There's a lot of talk about how AI will "steal jobs". But I think one aspect that doesn't get enough attention is how our physical bodies seem to have major problems adapting (fast enough) to where technology is taking us. Take for example how immobile jobs , combined with bad food (industrialized processed food) and driving has all sorts of negative physical impact. To add to this, self-driving cars will remove the need of a driving skill. Or how address books removed the need to remember phone numbers. I remember in the 90s (4th grade) when could recall the phone number of everyone in my class. Today I honestly don't know anyone's phone number but my own.<p>How do we account for the fact that the human body and mind seem to need a certain amount/kind of stimulation to not entirely fall apart?
Should we just settle with the new bodies technology gives us?
Should we settle with simple compensatory measures like going to the gym for lack of moving otherwise?
"In the distributive era free-market efficiency will no longer be justifiable if it creates whole classes of people who lose."<p>I lean towards the positive side of Universal Basic Income (my core argument is that no kid grows up thinking they want to be inactive) so it's heartening to see more of these arguments come to the fore.
I think it makes sense to have something other than a pure universal basic income for redistribution of wealth. You want to design an incentive based system to encourage people to contribute to their community, pursue higher education and learning, as well as work.<p>Some kind of income supplement if you work at least 15 hours per week makes sense, along with a bonus for 'community contribution' of some kind. It makes sense to reduce the overall amount worked, but to still encourage work, and to improve the skillset of workers.<p>Pure universal basic income has dubious incentives. It's a solution, but I don't think it's close to the best one. Of course, any system, including the idea I'm proposing will be gamed, and have unfortunate side effects from its policies.
A 4 day work week is the answer. Ford changed the work week from 6 days to 5 days. It's time for another major corporation to set an example and make this move. Pay employees the same they make now for 5 days. For many professions, the same work can be done in 4 days, and for other menial jobs you give peole the opportunity to grow.
>Throughout the Industrial Revolution there were periodic panics about the impact of automation on jobs, going back to the so-called Luddites, - textile workers who in the 1810s smashed the new machines that were threatening their jobs.<p>This is such a common misconception that the wikipedia entry for luddite mentions it in the first paragraph.<p>They destroyed weaving machinery for the same reason French taxi drivers shut down roads in 2016.<p>Revisionist historians depict luddites as anti-technology for the same reason Forbes chose to depict the French taxi drivers as anti-smartphone.