Technology

UBI makes sense even without an employment apocalypse. Flat tax (simple tax, everybody everywhere pays the same tax rate for everything all the time) has one basic flaw: it's regressive, the poor need a certain amount of money just to live, the rich have that well in hand even with their taxes... UBI fixes that, without complicating the tax code, without complicated "needs based benefit tests" etc. Maybe some of the population needs special handling, SNAP cards for nutritional food, etc. but in my view the vast majority do not - take care of the majority, treat them equally with the simplest rules imaginable, then when you hit special case addicts who can't be trusted with cash because they'll spend it all on their vice and have none left for housing or food: A) we all know they aren't needy because everyone gets UBI - so obviously there's another problem and B) don't give them cash, give them the food and housing vouchers instead.

Your fellow workers who are currently being devalued by AI need to get off their asses and figure out how they can provide OTHER value that AI isn't undercutting their salary costs on. This has been a slow train rolling at us for a few years now, I ignored it until 12 months ago, even 12 months ago it clearly couldn't replace me but, it was also obvious that it was improving quickly, and there were "simple tricks" that made it work dramatically better.

everyone needs to be so goddamn polarizing and god forbid we have a mature honest discussion about ...

... everything. Seems like that's part of the basic debate process, from the Scopes Monkey Trial back through Gallileo to The Athenian Debate on Mytilene (427 BCE) and beyond.

Recorded by Thucydides, Cleon argued for the total extermination of all adult male citizens of a rebellious city to project absolute strength. Diodotus argued from a position of pragmatic mercy, highlighting the extreme ideological shifts in classical democracy during wartime.