Automation

This post will act as a glossary entry, explaining my thoughts on automation and UBI to link back to when I reference them later.

Some jobs really suck for people to do, warehouse, production, and food service jobs come immediately to mind. Wouldn’t it be nice to just have robots do these jobs? This is the question that automation answers. With our technology, it is possible to have robotic drones fulfill most of these roles, and imagine the possibilities when they do! Imagine when McDonald’s no longer needs human staff and can be 1/3rd the size! What would we even do with all that space? More housing, perhaps?

(I understand that this sounds like just deleting jobs for people who rely on them, but that’s where UBI comes in, bear with me.)

But don’t some people actually like working these jobs? Of course, automation won’t be so ubiquitous that ZERO food service jobs are left. There will be diners that proudly proclaim that all the cooks and waitstaff are human if you prefer that sort of thing.

QUALIFIERS: I have worked two production jobs, one for a big company, and one for a small company, and my first job was partly warehouse-based.

UBI: Universal Basic Income

Imagine if the government paid for all your basic living expenses! Just enough to cover rent and groceries each month, but nothing more! Tier 1 of Maslow’s, that’s all we’re asking for! Might they finally put a cap on rent? Who knows! Might you laze around now that you don’t need to work to survive? Probably for a little while, until you discover that life can be about more than work! Remember, when I say work, I mean working to live, not working on hobbies.

Imagine the meaning that could be created in your life if you didn’t need to spend 1/4 of it working a job you don’t like! The new hobbies, friends, creative outlets! This is the beauty of UBI, and it goes hand-in-hand with automation. With just a percentage of the money megacorps like Amazon will save by switching to robots, who don’t need to be paid, these programs could be implemented in tandem. How do we get the money from the big corporations? I don’t know, I’m just spitballing here.

The ELEPHANT in the room

Of course, the obvious problem is that one exclusively costs companies and the government money and one exclusively makes them money, so the difficulty lies in implementing both of these systems in tandem. There will most likely be a time after automation is implemented and before UBI that will be really bad for the working class. This is the gap that we need to figure out how to close. If done correctly, these systems will start a new cultural revolution. This I know.