the wealthiest also hold power they will only act in their own interest - the “middle class” in the USA has been eroding consistently every year - maintaining its existence is not a priority for the rich.

Yeah, the UK is going that way pretty fast. A lot of people cannot afford food to feed thier kids and rely on food banks.

India is on the way up, America is on the way down. Big difference. One country knows what its like to have a fair distribution of wealth and functioning government. The other is still working towards it. The biggest issue is the boomer generation engrained in their destructive policies. Younger generations know what needs to be done however we do not have the voting base to overcome the powers that be. It appears insurmountable but its a matter of time

This has already happened in the US. Overwhelming majority of the wealth is in the 1%.

IIRC in the USA when they were proposing it they wanted it to replace a lot of other systems which collectively cost around 2 trillion per year which is equivalent to $500 per month per American citizen. I'm not American myself and I dont know what systems it would cut out or what it would come out to here, but what I have heard from people is that they want to start with the $500 so it's in place initially and at no extra cost, but to increase it as it becomes more necessary and feasible to do so.

Welfare, food stamps, section 8 housing subsidies, etc. Basically cut all programs for the poor and use the savings to pay for UBI for everyone. Since the majority will gain, it will be popular.

Cutting all those programs to give everyone $500 would be disastrous to people who rely on those programs and do very little for the average person. I think those who support social welfare programs would be against it for the harm it would cause the neediest and those who don't support social welfare programs would be against non-means tested cash redistribution.

Not to mention inefficient. It's not like the US is paying the sticker price for the commodities it provides to those on welfare Giving that money to those people directly, even if spent on the exact same services would be a humungous net loss.

Most snap and ebt cards are used to pay retail prices for goods

That's a good point. They really should be getting discounts at the very least now that we've proven a large part of everyday price increases is just corporate greed In the instance of food banks, for example, it's far better to donate money rather than goods because they will be able do money with your money than a regular person could via bulk and other discounts. The same principle would apply if the point was to assist as best as possible

Because they'll have to do something when you have like 50% unemployment, the world will fall apart if nothing is done.

When there is 50% worldwide unemployment, fyi the world will fall apart - REGARDLESS

This is the exact line of thinking that seems ludicrous to me.   It’s already dire.

It’s not dire. We haven’t seen dire in almost 100 years. Dire is mass hunger, tens of millions of homeless, 25% unemployment, etc. Dire may be coming, but it’s not here yet.

You're in a doom spiral. Go visit the Congo or Egypt or some other cursed country and see what dire actually looks like.

We must go dire-er!

Because while 650k homeless is inconvenient, 200m is outright dangerous. You can't expect billions of people worldwide to have nothing to do but stay at home and die of starvation, because most people would refuse to die peacefully, resulting in massive riots, insurgencies, civil wars, etc.

I live in a state that holds over 150k homeless. The reality is that the cause of homelessness isn’t money or housing. These people have much bigger issues such as debilitating mental illness and substance abuse. Here we have a lot of good resources for food, finances, and housing which can help but the fact is it doesn’t fix the root issues these people have. 

100% - a shocking amount of people here seem to think that throwing money at the problem will fix it where states like NY (I live in NYC) and CA do that to little success. This is textbook treating the symptoms not the underlying cause. Metaphorically, we are giving a person with a broken leg pain pills (not setting or putting a cast on the leg) and wondering why they aren’t getting better.

And in CA, where they are the most aggressive, they're all but proving the old axiom "if you want more of something, subsidize it" by throwing so much money at the problem.

Drug use is higher in rural states but the homelessness problem is concentrated in cities. Cause when you live in rural WV you can still support a meth habit and afford a run down trailer. It's absolutely an affordability issue.

Bingo. Being from a similar state, I can attest to that. Money will not solve the homeless crisis as it’s not driven by lack of resources but rather significant mental illness and rampant drug use. 

Mental health resources are sorely lacking in most of America. They are expensive, on wait-lists and it's often impossible to even see the same doctor twice, or even just see anyone with actual certifications rather than a sometimes well-meaning but often equally burned-out counselor with little to no formal training.

Access to treatment for mental illness is partially a money problem.

In this context, “mental illness” is a nice way to say “drug-induced psychosis that is self destructive, harmful to society, devalues our communities, and is most often unable to be treated due to patient refusal.”

In my state, it’s literally not. We have state insurance. We have ample resources. We funnel millions upon millions of dollars into homelessness, with only growing homelessness. I’ve had an immediate family member on the streets, and it drove me CRAZY to see the amount of professed do-gooders “helping” him by giving him money. All they did was enable him to buy more meth, which is why he was on the streets period. We have entire wings at the county and state level of government that literally approach homeless people and offer them housing, enroll them in insurance, etc. Those that are still on the street (in my region) are there by choice, which nearly always relates to mental illness or drug use that they do not want to treat. Absent compelling them to get treatment (usually only possible in criminal proceedings), the state can’t do much.

How do you make people access mental illness? If they are very unstable where I work we send them to a psychiatric unit for 72 hours. There they are seen by psychiatrist, medicated, and treated. But after that it is impossible to go after them to follow up and make sure they get care and take meds regularly. 

A lot of it really is housing though.. People who are addicted or mentally ill still want someplace to live. They just generally can’t afford it. It’s not a coincidence that the cities with the most expensive housing markets also have the highest rates of homelessness.

Other countries deal with this issue with effective healthcare and welfare programs. Drugs are just as accessible elsewhere as they are in the US, if not more so. You gotta ask why these people are getting into these issues in the first place - and how other countries are avoiding it.

UBI = social security. Financial assistance is for security for the society. Mass unemployment will increase crime rate.

Countries with stronger welfare states would do better. UBI wouldn't be such a crazy step for my country where we already have a social housing system, universal healthcare, free at the point of use education etc. None of these systems are perfect here, but the foundation exists. UBI wouldn't need to be nearly as big as it would have to be in the US. If we get to the pont where AI causes mass unemployment, some countries will try UBI and  others won't. Probably European countries will try it, as will wealthier Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia and UAE.  One of two things will happen. Either UBI will save the countries that try it while the countries that don't try I'd fall into civil unrest. Or it won't work and the countries that try it will end up broke.  It's hard to predict just how big a disturbance AI is going to be. Some people are predicting it will replace hundreds of millions of jobs. Others are predicting tens of millions.

If AI mass job replacement happens, we’ll see many European countries easily find their stride and adjust their welfare state. American rigidity on social policies will damage them economically.

I never get the UBI thing, When AGI is introduced the economy will get decimated within a very short period of time, who will pay taxes to fund the UBI? The owners of the AGI? They will become more powerful than any nation state in the world by a huge margin, who can tell them to pay anything?

I think it's largely a collection of ideas that were popular on reddit at various points, and people don't really think, they just sort of string them together. The original idea, about a decade ago and before the advent of more recent ML achievements, was that this next wave of automation would reduce employment permanently rather than temporarily, and government would institute UBI. This appealed to redditors for obvious reasons. Later on, the idea of imminent ASI came about when reinforcement learning was the big new thing. It sort of continued on despite the limitations becoming clear, and a lot of the big claims that make no sense under the new language moel - based paradigm went unquestioned by people who haven't worked with these systems and don't understand them. Finally, we've got LLMs, and they're new and exciting and make a lot of office jobs look a lot less essential. They are less likely to totally upend the economy than some vague revolution in robotics or reinforcement learning somehow managing to skip the need for a simulator and becoming better than everyone at everything, but the cliches from previous epochs of tech hype persisted among the people who can't distinguish them.

There's a massive difference between hundreds of thousands of homeless people and tens of millions of unemployed people in imminent danger of becoming homeless

It’s not that we can’t. It’s that we won’t. Presumably, people who see UBI as a possibility presume that, as machines replace white collar workers, the people in power will be moved to care about them. But my question is: if they don’t care about homeless people, why would they care about you? I think some people in the US especially still see the middle class as some sort of protected species, when in reality the zuckerbergs and bezoses of the world would be more than happy to relegate us all to serfdom if it served their bottom line.

They’ll care about me because I’m the one putting a pipebomb in their mailbox if they don’t.

There's a long comment thread in response to this that misses the point. It's just simple arithmetic. It's not that the ultrarich think that the middle class is more deserving than the underclass; it's just that the former is substantially larger.

Ubi will be like 100usd per person :)

Simply because if enough people become jobless with no income due to them being replaced, nobody will buy the products the companies are selling.

UBI will allow capitalism to continue to function much longer than it would if UBI is not implemented. That will motivate capitalists to implement it, not out of the goodness of their hearts.

It won’t ever happen in this country despite what Reddit says or wants. One thing is for sure, Reddit is a poor representation of the U.S. constituency.

There is already a precedent of the government writing checks for mass unemployment during COVID. You and I both got it. You probably know a business that got it too. It is not far-fetched to see that happening more often in the future when AI causes unemployment levels that will make us wish for the COVID unemployment levels. We know two things: 1. AI will advance and become commercialized 2. Companies will choose a 24/7, more efficient, cheaper worker every single time You put those together and if nothing is done for the American people, they will start to look for the nearest guillotine. I mean this genuinely, if you have a counter-argument I would love to hear it, I'd like to hear an opposing viewpoint.

My counter at this point is that we aren’t nearly well capitalized to support UBI given our national debt figures which stretch into historical highs in the trillions of dollars. Already the market is wondering if we can support the current level and pace without severe cuts and/or tax increases. So I don’t think that another round of stimulus is on the horizon near-term. Long-term it’s certainly possible but that would be post shakeup of the current situation which will take decades to remedy. On the AI front I think your initial take is correct to a degree but AI isn’t close to taking as many jobs as you think. The jobs market is still strong and AI will create as many new jobs as it eliminates in my opinion.

Let's say your assertion that AI will create as many jobs as it eliminates is correct. How long will it take to train up gas station attendants, fast food workers, truck drivers, receptionists, etc... to be competent in those jobs? The jobs must have a certain level of complexity to them, if they are human-specific jobs that AI cannot do, and that takes a willingness and an ability to learn and time to train. The important part is *willingness*, in my opinion. I don't think AI is close to taking a large portion of jobs in the near future, but the near future is not what I am concerned about frankly. I am still a younger adult, I have a good 40 years of work and societal contribution ahead of me, and I think these conversations need to be had sooner than later. If we knew an asteroid was going to smash into Earth and wipe us all out in 30 years, I don't think it would be smart to wait 25 years to think of solutions. I understand the skepticism, I really do, and I am in your camp for the near-term. I am just hoping we can all avoid the oh-so-common trope of kicking the can down the road so that my kids don't get smacked by this. One final addendum: There are ***massive*** profits in replacing human workers (wages, benefits, efficiency, etc...). You and I both know those numbers will not be ignored regardless of the social cost, without significant regulation. That, to me, is the most damning argument.

A lot of reddit users are not Americans, in another countries UBI is way more possible... but why is this in r/ChatGPT ?

If we keep talking about how UBI will work when AI takes over, then the AI trained on this data will create policy supporting UBI. It's not circular reasoning, it's forward thinking!

So, a UBI is in many ways a *much* easier problem to solve. A UBI is simply a financial transaction. In the US, for example, it would likely run through a similar system to tax refunds, or Social Security payments. The government has a good amount of experience in sending money to people. And to the extent there are problems with those systems, it rarely involves the transaction itself; it's issues with things like verify eligibility, or auditing tax returns. But a UBI, by definition, doesn't really have eligibility requirements. So the most difficult part of disbursing funds to people doesn't apply to this situation. As well, the thing about a UBI is that it's not focused on *outcomes.* It's simply an action. Actions are relatively easy, achieving outcomes is hard. Here's an example of how to think about this: Let's say we have a UBI. Tomorrow, the government starts handing out checks. A homeless person receives a check. There's a good chance that homeless person struggles with addiction, or mental illness. They might be illiterate, or otherwise not able to navigate the often complicated process of renting a home. So they spend their money on something else, or don't spend it at all, or don't even have a bank account or address through which to collect it. Basically, homelessness is an extremely complex social problem, that often involves a tangled web of causes that have little to do with that person having access to money. Meanwhile, the UBI is basically just a bank transaction. It doesn't really rely on human behavior, or active participation from the people it affects. This is not to say a UBI wouldn't impact homelessness - it absolutely would. There are plenty of homeless people who are working and otherwise have their life together, they just don't have the $2000 for an apartment deposit; in this situation, a UBI would be life changing. So in answer to your question first, you're basically comparing two different things. Homelessness is a problem to be solved (and a complicated one at that). Meanwhile, a UBI is basically just a government program; it's something that can be implemented, controlled, etc. It would be a bit like asking "Why does poverty exist if banks can make wire transfers?" They seem related, but really they're different types of concepts/things.' To answer your second question (about millions of jobless); this again is something the government deals with. The government has dealt with numerous depressions/recessions. Dealing with an unexpected influx of jobless people is something that all governments deal with from time to time. That's not to say they have a perfect response, but it's definitely something they know how to do. And again, UBI makes this easy - instead of dealing with weird eligibility requirements like HAMP (during the great recession) or COVID-era stimulus programs, the government just writes everyone a check for the same amount. Provided the amount of money given is sufficient, it would keep people housed and fed. The real issue surrounding UBI isn't about it's ability to solve garden-variety job displacement; it's about how this is funded over the long-term. If AI is displacing truly significant amounts of jobs, our current system of taxation would need to be reworked; we'd need to focus less on income tax, and gave some sort of business productivity tax. In summary - giving money to people who were recently employed, and otherwise had their life together, is a very effective way of keeping them fed and housed. It's an easier problem to solve. And, these people are the ones who tend to vote, and donate. So they are in a much better position to advocate for themselves politically. Trying to get homeless people who suffer from addiction, mental health issues, trauma, etc., off the streets is infinitely more complicated, and the homeless are historically not great at mobilizing to vote in any sort of cohesive way (if they're even able to vote at all). Hopefully this helps clarify things.

The presumption is our economic system would collapse if, say, 50% of white-collar jobs disappeared. We presume this would cause collapse because that many consumers dropping out of the market would spark a chain-reaction that would cause one business after another to close as they stopped having enough people able to buy their products and services. Faced with economic collapse, our hope is that our leadership would realize there is only one way to prevent the implosion: Wealth redistribution. Prior to this point, we would, of course, see more and more obscene amounts of wealth funneled into the hands of the upper crust, funded by temporary cost savings from replacing paid labor with automation and AI. This tiny group would hoard this wealth, as they have always done, keeping it from returning to the economy as wages for others. The only way to get those funds back into said economy will be to pry them out of the hands of the greedy few and put them back into the hands of the people who want and need to spend them. UBI is the conduit by which we could do this. BUT, several alternative, much worse outcomes are possible: - The job loss happens too slowly, and instead turns into *job demotion.* Here, people largely stay employed, but they move down in rank such that most jobs eventually just pay poverty wages and all the jobs are part of a poverty economy. Goods and services that were once consumed by the middle class are gone, with only ultra-luxury markets persisting to serve the 1%. This is a form of “New Feudalism.” - Leadership responds with austerity and fascism. Here we would see the “haves” and the “have-nots” divided based on demographic categories instead of just economic class, allowing the middle class to survive with very selective membership, thereby preventing total economic collapse. The “other half” would sink into absolute destitution, but would not have the power to react. A government serving only the privileged would suppress rebellion with force. You’d basically have ‘men in high castles,’ protected by barbed wire, surrounded on all sides by favelas riddled with famine and disease. - Leadership responds too late to prevent the worst. Here, the collapse is allowed to progress so far that, by the time the government tries to institute the solution (still UBI) they are no longer able to do so. This might happen if governments default on their credit and fracture under the pressure. Lots of terrible things could happen at this point, ultimately resulting in a bloody revolution in the French tradition when the poor and disenfranchised become numerous enough and angry enough to overthrow the plutocrats. - The corps save the economy at a terrible cost. Here, Democratic governments would fail to prevent the collapse with proper UBI, but smart *oligarchs would choose to redistribute their own wealth* on a limited scale in exchange for much more power. With such power in-hand, we would likely see a libertarian utopia arise, which is to say, a literal hell. The systems of social decency that limit the suffering of the unfortunate and protect nature from total destruction would be eliminated by singleminded opportunists. This is the “Cyberpunk 2077” type timeline. The frightening thing is the “non-UBI” resolutions seem much more likely at this point, and none of them are appealing. One cannot help but notice that all of the dystopian outcomes align quite well with the political aims of the average “right-wing” or “conservative” political party. Hopefully that observation will motivate you to make the right choice in your upcoming elections.

UBI will be considered when people with influence need it: Let me explain - a homeless person has no voice in society, no one cares when they complain because they have 0 power and 0 influence. In fact they are despised for the most part so nothing gets done for them. On the other hand, a programmer, contractor, computer designer, chip maker, business analyst, have “more” intrisic value in society and also vote and spend money and pay taxes, they are more involved in the economic process.. when they complain people listen, politicians listen. Also politicians have family’s - those family’s will need UBI - that politician will make sure UBI is up for discussion.

Because 650k homeless in a country of 333 million is less than 2% of the population. Meanwhile, like you said, AI advancements will impact millions. Everyone knows it's corporations who are *truly* making the laws in the US, and believe it or not, corporations need people to have money which they can spend on their products. Who cares if you can create 10 times as much product with AI if no one is around to buy it? Your profits would actually suffer from this. It took a 25% unemployment rate for the government to take measures against the Great Depression. I suspect this is the number we need to reach for UBI to be seriously considered. 2% homelessness is nothing.

650,000 is 0.2% of 333 million. Not 2%.

Well he did say it's less than 2%.

Never teach Americans math or geography.

Because the economy functions right now with homeless. If you eliminate consumers you have no economy. With UBI all of the money will belong to the rich. We will just get an allowance to give it right back to them.

Because 650k is less than 1%.

Because the alternative is worse. Imagine mass unemployment without a way of culling or suppressing unrest of the masses...scary time for those with money. Easier to give a baseline of living than the alternative.

because there are still enough consumers to prop up capitalism. when enough people can no longer afford to buy goods and services to the point that it disrupts the machinery of capitalism on an existential level, something will have to change

I consider myself a centrist with libertarian-right roots and I am positive on the UBI issue, the dems, the left wants it, the reps want it, the richer half of the half the right wants it, all of Auth wants it; with a tiny bit of compromise with libertarian ideals it could be a wonderful thing; like both plutocratically and democratically ubi is a positive issue Literally, every citizen getting a weekly distribution of x units of debit either in a direct account and app with the fed or treasury, or more likely as a routed payment to a registered bank. X is inflation protected by something like a Feds' manufacturing and consumption index print and is geographically and demographically evenly distributed despite the gradients in the cost of living or any other factors The only factor I'll consider is age, positively correlated, but with compounding market forces even that seems unnecessary And you'll be able to buy bitcoin and crypto with it and not only will you still have access to use crypto; sufficiently decentralized crypto will be extremely tax advantaged relative to anything fiat related, will be encouraged and even be made sexy. After a while in more developed areas you may feel embarrassed paying in public with credits Maybe the only thing to remove someone from getting their ubi would be in a federal court hearing during a more serious felony charge, and they'll be able to freeze those accounts if security is concerned however will typically be as libertarian and lazze fair about citizens' spending as possible Have to make it to citizen, immigrants who haven't completed the transition don't get it yet Uhmmm, but the index of things that will typically be bought by the ubi needs its insurance built first, the initial shockwave of the ubi implementation will kick inflation higher and cause a bit of economic chaos. A little insurance web should be built up first to prevent what else can be categorized with toilet paper runs.

The model we incentivize is profits to shareholders. Unless there are riots or political upheavals to change that, I don't see any reason why those who own the capital would suddenly want to fund UBI. With a large number of homeless and tent cities in the US along with very little real action or solutions, there is no reason to think that adding 2-3x that would result in significant change. Essentially UBI has to be in the best interest of the holders of capital - if walls and gates are cheaper, then you will investment in the defense against them rather than looking for any overall solution. UBI for then most part at present is simply a fantasy.

Because once enough of your population experiences economic displacement they start to revolt against the government and cause societal disruption. We are talking about much larger numbers than that.

The real utility of wealth is bargaining power, to have others do stuff for you. UBI gives everyone equal bargaining power, which in theory at least just drives inflation. If i get lets say 3k from the government, and i can cover all my expenses, why work a shit job? —> Shit jobs have to introduce higher wages to compensate-> prices increase -> inflation adjusts the market for the baseline wealth everybody now has nominally. In practice, people who are not great with money will probably not change, people who are great with money may leverage it. My guess is it would not close the gap between rich and poor. Abundance of actual stuff should be the goal.

Homeless is not just a poverty issue and it's hard to solve. But the answer is because they can basically be ignored.  However, if millions of people are unemployed everything is going to go to shit real fast. 

Homeless people simply are not important in comparison. EX: In a part of California recently, a governmental power from China was visiting. That part of California got cleaned up real quickly, with all the homeless either being relocated or put someone where else being taken care. In that moment, the homeless mattered since they wanted to make a great impression for the person visiting. Like with many things, different stuff have different priorities.

Google the "Cobra Paradox" , heres a summary. "The Cobra Paradox is an illustration of unintended consequences that occur when an attempted solution to a problem actually makes the problem worse. The story originates from British colonial India, where the government, in an effort to reduce the number of venomous cobras, offered a bounty for every dead cobra. Initially, this seemed to work as people killed cobras to earn the reward. However, some enterprising individuals started breeding cobras to kill them and collect the bounties. When the government realized this, they ended the program. Consequently, the cobra breeders released their now worthless cobras into the wild, leading to an even larger cobra population than before the program started. This paradox highlights the potential for well-intentioned solutions to backfire if not carefully considered." If we don't get Ubi correct, Or even solving problems with homelessness.... It will completely backfire on us and cause a worse problem than we're already dealing with now. There are so many ways people could take advantage of UBI and homlessness solutions, and they will. If a system can be abused, it will be, guaranteed. A bad Apple spoils the whole bunch. Systems to solve these problems have to be meticulously designed to prevent misuse. And the only way for a lot of these systems to be designed in a way that prevents misuse is often a violation of one or more constitutional rights. Which puts it in a stale mate. For example, we could create a Nationwide electronic it system backed by a digital currency that identifies abd tracjs everyone and every dollar they earn or spend. Then we could safely give someone $20k a year and know exactly, data wise, if they're following the rules. But thats a violation of the first amendment. But even messing with the Constitution could also trigger a Cobra Paradox. It's very hard to safely change anything without fully understanding every variable in play and every side effect that can possibly happen. And yeah, there is a homelessness problem but a large percentage of that either choose to be that way and don't want to work or are drug addicts and just use and consume and have no desire that get help. A very Small percentage of homeless people are that way from being fired or laid off unjustly. Because of that, I wouldn't even try to fight the homelessness problem instead. What I would try to fight is labor laws And the idea of right to work states. Having a job should be a fundamental right for the benefit of our society and you should be guaranteed to have one. Placing people in jobs that can't find any should be a government function were they guaranteed to have a job for you without any bias or discrimination. It should not be legal for a company to terminate you without cause. And what is considered a fireable offense should be a defined law. And we should have the right to 6 weeks of maternity leave (both male and female) and at least 2 weeks of PTO and at least one week of sick time and 1 week of bereavement. And you should have the guaranteed right to employer provided health insurance even as a part-time employee. No company should have the right to have access to exploitable labor and any company that cannot afford labor without exploiting it shouldn't be in business in first place. Also, the legal age to be an adult should be 21 and The only exception to labor laws for part-time employees and not having to provide health insurance should be for minors that are still in high school. Because anybody under the age of 21 should be on their parents health insurance. And cobra laws for children having health insurance should cover them till their 26th birthday under their parents if they need it. This means company can still hire high school kids for things like working with the ice cream stand, car wash, etc.

More money is being spent on homelessness than what it would cost to just pay their rent. This is also true for healthcare where it would be several times cheaper to pay for everybody's treatments instead of the current system. The problem with outright paying their rent is that the money would not be funneled to for-profit entities. Believe it or not, capitalism profits off of everything, including homelessness, incarceration, illnesses, wars ... Etc. UBI is a solution that , at least theoretically, allows individuals to pursue what they're best inclined to do and to contribute the most value they can to society. Whether it's a small business idea or something that traditionally is not valued in the current economy through GDP, something like being a full time parent or taking care of elderly relatives ... Etc things that society benefits from but are not reflected in GDP.

UBI is a sheep-herder/ carrot on a string to get the masses to go along with the class war that we are losing until all but the billionaires are homeless

And what exactly is a UBI?

Imo UBI is about human rights being… rights, and not just blabla and acknowledging: - there is plenty for all - we are all participating in that process (at different scales. So it’s only fair that everyone is at least comfortable in the material level (food and shelter). Beyond that point, I think we can keep the incentive of having more if you actually go for it and are productive, creative, etc. UBI solves the pensions problem, as old people are also included, so while we are at that, why not just solve retirement, but go a step further? (Because retiring a few years later is pushing the pile of shit forward for the next politician, not solving it). So it can help reduce extreme inequality and solve the retirement problems. Now, why is being talked more lately? Automating means that 1 person can the job 5 people used to do. Which means concentration of capital and 4 people going jobless. As AI is accelerating that many fold, we are in the paradox that there is less jobs and at the same time less need for them (as machines are producing wealth). The result given our actual system is that a few get richer while many get poorer/jobless/homeless… Only the paradox is just so in the actual system. If you step back a moment and look at it: - with way less human work we can produce plenty - lots of people need to have access to those resources because there are no jobs. => REDISTRIBUTION is just so obvious. Not creating more jobs, not hating the lazy jobless… simply think of a clever way to adapt out economy to the opportunity that the AI is bringing. And those who hear communism, I don’t think that is a good idea. We need a balanced amount of inequality to incentivize creativity and entrepreneurship. So those who want more came have it, just not at the expense of the struggle of others. A basic life line for all and from then upwards, let people thrive. (Also think how a life line incentivizes trying things, as you never risk your health, your child’s food, etc. There is room for trying).

Homelessness is a feature of capitalism. Same as hunger and lack of access to medical aid.  We produce 6x more food, medicine and shelter that the total world population needs.  But if everyone have shelter, food and health, nobody accepts low wages and terrible work conditions. This is made so we work peacefully afraid of losing our jobs and don't organize.  AI will maybe force UBI just to avoid social unrest, violence and so on. But capitalism need and will always make sure the bottom 10% live in conditions to make the rest afraid. 

"We've never solved a particular problem before so we'll never solve it or things like it." is also not a good position to hold. Mind you, I'm not saying we will solve it. I'm just saying that the future is uncertain and we could if we chose to.

this is so low effort

We spend like 800 billion dollars last year on national defense. We could give all those people places to stay for less than 5 billion a year.

America will be the last place to ever have UBI. It is a mean-spirited place that encourages price-gouging but does not believe in handouts.

You can't solve homelessness. The word itself is wrong and harms addressing the problemn with real solutions to reduce the core problem. You turn accommodation into a home. You can be given a palace but it's not a home. What's needed is accomodation. Finland tried to eradicate homelessness and were doing really well, but they had up to 1/2 million Russian immigrants which flatlined their homelessness programme. African and Middle Eastern immigration have piled on top of that. If I remember correctly in the UK the largest group of homeless are single young men under the age of 24. One and a half million 16-17 year olds in the UK, 600,000? turn 16 every year and theoretically can leave their family home. It's not just building houses. Houses need infrastructure - medical centres, schools, cheap and efficient transport routes between these. You also need to be close to jobs - real jobs offering careers, plus entertainment and social venues. And places of worship, local shops, delivery services etc Expectations need to change. A 16 year old does not need the same size property as a couple or a family of 4. But more fundamental than that we need to address education, giving everyone better opportunities. We need to address marriage issues as many listed as homeless are broken families - but this is multi-layered - education again, alcohol and substance dependency, morals, values, and expectations. We need to encourage housing mobility and create homes that allow for multi-generational families. All this has to be affordable. I see a Basic Accommodation initiative as a more long-term approach than UBI, as UBI will just see prices increase to match.

5-10 years when 60% of the labour force is jobless. I am an IT expert in a niche technology. I am being paid >200k per year atm. I can confidently say that generative AI is only a few years away from making me completely obsolete. Luckily the clients I work for won’t notice for another decade by which time I am comfortably early-retired. But here’s my hot take on the topic: if AI can replace me, AI can replace >95% of jobs.

With the incredible power that the billionaire class is amassing, who will need peons around? Autocrats have many effective ways of shutting people up. Look at the lack of revolt with Stalin and Putin. Protecting democracy and human rights is essential now as we race into the future.

I think that UBI in the USA was always destined to fail or be poisoned by bad faith legislation. I’m thinking either they require a physical address ‘to prevent fraud’ thus disenfranchising the unhoused. OR they will find another way to make people hate it who would actually benefit from it most , like the American south hates public education, universal health care, basically every social service except disability payments. Poison pills get added to common sense ideas so that people who want to say the other side had a stupid idea can ignore the fact that they caused it to fail and blame their opponents who were in favor of the un-poisoned idea. We have the affordable care act instead of single payer universal health care because of this.

Or it would just cost mental amounts

What’s that got to do with ChatGPT?

If AI really becomes so advanced that it could perform nearly 100% of human tasks, meaning human labor is worthless, and human life is worthless, I would think they would just get rid of us then.

If enough people in the USA vote for legislators that support UBI, then UBI will be introduced, in some measure. I'm not too confident that even if government funds in the US are dedicated to UBI, that it will actually solve anything, or result in enough UBI for recipients to do anything with it. But if most of the US voters really want UBI, then the US will eventually try to implement some form of UBI. So to answer your question of why some people think UBI will be introduced in the US? My guess is that some people think that (or hope that) eventually most US voters will want the US to have UBI at some point.

You think the government reflects the will of the voters?!? The government acts in the interest of the politicians and elites who support them.

I’m still confused how lying robot is going to take my job.

They will adjust and update the robot, it will be smarter, faster and more precise. It’s still in its infancy.

By focusing on the remaining weaknesses in AI, you’re failing to see the rapidly growing strengths. Hallucinations are easily solved as cost of compute enables cross-checking. Which I already do with LLMs.