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Bill Gates says a 3-day work week where 'machines can make all the food and stuff' isn't a bad idea
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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It's not a bad idea, but it also can't exist without a complete re-haul of what it means to live in modern society. Right now, replacing workers and cutting hours means people don't have enough money to live. That is not an acceptable result of automation. I'm not qualified enough to have a reasonable solution to this, but I know it needs to be addressed before we get to that point.
Isn't this the primary argument for universal basic income? If you're keeping unnecessary jobs around just to give people something to do, you're not actually keeping them for contributions to society... In the long run ubi could probably even be cheaper than paying to prop up obsolete and wholly unnecessary industries.
While true, UBI would have to be funded by corporate tax.
“We no longer need people to be able to sell and deliver our products”
^ Win for the corporations
“Virtually no (low-income) property is unoccupied now. And my middle class tenants are making more from UBI, so I raised rent”
^ Win for landlords (which are mostly corporations)
“We can now demographically target ads to UBI payouts to get people to spend their money”
^ Win for corporations
It continues, but the general idea is that, while the populace could benefit from UBI, if it just comes from their taxes it’s not going to shrink class division in any way, but increase it
Yes, funding UBI with raised corporate taxes is absolutely not optional, I agree completely.
At the end of the day, simplified, UBI means: massive cuts to the workforce, in lieu of technology that can perform the exact same tasks more efficiently, for less; all the while paying people money at the same or similar levels of what they earned before.
It would be insane to assume the former would just grow wealthier over night while the latter is relegated to being financed by - in this example - wishful thinking. The money's gotta come from somewhere, and it makes sense it be the same place it's (supposed to be) coming from now.
If everyone gets UBI, I assume it is still optional to work. Otherwise no one would produce goods and services that we consume in order to live. Or at least fixing the robots.
I assume the incentive for that is additional income.
Wouldn’t this then create an even larger gap in income inequality? And further dilute the spending power of those who are only able to collect UBI?
It would, yes. But, the argument is that a person who wants a higher quality of life than "simply living" would be expected to work.
The right to life is, this way, protected - the right to a quality life, similar to today, would still have to be earned. This is in addition to the social pressure to work.
Also, one idea is that UBI would give people the financial space to pursue their own interests which in turn could easily --at least in some cases-- be turned into productive businesses of their own.
Look at this guy who doesn’t have billions he made from the 90s and 2000s to rely on!
In 2010 Bill Gates was worth 50 Billion. He is now worth 117 Billion.
He ain't exactly coasting. He just has a higher PR budget than he did back in the 90s.
The machine doesn't require a salary but instead of sending the money it saves to the workers it replaces it is added to the yearly profits, a three day work week with more automatisation can't happen before that last part is reversed or there's extreme deflation happening to compensate for lower wages.
I do wonder if this is even a money thing as even OpenAI has warned investors that money in the future is not certain. Maybe we are going to be forced to look to alternatives other than money as the means of value?
Let's just keep doing what we're doing now