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There are plenty of jobs people don’t want to do unless they’re compelled. Lots of people wouldn’t even bathe if there wasn’t social pressure.
There are a startling number of dudes who don’t wash their ass
I’m a big fan of the concept of an universal basic income. Where everyone gets ~1000€ every month from the government. For children, the parents get the money.
And I mean everyone. Every legal resident. Including billionaires.
To finance it I would tax both income and capital gains at ~50%. From the very first € you earn.
The net tax load on most people would not actually change much. But it completely gets rid of situations where if people work more, loose their benefits and end up with less.
1000€ should be just about enough to life a frugal lifestyle. A flat with a partner or flatmate in a small town. Produce to cook a flexitarian diet. A public transport pass and a bicycle. A Samsung Galaxy A17 with an internet plan. And all those other real necessities of life.
If people want luxuries, they will still have to work. Someone still has to produce those consumables after all. But everyone should be able to get all of their basic necessities covered.
it’s a good idea but it requires that costs don’t adapt. that 800€ apartment you wanted? well since you’re already getting a subsidy it’s now 1600€. after all, if you discount the subsidy it’s cheaper!
Yes, it definitely has to be recalculated frequently. If it doesn’t, it will be about as useful as the US minimum wage after some time.
But as I said, most people wouldn’t have significantly more or less money than they do today. At least I carefully calculated those numbers so that most people would have pretty much the same, for Germany in 2019. So I don’t really expect prices to go up drastically.
It’s not that people suddenly have 1000€ extra. Either their unemployment benefits get replaced by that UBI, or they now have to pay an extra 1000€ in taxes.
The problem is that these kinds of people are abundant on the internet where everything is interconnected and distance doesn’t mean anything.
But in real life, those people are few and far between. And definitely not one on every 32 km in the world.
Just like Bruce (the plumber)
I’d be doing pickup truck stuff. I’m already that guy to my friends, family, and coworkers. Dump runs, moving, transporting large purchases like furniture, or bulk purchases like potting soil. Hell, sometimes I get free wood from trees cut down to drag home, split, and give away free to the neighbors. I’ve definitely thought to myself before that with a salary and a gas budget I’d be content with just doing that all the time.
Honestly, if I was given time for it and a wage where I wouldn’t have to worry at all, I would probably be building drywalls.
I would be taking care of other people’s gardens. I’d encourage them to let me build habitats for native wildlife. And doing work outside is just so relaxing.
And I would build an alarm clock app, that lets you set the alarm according to the weather. It would allow you to set up alarms for snow and black ice. That way you can clear your section of sidewalk and use alternative transportation options to get to work.
Or maybe I’d open a repair-shop. One that also allows people to do the work themselves with tools and instruction.
Sounds a bit naive on paper.
But thinking about it, I want to fact-check wikipedia sources for a living. Also make tools to automate shit. Also I fucking love assembling and fixing furniture so I could do that too.
No need to even pay. As long as I am not homeless or starving to death I would be happy and fulfilled doing those kind of work.
Tho I do think doctors and teachers etc should still make some extra money for the years of expertise before even starting the work.
This is me but obsessively analyzing the artistic merits of low brow mediums like animation and video games
It’s a good thing I’m a wage slave, because otherwise, I’d build the Omnissiah.
You are not wrong. But I wish you were.
This is why a ubi is so essential when society evolves to a post scarcity state.
I’d recommend reading The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin if you’re interested in an in-depth depiction of how an egalitarian stateless society could function without money.
Thank you for the rec I’ll check it out!
UBI? You mean Unstoppable Bot Invasion?
🤣😆🤣🤣😆😂😂
I obsessively/compulsively update and optimize computers. I see a missing driver or BIOS update not installed? A dusty CPU Fan? A security alert? I fix. I literally just went to bed after running “sudo dnf update -y && Sudo flatpak upgrade -y” on my wife’s laptop that she doesn’t even use! Thankfully, my work lets me tinker on machines all day, every day, and nobody cares if a side project shows up on the bench every now and then. I would do it for free if I didn’t need the money. When I’m not at work, I do IT for family, and I volunteer at the library. I don’t even game anymore, I self host and tinker. Hell, I spend more time mucking with Jellyfin than watching media. There are people like that. We exist.
I was like this, it eventually got kind of boring, now I’m learning beekeeping and old clock repair in the 7.5 hours a day leftover now that I’ve automated my job. Sorry “waiting for a maintenance window to do a server migration” or whatever it is people think I do.
Can you tell Me why Jellyfin keeps playing media with black bars across the screen? Every time I start playback, it’s a die roll whether I get a black screen, horizontal stripes, vertical stripes, a grid of black lines, or a perfectly ordinary video. I usually have to start and stop a video two or three times at the beginning to get good playback. The problem seems to get worse when My root partition is more full.
I love customizing the art and movie ratings on my jellyfin
I’m a pipefitter and I can guarantee all my peers would do if not a wage slave is percocets. Definitely not electively fixing pipes.
Wikipedia editors
People who create and upload torrents
I mean sure it’s illegal, but it’s a hell of a lot of unpaid work for an uncaring and often ungrateful consumers. You have to rip the Blu-ray, compress it to a standardized size, package it with file lists in some cases, put the appropriate metadata in the torrent and filename, then seed it for years at great personal risk.
I know much of that can be automated, but still…
Japan sort of has that thing going.
Ningen Kokuhō or Living National Treasures get paid by the government just to keep doing something culturally significant. Like making clay pots or arrows using traditional techniques. Preserving Kabuki or performing arts.
Honestly it’s amazing to recognize the significance oby supporting masters of certain crafts. Otherwise some might not find it financially sustainable and cut corners, well this allows them to keep traditions and preserve valuable techniques.
Can we do this for Primitive Technology guy so he can go make iron in the woods full time?
he would be forging steel already, if not for the need to get out of the woods to make money
Love that kids videos, I am trying his wood ash into portland cement method here as soon as it is warm enough. Mix ash with water, roll into balls, fire until glowing, then drop in water while hot, the fast temp change calcifies something and makes a product identical to portland cement. At which point you mix with aggregate like broken ceramics or gravel. I do maple ayrup, and have a woodstove I just put in so I have a ton of woodash.
Agree, we should exploit autistic people’s hyperfixations for profit 🥀
Ending profit seemed to be the suggestion
I think the OP way is still ways better than what we are currently doing. And done right it wouldn’t be any more exploiting than what we are doing to neurotypicals. Everyone needs to feel valuable and that they have a purpose. I for one feel most alive when my skills are put to good use
No, both ways are completely shit - monetizing a hobby or a hyperfixation is the fastest way for it to burn out and make one hate it, speaking from experience. Companies as of “late” have been using this horseshit to get more out of young and impressionable people as well, by working them to the bone and “giving them purpose”, making them burn out then throwing them away for the new generation.
That’s not to mention the other issues if it worked as “intended” without burnout, such as increased competition depressing wages and creating more poverty since that’s how capitalist mode of production works. The only way out is to abolish the present state of things, including wage labor so we make things for their use value, not profit.
Comrades, we have to be comfortable calling capitalists “larcenists/thieves/robers/stealers” so folks actually get the problem.
I know someone like that who cannot keep a job because of autism and health issues. Luckily she lives in a functioning country and gets state support including money and guidance. She is the regional pet/pony/alpaca carer and her house is always filled with animals from people on holiday or sick animals from people with full time jobs. She also notifies all the local farmers if one of their animals has an issue.
That’s awesome! And I can entirely relate but my ADHD / autism isn’t so bad I can’t keep a job, but now with hindsight if could choose career path again I would leave the tech world of computers to work with animals. Instead I keep working in tech to afford filling my house with animals (at least as I work remotely I can spend a lot of time with them). Dogs, cats, fish, snakes, amphibians, parrots, …
🥹
