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fuzzythrowaway | on: We should be more ambitious with the software we build
1) No, they didn't.

2) America in 2026 is not the USSR in the 20th century, so even if they did, our circumstances are very different from theirs.

3) UBI was only the first suggestion; you completely failed to address the other and then jumped to a black-and-white conclusion.

The general thrust of my proposition was that people shouldn't have to submit to an artificial system of manufactured competition and unnecessary "productivity" in order to access goods that are objectively abundant. When people realize that and make the necessary compromises, they won't have to worry about shipping useless AI-assisted slop for "income security" and can focus on using AI to build consequential and useful software.

Please do not get bogged down in whatever kneejerk anti-UBI thought-loop your misaligned amygdala is screaming at you.

_heimdall | parent
1) you'd have to expand on your refutation here. The soviets absolutely did decide top down how much bread each person deserved and how much it cost. They used that type of data to help decide how much grain to have farmers grow, where and when to ship it for bread production, and in part how much to pay people so they could buy their allocation of bread. Not directly a UBI, but functionally very similar with the caveat being they forced people to work in predefined jobs for a set pay rate.

2) I didn't say the US is the USSR. I pointed to a clear example where a UBI-like structure was tried and failed. Feel free to call out specific differences that may help it work better today in the US, I'm genuinely curious despite my skeptism.

3) I can respond to the others as well, but that isn't necessary to have an interesting debate or discussion on any one topic. If one was required to respond to all raised ideas they could try to shut down all conversation by threading together a long list of hard to discuss topics, avoiding responses to any one topic.

I do agree people can avoid having to submit to AI or ML systems though. We ultimately all make our decisions, some more impactful than others, and if we end up in a dystopian future with no jobs and AIs/robots in charge of the world we made that bed for ourselves.

I'm not bogged down in any kneejerk reactions and I'm not parroting what I've heard air bags saying elsewhere. I've read up on the topic, the history of the USSR, and read Marx writings (well the translations, I speak some Dutch but no German). We may disagree, but my views aren't uneducated reactions.

fuzzythrowaway | root | parent
1) You are describing something that is not UBI, and calling it UBI anyway. A rationing system that is not fungible and that varies allocation is not universal, and not income as capitalism knows it. The Soviet planned economy was categorically not UBI. Full stop.

2) >I pointed to a clear example where a UBI-like structure was tried and failed.

You did not.

3) That's not applicable here. Why did you respond to the UBI issue only?

>I do agree people can avoid having to submit to AI or ML systems though.

I didn't speak to this at all. The "artificial system of manufactured competition and unnecessary 'productivity'" is independent of AI and ML and has existed for several decades.

>my views aren't uneducated reactions.

See 1.

My conclusion is that you actually aren't interested in a conversation. You haven't responded earnestly or considerately to anything in my initial post except the portion suggesting UBI, which you dismissed with a faulty presence.

Here is my suggestion: talk about something else from that post. Anything else. Do not revisit the UBI topic.

_heimdall | root | parent
The only reason the Soviets didn't have a true UBI is because they realised they still needed people to work and they wouldn't if you gave them what they needed for free. That's why I said they had what was effectively a UBI, they decided what people needed or were entitled to and created a system that would give them only that. The fact that they forced people to work is an implementation detail that we'd likely run into in the US today as well, we couldn't afford for the government to cut checks and no one work.

I did respond earnestly, whether you accept it or if I'm explaining myself poorly. You have yet to propose how a UBI would actually work, or pointed to an example of it ever having worked in the past. Socialism and Marxism have been tried, the don't work. And yes, UBI is an idea that goes back to Marx's writings.