The Real Story of Automation
Channel: Scott Santens
Date: 16/02/2019

Robots are hiding in plain sight. It’s time we stop ignoring them.

At what point will enough people recognize that automation is a very real problem that must be confronted immediately. When millions of trucking jobs are automated? When millions more retail jobs are automated? How many jobs need to be erased before we collectively create the will to do something? And at what point will we recognize that the problem of automation should not be a problem at all, and that we want as much work automated as possible? When will we realize that automation is a blessing, not a curse, and that the benefits of machine labor should be spread across all of society instead of concentrated in the hands of a relative few, especially when all the technology originated from taxpayer-funded R&D and represents a technological inheritance from those long dead who passed their knowledge down to us generation after generation? And when will the so far sole beneficiaries of that inheritance realize that although they need fewer laborers, they still need consumers?

I hope that time is soon, very soon, because I look around at our reality, and I wonder if we’re going to get our act together before it’s too late, if it isn’t already. As long as we force each other to work for money in order to live, automation will work against us instead of for us. It is a civilizational imperative that we decouple income from work so as to create economic freedom for all. Without an unconditional basic income, the future is a very dark place. With unconditional basic income, especially one that rises as productivity rises as a rightful share of an increasingly automating economy, the future is finally a place for humanity.

The full text of this podcast can be read on Medium: https://medium.com/basic-income/the-real-story-of-automation-beginning-with-one-simple-chart-8b95f9bad71b

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For more info about UBI, please refer to my FAQ: http://scottsantens.com/basic-income-faq

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Special thanks to: Haroon Mokhtarzada, Steven Grimm, Andrew Stern, Stephen Starkey, Roy Bahat, Floyd Marinescu, Aaron T Schultz, Larry Cohen, Gisele Huff, Robert Collins, Stephane Boisvert, Justin Walsh, Daragh Ward, Joanna Zarach, Ace Bailey, Albert Wenger, Victor Lau, Peter T Knight, Danielle and Michael Texeira, Jack Canty, Paul Godsmark, Vladimir Baranov, Rachel Perkins, Chris Rauchle, David Ihnen, Michael Hrenka, Natalie Foster, Reid Rusonik, Matt DeKok, Carl Watts, Daniel Brockman, Carrie Mclachlan, Michael Honey, George Scialabba, Che Wagner, Jess Allen, Gerald Huff, Will Ware, Jan Smole, Joe Ballou, Gray Scott, Myi Baril, Max Henrion, Arjun Banker, Chris Smothers, Alvin Miranda, Kai Wong, Jill Weiss, MARK4UBI , Elizabeth Balcar, Georg Baumann, E. Davies, Dylan Taylor, Bryan Herdliska, Mark , Kirk Israel, Valentina Petricciuolo, Elizabeth Corker, Meshack Vee, Kev Roberts, Chris Boraski, Lee, VilliHaukka , Casey L Young, Oliver Bestwalter, Thomas Welsh, Walter Schaerer, all my other funders for their support, and my amazing partner, Katie Smith.

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