Finland abandons "free money" experiment

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Amazon's Jeff Bezos is sometimes in the news advocating "universal basic income" in the US, meaning giving away free money to people and hoping they'll work and be productive anyway. What a lot of people don't know is that other nations have already experimented with this idea, and not surprisingly, it always results in failure.

Finland was the latest to try. I heard about this when they first started the program and I called it from the start, that it could only fail. Thank God Finland had sense enough to stop the program rather than double down on it as too often occurs with these kinds of insane policies.


Finland is killing its experiment with basic income


Finland's basic-income experiment made headlines around the world when it launched last year, but it will end later this year.
The project involves giving 2,000 unemployed Finns roughly $690 every month, no strings attached.
While the experiment is still attracting attention internationally, Finnish decision-makers will not extend the project.
The Finnish government is now eyeing different social-welfare projects.


Since the beginning of last year, 2,000 Finns have been getting money from the government each month — and they are not expected to do anything in return. The participants, ages 25 to 58, are all unemployed and were selected at random by Kela, Finland's social-security institution.

Instead of unemployment benefits, the participants now receive €560 ($690) a month, tax-free. Should they find a job during the two-year trial, they still get to keep the money.

While the project has been praised internationally for being at the cutting edge of social welfare, back in Finland, decision-makers are pulling the brakes and taking the project in a whole new direction.

"Right now, the government is making changes that are taking the system further away from a basic income," Miska Simanainen, a Kela researcher, told the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.

The initial plan was for the experiment to expand in early 2018 to include workers as well as people who are not working, but that did not happen, to the disappointment of researchers at Kela.

Researchers say that without workers in the project, they're unable to study whether the so-called basic income would allow people to make new career moves or enter training or education.

"Two years is too short a time frame to be able to draw extensive conclusions from such a vast experiment," Olli Kangas, a professor who's one of the experts behind the basic-income trial, told Finland's public-service broadcaster YLE. "We ought to have been given additional time and more money to achieve reliable results."

In recent years, an increasing number of tech entrepreneurs have endorsed universal basic income, a system in which people receive a standard amount of money simply for being alive.

Entrepreneurs who have expressed support for universal basic income include Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Chris Hughes, a Facebook cofounder, and Ray Kurzweil, Google's futurist and engineering director.

These tech moguls say that universal basic income in combination with other methods of combating poverty could also help solve the problem of increased automation in the workforce — a problem critics say they have been very much a part of creating.

At the 2018 TED conference, Kurzweil made a bold prediction about the future of "free" money, saying that universal basic income will have spread worldwide by the 2030s and that we'll be able to "live very well on that."

But contrary to universal basic income, which advocates say should apply to all citizens regardless of background, Finland's trial is targeting people in long-term unemployment.

The Finnish government argued that existing unemployment benefits were so high and the system so rigid that a person who was unemployed might choose not to take a job because they would risk losing money — the higher your earnings, the lower your social benefits. The basic-income trial was designed as an incentive for people to start working.

But last December, the Finnish Parliament passed a bill to take the country's welfare system in quite the opposite direction. The new "activation model" law requires job seekers to work a minimum of 18 hours or enter a training program within three months and stipulates that if they don't manage to find a job, they lose some of their benefits.

And Petteri Orpo, Finland's finance minister, already has plans for a new project once the basic-income pilot concludes this December.

"When the basic-income experiment ends this year, we should launch a universal credit trial," Orpo told the Finnish newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet, referring to a system similar to the one in the UK, which collects several different benefits and tax credits into one account.

Official findings from Finland's basic-income experiment could be published as early as next year.

http://www.businessinsider.com/finland-to-end-basic-income-experiment-2018-4


Notice above:


Activists didn't get the results they wanted so they're doubling down and saying they want the experiment expanded for a longer period of time.
Finland's finance minister now wants to switch from just giving away "free money" to loaning "free money" and expecting it to be paid back later. Brilliant!
No one bothers to mention the basic economics principle that no one is going to do any damn work without an incentive, or that productive work is what drives economies, not printing meaningless paper.
The technocrats' drive toward a Matrix-like scenario continues.


Just give everyone "free money" so they can vegetate listlessly on consumer goods produced by robots, and surely they'll be applying for jobs and the economy will be booming in no time. Right?

[Arak]

Well the reasons to end this test are mostly ideological, not academic. I find it slightly short-sighted not to explore the possibilities fully. Ps. I don't care about this personally as I spend my days working.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

You're right. There is no academic debate to be had. Economics is not such a new science that economists don't already understand the correlation between giving people "free money" and lack of incentive to work. It's common sense. If you have a choice between working hard for money, or sitting on your ass for money, most people are going to opt to sit on their ass and stuff their face for free every time. If they were completely honest with themselves, people would admit this is the real reason they want it so bad. Selfishness before common sense.

Nor is there any confusion as to the relation of printing "free money" and runaway inflation. The value of money decreases when you don't have to do anything for it. And the idea that robots can be used to take the place of all human labor is just begging to be rendered into lazy cattle whose existence becomes at the discretion of the state.

I think the biggest problem is that many universities don't teach basic economics as part of a standard education anymore.

[Ewan]

Amazon's Jeff Bezos is sometimes in the news advocating "universal basic income" in the US, meaning giving away free money to people and hoping they'll work and be productive anyway. What a lot of people don't know is that other nations have already experimented with this idea, and not surprisingly, it always results in failure.


I'm assuming the quoted text are your thoughts, and the bolded is that which I wish to raise a point on.

In principal there is nothing wrong with the idea, except perhaps the word 'money'. There is no reason for humanity to continue in this debt/slavery model. However, unless the paradigm is turned on its head from the bottom up it will NEVER change.

Imagine if the educational curriculum was completely rewritten to educate the children with entirely new concepts. Values of sharing and helping, genuine co-operation and assistance to one another. How surplus could be divided equally and shortages planned against.

I asked the head teacher of my eldest's school once, "How can anything ever change if we keep doing the same thing?

We are educating our children to fit in to a capitalist/corporate world where they seamlessly mesh, cogs in the machine, at the same time we teach them about recycling and conservation. We build a dichotomy into their foundations that is insurmountable. Everything could change in just two generations if we had the intelligence, wisdom and foresight to desire such change. But it can never happen as long as the current system exists. How can you change it, it is self-preserving as the power of massive wealth controls the script.

The only thing that ever brings change is catastrophe, and wisdom seldom survives such a cataclysm.

I can see a world where people freely offer their productivity for the common good, simply because they understand that what it best for them is best for all. No concept of power, control, or superiority. We do have both the intelligence and technlogy now to create such a world, what we lack are the preachers - and should they ever arise they will most likely be assassinated quite quickly.

"It's a rat trap baby, and we've been caught."

[Omni]

You're right. There is no academic debate to be had. Economics is not such a new science that economists don't already understand the correlation between giving people "free money" and lack of incentive to work.
What if nobody needs to work a bad job anymore. Ai is here and it will only get bigger and bigger. Universal basic income is the clear solution to this.

I am a big proponent of universal basic income. The idea that people will just vegetate with free time is not completely true. Some people will focus on self development, creative arts, true education (not forced education), and entrepreneurial endeavors. Basically they will focus on a life's work instead of slaving away for some oligarch. With a universal basic income model research would increase by ten fold, the internet would be enriched, awareness would be enriched. Also there would be a new renaissance of sorts in terms of creative arts. People would focus on their talents or raising their family correctly instead of the wage slavery model.

The open movement is also something I strongly advocate that goes hand in hand with universal basic income. Universal basic income in combination with the open movement I feel is a basis for utopia. Models for an optimal society. And we have to also think about the long term future. Universal basic income without open movements like open science makes a corporate oligarchy society. So I feel the open movement is an important thing to mention with universal basic income.

A little bit about the open movement:


https://pdf.universalaspects.io/images/Open-Movement-International.png

[KiwiElf]

I think you just explained how the characters in STAR TREK "earned their living" Omni :) (folks have been trying to figure that one out since the show was conceived. The "What" was very idealistic & sounded wonderful, but never has explained the "how").

24th Century Economics - "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives ... We work to better ourselves, and the rest of humanity..."

8rh3xPatEto

[Omni]

I think you just explained how the characters in STAR TREK "earned their living" Omni :) (folks have been trying to figure that one out since the show was conceived. The "What" was very idealistic & sounded wonderful, but never has explained the "how").

24th Century Economics - "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives ... We work to better ourselves, and the rest of humanity..."
Wow, that is some really amazing feedback. Thanks Kiwi.


Universal Basic Income:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C2OjBzFXAAE7nuc.jpg
Image Credit (https://twitter.com/BasicIncomeIMG)

[Arak]

You're right. There is no academic debate to be had. ...

I think the biggest problem is that many universities don't teach basic economics as part of a standard education anymore.
I totally understand your point. It is very traditional point of view to economics and how things are ran in the world where there was a job for everybody to do. However, times are changing and pretty soon approx. 60% of jobs will be gone. These people will fight for their food if necessary. The masses will always revolt when hungry enough.

This said, I think it would be smart move to explore the possibilites fully. This experiment is not that expensive to run as unemployed would get about the same about anyway. If it appears that people just sit around their asses as you said, so be it. I mean, then we need to find out strategy to survive in automated world based on evidence and research.

Personally I would not like to see chaos rising, but I do fear that the next level can only be found after great pain and suffering. In general in seem to be too primitive specie to handle the fruits of a few great smart men can bestow.

[KiwiElf]

A major re-education would be needed.

Perhaps the experiment is not working because it's still surrounded (trapped?) by the existing/traditional "economic system"/paradigm?

I could imagine it becoming a bit like Avalon; everyone would naturally gravitate ("work") toward that which they are naturally inclined/gifted to?

Think "commune". :)

[Omni]

Perhaps the experiment is not working because it's still surrounded (trapped?) by the existing/traditional "economic system"/paradigm?

I could imagine it becoming a bit like Avalon; everyone would naturally gravitate ("work") toward that which they are naturally inclined/gifted to?

Think "commune". :)
People would become entrepreneurs, musicians, artists, activists, be around their family, focus on self development, the collective would research the internet a lot more probably and get into the more occulted truths, crime would go down (poverty is a prime catalyst of crime), small business numbers would rise, there would be more political focus, there would be more focus on what the shadow government does, people would have accomplishments of life work...

I have been advocating to cybernetic black project science sources to release black projects to the public under open science. I think it is optimal to release the best Ai, hardware, and frequency science along with UBI + Open Movement + Disclosure.

And once we have a public space program there will be incentive to make great money because people will want interstellar space ships.

[KiwiElf]

Your thread kinda reminded me of the "perfect Utopia" portrayed in earlier TREK, but also aspects of the movie ELYSIUM (except everyone would have it "good") :). Showing my love of ancient sci-fi here, but also a very old - and very good IMO - movie called, "Things to Come" (1936) :sun:

I often wonder, how far we could advance under just such a system? :Party:

[A Voice from the Mountains]

In principal there is nothing wrong with the idea, except perhaps the word 'money'. There is no reason for humanity to continue in this debt/slavery model. However, unless the paradigm is turned on its head from the bottom up it will NEVER change.

Money itself is not equivalent to the idea of debt slavery.

Money was invented as a means of exchange for exchanging goods and services.

If someone gives you "free money," what have you offered in return? Nothing, otherwise it wouldn't be "free"; you would have worked for it.

What you are really seeking to avoid is working, and presumably, the suffering that comes from work. All world religions are about alleviating suffering, and most agree: you can never completely do it.

If you want "free money," you don't actually want to trade goods or services. You just want "good boy points" from the government, so you can go exchange your "good boy points" for chicken tendies.

Anyone can print off "good boy points" for people. It doesn't mean they actually have any inherent value. Paying people for nothing automatically devalues currency. If people are ignorant enough to continue these policies long enough they'll learn the hard way, that you can't just "free money" yourself and the rest of society out of misery.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Perhaps the experiment is not working because it's still surrounded (trapped?) by the existing/traditional "economic system"/paradigm?

I could imagine it becoming a bit like Avalon; everyone would naturally gravitate ("work") toward that which they are naturally inclined/gifted to?

Think "commune". :)

Yes, as in communism, which is what you are describing, and which has been tried many times and failed just as many.

We had societies of volunteers attempting exactly what you describe in the United States in the 1800's. Two examples:


Brook Farm

Life on Brook Farm was based on balancing labor and leisure while working together for the benefit of the greater community. Each member could choose to do whatever work they found most appealing and all were paid equally, including women.

[...]

The community was never financially stable and had difficulty profiting from its agricultural pursuits. By 1844, the Brook Farmers adopted a societal model based on the socialist concepts of Charles Fourier and began publishing The Harbinger as an unofficial journal promoting Fourierism. Following his vision, the community members began building an ambitious structure called the Phalanstery. When the uninsured building was destroyed in a fire, the community was financially devastated and never recovered. It was fully closed by 1847.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brook_Farm



New Harmony, Indiana

The Harmonists built a new town in the wilderness, but in 1824 they decided to sell their property and return to Pennsylvania.[8] Robert Owen, a Welsh industrialist and social reformer, purchased the town in 1825 with the intention of creating a new utopian community and renamed it New Harmony. While the Owenite social experiment was an economic failure two years after it began, the community made some important contributions to American society.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Harmony,_Indiana


Socialism and communism actually aren't new ideas at all. They have been discussed to death. Study 1950's Cold War literature and you will find lots of enlightening information as to why North Korea is a hell hole and South Korea is the richest nation per capita on Earth.

[KiwiElf]

Perhaps the experiment is not working because it's still surrounded (trapped?) by the existing/traditional "economic system"/paradigm?

I could imagine it becoming a bit like Avalon; everyone would naturally gravitate ("work") toward that which they are naturally inclined/gifted to?

Think "commune". :)

Yes, as in communism, which is what you are describing, and which has been tried many times and failed just as many.



Err no, communism is not what I was getting at... please scroll up to post #5 onward (the word "commune" may not have been appropriate in this context, I don't know if there is a correct word to describe it - I'm pretty sure the concept of STAR TREK's economy wasn't based on communism :)) I was thinking more of "community" - like Avalon.

Some members just lurk and rarely post anything, at the other extreme we have regular prolific posters :), but most of us fit somewhere inbetween. All contribute as a whole to a common cause, we don't get paid for doing it.

Expand on that basic idea of working to better ourselves & others ;)

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Err no, communism is not what I was getting at... please scroll up to post #5 onward

I read what you were talking about. Check the examples I posted. You were talking about communities where people only do whatever work they feel is suited to them, correct?

So the examples I posted above should be entirely relevant to you, and yes, they are on the socialist/communist end of the spectrum. You may have used the word "commune" without thinking but this is in fact the origin of the term, exactly as you are imagining a utopia of only doing what suits you. The idea is that the rest of the community will pick up the slack from everything you don't feel like doing. It doesn't work so well.


(the word "commune" may not have been appropriate in this context - I'm pretty sure the concept of STAR TREK's economy wasn't based on communism :))

Don't be so sure. I know lots of fans put Star Trek on a pedestal, but it pushed social boundaries in its time and has only become increasingly SJW in more recent years. Remember who runs the film and TV industries. I'll do some deeper digging into Star Trek's creators later and I'll share with you what I find.

[KiwiElf]

Oops I added to my post above - "communities" - sorry. Yes, I do get where you're coming from. I'm tending to think more along the lines of where the planet is heading into the future technologically as well.

Hypothetical: 3-D printers I'm sure will evolve into "replicators" of sorts. Robots may be used to do many - not all - of the dangerous & hard labour jobs. I'm fairly confident Free Energy Technology will surface globally in our near future, eliminating the need for an economy based on oil. Possibly eradicating disease & poverty will come with that. (We all know those technologies already exist) ;).

That would drastically change the way we currently - and have done - things in the past.


You were talking about communities where people only do whatever work they feel is suited to them, correct?

Ummm not quite... I'm certainly not suggesting loafers get a "free ride". Everyone would need to contribute something, as they are able. It would require a huge educational & philosophical change, too. :)

Re STAR TREK - I'm referring more to the original concept, not so much later variations (Gene Roddenberry) ;)

Certainly, the playing field between uber rich and uber poor needs balancing out. :)

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Work is a form of action and responsibility. There is a certain satisfaction to work (or at least there should be) because it usually involves creation of some sort, an active molding of universal forces. If and when we hand that creative responsibility over to robotics and AI, we are doing something more than just trivially delegating annoying chores so that we don't have to do them anymore. We are also signing over our entire relevance and power in the creative process.

Think about it this way. In an "ideal" world where no one has to work anymore, and everyone is simply fed and provided the fruits of robotic labor, what would make people fundamentally different than how we treat cattle right now? Cattle are fed, get fat and lazy, don't have to do anything, and are protected... until we kill them and eat them. In the wild they may have to struggle for their freedom, but once in captivity, that sounds a lot like the kind of utopia you're talking about, to me anyway. Not to mention the nightmare possibility of AI deciding that humans are useless -- and they would be right at that point.

I'm also skeptical of the idea of educating people into not being passive and lazy in such a scenario. Education itself is something many people become "addicted" to in a certain way, never wanting to leave school, because they often face no real responsibilities there either. Many people go straight from being a student to being a professor with no real world experience, simply because they love the laid back atmosphere of not having to do any real work or having to face a scary world.

There are many things you can't teach people through any means other than experience, and often the kind of adverse experience that "puts hair on your chest" as they say. To take struggle out of the human experience is gutting perhaps the most significant part of the human experience, and I'm not convinced that this is a great idea. Life is bound to go way out of balance by trying to eliminate any meaningful form of adversity by delegating it all to AI and robots.



Btw, on Star Trek, didn't take me long to find this article:


Gene Roddenberry: The Original Social Justice Warrior
[...]
In addition to a diverse cast, there are several notable episodes that show Star Trek’s progressivism. The Vulcan concept of “infinite diversity in infinite combinations (IDIC)” was introduced in “Is There No Truth in Beauty?” In the following exchange between Spock and Dr. Miranda Jones we get a good explanation of it.

“The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity.”
“And the ways our differences combine to create meaning and beauty.”


http://www.treknews.net/2015/11/18/gene-roddenberry-the-original-sjw/

The article is defending Roddenberry's progressivism for his time and shies away from mentioning specific political ideologies, but reading between the lines, it's all there, including an apparent friendliness to the Russia of his era (Communist USSR) and anti-Vietnam messaging. It's easy to say the Vietnam War was a mistake today, and I believe it was meant to be unwinnable, and meant to demoralize the US and our military (lots of indications of that in history), but the larger context for all of this within the Cold War was to diminish the prestige of the US system in the world and elevate the platform of communism.

The Democrats of that era were also vocally in favor of appeasing the Soviet Union and criticized any hard line taken against the communist regime. Now that the USSR has collapsed and Russia has moved towards a more open society, we see that the rhetoric from Democrats has reversed, and the formerly-sympathetic attitude toward the USSR has turned into open hostility and pure propaganda directed at Putin's Russia. So even from what little I found in a quick search, the signs are all there, and if I spent some time digging further into this guy, and not just reading between the lines of an article which was meant to be favorable to him, I'm confident I could find some real gems.

[KiwiElf]

So, what's the solution(s)?

[A Voice from the Mountains]

So, what's the solution(s)?

Where did I ever say I had one? :P

All I can tell you is what hasn't worked in the past, and that all major religious and philosophical paradigms in the world agree that some form of suffering will always be part of the human condition, until we cease to exist.

Jordan Peterson does great lectures on setting goals, facing adversity, and triumphing over challenges. Without this kind of stuff in our lives, what would we be living for? Something like pure hedonism it seems.

[KiwiElf]

LOL I'll change it to an open question ;) - I don't have the answers either :). But I'm not suggesting no-one works, or AI or robots-for-everything being allowed to take over & eventually wiping us out, or even become "substitute slaves". (Come to think of it, there weren't too many robots in TREK; a few "interesting androids", though ;)). People still controlled the machines & the computers.

The way I see it, what we have now and in the past isn't working too well for the majority. There's got to be a better way(s). Comes back to that ST quote, I think:

"The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives ... We work to better ourselves, and the rest of humanity..."


There has to be a middle ground.

Apologies Omni, this discussion has probably gone way off topic from what you envisioned :blushing: :bigsmile:

[Iloveyou]

Universal basic income seen as a regular payment by a government to every citizen: that will never work. It sounds like charity and would make whole populations susceptible to blackmail. No government in any country (presence and past) has ever worked in favor of their citizens.

It is no payment, especially not for free. It is not donated, given by someone who ownes it. That would be contrary to the original idea.

It is every child’s self-evident right to breathe. Imagine a society where parents have to pay for the air their children breathe, from the first day. If one thinks consistently, that also applies for food, water, shelter, warmths, basic tools ... Why not? One day people will laugh in disbelieve when they are told about our current system of forced labor. No job, no food.

The big challenge will be how the accumulated wealth, produced by communities (yes, communities!) is organised and distributed (by citizens’s organisations, councils of elders ... )

Universal basic income will never be achieved through politics, governments and within current economical systems. The idea and potential will grow, with every public discussion it will gain momentum.



People would become entrepreneurs, musicians, artists, activists, be around their family, focus on self development, the collective would research the internet a lot more ...
... and they will work the land. Food has to be produced. Next big challenge will be land ownership. Who owns the land?

Here’s an article about the concept of ‘Work Democracy’ (W. Reich) - please scroll down for Work Democracy and skip the first part, things there can be easily misunderstood without further explanation - some considerations about whether people will truly prefer to sit back and do nothing (and get depressed eventually) ...

http://www.psychorgone.com/sociology/wilhelm-reichs-social-and-political-insights

“Labor is something you engage in in order to get something else, like food, shelter, or to meet your other needs. Work is something you engaged in out of your humanness: it is an expression of your being, comes from your heart or your loins, not from external need.”

“Work democracy can be understood as the natural way people relate in the face of social needs and demands: they naturally organize themselves to take on the task before them. Reich firmly believed that within humans is the natural urge/need to work and to do so cooperatively.”

“ ... it seems to me that we have to use the current legislative structures to guarantee a future that will then permit us to evolve into a people who won’t need those very legislative structures.”

[Omni]

... and they will work the land. Food has to be produced. Next big challenge will be land ownership. Who owns the land?

There are solutions to any proposed problem. Like giving incentives for farming. Land ownership could be an incentive for gaining extra money. And just because government doesn't work now doesn't mean it cannot work. We need solutions, when Ai takes over the job market universal basic income is the clear solution.

[Eagle Eye]

Universal basic income seen as a regular payment by a government to every citizen: that will never work. It sounds like charity and would make whole populations susceptible to blackmail. No government in any country (presence and past) has ever worked in favor of their citizens.

If we think like government want us to think, than we are doomed. If you want to understand how corrupted is this system than we need to start to understand ourselves. Look how our brain reward system works to understand how a system need to be. Those who think that people will stop working after basic income will be implemented are wrong, people will work because they will always look for a more comfort life, but as for government all they perceive is quantity and they never see quality. Thats how our system has been corrupted because quantity has been our focus for all these time and few of us see quality as a solution. We need quality jobs, food, education, values. Thats what basic income do, it decline quantity and increase quality. Employers will focus more on workers conditions because workers will have economic security already. People will start to decrease the stress level because they can maintain a rent or families need, that will lead to a quality life. A quality life mean decreasing of criminality because of that economic security many will abandon that path. People will start to trust each other more and thats how healing will begin. But government will never focus on that thing because they want people to be poor so they can force them to follow in exchange for small goods.
We need to raise our voice, beacause after a hard fight, we can see it implemented in this system. We don't need to crash a system but we can slowly change it, to a better one and thats what basic income can do.

[turiya]

Err no, communism is not what I was getting at... please scroll up to post #5 onward

I read what you were talking about. Check the examples I posted. You were talking about communities where people only do whatever work they feel is suited to them, correct?

So the examples I posted above should be entirely relevant to you, and yes, they are on the socialist/communist end of the spectrum. You may have used the word "commune" without thinking but this is in fact the origin of the term, exactly as you are imagining a utopia of only doing what suits you. The idea is that the rest of the community will pick up the slack from everything you don't feel like doing. It doesn't work so well.


(the word "commune" may not have been appropriate in this context - I'm pretty sure the concept of STAR TREK's economy wasn't based on communism :))Don't be so sure. I know lots of fans put Star Trek on a pedestal, but it pushed social boundaries in its time and has only become increasingly SJW in more recent years. Remember who runs the film and TV industries. I'll do some deeper digging into Star Trek's creators later and I'll share with you what I find.

Consider the words of an enlightened Indian mystic, [Lecture given November, 1985]... regarding 'communism' vs 'commune-ism'... Its a rather long piece, but he explains how 'communism' was basically a by-product of Judaism.


Beyond Communism and Democracy (http://www.oshoworld.com/osho_talk/talks/person30.asp)

Question:

"Can you explain why are you against communism? And can we learn something from the demise of this ideology?

I am against communism, but for a very strange reason. The strange reason is that it is not communism at all. The word communism is derived from "commune"; but communism is not commune-ism. It has no base in the idea of the commune -- on the contrary, it is simply anti-capitalism. Its name gives you the false notion of something positive, but in fact it is only a negative approach: it is anti-capitalism. And my understanding is that anything that is basically negative cannot help man's evolution in any way.

It is because of this fact that atheism has not been of any help to man's evolution, his consciousness, his growth. It is just pure negativity. Just saying that there is no God, and basing your whole philosophy on the belief in 'no -- God', is sheer stupidity. Life needs something positive. In fact it needs something so positive that it can absorb its negative also, so powerfully positive that the negative need not remain out of it or against it; it can be absorbed.

[...]

Just think: How can you grow with 'no's surrounding you? Growth needs the staircase of 'yes.' 'No' is dead; it is equivalent to death. Death is the ultimate 'no.' Life is the ultimate 'yes'. Life needs the base of some 'yes-philosophy'.

Communism has nothing to offer.

It is very strange, but worth understanding, that all kinds of perverse ideas are by-products of Judaism

For example, Christianity, which is a negative philosophy. The cross is a symbol of its negativity. You can make it of gold, but a cross is a cross. Just by making it of gold you cannot make it a 'yes'; it remains a 'no'.

Christianity has said 'no' to everything in life that is joyful, that you can rejoice in. It is anti-life. It is rooted in death, and its whole world starts after your death. Your life is worthless unless it is sacrificed for the life that is going to come after death.

[...]

You see the perversion? Is real life after death or before death? And if life continues after death, then why should you be against life now? -- because the same life will continue, perhaps on a wider scale, a bigger scale, a higher scale, but the same life will be there. And if you are against this life, how can you be for that life? It is going to be a continuity - an enlargement.

Christianity is the first perversion that came out of Judaism. The second perversion that came out of Judaism is Freudian psychoanalysis.

Freud was a Jew just as Jesus was a Jew, but there is a difference between the two. Jesus was trying to prove himself the messiah of the Jews. He was a little gullible and innocent, perhaps unaware of the fact that messiahs are only in the future or in the past, but never in the present. You can accept them when they are dead, you can accept them when they are not born, but you cannot accept them when they are your contemporaries. For your contemporaries you have nothing but contempt; perhaps that is the root of the word 'contemporary'.

And Jesus was just trying to be accepted as a messiah while alive. Freud was more sophisticated, more intellectual, more cultured. His approach was not that of proving himself a Jewish messiah -- he knew what had happened to Jesus -- he tried just the opposite. It is a logical understanding: Jesus failed by trying something, now try just the opposite.

Judaism is very much against sex. All the religions are against sex, so it is nothing unique to Judaism. But other religions are against sex just in their theories; practically, they understand the nature of man and the weakness of man.

[...]

Freud had the same tendency as Jesus had -- to be a prophet -- which is extremely Jewish.

It is some kind of racial disease. This fellow Moses is responsible. He created the whole game of prophets and messiahs, and created the idea in poor people's minds -- which are feeble anyway; they get some idea and they start thinking that it is so. Freud was very much a messiah, but he knew that if he declared that he was a messiah -- he was a coward also. He was not as fanatically courageous as Jesus. So what he did, rather than proposing himself for crucifixion, he tried to create something absolutely new and become the originator of a new religion.

Psychoanalysis, to Freud, was a religion, and he was the founder-prophet, the father figure. Through psychoanalysis what he did was just go against the whole Jewish antagonism to sex. That was his way of saying to the Jews, "I have nothing to do with you -- no need to prepare a cross for me. I am doing something absolutely different, in fact just the opposite to what you have been doing for four thousand years."

But in his unconscious Freud carried the idea of being the prophet. And he was very much afraid, his whole life, that somebody was going to become a Judas. Only prophets are afraid of Judases, otherwise there is no need....

[...]

Freud did exactly the opposite to what Jesus was doing for exactly the same purpose for which Jesus was doing it. He created psychoanalysis. It was not possible for anybody else in the whole world to create psychoanalysis. Whenever it was to be created it was going to be created by a Jew. These things are not accidental.

There was so much of an "anti" attitude about sex, and Christianity carried it to its logical end because they wanted to prove that they are far superior to the Jews. Jews themselves rejected their ultimate flowering, the messiah, and Christians accepted the messiah as the founder of a new religion. Naturally, there was great competition. Christianity went even more against sex and life than Judaism.

Sigmund Freud took revenge on both, because Christianity is nothing but a Jewish branch. It has all the stupidities of Judaism in it and has added a few more of its own. Freud declared that all the problems of man can be solved by psychoanalysis. Now, this is one of the tendencies of prophets. They always have the panacea -- one single remedy for all kinds of sicknesses. This is not a scientific attitude.

Each sickness needs individual attention, it needs its own remedy. There is not a single cause that is creating all the troubles of the world, there are millions of causes. Yes, there are a few causes which are very central, and if they can be destroyed those millions of others may disappear, but there is not a single cause. All the religions have been doing that, saying that there is a single cause.

Christianity says that the cause is the original sin: it is just that man has to undo what Adam and Eve did and everything will be absolutely as it should be. Jainism thinks that violence is the only cause. If everybody becomes non-violent there will be no problem.

In the same way all the other religions propose a remedy: a prophet, a holy book, a God. Sigmund Freud's religion is psychoanalysis.

Freud's psychoanalysis is against Judaism and Christianity. Christianity should not be thought separate from Judaism. It was created by a Jew, it is a Jewish firm; and in fact the Jews should claim that the Vatican belongs to them and throw out this pope and all these bishops. Jesus was of their blood, and all these people -- Catholics and Protestants and so many kinds of Christians, all offshoots of a single illiterate Jewish mind -- are exploiting their invention.

[...]

Freud found that all problems have arisen out of the repression of sex. So anything you brought to Freud, he would reduce it to some sexual problem. Sexual problems were the origin of every sickness -- mental, physical, social, economic -- it made no difference. One sometimes wonders: when a person starts thinking of himself as a prophet, does he lose all reason, rationality and intelligence?

For example, if a man who is mad after money goes to Sigmund Freud, Freud will say that this man is obsessed with money. What is the remedy, and what, do you think, can be the cause? Repression of sex! On the surface you cannot see the connection: he is after money and you are talking about sex? He never cared about sex -- but that only proves that what Sigmund Freud is saying is right. Because his sexual energy has been repressed, now it is coming up in the ambition for money: money can purchase sex, as much as you want.

The rich people will go to the synagogue, to the church, to the temple, will listen to all kinds of sermons against sex; and these are the very people who are creating prostitution around the world.

[...]

Sigmund Freud also bases his philosophy on a negative attitude: just drop your sexual repression and all problems are solved. I don't see it, because there are tribes in the world who have no sexual repression and have the most complex problems: poverty, sickness, no scientific development, no intellectual growth no evolution of consciousness. You will be surprised that the societies that have not repressed sex in some way have remained backward.

The societies that have suppressed sex have evolved; they are the most civilized and cultured societies. Strange? If Freud is accepted then the whole culture, the whole civilization will revert to being aboriginals. But they have all the problems -- more than you have. They have very fundamental problems: no food, no clothes, and no intelligence either to produce food and clothes and mechanisms or anything.

What Freud is propounding is not transcendence of sex.

He is throwing you back into the undeveloped, barbaric condition where sex will be freely available. But without bread what are you going to do with sex? Without clothes, without medicines, without any kind of human culture, what are you going to do with sex? Yes, you can go on reproducing children, but you won't have enough to feed them: you don't have enough to feed yourself.

If Freud is accepted totally, the whole civilization will die. His attitude is just against the Jewish idea of repressing sex and against Christianity, but it is not going to help humanity. He is a reactionary. He has not thought about the whole implication of it. Why have people who have not repressed sex not progressed? That should have been one of the most significant questions to be asked.

The people who have repressed sex half the way have only progressed half the way. It is very strange, the proportion is exactly the same: the more sex is repressed, the more society develops. It becomes more intelligent, more inventive and more scientific.

Do you think any aboriginal tribe can produce a Sigmund Freud, that Red Indians can produce a Sigmund Freud? It is impossible even to conceive. Sigmund Freud can be only produced in a Christian-Jewish context, in that reference, because there he has hit upon a master key, that is, your repression of sex. But it is not giving you any positive foundation. It may remove repression but it is not giving you any idea of transcendence. But he proved one thing, that he was a prophet, that his idea was very original.

Freud created a great movement around the world. This is the second destructive by-product of Judaism.

First is Jesus, second is Freud, and third is Karl Marx.

Why is Karl Marx against capitalism?
It is not that he is against capitalism; he is a poor Jew and is full of jealousy against those who are rich. That is a Jewish trend, very characteristic.

In India I was surprised -- because I was looking for a parallel. Jainas are the Jews in India as far as riches are concerned. You cannot find a single Jaina beggar. The Jainas are super-rich, or upper middle class; at the worst, middle class. Once in a while you will find a poor Jaina -- not a beggar, but poor. These poor Jainas were the first to be attracted to communism. I was surprised to find this fact.

One of my faraway relatives is a very famous communist leader, Comrade Bhagchand. I asked him, "Have you considered the fact that it is not that you want to destroy capitalism, it is simply that you are a poor Jaina and you have so much jealousy in you against the rich Jainas?" But man is so clever in making philosophies of things.

Three generations in Marx's family had been poor. He himself remained unemployed and poor his whole life. It is very strange: he was dependent on a rich friend, but writing against capitalism. The rich friend, Friedrich Engels, was a capitalist who owned factories. He had been feeding Karl Marx and his family his whole life, and Marx never worked for a single day; he earned not a single cent.

Engels must have been a man of great compassion. He could see the man had genius and needed support.

Although he was writing against capitalism, Marx was a great logician: he convinced Engels also that capitalism is the whole cause of all the problems in the world: "If we can destroy capitalism and distribute the wealth equally to people, all problems will disappear."

Karl Marx is basically a jealous Jew rationalizing his jealousy into beautiful jargon. The remedy that he proposes is fallacious. Firstly, if you distribute the wealth of those who are rich to the poor, what will be the result? The poor will not become rich, the rich will only become poor: you will be distributing poverty. Yes, people will not feel jealous any more because they will all be equally poor. I am against poverty, hence I am against communism.

I want people to be equally rich, not equally poor.

But for that a totally different approach is needed. It is not a question of distribution of wealth -- because there is not much wealth to distribute. How many people are there who are rich? -- two percent in India.

Now, the wealth of two percent distributed to ninety-eight percent poor people is just like a spoonful of sugar thrown into the ocean to make it sweet. You are simply losing one spoonful of sugar unnecessarily. At least it could have given one man one cup of tea -- even that is gone. Not that others are gaining anything, but they will all enjoy the idea: "Now nobody is drinking tea, we are all equal." Otherwise this man was drinking tea and everybody was jealous.

The people who have created wealth have a certain talent for creating it. You should use their talent; you should make it an art to be taught to everybody. They are not to be punished because they have created wealth.

In an aboriginal society, a primitive society, of which a few fragments are still alive here and there on the earth, nobody is poor and nobody is rich; of course there is no jealousy. Everybody owns nothing, everybody equally owns nothing; but nobody is producing wealth.

In fact, the people who are producing wealth are creating an urge in others also to create wealth. Don't destroy these people -- use these people as symbols. They have a certain art of creating wealth -- make that art available to everybody, educate everybody. You teach economics in the universities; it would be far better if you taught the art of becoming rich -- because by teaching economics you don't help them to know the art of becoming rich. They win gold medals in the universities and then they disappear.

When I was a professor I asked one of my vice-chancellors, "Have you ever thought about what happens to your gold medallists? They should shine in the society everywhere. What is the purpose of your gold medal? A man who stood first in the whole university disappears and is never heard about again. What happens to him? That shows simply the poverty of your gold medal and the poverty of all your education. Even if he topped your whole educational system, what has he gained?"

I have asked professors of economics, "You have been teaching economics for twenty or thirty years -- how rich have you become?"

They said, "But what has that to do with teaching economics?"

I said, "Economics should be the science of becoming rich. You are just a poor professor, and if in thirty years of teaching you have not been able to find some secret of creating riches, what about your students? Have any of them become rich?" No, economics is not concerned about that; it is concerned about absolutely theoretical questions which have nothing to do with practical life.

Marx's idea is the distribution of wealth. Why? The reason he proposes is psychologically wrong, absolutely wrong.

Marx's reason is that every man is equal. That is psychologically absurd.

What to say about all men, the whole humanity -- not even two individuals are equal. Each individual is so unique, he cannot be equal to any other individual. By saying that all human beings are equal Karl Marx is destroying the uniqueness of the individual.

That's why I am against him and his whole philosophy -- because I stand for the uniqueness of the individual.

I am not saying that somebody is superior to you and somebody is inferior to you. Remember it! I am simply saying that you are not comparable to anybody:
You are you and the other is the other.

You don't compare a rose with a lotus, you simply say that they are two different things. Two different individuals, although they are both human beings, are unique individuals -- incomparable.

Marx gives this idiotic idea -- and it has been purchased by everybody all over the world: communists, anti-communists, everybody has purchased it; even the capitalists have purchased the idea that all men are equal. Why has nobody criticized it and fought it? -- for the simple reason that it looks very humanitarian. My God! Has something to be true or untrue -- does its validity have to be judged by logic or by humanitarianism? Then any lie which appears to be humanistic has to be accepted. And upon that lie -- that all men are equal -- the whole structure of communism has been raised.

Now, you know, it is such a simple thing to understand -- that every individual has different degrees of intelligence and different dimensions of creativity. Everybody cannot be a poet, everybody cannot be a scientist, everybody cannot be a painter; and it is good that everybody cannot be, otherwise life would lose all joy. The joy is in the uniqueness of the individual -- that he is so unique, unrepeatable, irreplaceable, that once he is gone his place is going to remain empty forever. Nobody can fulfill his place; the way he was fulfilling it, only he could do it.

Marx takes away, in a very cunning way, the whole dignity of the individual. And I call it really cunning because he gives the idea of equality of all human beings. In such a beautiful idea of equality you will not be able to detect what he has taken away from you. He has made you just a cog in the wheel, replaceable. He has put you on the assembly line in a factory that produces cars: just the same car goes on being assembled on an automatic assembly line.

Ford produces one car every minute. Every minute, for twenty-four hours, a similar car goes on coming out of the assembly line. But man is not an assembled mechanism; you cannot take him apart and assemble him again. It would have been very helpful in a way if we could take a man apart -- clean his insides and everything, replace a few bulbs here and there, a few fuses which have gone out, a few nuts and bolts which have got loose or too tight -- and then assemble him again with a new battery.

It would have been really good; but it would also be the greatest calamity that can happen. Then man disappears; then he is only a robot running on a battery. It is simple: if he breaks his hand there is no trouble, spare parts are always available. He just goes to any workshop, and his hand is changed; he gets a brand-new hand -- no problem. Only once in a while he may have a problem when he is telling some woman, "I love you," and then he goes "Grrrr, grrr, grrrr... my battery is running out... just call the mechanic...." Only once in a while will he go "Grrrr, grrrr" -- he won't be able to speak, the battery is running out.

Or you may be supplied with a small meter which goes on showing you on your wrist what is going down, what is going up, what is needed now: if you need a little more petrol, or water, or the oil has to be changed. It will be simpler -- but you will not be human, you will be robots.

Marx, by making you equal, is proposing a philosophy which ultimately is bound to make you robots -- that is the Marxist philosophy's logical conclusion.

Only robots can be equal. Man's dignity is in his uniqueness.

But let me repeat -- because there is every possibility that I will be misunderstood -- l am not saying that somebody is superior to you and somebody is inferior to you. I am simply saying that the very idea of comparison is invalid; you are just yourself. I cannot call you unequal, I cannot call you equal. Do you follow me? I cannot call you unequal.

That is the criticism communists have been throwing upon me -- that I am telling people that people are unequal. That is absolutely unjust to me. I am not saying people are unequal, I am saying they are not equal; that implies they are not unequal either. The very idea of comparison is invalid. Man is unique. Man is not just a member of the society, a part of the society. He is an individual, an independent whole in himself and it is not right....

Just think of it in this way and you will see it completely clearly: if somebody says that everybody has to be writing poetry, then even if some people are writing better poetry than you, their poetry has to be distributed on an equal basis with yours. Everybody has to be equally a poet, equally a musician.

You can see the absurdity, that if Yehudi Menuhin has to be made equal to you, you won't gain anything, and that poor fellow will lose everything. You cannot be Yehudi Menuhin. He has a certain genius that is born with him, that is in his very chemistry, in his very physiology, in his very being. You don't have that chemistry, that physiology, that being. His parents were different, his parents' parents were different.

You cannot have his quality distributed, that is impossible. And that will destroy all the beautiful flowers in human life. But you don't think that way. You think Yehudi Menuhin is just himself; there is no question of somebody else taking his qualities, dividing and distributing them. But you don't understand that in exactly the same way there are people who have a certain talent to be rich.

Everybody is not Henry Ford, cannot be; and there is no need. One Henry Ford has created enough traffic No need for more! If there are many Henry Fords then do you know what will be the result? The result will be that walking will be faster than driving. It is already becoming so. In cities like New York, Bombay, Tokyo and Calcutta, a distance you can cover by walking within ten minutes to fifteen minutes will take you one-and-a-half hours in a car.

[...]

The mind that Karl Marx had was certainly very talented.

He created a worldwide movement -- certainly he outdid Jesus. This is just Jewish competition. It is nobody's business really, just Jews competing. Freud created a worldwide movement for psychoanalysis, but Marx is on the top. Almost half the world is communist now -- but not rich, very poor.

You can see it in Germany [lecture was given November - December 1985] . Just beyond the wall is the communist world. Of the same Berlin which was destroyed in the Second World War, half has remained free and democratic, and half has been taken over by the communists. The half that has remained independent, free and capitalist, is rich: skyscrapers, beautiful roads, everything. It is as if the Second World War has never happened. In the free West Berlin, the second world war has not left even a trace; in fact the war has done something really good because all the old, dilapidated, rotten things finished and everything is fresh and new. West Berlin is now the most modern, youngest and freshest city in the whole world.

And on the other side it is dark and dismal, as if the Second World War just ended yesterday; people are living in dilapidated barracks. It is a beautiful contrast to see what communism can do and what capitalism can do. Not a single skyscraper has arisen on the communist part, not a single new building, not a single new road, no new factory -- no creativity. Yes, they have distributed the wealth -- they have made the rich poor. And now the poor are not in a position to create wealth again.

The whole of Russia is poor, the whole of China is poor. Yes, one thing is missing; there are no rich people.

Communism is based on a fallacious idea: the equality of man. Man is not equal. The second idea is significant; but my interpretation of it is right, not what Marx said. The second idea says, "Equal opportunity for all." That's how it should be -- equal opportunity for all, but remembering that everybody is unique, so everybody is going to use the equal opportunity to be very different from each other. The ultimate result is going to be individuals so different from each other that you cannot conceive.

According to Marx equal opportunity means they will be all equal: equally wealthy, equally intelligent, equally healthy.

That is sheer nonsense, because your parents were not my parents; you have different genes and different programs in your body. Now, there is no way to change the genes, the program -- and small things make a difference.

So equal opportunity is a good idea and we should try it as far as humanly practical. But you should not be fanatic about it, because if you want perfect equality of opportunity then you are an idiot; that is not possible.

Just let me give you simple examples: if you are the eldest son in the family, then the youngest son in the family cannot have the same opportunity as the eldest, there is no way. Because you were the first to come, of course you received your mother and your father's love more because you were a novelty; then other children started coming and it was not anything new. The second boy was born, but he is going to be second. The eldest son in all the cultures is going to inherit the father's money. Why? It is not accidental: he got more love than anybody else, and he was the first to come.

Then the last son will also have a different status because he will be the smallest, favored by all, protected by all, all the brothers, the whole family. But the middle ones, they are nowhere: neither on this pole nor on that pole. They will not get the same attention as the first and the last. The last will become the favorite child of the family because now no more are coming; the last guest has come.

How can you give all equal opportunities? Either you will have to arrange births simultaneously so that a mother gives birth to twelve children simultaneously -- equal opportunity.

But from the very beginning there is no equal opportunity. When a woman gets pregnant, neither she nor her husband are aware that there has been a car race; nobody is aware. When the sperms travel towards the egg it is just as in any race: they all stand in one line waiting for the third whistle, and then they run.

The mother's cell, the egg in the mother's womb, is waiting and the cells from the father's body, as they explode into the mother's body, start a great race -- millions of sperms trying to reach the egg first. Whosoever reaches is the winner; all others will die. It is a question of life and death. It is no ordinary race in which you are only defeated and next time.... There is no next time -- only a single opportunity for millions of alive cells. Only one makes it, because this is how it works. The mother's egg has a natural capacity so that once one male sperm has entered it, it closes. The others go on knocking around but within two hours they will all be dead.

There are losses all the way. And the way is not so small as you think, because for those small cells it is close to two miles, proportionately. If they were of your proportions then the passage would be two miles. And a great job they do, a marathon race! Of course, the strongest reaches.

Sometimes it happens that two reach at the same time -- that's why twins are born -- or three reach. Even nine children have been known to be born, because nine may have reached simultaneously; then they all enter the door because they are all entering at the same time. After they enter the doors close. But it rarely happens that nine reach. One guy is clever enough that somehow he manages to reach first.

They all start almost at the same time, but from there, from the very impregnation, opportunities are different. Nobody knows those who have died, what kind of people they were. Somebody may have been an Albert Einstein, somebody a Ravi Shankar, somebody a Michelangelo. Nobody knows about those poor people who simply died in the first race and were not given any other chance.

And then small things in the life of the child.... You cannot make them equal. For example, when Napoleon Bonaparte was six months old, his nurse, who was taking care of him, had just left him for a moment and a wild cat jumped onto Napoleon, put both his paws on his chest, and looked into his eyes. Immediately the nurse came back and chased the cat away, but Napoleon, for his whole life, remained afraid of cats. He was not afraid of lions, he could have wrestled barehanded with a lion -- there was no problem about it -- but before a cat he simply became a nervous wreck.

Napoleon was defeated only once -- his whole life was a life of victory. Just once he was defeated -- by a British general who knew about his weakness. The general had gone with seventy cats ahead of him. Seeing seventy cats, Napoleon lost all nerve, he forgot all about what to do and what not to do. It was not a victory by the general, it was a victory by the cats.

How can you manage to give equal opportunities to all? Now, if such a small incident can prove so fatal.... Napoleon was a brave warrior before anybody, but nothing before a cat. The English general does not count at all, but he became victorious just by using a little psychology, just knowing about Napoleon s weakness -- that when he saw a cat he could not think, he simply became frozen. And when Napoleon was in that nervous state, of course his whole army was at a loss; they had lost the man who was their life, their light and their guide.

Now, how can you manage equal opportunity for all children of the world? That's absolutely impossible. So don't try to take the communist idea to its logical end -- then it becomes absurd.

Yes, with my interpretation -- and my interpretation is that everybody should be given opportunities to be educated, opportunities to get food, opportunities to get clothes, opportunities to do anything that a person wants to do. There should be no discrimination about it: opportunity should be given to everybody according to his talent and everybody according to his potentiality.

But that is not happening in communism. In the name of equal opportunities everybody is forced to remain at the lowest denominator, because only there can you keep them equal. If you want them to be equal on a higher level, then you need more riches, more wealth -- and that is missing.

In the sixty years since the Russian Revolution, the Russians have not been able to produce any wealth to make Russia rich. Equal opportunity is available, but what do you do with equal opportunity? You need people who can use these opportunities; and they don't need similar opportunities, they need different opportunities, equally different opportunities.

I am against communism because it is only a negative philosophy. I am all for commune-ism.

That should be the right word: commune-ism.
A commune is respectful of every individual's uniqueness, respectful of every individual's talent, and tries to help his talent grow, help him grow towards his potential.
I want communes all over the world, so that slowly nations can disappear, and there are only communes: living, small units of humanity, totally, joyously helping everybody to be himself.

Marx proposes the dictatorship of the proletariat, the dictatorship of the poor. That is stupid. They are poor, and if they are in power they will make everybody poor. What else can they do?

I propose the dictatorship of the enlightened ones. Nobody has proposed it up to now. And sometimes out of my crazy mind.... This idea I have carried my whole life -- dictatorship of the enlightened ones, because if it is of enlightened ones it cannot be dictatorship. It is a contradiction in terms. The enlightened person cannot be a dictator like Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler.

Yes, the enlightened person can dictate to you, but out of his love, not out of his power -- he has no power -- out of his insight, because he has eyes to see and to feel the potential of people.

His dictates can only be thought of as suggestions, advice, guidelines.

Only in the dictatorship of the enlightened ones is there a possibility of a real, authentic democracy and also the real flowering of commune-ism:

Equality by distributing riches, not poverty; destroying poverty from the very roots, and raising everybody upwards to be rich.

My commune-ism is a higher state of capitalism.
Marx's communism is against capitalism:
My commune-ism is capable of absorbing capitalism into it, using it as a tool, as a stepping-stone.

OSHO : From Personality to Individuality, Chapter 2 (https://www.amazon.com/Personality-Individuality-Osho/dp/8172613202)

[norman]

If we ever get the cabal of parasitic crooks off our back, every aspect of how society works will be up for revue.

Nothing much can change before that happens. A whole hell of a lot of things can gradually happen after that happens.

Let's not sit "comfortably" reasoning the pros and cons of being oppressed, pretending it's something else. We don't even know yet how people will behave and how their motivations will tick, in a world where we are out from under the dark magicians.

Just because something doesn't work right now, doesn't mean it won't work later when we are 'free'. And, importantly, visa versa.

[Foxie Loxie]

Iceberg...You hit the nail on the head about today's society....no QUALITY! :highfive:

Let's hope that "Q" can help people to learn about Critical Thinking; something not taught when I was in school! :Angel:

"First is Jesus; then is Freud; then is Karl Marx." That one had me laughing out loud!! :ROFL:

[Ernie Nemeth]

This system cannot end without disaster. It is only after that disaster that a new way can be implemented. This is because this system is so askew that our sense of normal is way out of whack. It is only after we see clearly what the causes were that lead to the economic disaster that proper choices could be made. As things stand right now we have a money system so easily manipulated by the banking elite that the value of our goods far exceeds its actual worth and wages paid that are half what they should be for most wage earners. Combine that with the continual rape of our collective assets, including government income and raw resources, and you have today's prices and today's economic disparity.

In a debt-based economy a universal stipend is merely a loan that must be paid with interest by someone else (by all those working). It cannot work because its premise runs counter to the premise of this society, where everyone is on their own and it's dog eat dog out there. It is the premise of society that must change before any reform can be implemented with any hope of success.

The premise today, the driving force of operations in our world is the so-called right to rule clause coupled with the right to ownership of the land - or better put the deeding of land by the rightful owners who own it in perpetuity - the kings, queens and princes of the world - and the knights of business.

The premise of this society is to dominate in any arena but most especially in terms of the human condition. To dominate is to rule, which supports the right to rule clause. Anything anyone possesses is impermanent and merely artifice for the rulers own everything and can claim any possession as their rightful booty - or destroy it with little contest.

If we are to have a system that is fair and honest and transparent the premise must fit the desired outcome - which means the rulers must be deposed, and no one can rise in their place.

So many of our cherished ideas would have to go, I am not sure the members of this society are yet ready to go there.

The only place where we can have the society our hearts desire is from a place of abundance - a place we have yet to visit.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

LOL I'll change it to an open question ;) - I don't have the answers either :). But I'm not suggesting no-one works, or AI or robots-for-everything being allowed to take over & eventually wiping us out

Maybe you don’t want this, but transhumanists like Jeff Bezos do. Bill Gates has already admitted he wants to use vaccines to depopulate the Earth. Same agenda. Humans are too unruly, useless eaters and all the rest, so this faction of globalists would rather wipe out something like 90% of the world’s population and use advanced technology, drones and robots to control those who are left.

Many people would willingly give themselves up to become cattle in a pen, fattened up for free and with everything else taken care of them by big nanny state government. It is frustrating but I can’t say that I’m surprised that people would go along with whatever is most comfortable and easy for them. In a way it reminds me of trying to convince morbidly obese people to change their diet when it’s just so easy to keep eating Twinkies and junk food. Taking personal responsibility is often... too much responsibility lol. The song “Comfortably Numb” comes to mind. It’s a real uphill struggle to get people to appreciate the consequences of these things, or even to care.


The way I see it, what we have now and in the past isn't working too well for the majority.

Are you talking about the medieval period, or modern history? What about the massive improvements in living standards since 1800? Those have immensely benefitted the majority, especially in western countries. Even “poor” people in the US today have smart phones and access to free food and shelter. Society hasn’t always been wealthy enough to provide these services. We’ve been doing something right, but unfortunately those things seem to come under constant attack, are the target of propaganda, or else are downplayed and even ignored as if such progress just happens naturally regardless of what we do (it doesn’t).


"The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives ... We work to better ourselves, and the rest of humanity..."

The idea that people, even the most famous and influential entrepreneurs in western countries have only been seeking profit at all costs, is not historically accurate. Things are about as bad today as they have ever been. But the developments that led to our advanced standard of living today were largely pioneered by individuals who actually had humanity’s best interests at heart. Automobiles, telephones, the Internet, etc etc have all made money but they’ve also provided tremendous benefit to humanity which was completely unnecessary. We could still be in a feudal system after all.

A relatively few rotten apples have spoiled the reputation of business owners and entrepreneurs as a whole, though today the corruption has finally become so bad that it’s probably the rule now rather than the exception. But my point is that it hasn’t always been this way, and nearly all of our modern comforts are the fruit of savvy businessmen and entrepreneurs (certainly not bureaucrats in nanny state governments, which only stifle innovation), so you can’t blame the system itself for the corruption that has infiltrated it. I blame the eradication of public morality in large part. Society used to value morals and principles, not even that long ago.

If you’re looking for middle ground, what is your idea of the two extremes you are seeking to avoid?


Apologies Omni, this discussion has probably gone way off topic from what you envisioned :blushing:[/COLOR] :bigsmile:

I think you’ve got the wrong thread in mind. :P We’re still completely on topic here, since the OP is about economic/government welfare systems.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

The only place where we can have the society our hearts desire is from a place of abundance - a place we have yet to visit.

I find statements like this remarkable. I would wonder what people living in 3rd world countries would think of the lack of abundance here in the West, where we throw away 150,000 tons of food everyday in the US alone. I say I would wonder, except the massive amounts of migrants pouring into the West give me a pretty good idea of what they think of it. No desire to understand why we have this abundance, but plenty of desire to exploit it for their own benefit, meanwhile the people living here deny that it even exists.

When you say that things are so out of whack that we don’t know what is normal anymore, what time and place would you point to in history as a standard for what is normal, just to give us an idea of how bad things are right now for you?

[KiwiElf]

I'm not just referring to "the poor" in the US; more than half the planet's population "doesn't have a pot to pee in" ... .

As for the two extremes to avoid, I've already said it: uber rich vs uber poor. :)

[A Voice from the Mountains]

I'm not just referring to "the poor" in the US; more than half the planet's population "doesn't have a pot to pee in" ... .

My ancestors were poor too, though they literally had pots to pee in. They called them "slop jars" and that's where they peed and pooped when it was too cold to run to the outhouse, until indoor plumbing was installed. Everything they got after that, they all worked hard for, and they never complained about it.

Many of these "uber poor" places have been that way for a thousand years, if not the entire historical period. We have road maps for getting out of these situations but for one reason or another they aren't implemented.



Christianity is the first perversion that came out of Judaism. The second perversion that came out of Judaism is Freudian psychoanalysis.

Interesting post. There's a lot of it I don't agree with, and I won't even bring up the accusations of Osho being a sex cult leader, but nonetheless I thank you for it.

Osho's portrayal of Christianity is a bit off. His understanding of Christian theology is missing the point, but anyway, Jesus is derived from a pagan deity, and Christianity isn't as Jewish as he seems to think.

Jesus = Hésus (Celtic/Gaulish) = Zeus (Greek) = Dyaus-Pater (Indo-European) = Jupiter (Roman)

The trinity only exists in Christianity, not Judaism or Islam, which consider the trinity a polytheistic doctrine. Why? Because it does in fact originate from polytheism, specifically from the Celtic triune. The Celtic supreme God was triune in nature, and Hésus was the human embodiment of the Sun God: God incarnate in human flesh. Sound familiar?

Crown of thorns? Also pagan Celtic/Gaulish.

Sacrificing a human being to appease the Gods? Obviously pagan, though the Jews also shared in these customs as evidenced by the Bible.

In short, the Catholic Church took pagan pantheons and worship common from Ireland to India and transformed them into something that allowed them to better govern a wide swathe of land known as the Holy Roman Empire and "Christendom" beyond that.

Everybody knows that Christmas, Easter, and Halloween are just pagan holidays, the first two with glosses of Christianity over them, the third without even that much. The same is true of much of what makes up Christianity in general. It's a lot more European than people realize, and also has a lot more in common with Roman and Greek philosophy than people realize, in the New Testament obviously.

[KiwiElf]

Thank you turiya - that was the word I was looking for; commune-ism :) :happythumbsup:

All I'm saying is, we can do better.

I firmly believe, that within the next decade, this planet - & humanity as a whole - will have completely transformed itself for the better, in every way.

It's already begun... :bigsmile:

[ceetee9]

I too don't have any solutions for this conundrum (i.e., what's the best society to see that everyone's needs are met), but it is a subject that I have often thought about and have vacillated over.

Several years ago I was intrigued with Michael Tellinger's Ubuntu contributionist society. I felt like it had merit and could work, but I had several questions for which I didn't see a solution that would be fair, equitable and impervious to perversion/corruption.

To me an open source society makes a great deal of sense and could greatly improve the quality, efficiency, and longevity of most products and services when we enable many minds to work in concert to solve problems than when we restrict the knowledge and brainpower to a small few in the name of profit and competition—and, ultimately, greed.

While I like the idea of everyone being able to do what they love and/or do best—and can see how that could improve the quality and efficiency of the resulting product or service and certainly the happiness of the contributors—but what if the majority of people want to be athletes, musicians, artists and few want to do the jobs of necessity, that society depends upon, like farming, home and infrastructure construction and maintenance, garbage collection and disposal, etc.? And who decides what home and how much land each person or family gets to have and where? How do we deal with those who take more than they need? How do we deal with loafers (i.e., those who are capable of contributing to society, but choose not to)? And, arguably, the biggest problem I see with a contributionist society (or any society for that matter) is what does the government look like? Some group or organization would have to be the monitors and arbiters of the resources and providers of security. And with all governments or organizations, how do you keep them from living at a higher standard than the masses, growing out of control and becoming corrupt?

Perhaps the reason I vacillate on this issue is because all I've know is the Capitalist society and, as A Voice from the Mountains has pointed out, it has worked very well for us. Yes, it's grown out of control and become extremely corrupt and the greed of the elite appear to be determined to have all of the wealth, power and control and the resources and they don't appear to care about people or the planet, but does that mean it's unfixable? I don't know.

One thing I have learned though is that humans are a very strange critter. On the one hand, you have the (thankfully few) psychopaths who care only about money, power and control and will stop at nothing to have it (including destroying everything) and on the other hand you have the masses who only seem to care about themselves and living in their own little world. And then there's this third group who sees the other two groups and can't understand either. They too just want to live their life in peace and harmony, but they realize that can't happen as long as the psychopaths control everything and the masses refuse to join with them to resolve the problems.

I used to believe that, given a contributionist society, the majority of people would do the right thing and would contribute (work) and that if society needed more people doing the jobs that few wanted to do that plenty would step up to the plate. I no longer believe this. I am grudgingly coming to the conclusion that people are intrinsically lazy and will only do things that they feel like doing and/or that are beneficial to their self interest and preservation. I mean, look at how few will research the kinds of things discussed on Avalon. The majority of my family and friends would rather roll their eyes and pass it off as “conspiracy theories” that only nutters will waste their time researching. They're more interested in the truly important things like playing games or watching sports, movies or braindead TV shows. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that entertainment is a bad thing, or that we shouldn't be entertained, or that it isn't useful to help us to escape the insanity of this world for a while. But I just can't help but marvel at the level of importance that most people put on being entertained over being educated and informed—particularly if the knowledge gained could improve, or even save, their lives if acted upon.

I just saw on TV that the Cowboys expect 100,000 people per day to show up and watch their draft picks in Arlington, TX. Is there really any wonder why the world is as screwed up as it is when things like that far and away exceeds the desire to know if, for example, there really is a Deep State that has taken over our government and wants to create a One World Government and exterminate 95% of the population. Maybe it's just me and I'm just a “conspiracy theory” nut, but attempting to find out if that statement is true or not seems vastly more important than who the Cowboys are going to draft for their 2018 season—and I'm a Cowboys fan.

[Ba-ba-Ra]

I just became aware of this thread, so I've only read the first post and the posts on this page due to time constraints.

Don't know if any of you are familiar with Mondragon in N.Spain. Operational since the mid-50's it has grown into the world's largest worker's coop. Perfect? -probably not, but the closest concept I've seen. When workers have skin in the game, their attitude is usually quite different, especially when the CEO's salaries are capped at 8% of the lowest paid workers salary. How different attitudes are when one feels as if they are being treated fairly and their ideas are considered.

I believe it was originally a farm coop;however, Mondragon now also has it's own schools, banks and manufacturing. Housing as well. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/07/mondragon-spains-giant-cooperative


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKbukSeZ29o

[Ernie Nemeth]

This isn't about me.

And it isn't regional. It is global. All those migrants you mention are the group, the majority of the world's population, by the way, that I refer to and their doppelgangers here in the west - the bottom full 30% who do not enjoy the largesse of our elites and well-to-do middle class.

That food you say we waste each year, is that a joke? The very fact that food is thrown out when others are starving pretty much hammers in the last nail in the coffin of my above statements.

[Mark]

The way I see it, what we have now and in the past isn't working too well for the majority. There's got to be a better way(s). Comes back to that ST quote, I think:

"The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives ... We work to better ourselves, and the rest of humanity..."


It is going to take our deaths. It is going to take destruction and devastation and climate shift and war and hatred and loss. Deep, abiding, painful, generational loss. The kind of loss that is going to make both world wars look like children's games. The kind of loss that traumatizes generations and leaves epigenetic markers in those who survive it.

I wish this were not the case.

But people are too programmed into this hierarchical way of being. Of the idea of rich and poor. Of working and playing. They can see no way beyond the polarity, no way of finding a middle way, no way of being something more than we currently are.

This system and way of being must play itself out. There are too many too invested in it for it to go quietly into the night. They will fight and war and the night will light up with their rage as those who seek another path grow stronger and louder and more insistent upon them giving up their privileges and imposing their perversions upon the entire world.

People forget that the Star Trek Federation came about after devastating warfare and destruction on planet earth. People saw the old ways could not work any longer and had to make a new way.

Good times on planet earth.

[KiwiElf]

I believe we are in the beginning of that "war" right now, Rahkyt ;). Certainly we, as the human race must grow & evolve. That will no doubt come at a price.

[KiwiElf]

Apologies Omni, this discussion has probably gone way off topic from what you envisioned :blushing:[/COLOR] :bigsmile:

I think you’ve got the wrong thread in mind. :P We’re still completely on topic here, since the OP is about economic/government welfare systems.

:) No,.. right thread (yours), comment was in relation to both of Omni's earlier posts :p

:focus:

[TargeT]

People forget that the Star Trek Federation came about after devastating warfare and destruction on planet earth. People saw the old ways could not work any longer and had to make a new way.
Good times on planet earth.

Hard to think of a single time a major system changed WITH OUT a devastating (on many facets) precursor (9/11, Pearl Harbor being two easy examples of how "forced" precursors are just as good as organic ones, perhaps better because they are more predictable.)


I don't see our economy changing with out one also... but a lot of us have seen the writing on the wall & it appears we are being set up for a global collapse; which maybe the devastation to the current system that is required for change... however this also seems to be an injected phenomenon so how much do we trust the perpetrators?

I don't trust much at all....



That food you say we waste each year, is that a joke? The very fact that food is thrown out when others are starving pretty much hammers in the last nail in the coffin of my above statements.

Are they starving though, or is that just a meme?

I mean, you'd think we would see Malnutrition at least in the top 10 causes of death in Africa (https://africacheck.org/factsheets/factsheet-africas-leading-causes-death/), right?

But we don't, because the "scarcity" paradigm that we are currently in is FALSE.

What that means for universal income, I dunno... but I don't think it can ever exist alongside capitalism.

[Ernie Nemeth]

Target, there's starving and then there's starving. I've gone hungry on a few occasions and it felt like starving but I really wasn't because if I was truly in danger I could have swallowed my pride and gone to the food bank.

Africans are starving. That is why they call it a famine. Millions die. Children are hardest hit because they need those calories and nutrition to grow. They can't catch up later. If they don't get the proper intake they are forever stunted. They say at least 1 in 5 children in America go to school hungry - that's also bad. In New York many renters and mostly university students often have to make a choice - pay the rent or buy food. The food banks see a crisis almost every year in Canada too. Right now I think it is Vancouver experiencing a food shortage in their food banks.

So ya I would say that food is a very big problem in the world. Maybe not as bad as the water problem but still very bad.

And scarcity is implemented everywhere the west goes - it's part of the control structure.

[Mark]

I don't see our economy changing with out one also... but a lot of us have seen the writing on the wall & it appears we are being set up for a global collapse; which maybe the devastation to the current system that is required for change... however this also seems to be an injected phenomenon so how much do we trust the perpetrators?

I don't trust much at all....

I see that as a valid way of perceiving the current milieu TargeT, and am right there with you. Watching, letting it pass but taking note. By this point, I'm sure it is the same with you, the information builds upon previous layers of "knowledge" and it becomes easier to see patterns and potentialities, but harder to predict the details of what is going to happen at any given moment in time. We cannot trust the perpetrators, the ones who control, obviously. But when and if we ask "why" such events are being heralded in the MSM, through movies, television, gaming, magazines, books and online venues, what is the opposite potentiality?

A Golden Age?

A true, representative form of governance where ALL of the people are taken care of and are able to access the capacity to manifest their full potentiality?

Destruction on one side and ... Creation on the other?

Is this some sort of distraction from what could and would be, were they not dragging down the global energetic balance with their predatory depradations?

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Target, there's starving and then there's starving. I've gone hungry on a few occasions and it felt like starving but I really wasn't because if I was truly in danger I could have swallowed my pride and gone to the food bank.

Africans are starving. That is why they call it a famine. Millions die. Children are hardest hit because they need those calories and nutrition to grow. They can't catch up later. If they don't get the proper intake they are forever stunted. They say at least 1 in 5 children in America go to school hungry - that's also bad. In New York many renters and mostly university students often have to make a choice - pay the rent or buy food. The food banks see a crisis almost every year in Canada too. Right now I think it is Vancouver experiencing a food shortage in their food banks.

Starvation was actually a problem all over the world, a major recurring problem in every single major country, until capitalism began to be implemented in earnest in the late 1700s and early 1800s. When we reflect today on how far we have come in providing a very high standard of living in the West, we are reflecting on the results of individual incentive/entrepreneurship in a free market capitalist system.

Two problems I see with everyone complaining about the economic system and wanting to change it:

(1) They don't have a functioning alternative, demanding change blindly with no solutions,
(2) They don't have a proper perspective on the "problems" we have in the first place, often either attributing problems to the wrong causes or inventing problems that don't actually exist except in a corporate media narrative.

If the solution to "scarcity" is supposed to be opening up the printing presses and printing millions of dollars of "free money" aka "good boy government points," and this is supposed to actually increase real standards of living by printing more paper, then knock yourselves out. Try it in all the European countries first please. Tell Finland and Greece and the other countries who have already dabbled in this nonsense to fire it back up first and be the guiding light to the rest of the world.

[Omni]

If the solution to "scarcity" is supposed to be opening up the printing presses and printing millions of dollars of "free money" aka "good boy government points," and this is supposed to actually increase real standards of living by printing more paper, then knock yourselves out. Try it in all the European countries first please. Tell Finland and Greece and the other countries who have already dabbled in this nonsense to fire it back up first and be the guiding light to the rest of the world.
What is your solution to Ai automating most of the jobs eventually?

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Don't know if any of you are familiar with Mondragon in N.Spain. Operational since the mid-50's it has grown into the world's largest worker's coop. Perfect? -probably not, but the closest concept I've seen. When workers have skin in the game, their attitude is usually quite different, especially when the CEO's salaries are capped at 8% of the lowest paid workers salary. How different attitudes are when one feels as if they are being treated fairly and their ideas are considered.

There are "successful" co-ops in my region too, but they're basically just off-the-grid communities that only have slightly more electricity than the Amish, and they are about as primitive as the Amish. Not that there's anything wrong with that, if that's what someone is into. If you tried to run a whole country like that you'd basically just be going 200+ years back into the past and asking other nations to take advantage of you.

Technological developments such as what we have today require centralized industrial/research hubs that benefit from a wide network of support, from outside agriculture sending in food to universities providing the required technical background. In order to attract the best and brightest you have to pay the best. And if we try to equalize pay in the US, the best and brightest will leave for foreign countries that will pay them more, such as Japan. The "brain drain" is real and it's one reason why the US has been sucking up so many of the smartest people out of all of these poorer and more socialist countries for so long, because we can afford to pay them more based on their talents.

It isn't fair that some people are a lot smarter than others. Some people are total geniuses and can come up with ideas and technological innovations that the rest of us would never dream of, yet their inventions can make life much more comfortable for all of us. If a developer like this makes 5 or 10 times the amount of money I do, should I feel upset about that? Because I don't.




What is your solution to Ai automating most of the jobs eventually?

AI can't be allowed to automate too much or it would create a Matrix-like scenario where our entire civilization would potentially be at the whim of AI. If humanity collectively wants to convert itself into fat, lazy cattle then we are free to do so, but the cost is our freedom and potentially our very existence. A certain amount of exertion and labor will always be required on our part if we actually want to maintain control of things ourselves, instead of handing off all responsibility and giving up control.

Things like the ability to launch nuclear missiles, control global communications, control of food production and distribution, and other basic things like that to our survival as a species, have to be kept out of AI control. If not, we've given up responsibility and put it into the hands of AI out of pure sorriness. If we are that weak of a species then perhaps AI could make a good argument that we deserved to be eradicated anyway.

[Omni]

What is your solution to Ai automating most of the jobs eventually?

AI can't be allowed to automate too much or it would create a Matrix-like scenario where our entire civilization would potentially be at the whim of AI. If humanity collectively wants to convert itself into fat, lazy cattle then we are free to do so, but the cost is our freedom and potentially our very existence. A certain amount of exertion and labor will always be required on our part if we actually want to maintain control of things ourselves, instead of handing off all responsibility and giving up control.

Things like the ability to launch nuclear missiles, control global communications, control of food production and distribution, and other basic things like that to our survival as a species, have to be kept out of AI control. If not, we've given up responsibility and put it into the hands of AI out of pure sorriness. If we are that weak of a species then perhaps AI could make a good argument that we deserved to be eradicated anyway.
You have a lot of flaws in your argument.

1. Ai will automate most jobs eventually. Universal basic income is the clear solution.
2. The planet has already been merged with an Ai weapons system. It is already like the matrix. What you speak of is nowhere near what has happened (it is much worse). The Ai does what it is programmed to do. The society you speak of involves oligarchs controlling the Ai, not the Ai going rogue.
3. You are wary of us being at the whim of Ai if we have a UBI & Ai automated society... Yet right now financially we are at the whim of employers who practically control our fate. Most people have to slave for someone else, and are at the whim of their employer. At the whim of their company implanting them (which is coming more and more), at the whim of their boss controlling their time spent and actions. The current model (which somehow you seem to like) is a soft form of slavery. With Ai properly programmed and serving us we could end the monetary enslavement system.



== Benefits of Universal Basic Income (UBI) ==
* gives free personal time (e.g. promotes the arts & music)
* promotes optimal education (not forced education)
* eliminates the ongoing culture of debt, no need to take out a loan to make a living at the beginning of your adult life
* crime would obviously go down with a generous UBI (poverty is a prime catalyst of crime)
* eliminates the instability period when Ai really starts taking a lot of jobs - UBI is the clear solution
* people become activists - promotes activism & volunteering
* gives people time to be with their family
* promotes self development & self discovery
* provides an environment for entrepreneurial endeavors for citizens of any type
* small business numbers would rise
* a solution for homelessness
* a solution for world hunger
* life quality would raise for those who previously had no income source
* workers have more economic security, this forces employers to provide quality work conditions to retain employees[x] (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?102541-Finland-abandons-free-money-experiment&p=1221474&viewfull=1#post1221474)
* internet growth & enrichment would likely be a result
* probable that the collective would research a lot more
* there would be more political focus
* there would be more focus on keeping government in line
* people would have accomplishments of life work instead of nothing to show for their hard work


https://openmovement.wiki/index.php/Reasons_in_Favor_of_Universal_Basic_Income

If you relate all of that for society as "getting fat" I'm not sure where your logic is but it isn't in reality...


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C2OjBzFXAAE7nuc.jpg

[Ernie Nemeth]

Good counters on my points there Mountain, I must say.

Capitalism certainly has its winners. A rather small minority, to be sure, but 20% of the population did see a rise in its standard of living, in terms of housing, health, and income.

Famine has increased since the introduction of the industrial revolution, mainly but arguably attributable to the increased use of herbicides and pesticides, and fertilizers. This and the deforestation of massive tracts of land here in North America changed the climate worldwide. Floods and famine are a cycle in many parts of the world.

As Omni says, universal income is the obvious candidate, although I say so with great caution. It should already be implemented on the basis of the fact that each individual owns a portion of their country and its resources, including the residuals of infrastructure and remedial necessities caused by the industries. We own this wealth by being alive; it is ours to dispense and it is ours to consume.

Instead we are born into indebtedness by the same virtue - that of being alive. We owe a debt that begins the moment we are born and continues accruing until we are dead.

The rest is just semantics.

[Iloveyou]

Discussing Basic Income isolated from all other aspects of modern life leads nowhere. It will never work within the current (and past) dominating structures and mindset of most people. But it has to start here, under difficult conditions, where else? Advocating the idea invites all kind of (reasonable) opposition and criticism.



... only have slightly more electricity than the Amish, and they are about as primitive as the Amish. Not that there's anything wrong with that, if that's what someone is into. If you tried to run a whole country like that you'd basically just be going 200+ years back into the past and asking other nations to take advantage of you.

... or 200+ years into the future. It depends on where you put your focus.

Here too:
“It also will not be possible to maintain a modern type of technology. Healthy individuals simply will not spend their entire working lives down in a coal mine, killing themselves by breathing coal dust, knowing they are going to choke to death of it at the age of 40, or stand for 8 hours every working day at an assembly line, doing the same tiny motion over and over again, or any of the many other jobs that need to be done by somebody in a modern industrialized society. Work democracy will only be practical if we abandon industrialization and the type of technology that it makes possible and restore a level of technolgy comparable to that of a few centuries ago, such as the Amish still use.”(Paul Finnegan)

Is there nothing else beyond these two options: Modern (deadly) technology / slave work or Amish life style? No society based on free energy in the future? No clean technology that follows natural processes? Finally Basic Income will prevail, hand in hand with all other developments towards a more human lifestyle.

Meanwhile I have a hard time to believe that (out of a certain tiredness and because of the massively increasing pressure exerted on people). Though from an objective, emotionless point of view I know it will prevail. There’s simply no other option (except collective death, which I do not take into account (as a matter of principle).

Arguing against Basic Income, although from a reasonable position, means maintaining and supporting the status quo. Imo. The Finnish experiment had nothing, nothing to do with the fundamental idea of Basic Income. Even the title is misleading. Such a thing as “free money” doesn’t exist. You all know that. I wouldn’t be surprised if this social welfare program had only been started to prove its failure.

[Omni]

I wouldn’t be surprised if this social welfare program had only been started to prove its failure.
I totally agree. They did this study to demonize it. You can bet your bottom dollar the results of this study will be negative towards basic income.

[TargeT]

I wouldn’t be surprised if this social welfare program had only been started to prove its failure.
I totally agree. They did this study to demonize it. You can bet your bottom dollar the results of this study will be negative towards basic income.

Oh I don't know, every welfare program I've seen has caused mostly failure or ended in such.

We ruined the native americans with "free money"

We ruined the native alaskans with "free money"

We ruined the lower income class with "free money"

The few cases it is actually beneficial are dwarfed by the cases where it was just an enabler to non-productive behavior; ever had one of the recipients tell you of their scheme's to scam just a few more pennies from uncle sam? I had a young 19 year old telling me this stuff and his eyes lit up while he did it.. very sad; but a common mentality in the projects I work in.

[Ernie Nemeth]

Immigrants to Canada are offered a free orientation class. In it, the people are coached in how to apply for government assistance - what to say, what not to say.

I know many who still refer to welfare as free money - their rightful paycheck for being Canadian now. Ask any of them if they want to work for minimum wage and they just look at you like you're crazy, "What? And loose my government money?"

[Omni]

We ruined the native americans with "free money"

We ruined the native alaskans with "free money"

We ruined the lower income class with "free money"
I don't think free money is the cause of what ruined those things. It is a far more complicated picture than you paint. I'm not sure where you got this: we caused the ruination of Native Americans with 'free money'. The first two seem like compensation for the ruining. The third I can detect more of an argument for, still isn't the root cause of the ruination IMO.

[Fellow Aspirant]

Re: "What you are really seeking to avoid is working, and presumably, the suffering that comes from work. All world religions are about alleviating suffering, and most agree: you can never completely do it."

I find this to be a false assumption, Voice, one based on your own personal views of human motivation, which I find kind of dark. In this view, all humans are lazy. That is simply not the case. I believe that humanity's greatest achievements are the result not of someone earning a wage to keep food on the table, but instead are the result of someone (or some group) having a dream of a better world, and then 'working' to see it come to be realized.

Much of the western world depends on the 'work' of volunteers to function. From whence is this drive forthcoming?

There are many reasons to want to avoid "work", per se. I am personally averse to work that is demeaning, trivial or dehumanizing. "Robot work" as I used to call it when I was employed in factories. And robots are welcome to it. I don't mind at all, however, an occupation in which I can accomplish goals that aid the planet or its life forms, or fulfill an artistic drive while producing a useful item or product. There are lots of examples.

On the other hand, there is the sage advice that one should find an activity that fulfills one's dreams - and never face the prospect of having to "work" another day.

So, to conclude, not all humans are lazy. If we were, nothing of value would be accomplished.

Brian

[Ernie Nemeth]

I don't understand the mentality, either. No pride in a job well done? No camaraderie with fellow workers, getting a beer after work to wash down the dirt and grime? This is how wealth is created. Does that not mean anything anymore? There is nothing without effort and honed skills and increasing knowledge and experience. You can have all the schooling in the world but a world full of scholars still sleep in caves! There is nothing without physical labour.

Funny how backward this world is. And all values follow on that faulty premise. That is why this world is a mess: We have valued wrongly.

Note: sure is hard writing on a phone. No spell check for one. Not a very good speller. Power is out here in Toronto - high winds...

[Iloveyou]

All that is part of a good life, :) physical labor is way underrated and too little appreciated. Anyway, I see this is already changing. The essential thing with Basic Income and work is voluntariness. People are ready to take a lot, when they can do things freely, from their own choice. Especially when it comes with appreciation and the award of being part of a team ...

What will cease with Basic Income, is the compulsion, the military-like organisation of work, where the first thing required is obedience and subordination ... starting as a 15, 18 year old ... for fourty years, without a break ... under the permanent threat of misery if they do not comply. The major part of people in the Western world have to live like that. You are lucky if you don’t.

People are essentially good. Well, they might be a bit stupid, defiant for a while ...


Ask any of them if they want to work for minimum wage and they just look at you like you're crazy, "What? And loose my government money?"

Perhaps the problem is the minimum wage ...

[Fellow Aspirant]

I don't understand the mentality, either. No pride in a job well done? No camaraderie with fellow workers, getting a beer after work to wash down the dirt and grime? This is how wealth is created. Does that not mean anything anymore? There is nothing without effort and honed skills and increasing knowledge and experience. You can have all the schooling in the world but a world full of scholars still sleep in caves! There is nothing without physical labour.

Funny how backward this world is. And all values follow on that faulty premise. That is why this world is a mess: We have valued wrongly.

Note: sure is hard writing on a phone. No spell check for one. Not a very good speller. Power is out here in Toronto - high winds...

Wellll ... there's nothing in this program to prevent someone from working and feeling good about themselves. It's a bare minimum income. People would just not be stuck in doing robot/slave work to eat.

It's not like a general "Down tools!" movement. Having a choice in what you do would benefit individuals and the economy and society in general. If one wanted to do some worthwhile physical labour, they could. And then head out for a beer!

B.

[AutumnW]

The main problem with a basic guaranteed income is it could create a crisis of meaning and purpose in the lives of those who receive it. However, many people nowadays would do well to have their basic needs attended to. It is a mistake to conclude that all that motivates people to 'work' is money.

Look at all the labor involved in hobbies. Look at all the man hours people spend posting on this forum. Nobody gets paid for that!

[Omni]

The main problem with a basic guaranteed income is it could create a crisis of meaning and purpose in the lives of those who receive it. However, many people nowadays would do well to have their basic needs attended to. It is a mistake to conclude that all that motivates people to 'work' is money.

Look at all the labor involved in hobbies. Look at all the man hours people spend posting on this forum. Nobody gets paid for that!
I know from first hand experience that when you have freedom to do what you want it can be one of the best things that ever happens to someone. If the worst thing about a UBI is a freedom crisis I think the argument is easily in favor of UBI. I have general freedom like UBI provides and it has turned into a portfolio of music, film, books - PDFs, websites, photography, graphic design, hired illustration, social media activism, forming organizations (such as Counter Darkness (https://www.counterdarkness.org/) & Open Movement International (https://www.openmovement.info/)), more time to do what I want, better psychological states, I generally sleep when I want (this is great for insomnia), I started small businesses (e.g. Universal Aspects™ (https://www.universalaspects.io/2017/08/universal-aspects-web.html) and Aspect Black™).

Basically UBI could start a new internet renaissance if other people wanted to do what I have with my time. All those talented people wasting their talents away doing something they don't want to do for some oligarch would have time to develop their talents and knowledge. I see UBI as a utopia model...

[Ernie Nemeth]

My concern is to address why is there a need for UBI? If there are ten of us in the world would we all be equally well off? Would we get to do what we want? I don't think the answers are that straight forward, are they?

With seven billion of us the problem becomes untenable. No one can put a finger on the causes of inequality with any certainty. There are things people want and those things can only be supplied by millions working in that and related industry. People want stuff, so other people have to go get the raw materials to make that stuff. More people have to fabricate and assemble the stuff. Others have to stand around to explain to you which stuff is best and which will suit you most. Still others have to make sure the peace is kept and proper protocols are followed. Others have to invent those protocols.

No matter what millionaire, there are thousands of people that made the stuff that made that millionaire rich. For every banker's bonus, there is somewhere a deficit that will have to be assumed by others, unless of course money is printed out of thin air (say it isn't so!) but even then many pay for the deflated value of their money. Every mansion was built by hundreds of workers and thousands of support personnel in dozens of related industries. There is no man who came from nothing to make it big that does not really owe their wealth to hundreds of others who actually did the work.

In a different world all that labor could have gone into building homes for ourselves, saving wealth in assets instead of fiat vouchers, creating our own stuff - we already build them anyway. We could have lifted our brother and sister up when they needed a hand, invaded with shovels instead of guns, given assistance instead of taking control.

If that had been done, we wouldn't need UBI because we'd all be rich!

[Merlinus]

In the future automation will have taken most of the jobs, universal income will then be implemented .

[Omni]

A project I finished a draft of today on UBI:

https://pdf.universalaspects.io/images/Universal-Basic-Incomex839.png

[Ernie Nemeth]

Omni, that is a great table.

It should not be hidden away in this obscure location. It really deserves a thread of its own.

Discussing the benefits of a UBI is fun and enlightening. It may be a better angle to discuss this topic from, offering opportunities to envision the various positive outcomes. Here, it seems the negative is being highlighted.

¤=[Post Update]=¤


A project I finished a draft of today on UBI:

https://pdf.universalaspects.io/images/Universal-Basic-Incomex839.png

bumped:bump:

[A Voice from the Mountains]

1. Ai will automate most jobs eventually. Universal basic income is the clear solution.

The industrial revolution in the 1800's took away millions of jobs too, and people just found new jobs.

The idea is that people are doing useful things that they can then somehow exchange with each other. I get the feeling that most people can only conceptualize work and having productive responsibilities as something bad, to be avoided at all costs, and even comparable with slavery. The truth is that being directly responsible for productive capabilities actually gives the human race its power. If we were to decide to surrender all of our responsibilities to sentient robots that are making their own decisions, then we would have put the leash around our own necks and given control over our existence to something over which we may ultimately have no control. I really think that would be insane behavior.


2. The planet has already been merged with an Ai weapons system. It is already like the matrix. What you speak of is nowhere near what has happened (it is much worse). The Ai does what it is programmed to do. The society you speak of involves oligarchs controlling the Ai, not the Ai going rogue.

I actually don't believe that. The largest army in the world is arguably the 70 million Americans that own private firearms, and there isn't any AI system controlling all 70 million of these people. Even without having to actually use these weapons, just the possibility of the American people rising up in revolt has a major chilling effect on any would-be coup plotters, for example, or even foreign invaders, who would stand no chance of occupying us. Then there are other examples of militias and mercenary armies throughout the world that resist control by any external influence, especially in the Middle East and Africa.


3. You are wary of us being at the whim of Ai if we have a UBI & Ai automated society... Yet right now financially we are at the whim of employers who practically control our fate.

You can say your fate is in the hands of anyone you choose, but I think it's only useful to focus on the ways in which I am responsible for my own fate. I'm not so pessimistic that I have stopped believing in free will yet.


Most people have to slave for someone else

What people get paid for today is nothing compared to what our medieval ancestors had to do just to survive, and I doubt they thought of those necessary actions as a form of slavery. I think we have lost all perspective on true hardship today and as a society are very spoiled, to the point of younger generations becoming incapable of meeting serious responsibilities to keep civilization moving forward.



== Benefits of Universal Basic Income (UBI) ==
* gives free personal time (e.g. promotes the arts & music)
* promotes optimal education (not forced education)
* eliminates the ongoing culture of debt, no need to take out a loan to make a living at the beginning of your adult life
* crime would obviously go down with a generous UBI (poverty is a prime catalyst of crime)
* eliminates the instability period when Ai really starts taking a lot of jobs - UBI is the clear solution
* people become activists - promotes activism & volunteering
* gives people time to be with their family
* promotes self development & self discovery
* provides an environment for entrepreneurial endeavors for citizens of any type
* small business numbers would rise
* a solution for homelessness
* a solution for world hunger
* life quality would raise for those who previously had no income source
* workers have more economic security, this forces employers to provide quality work conditions to retain employees[x] (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?102541-Finland-abandons-free-money-experiment&p=1221474&viewfull=1#post1221474)
* internet growth & enrichment would likely be a result
* probable that the collective would research a lot more
* there would be more political focus
* there would be more focus on keeping government in line
* people would have accomplishments of life work instead of nothing to show for their hard work

I can make an even bigger list of the advantages of a communist utopia, but the economics of it still won't work.

Your solution is just to make robots that can eventually do every single human job imaginable, so we can revert to a state of permanent childhood. The Matrix is literally the final culmination of this way of thinking. Just imagine, you don't even have to sleep: waking and sleeping will be simulated in your mind while you just vegetate comfortably in a warm goo bath 24 hours a day. Human beings won't even have to physically move their bodies anymore and the robot AI hive mind will automatically dispense food into our vegetating bodies. Why not? Not having to exert our physical bodies at work is just the first step.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Good counters on my points there Mountain, I must say.

Capitalism certainly has its winners. A rather small minority, to be sure, but 20% of the population did see a rise in its standard of living, in terms of housing, health, and income.

Almost every single person in the US and Canada has benefitted from the results of capitalism since it has been first implemented. Even considering the absolute poorest people in the US or Canada, you would have a very difficult time finding anyone still living as the poorest class of people lived in 1800. Before the industrial revolution and other advancements due to capitalist entrepreneurship, the poorest class didn't have indoor plumbing, insulation in their homes, often they had no shoes, ate a very monotonous diet and barely had enough to eat at all. Countless comforts we take for granted, which are immeasurable in terms of money, have been made possible through mass production and expansion of industry.



Famine has increased since the introduction of the industrial revolution, mainly but arguably attributable to the increased use of herbicides and pesticides, and fertilizers.

How are famines being counted, if we were to say they have increased since the industrial revolution? Is there a particular study or body of literature about this that you can direct me to?

Perhaps they are measuring famines by the numbers of people considered to be affected, in which case the ballooning population of the Earth would explain that, and that population growth in itself is also a major sign of the increase in global wealth and food security. World population is not exploding because more people are starving, for sure.


Instead we are born into indebtedness by the same virtue - that of being alive. We owe a debt that begins the moment we are born and continues accruing until we are dead.

This seems to me more like a state of mind or a way of looking things than hard facts about reality. I could make the same argument about squirrels: from the moment they are born, they are hostages, first to their mothers and then to their eternal need to gather nuts and other food. The poor squirrel slaves away his life gathering nuts endlessly and sadly will not stop until he dies. That's a real sad story huh?

[Omni]

Capitalism doesn't go away with UBI. It just becomes more aptly termed "soft capitalism." Room for making a lot of money and succeeding while also having room for making life less harsh.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Maybe all forms of labor are too harsh and we deserve to be fed and given everything we want for free, full stop. Are there any possible reasons why that might conceivably be a bad idea?

https://heatherlgraham.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/matrix-pods-680x400.jpg


That kind of living looks extremely soft. You never have to worry about anything, and the only things you ever do worry about are just fictional simulations anyway. Free food and warm goo, all day every day. No responsibilities.




Is there nothing else beyond these two options: Modern (deadly) technology / slave work or Amish life style? No society based on free energy in the future? No clean technology that follows natural processes? Finally Basic Income will prevail, hand in hand with all other developments towards a more human lifestyle.

I want those new technologies too, and they will continue to improve our quality of life just as things have marked improved since around 1800. But the economic reality of printing a bunch of "free money" is that it devalues currency and leads to inflation.

You can print off and give away more money, but the actual amount of valuable goods and services you pay for doesn't change at all. So you just end up paying more for the same amount of goods that are already there, because the money itself is worth less because there's an excess amount of it.

And then the kicker: the money is devalued for everyone, even those who are working for it, not only for those who are only getting it for free. That means it hurts the income of even the most productive members of society and discourages them from working for profit at all. This is what happens in every single society that subsidizes inactivity by paying people to do nothing. It is a very natural and obvious result, given human nature.

[Iloveyou]

Ah, by and by I start to understand where you (and most UBI critics) are coming from. I had always assumed that UBI would just be a temporary solution, as long as the current money system is up and running. I’ve never considered it as a solution per se, in its own right. In the long run we must abandon the fake money system, of course.

The thought, that certain groups of people profit from UBI and others not, is opposed to the basic idea. That’s why experiments like in Finland cannot but fail. So how to achieve it in even only one country (esp. countries like mine, which are part of a massive power-bloc like EU) - a challenge I yet know no practical way to go, just that’s no reason to abandon a possibly promising idea.



That kind of living looks extremely soft. You never have to worry about anything, and the only things you ever do worry about are just fictional simulations anyway. Free food and warm goo, all day every day. No responsibilities.


Isn’t that a bit like comparing a child forced into the strict, punitive Prussian education system (current work system) to a spoiled child brought up in a (misunderstood) “antiauthoritarian” way with no incentive, no rules and consequences (your interpretation of UBI-results) ? Neither is desirable. Finally that leads to the question: are people basically, naturally good and constructive ... or stupid, lazy and parasitic beings?




This seems to me more like a state of mind or a way of looking things than hard facts about reality. I could make the same argument about squirrels: from the moment they are born, they are hostages, first to their mothers and then to their eternal need to gather nuts and other food. The poor squirrel slaves away his life gathering nuts endlessly and sadly will not stop until he dies. That's a real sad story huh?

You’re not seriously equating the existence of a squirrel to the existence of a human, aren’t you ? :) Anyway, in that case it’d be the squirrel’s business to change their raison d'être (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/de/worterbuch/englisch/raison-detre), not ours ... I’m only joking, please don’t take offense ... :)

[Bo Atkinson]

As a whole, this topic drives more and more to the grand riddle of “Life’s Purpose”. What is the practical purpose of life? Must a persuasive rationale define humanity’s purpose? Is some -ology, -ism or -anity or -ality the key to improve governance and commerce? Have humans progressed through history? Is fast-food really better than open-fire cooking of the day’s catch? Is the city life really better than a ruralist life? Who has experientially-verified all possible life styles, to prove any of this?

In this context…. The free money test-program, was just another ploy to maintain classism.

With my long life of responsible freedoms and searching life purposes… I’m increasingly struck that we are stuck in a cyclic reincarnation farm, which we call life. Stuck by our own volition, or otherwise, our loss of driving purposes.

[TargeT]

What is the practical purpose of life?

To learn and experience.

Neither of which is encouraged by "easy" anything (easy money, easy food, easy life..)

Humans are AT THEIR BEST when they struggle (necessity is the mother of all invention, no pain no gain etc..), and at their worst when they are provided for; we have numerous historical examples (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_the_Decline_and_Fall_of_the_Roman_Empire).


The joy of a fractal reality is that the answer to this question is both extremely simple, and extremely complex.

Which one you accept, I suppose is up to you.

Does that mean we have the best implementation? no, I think it's pretty corrupted, but it's modeled after what works best; of course it is... that fits the pattern as well, take something good and corrupted it (that's the common M.O.; right?)

besides, automation is really a threat to low skill labor.. that's it.. and we WANT those jobs automated for all the reasons listed on this thread...

HX6M4QunVmA



I could be wrong, machine learning is interesting... but I don't see it as a job killer (these guys are, admittedly, a bit biased)
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kl39KHS07Xc

[Ernie Nemeth]

There are only two ways to run a society. Either there is some open market system where everyone is encouraged and assisted to create their own method of survival, or there is a form of subservience to the system. That's it.

Voice your points are good but you seem to think that we don't know what the rhetoric is in defense of capitalism. We know all the arguments very well. Like everyone else we had it drummed into our minds. For a while I even believed it - until I opened my eyes and saw the true effects of capitalism. Especially the euphemism that is the word capitalism. To capitalize is to exploit. They call it value-added in some circles. I know that because before PC made such topics taboo, here in Canada we often talked about creating value-added goods instead of just processing the raw materials and shipping it to the states. Americans did not like such talk and so we had a great deal of turmoil as our social systems took a beating. Unions were busted, direct pay became the new norm, various niceties were removed, the government at all levels became harsher. That is how capitalism works - it is the dark side of the coin, the side never mentioned and regularly demeaned and belittled as unimportant and inconsequential.

Capitalism kicks in the door and makes itself at home and soon is running the show. The "success" of capitalism is the touted explanation. Yet that success comes at a steep price. The first order of the day for capitalism is to decimate the social programs and replace it with private interests. The next move is to destroy the competition or collude with them. The next is to jack up prices. The last is to find larger markets, cheaper labor, and influence government in their favor. This leads to higher prices, lower wages, less impact on policy for the individual, and often poorer quality goods.

I am not arguing on my behalf - as you say, capitalism worked for me. I went to school, I learned my three R's. My parents instilled a healthy work ethic in me and my skills allowed me to excel. It is the bottom one third of the world's population I am concerned with. And many of those live amongst us. We step over them on the way to work and flip them a few coins on the way home. Those are just the visible ones. Many more are never seen and certainly never heard. But you're right, few of them can compare to the truly poor and destitute.

Finally, the lazy thing. Why do you think this is about being able to sit around and "vegetate"? My days off I work far harder and often longer than I do for any employer. But then the work is mine and for me: it is much more satisfying. If I had more time to myself I would work even more than I do now. Still, I understand the value of down time and I partake with equal vigor. Very little laziness around here...

[Ernie Nemeth]

I have also observed that humans are at their best in times of disaster. That doesn't mean we should implement a system that institutes disaster as the standard of social order.

I cannot understand this statement. I want to be dramatic about it and say you mean like struggling to walk ten miles just to get a pitcher of clean water, or struggling to get down the street in a hail of gunfire and whistling bombs to buy a loaf of bread? Like that kind of struggle? Or working at Apple's factory and jumping off the roof because you can't face your family with the pittance of a wage packet that doesn't cover the bills? Or mom and pop convenience stores struggling to stay afloat when Wal-Mart comes to their neck of the woods? That kind of struggle?

But I won't do it, I respect you too much.;)

[TargeT]

I have also observed that humans are at their best in times of disaster. That doesn't mean we should implement a system that institutes disaster as the standard of social order.

I cannot understand this statement. I want to be dramatic about it and say you mean like struggling to walk ten miles just to get a pitcher of clean water, or struggling to get down the street in a hail of gunfire and whistling bombs to buy a loaf of bread? Like that kind of struggle? Or working at Apple's factory and jumping off the roof because you can't face your family with the pittance of a wage packet that doesn't cover the bills? Or mom and pop convenience stores struggling to stay afloat when Wal-Mart comes to their neck of the woods? That kind of struggle?


I'd take the hormetic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis) approach, lower level doses of those extreme's; enough to kick in response mechanisms (motivation, inspiration etc..).

Struggle is highly perspective based; your listed struggles are dreams of the slums in india (even the apple factory guys, which is ironic, since the slums of india are about as "happy" as the us middle class (https://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Trap-Struggling-Start-Living/dp/1590305841)according to studies).

[Ernie Nemeth]

Is that what you were doing years back with the hunk of irradiated ore? Aiming for an hormetic response?

[TargeT]

Is that what you were doing years back with the hunk of irradiated ore? Aiming for an hormetic response?

haven't been sick in around 4 years... used to get sick at least once bad every year (flu type thing, or cold).... color me a believer ;)

[Rawhide68]

there is a deep story to this, I found it right here

7t5wC0j3Fn8

[Bo Atkinson]

What is the practical purpose of life?

To learn and experience.


Yeah... So it is widely proclaimed. So i too, was convicted for decades, but now, with an open minded attitude of exploration… I’m looking at the hoax of it, which really fools beings of light, to shut off their brighter light. To instead live in a fixated, blacked-out, spacey sky, half a human life, prone to so many demented influences… Likely most all influences aimed to return us, life after life, with memory wipes, as perpetual suckers… RE: Why not consciously learn, just how to get back out of this reincarnation farm, (i’m exploring some rare threads on this. It is my wildest adventure, so far).



…besides, automation is really a threat to low skill labor.. that's it.. and we WANT those jobs automated for all the reasons listed on this thread...


I like tech, but have to doubt it is currently used harmoniously. Rather it inadvertently or perhaps also maliciously, destroys nature as we might like her best, thriving and luscious. I would aim the tech more at the ecto-skeletal versions of building, more-so, rather than the idea of a big black box which hides the inner workings, to produce stuff. I think most of the lower skilled people, whom i worked with, over my decades of labor, actually could perform far better and work at extremely high levels, with robotic knowledge bases, indicating work moves.

The other more difficult subject is how many randomly born humans, can the earth actually sustain harmoniously. Multiple aggressive traditions are throwing us into a self perpetuated ecocide, IMO, or a trans humanist nightmare, or into more extreme brain washing.

[amor]

I would like to highlight a problem which appears to exist in the education system which is glaring only after you have passed through it and missed your opportunity to do the kind of creative, fulfilling, mentally stimulating, potentially productive work of a lifetime. I have only recently read that in high schools, Guidance Councilors are encouraged to stand down with their guidance. How on earth can children, who know little or nothing about the world outside get the guidance into professions needed by the world when students do not even know of their existence; and therefore, how to go about studying for them. Those left floundering are then guided into TRADE schools offering horrible low income jobs in fields which also become overcrowded keeping many unemployed or underemployed. Creation of money by bankers creates inflation at such a rate that menial wages can never catch up to increasing costs. The inequities of society are deliberately created to oppress. Even the medical system after retirement is a joke. Imagine having to pay $10,000 per night in the hospital. All of this is deliberate GENOCIDE.

[Fellow Aspirant]

I would like to highlight a problem which appears to exist in the education system which is glaring only after you have passed through it and missed your opportunity to do the kind of creative, fulfilling, mentally stimulating, potentially productive work of a lifetime. I have only recently read that in high schools, Guidance Councilors are encouraged to stand down with their guidance. How on earth can children, who know little or nothing about the world outside get the guidance into professions needed by the world when students do not even know of their existence; and therefore, how to go about studying for them. Those left floundering are then guided into TRADE schools offering horrible low income jobs in fields which also become overcrowded keeping many unemployed or underemployed. Creation of money by bankers creates inflation at such a rate that menial wages can never catch up to increasing costs. The inequities of society are deliberately created to oppress. Even the medical system after retirement is a joke. Imagine having to pay $10,000 per night in the hospital. All of this is deliberate GENOCIDE.

I don't know what your source is, but personal experience where I live (Ontario) paints a completely opposite picture. About twenty years ago, Student Services counsellors finally began advising their "clients" to consider a skilled trade rather than aiming for a university diploma. Industry had been complaining for decades that there were not enough skilled tradespeople, and that consequently, thousands of good paying jobs were vacant. At the same time, there was a glut of university graduates who could not find work in their field of interest. Ontario's technical schools have come a long way since and, while the crisis is far from solved, it's whole lot better for all concerned. It's now fairly common for kids with university degrees to continue their educations at community colleges so that they will have careers.

And yeah, having to pay $10 000 a night for hospital care would be ruinous - a recipe for genocide for sure. That's why every developed nation on earth, with the exception of America, provides universal health care. So why, one wonders, have TPTB in America decided to to wipe out such a large portion of its citizenry?

B.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Ah, by and by I start to understand where you (and most UBI critics) are coming from. I had always assumed that UBI would just be a temporary solution, as long as the current money system is up and running. I’ve never considered it as a solution per se, in its own right. In the long run we must abandon the fake money system, of course.

Tell me what you want to replace money with, because money is just a symbol representing an exchange of value. We used to barter directly with tobacco, cotton, gold, silver, etc. I assume you understand this history. So what is inherently wrong with symbolically representing value?

Someone earlier already conflated debt banking with money in general. It's almost as if people think the Federal Reserve note and its foreign debt-based counterparts are the only forms of money that have ever existed. The dollar used to be tied directly to gold/silver and was directly exchangeable for those metals, no debt involved at all. And like I said, before that, it was direct trading of goods and services without symbolic representation.


The thought, that certain groups of people profit from UBI and others not, is opposed to the basic idea. That’s why experiments like in Finland cannot but fail. So how to achieve it in even only one country (esp. countries like mine, which are part of a massive power-bloc like EU) - a challenge I yet know no practical way to go, just that’s no reason to abandon a possibly promising idea.

You'd think that communism already showed the cataclysmic danger of using entire nations as guinea pigs in economic experiments to achieve some kind of utopia. "Well it didn't work with a small trial population, so let's expand it to the whole continent, then it'll work." It really reminds me of the people who say, in the face of every example of communism that inevitably results in mass killings, "Well, that wasn't REAL communism.... Let's try it one more time."




That kind of living looks extremely soft. You never have to worry about anything, and the only things you ever do worry about are just fictional simulations anyway. Free food and warm goo, all day every day. No responsibilities.


Isn’t that a bit like comparing a child forced into the strict, punitive Prussian education system (current work system) to a spoiled child brought up in a (misunderstood) “antiauthoritarian” way with no incentive, no rules and consequences (your interpretation of UBI-results) ? Neither is desirable. Finally that leads to the question: are people basically, naturally good and constructive ... or stupid, lazy and parasitic beings?

I don't understand what you think is punitive about the idea of working for livelihood, something that every species of mammal has to do in nature. We have unprecedented comforts today and yet despite this (or more likely because of this) people are complaining more than ever about not liking to work, that work is slavery, that it's unbearable, etc. etc. Why is work such a problem now, and generates so much complaining, compared to the 1600's? Being a hard worker used to even be considered a positive trait about someone, but I guess that's changed too and now we're supposed to pity hard workers, because they've joined the ever-expanding victim class?

I don't think we would agree on where the "middle ground" should be, because of how great and unprecedented our comforts are today compared to the rest of human history. Many middle class Americans today have much better living conditions than kings and queens did during the middle ages, and probably actually work less too, especially when European kings still led military campaigns personally. Just the marches and poor supplies on these campaigns would be unbearable for many people today.




This seems to me more like a state of mind or a way of looking things than hard facts about reality. I could make the same argument about squirrels: from the moment they are born, they are hostages, first to their mothers and then to their eternal need to gather nuts and other food. The poor squirrel slaves away his life gathering nuts endlessly and sadly will not stop until he dies. That's a real sad story huh?

You’re not seriously equating the existence of a squirrel to the existence of a human, aren’t you ? :)

You mean two mammals that both have to work in order to survive? Yes, I actually am comparing the natural state of mammals, and humans are mammals.

Why couldn't I make the argument that squirrels are slaves to endlessly hunting for food? Or any other mammal? You think it's funny but I don't. It's absolutely no different. Saying that humans are slaves to working is nothing but ideological spin that I could apply equally to squirrels or rabbits or deer or any other mammal. All mammals are oppressed by nature for having to struggle for survival, right? And this is some great injustice? It sounds absurd because it IS absurd, and equally so when applied to humans.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Humans are AT THEIR BEST when they struggle (necessity is the mother of all invention, no pain no gain etc..), and at their worst when they are provided for; we have numerous historical examples (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_the_Decline_and_Fall_of_the_Roman_Empire).

Exactly.

http://www.purposetopower.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Good-Times-Bad-Times.jpg


I once watched an interview with a Buddhist monk who had meditated alone in a mountain cave, living only off a bowl of rice a day, for so long that he didn't even remember how old he was. But all of the other nearby monks said he was by far the oldest monk in the community and had to be over 100 years old.

When asked his secret to longevity in such rugged conditions, he responded that we must always seek challenges and hardships to grow spiritually. This old monk intentionally sought out a challenging lifestyle that required constant struggle, in order to grow spiritually. Staying in the "comfort zone" only leads to stagnation, complacency, neglect, and weakness.




besides, automation is really a threat to low skill labor.. that's it.. and we WANT those jobs automated for all the reasons listed on this thread...

Exactly the same as past industrial revolutions, of which there have been at least three. Low-skill and tedious labor such as knitting socks and casting bullets was taken over by industrialization. Lots of people lost work, and then just found it doing something else instead, with an newly-increased standard of living.

Instead of doing the tedious tasks, which are taken over by automation, you just have to find something bigger and better to put your mind to, to create some good or service that other people are interested in. This is what entrepreneurs are for, when they come up with new ideas and start hiring people to help them make those ideas a reality. But just sitting around idly and getting pampered by machines is a Matrix scenario, a pampered slave with no real power or leverage in the world.

[Omni]

The ideas by opposition to UBI are pretty ridiculous. Nicely packaged trash IMO. I'd debate but I feel it unproductive. In 10,000 years all the current opponents to UBI can give me their feedback...

[Iloveyou]

I once watched an interview with a Buddhist monk ...
The point is individual initiative and voluntariness. The monk himself decided on his task and challenge as well as on his means. The crowds at morning rush hour in the subway don’t. Or do they? As individuals they surely could. As a sidenote: at what point, by what kind of magic(k) are a group of individuals transformed into a crowd, into ‘the masses’?

The underlying conception of the world and humans in what you’re saying is so different from (for example) mine. There’s no use in going back and forth. I’ve had / have people of that mindset in my life. Though I guess the difference is for the major part only theoretically. What does count is finally communication and cooperation - and that applies for squirrels and humans alike.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

I once watched an interview with a Buddhist monk ...
The point is individual initiative and voluntariness. The monk himself decided on his task and challenge as well as on his means. The crowds at morning rush hour in the subway don’t. Or do they? As individuals they surely could. As a sidenote: at what point, by what kind of magic(k) are a group of individuals transformed into a crowd, into ‘the masses’?

So in other words you think we should all work to give everyone the option of living in complacent comfort? Tell you what, you work on that yourself while I watch in complacent comfort from here. We'll see how hard you are willing to work to allow everyone else to be lazy.



What does count is finally communication and cooperation - and that applies for squirrels and humans alike.

Not for red squirrels. They're very territorial and don't work well together at all. :P

[Omni]

So in other words you think we should all work to give everyone the option of living in complacent comfort?
You seem to be putting words in her/his mouth. What is happening now is wage based complacency, once people have freedom to do what they want instead of slave their time away all day you will see more proactive nature to society.

Tell you what, you work on that yourself while I watch in complacent comfort from here. We'll see how hard you are willing to work to allow everyone else to be lazy.
Not everyone is lazy. It is a personality attribute not a monetary demographic.

[Iloveyou]

So in other words you think we should all work to give everyone the option of living in complacent comfort?
Not everyone is lazy. It is a personality attribute not a monetary demographic.

Yes. We should ALL work to give EVERYONE the option of living ... self-determined and free of existential fear. Instead of working our tail off to mainly feed the 1%.

I’d see no problem to feed and support a part of the population as long as I have a (real) choice and I’m not forced to. A strong, self reliant community/society should be able to afford that. Were does a major part of the revenues, the added value currently go? Into the pockets of corrupt bureaucrats and international corporate groups who put it in dark projects of any kind and spend it on buying politicians and organisations. This has to stop. They are able to get along because people live in constant existential fear (which they might not always be aware of).

Neither have I a problem with the rich. If someone thinks he absolutely needs 30 race cars and 17 mansions full of domestic staff - why not? Good luck. But in return he might have to offer quite a bit the people working for him willingly. Sounds romantic and utopian? Leftist? I’ve abandoned leftist ideologies 30 years ago and I see value in many of the points and issues raised by the socalled conservatives (I still use those terms which truly have lost all meaning and are only confusing - for the sake of simplicity).

There’s no finalized overall concept yet or garantee. It’d require a very different approach in countries with a long history of social welfare systems (with all their beneficial and nefarious aspects) than in a society historically based on individualism and competition.

What other options are there?

(Off-topic: I found an interesting though generalized, polarized and maybe outdated (??) list of values in the US and other countries here http://www1.cmc.edu/pages/faculty/alee/extra/American_values.html)

[A Voice from the Mountains]

Yes. We should ALL work to give EVERYONE the option of living ... self-determined and free of existential fear. Instead of working our tail off to mainly feed the 1%.

If we unpack this first and we might get to the core of the disagreement. Taking the Socratic method, two questions for you:

1) If humans were not meant to experience fear, then why are our bodies naturally designed to produce the chemicals necessary for the physical sensation of fear automatically in dangerous situations?

2) Even if a higher percentage of total earnings goes to the richest 1% today, what would make that fact so personally offensive to you when the standard of living for even the lowest classes of society has improved tremendously since 1800 mostly because of technological developments driven by profit-seeking entrepreneurs in the United States and western European countries?


About that article you posted, I agree that it is generalized. Not to mention they say it only reflects their "confident" opinions as faculty of Washington International Center. I like seeing harder data than that.

The differences in culture between states in the US can be pretty substantial and I don't particularly like how the federal government and international corporations are always pushing to homogenize our cultures into one bland flavor. It's like how all news anchors are told to enunciate in a mid-western accent as if from Ohio. I don't have anything against Ohioans but the whole country doesn't sound like that.

[Omni]

1) If humans were not meant to experience fear, then why are our bodies naturally designed to produce the chemicals necessary for the physical sensation of fear automatically in dangerous situations?
Once again you took his/her comment out of context. They didn't say fear is not meant to be felt. They obviously meant something more reasonable...just because fear has valid uses doesn't mean fear shouldn't be avoided in circumstances.


2) Even if a higher percentage of total earnings goes to the richest 1% today, what would make that fact so personally offensive to you when the standard of living for even the lowest classes of society has improved tremendously since 1800 mostly because of technological developments driven by profit-seeking entrepreneurs in the United States and western European countries?
Personally I find a difference between entrepreneurs and oligarchs. And it is offensive that the rest of the world is in such poverty while they have everything.

[Iloveyou]

1) If humans were not meant to experience fear, then why are our bodies naturally designed to produce the chemicals necessary for the physical sensation of fear automatically in dangerous situations?

2) Even if a higher percentage of total earnings goes to the richest 1% today, what would make that fact so personally offensive to you when the standard of living for even the lowest classes of society has improved tremendously since 1800 mostly because of technological developments driven by profit-seeking entrepreneurs in the United States and western European countries?



1) I should differentiate between fear and angst. There’s fear that arises because of a real threat and is always felt physically, too. A healthy alarm system. And there’s angst. Chronic, latent and ever present angst for no actual reason. Most probably that kind of angst arises when fear is not allowed to be felt and expressed. The increasing struggle to survive economically is not the only, but a major contributing factor.

2) I’m not going there. Would lead me way too off-topic :no:

3) One aspect troubles me: in Europe UBI will be implemented sooner or later, for sure. It is allowed to be discussed widely in the media, there are associations, action groups, small political (left) parties and well known people supporting it. A citizens’ initiative (supported by 15 countries) has been registered at the European Commission already in 2013. Their goal is to investigate, discuss and finally implement UBI. The commission shall facilitate the cooperation between the states -whatever that means. So they’re working on it. Doesn’t sound good.

Since a bunch of billionaires and some of the Silicon Valley tech elite are supporting Universal Basic Income - not really sure what to think about that. Will we end up with a fake socalled UBI - system that looks like the original idea but will have the opposite effect (enslavement) ? Are they already working to reverse the whole concept ?

Omni, I’d be interested in what you think about that ?



PS: Yes, the article is a weak source, result of a very brief search. Is there something like ‘American values’ (related to pro and con UBI) at all ?

[Omni]

Since a bunch of billionaires and some of the Silicon Valley tech elite are supporting Universal Basic Income - not really sure what to think about that. Will we end up with a fake socalled UBI - system that looks like the original idea but will have the opposite effect (enslavement) ? Are they already working to reverse the whole concept ?

Omni, I’d be interested in what you think about that ?
That might be because they want to make the robots and capitalize. Without open science and open hardware the Ai corporations benefit from UBI.

Excerpt from my UBI article (https://openmovement.wiki/index.php/Reasons_in_Favor_of_Universal_Basic_Income):
* without the open movement universal basic income could further imbalance the gap between higher class and everyone else, with corporations who develop Ai being dominant. UBI with the open movement (such as open science & open hardware) would decentralize the corporate Ai oligarchy and level the playing field for small businesses.

They also may be trying to do a PR operation with how destructive their industry could be without UBI. There is more to it I'm sure. Sometimes people in high places do have good intent also. Not saying that typifies corporations and Silicon Valley but it is possible that an exec gets behind something positive.

[Ernie Nemeth]

UBI would assuage their consciences while they rake in massive profits unlike any ever seen before. There would be less social unrest while that happened if everyone could still pay rent and feed their kids with a UBI.

[muxfolder]

Everyone knows there is no such thing as free money and there never will be, at least for the poor. I don't know whose invention this was, but it's just impossible. There are only those who work almost for free and those who watch that those who work almost for free are doing their job. And then there is middle class which seems to be, well slowly dying. Along with education. Everything here is going like in the good old US of A. Guess that's the idea, slowly selling this country.

[A Voice from the Mountains]

1) I should differentiate between fear and angst. There’s fear that arises because of a real threat and is always felt physically, too. A healthy alarm system. And there’s angst. Chronic, latent and ever present angst for no actual reason. Most probably that kind of angst arises when fear is not allowed to be felt and expressed. The increasing struggle to survive economically is not the only, but a major contributing factor.

This is very descriptive but I'm still not sure why you think we should try to eradicate fear from the human experience essentially through government diktat. Fear of being exposed to the elements is what drove mankind to build shelter. Fear of starvation is what made us hunt. Now today, fear of being poor is what leads healthy and productive people to work, but now by mentioning productivity and work I suppose I have gone too far for you.



2) I’m not going there. Would lead me way too off-topic :no:

Either way, it's still a fact that it was capitalism that was ultimately responsible for modern technology and standards of living, compared to the 1700's. That's why the US and Britain led the world in GDP per capita increases since 1800, out of all the nations of the world, because we uniquely gave our citizens the ability to freely be entrepreneurs without some lord or other governing entity demanding heavy taxes. This is the same system that socialists/communists have always wanted to dismantle in order to try to micro-manage economies and markets in line with their utopian dreams... which always turn into North Korean style nightmares, because free markets are like forces of nature and can't be controlled like that.


3) One aspect troubles me: in Europe UBI will be implemented sooner or later, for sure. It is allowed to be discussed widely in the media, there are associations, action groups, small political (left) parties and well known people supporting it.

Of course, it is a very seductive idea to tell people you are going to give them free money and they won't have to work anymore. And the results are predictable. Communism was similarly seductive, and still is somehow for many people, despite killing 100,000,000 people in about the last 100 years.



And then there is middle class which seems to be, well slowly dying. Along with education. Everything here is going like in the good old US of A. Guess that's the idea, slowly selling this country.

Yep. Oligarchs at the top sell off productive assets and gut the middle class. Authoritarianism cannot co-exist with a prosperous middle class. That's partly how/why the French overthrew the monarchy, because the bourgeoisie developed into a fairly powerful "middle class." So the globalists destroy the middle class with socialism and equalize everyone into the lower class, where they are equally helpless and powerless.