by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Up until now I’ve been cool to the idea of a Universal Basic Income outside of using it to replace the social safety net. I’ve been reluctant to embrace UBI because on one hand everyone is really lazy while on the other there are ambitious people who would rather burn the country down than be limited in what they could earn.
But now, with the advent of the looming Chatbot Revolution, I find myself reviewing the need for a UBI.
The use of UBI may be forced upon us a lot sooner than we might otherwise expect, if a “Petite Singularity” happens at some point between now and, say, early 2025. Everything is happening so fast that it could be that the 2024 presidential election is the first in which the use of a UBI becomes something we all talk about.
One way I could maybe see a UBI happening is if we bribed rich people by replacing the Federal Income Tax with a massive 30% VAT. Once fucking plutocrats get what they want, then the UBI can be instituted. But, even then, there would have to be some sort of exceptions so Type A personality people could do their thing.
Maybe, if you had some sort of job that couldn’t be replaced by a chatbot or android, you would get the right to make money over and above whatever the UBI might be? It’s a very curious situation.
I still think it’s possible that all of this may be moot for the time being as we sot out of we’re going to have a civil war, turn into an autocracy or have a military junta. It could be the late 2020s, or early 2030s before we figure out some pretty existential political issues in the United States.
