On Mon, Jun 08, 2020 at 07:28:38AM +0530, Udhay Shankar N wrote:
> Kim Stanley Robinson's work has been discussed on silk multiple times
> before. This piece is an interesting one, approaching the UBI issue from an
> unusual angle.
>
> Thoughts?
The idea is being proposed recently. Somehow I do not recall much of
opponent opinions, only proponent ones. I am not sure if there was any
kind of dispute worth reading.
The way I think of humanity right now, such development may only occur
as part of introducing new control mechanism over large masses of
people. The very fact I keep hearing about it may suggest that
enlightened circles already made conclusions about current control
mechanism (could be described as "work, wages, marketing,
overspending") and recognised it was going to be less eficient.
Plenty of people seem to assume that their lives will be like they are
now, plus "free money". But nothing is free. What kind of changes
would they be willing to give in exchange?
- become mandatory blood/organ donor
- enforce healthy life style, i.e. announce that some kind of
behaviour is the healthy norm, without noticing that some of this
behaviour may not benefit everybody to the same degree or even be
detrimental - like, force people to eat fruits before there was
recognition that some of us do not absorb fructose as happily as
the others, so they feel discomfort after eating sweet fruits and
try to avoid them, which is their own healthy norm
- agree that after passing certain age some medical procedures will
not take place (or, after certain age medical treatment consists of
giving painkillers and sending patient back home)
- agree that after passing certain age the income will not come
anymore (may depend on factors, like the number of quotations on
discussing list or likes on social media - those who cannot
contribute, or whose contribution fails to be recognised, and are
generally dispised off by the rest are not going to be kept for too
long). This means many people we nowadays enshrine as pioneers (if
we care enough to remember them [1]) would have been kicked out of
society limits - in a way, they were kicked out in their own times,
but could try to change jobs and sustain themselves.
- agree that number of children is not going over two or one per
woman - does it involve involuntary abortion?
- allow to become subject of clinical tests without asking for
permission from individual, or even giving any notice to the test
subject (like, changing food or water without telling the people
and observing them in their own homes)
- give up all personal belongings, which worth is above certain limit
- no inheritance
The societies with UBI have been described in two science-fiction
novels I can recall now, Janusz Zajdel's "Limes inferior" [2] and
Stanislaw Lem's "Powrot z gwiazd" ("Return from the stars")
[3]. Interestingly, while some of Zajdel books have been translated to
German and few other languages, it looks like none of his work made it
into Russian and English. But not because they were poorly written.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limes_inferior
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_from_the_Stars
--
Regards,
Tomasz Rola
--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... **
** **
** Tomasz Rola mailto:[email protected] **
