Basic Income:

we can't do it.

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The ideals set forth in Star Trek for what a post-scarcity society is lay out a very utopian view that isn't going to work simply due to current human corruptibility. So, we implement basic income ... that's absolutely great, except it'll definitely come with caveats that are a bit too harsh. For instance ... no investing allowed, because you need to be spending your basic income for it to work. And that money is going to ... people who have already invested. That's a worst-case thing, really. But the thing is that money is relative. Your ten dollars is only what it is because the guy next to you has only one dollar. You have ten times his arbitrary value. If you both have ten dollars, one or the other of you is likely to feel like you need the other one's money just to feel like you're more of a success. And then we end up where we are now anyway.

So no, basic income isn't quite enough. We also need basic housing, a thing we can definitely do. Beyond that, we don't have to subsidize wasted corn crops, and can grow actual foods and eat them. But ... no. I tend to believe that the Bible's prophesies are accurate, because they have been so far. And there, we try utopian ideas ... they don't work because we're awful. Even when we try to be good we're just doing it for social status and praise. We're just awful little fucks.

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Let's say we invent the infinite energy sources, the matter replicators. Let's say we do ... we can bet and win, on the insistence that the inventor will use it simply for increased production and profit in a factory setting. And nothing more ... and he can keep it, too. We don't have much, if any, future. We aren't going to hit a type 1 civilization. 0.8 is as far as we'll ever go.

Sorry for the downer. But, this is what I fear is true.