According to this article, a study of Alaska’s UBI doesn’t increase unemployment. This is important for advocates of UBI to have solid research to refer to.
2 Likes
Yep! Scientists and Wikipedians and Open Source all contribute without any direct monetary compensation. Dank Pink has a good talk on why people are motivated to do it in the absence of monetary incentives:
In addition, we see tremendous success that collaboration has versus competition: Wikipedia beat Britannica, the Web beat AOL, and so on. In Atlas Shrugged we see a society based on private ownership and competition, relying on the John Galts of the world to move things forward, and being afraid to limit their upside with taxes and regulations. But perhaps a society based on collaboration from all over the place can produce much better results both for the long term and for the long tail. Clay Shirky has a great talk on this:
At Qbix, we have been experimenting with just these kinds of things. Perhaps such a model would also work in drug research, instead of just relying on the patent system.
2 Likes
Redistributive policies in general should be studied more. Knee jerk reactions aren’t helpful; we saw in Seattle that a high minimum wage is viable too. I think most can agree that it’s worth rounding out some of the rougher edges of capitalism for the long term good.
2 Likes
There’s a science fiction story depicting two paths for humanity once everything is automated - one is dystopian and the other (UBI) is utopian.
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
It is clear that technology and automation is progressing very rapidly and we will have to make decisions about how to distribute resources once lower level jobs are eliminated entirely.
1 Like
This is a great article to “share and prove,” as it dispels the myth about UBI causing more unemployment. When basic needs are met then people can innovate more!
It’s not only lower level jobs, technology is coming for white collar workers too. We’re now seeing property being sold in minutes via NFTs with smart contracts filling in all the “paperwork” usually reserved for lawyers.