I regard myself as a “Basic Income” advocate. I think that some form of socialized (state nationalized?) income will become necessary. I am of the conviction that in the next few decades there will be such severe technological unemployment that (insofar we retain democracy) the state will be forced by an electorate to “take” resources from a “productive” class and forcibily redistribute these resources to a “nonproductive” (or class of people we might label “the superfluous”).
My personal preference is that this happens by means of a “Basic Income” that is fairly adequate to live off, allowing people to work in addition to actually have a somewhat decent existence. I conjecture that in implementing a such basic income we might get rid of “minimum wage” and “means-tested welfare”.
I have just overheard the argument that some future implementation of “basic income” more or less implies genocide. In other words – the productive segment of society will be forced to protect itself (and have the means to do so) from these “useless eaters”. I have just heard the argument that the only way to do so is by means of killing ‘them’.
In other words – technological unemployment, squared with human nature, conspires to (inescapably?) produce an outcome where we will societally evolve to a pervasive disparity where the only solution of the empowered will be to exterminate the desperate.
I would really like to hear what my readers think of this argument, and what the logical conclusions of this argument might be. Email me.