Accelerate towards UBI, you cowards.
Which would actually accelerate progress more than any other national allocation of funds.
Ever since the industrial revolution, the driver of progress has been mass purchasing and mass production.
If only billionaires could afford an iPhone, we would only be on the 3rd or 4th revision by now.
It was the subsiding of cell phone hardware that accelerated that market because carriers effectively covered hundreds of the costs so nearly everyone was buying them every two years.
If people want acceleration of the future, inject as much money as possible to main street - it’s the closest equivalent to throwing fuel on the fire of industrial capitalism.
Hoarding it among executives or money traders is a fickle and temporary accelerant which is much slower than the alternative over sustained periods.
UBI falls into the bread and circuses camp of policy to me. On one hand I really do want people that need bread to get it, so I’m not opposed, but it’s a placating move that I don’t see how it handles the growing fear of labors value to society being eroded. Like it’s great and all to say “human life has inherent value” but most wouldn’t give up a few dollars that could be spent on nick nacks to save a human life, because a random person with no measurable impact on your life isn’t relevant to your life.
Socialism for example is totally built on the idea that because of industrialzation laborers have soft power that they can leverage to influence society in their favor. That’s a real concern that we should focus on addressing and I think attempting to ignore it through ineffectual and local bans will only serve to make those countries less relevant as a whole.
