Work != Jobs

I'm all for the right to work, I just really don't think jobs are at all necessary to provide that right.

> people like Sam Altman and Elon Musk are job creators. And their vision of the future is "We eliminate your jobs, cut you a check for a pittance and call it even, then wash our hands of your pathetic future. Not our problem.

People are quite capable of finding something to do on their own without being forced into by the necessity of earning a wage. People write blogs, build cars from kits, maintain gardens, volunteer, raise kids, make youtube videos, play in bands, perfect recipes, etc... frequently for little or no monetary compensation.

To presume that people need Sam Altman and Elon Musk to make jobs so that people can leading fulfilling lives is incredibly dismissive of people's capabilities.

> For many people, UBI in a world with drastically fewer jobs would be like a tragic accident cutting you off from the ability to work.

Our present alternative to UBI is the idiotic combination of unemployment/welfare and a minimum wage. We either pay you to not work (distorting the labor market), or we force employers to provide a basic income at an above market rate (also distorting the labor market). Any jobs that don't provide enough value to the employer don't exist.

By gradually decoupling jobs from providing a basic standard of living to our citizens, we allow them to choose what type of work to occupy themselves. If they wish to occupy themselves with something we can automate at an equivalent quality level for a certain price, they simply need to beat that price. They can do this because they receive UBI and any further income provides an improved quality of life.

> Why can't you understand how horrifying that would be if you are "the wrong kind of employee" and your job has been eliminated and now you are being handed some check for less money than you made previously and basically being told "Fuck you. You are useless and don't deserve a job."

Someone should not have a right to force other people to pay higher prices just because someone thinks they should be paid a certain amount to do their job. Many of my friends who graduated from college in 2008 and 2009 struggled to find decent paying jobs. Why should they have to pay higher prices so that someone who does have a decent paying job can hold onto it?

> In the last Industrial Revolution when automation was threatening to eliminate jobs, we created the 40 hour work week to redistribute work more evenly and raise quality of life for the masses.

I'm pretty sure supporters of the 8hr day were primarily concerned with the health and well being of workers, not with reducing unemployment. Given that the process of implementing the 40 hr week took almost 150 years, it's pretty hard to tie it to automation eliminating jobs.

> you are talking about a horrifying dystopian future which will almost certainly end in bloody revolution. Large numbers of unemployed people who have no hope of getting a job, time on their hands and just enough money to keep themselves fed but no hope of ever returning to a middle class lifestyle would make for a scary army.

While idle peasants certainly scare the capitalists, I think that the threat of violent revolution has been radically diminished by our unprecedented success in inventing new forms of entertainment. Violent revolution is also no longer practical in developed countries given the governments surveillance and military capabilities

Our current situation where people do pointless, mind numbing and demeaning work just to survive leads to plenty of depression and suicidality.