Is it just me or do conservatives even exist anymore? This isn't conservatism, this isn't fiscal responsibility.

I gotta tell you, it's just too ironic that about 3 weeks after my personal favorite candidate, Andrew Yang, got laughed out of the room for having the idea of a universal basic income. It's ironic that those same people who scoffed and treated it like an impossibility, "That will never work!!! It's socialism!!! It'll cost too much!!! Obviously he's a joke and not a good or real candidate. How insane he must be, handing out money to everyone, tisk tisk. IT'S SOCIALISM LIKE NAZIS FROTHfrothFROTHfrothFROTH THEY WANT TO MAKE US NAZIS BY GIVING US MONEY!!! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!"

===3 weeks later===

" We're sending everyone in America a check or direct deposit for $1,200 for individuals or $4,000 for a family of four. We think this plan is really a fantastic plan a great plan. This is the best thing we could do."

Your video, Universal Basic Income Explained - Free Money for Everybody?, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Pretty much everything @ChaosEngine said, and as pointed out in the Humans Need Not Apply video. There are far more factors going into this than the economists are willing to look at.

Shelf checkouts might result in slightly higher theft rates, and each person might be at the register than they would be with a properly trained cashier, but you now have one minimum wage employee watching 6 or 12 registers, rather than 6 or 12 people... that is a huge savings. That's 5 to 11 jobs lost, and at the low end, where people can least afford to lose job opportunities. It's just a matter of time until McDonald's, Wendy's and the like all add app-based ordering, or ordering at a kiosk, and that saves a couple employees there (Chick-fil-a already has that in their app, order, notify when you are there, they process the order)... and it wouldn't be too difficult to automate the McDonald's cooking line either... the burgers aren't flipped, the grill cooks both sides at the same time, drop them in place, grill down, cook, up, then put them in the stream tray, easy for a cheap bot to do. Portion control would be far easier with a bot too... there are huge incentives for them to move to automate...

The only real incentive not to automate as fully as everyone can is the fact it would cause a huge disruption to the economy if a Universal Basic Income isn't in place. I'd expect the biggest push for a UBI to eventually come from the various industries that want to automate, who'd gladly pay an automation tax to help pay the UBI in order to greatly increase their bottom lines, because we are very close to where a UBI, even based on an automation tax, is still cheaper than employing people.

Not sure how this didn't get far more votes. It's *quality talk about an important, and under-discussed issue. I look forward to the second installment, as they discuss solutions like Universal Basic Income. It's beyond time that it should be a regular discussion in politics, as the UBI will be needed far sooner than our politicians and public will be ready for.

Driverless cars and AI in general. AI is capable in the very near future of kicking off a revolution to rival the industrial one we all learned about. Huge increase in productivity and a reduction in expenditure for large corporations that currently rely on human labour. And AI that can fix and monitor the robot workers.

Which also means unemployment without a new job to go for. But if 50% of people don't have an income, who is going to buy the stuff the robots produce? That's where universal basic income comes in. Tax AI to fund UBI which would allow people to pursue their own goals in life. Fully automated luxury communism ala star trek! Credit to Aaron Bastani for that idea.

I await someone mocking the idea of UBI, calling me a lazy idiot, saying people will turn to drugs and crime, without providing a single alternative solution to the certainty of automation and what it will do to the economy. If boardroom jockeys find out that they can get robots to do the work of 1/2 of their staff for 1/100th of the cost, 1/100th of the errors, none of the stress, illness, holiday or sleep time, do you honestly think they won't? This IS going to happen.

Meanwhile RE: housing prices - if roast chickens had increased in price at the same rate houses have, each would be £50 - it would be unacceptable. Having a place to live is equally necessary for life, so why is it acceptable and even encouraged, celebrated by some?

@Payback
>>>If they're saying she couldn't get sponsorship AFTER winning major competitions?
She was 8 times best surfer in Brazil and 2nd in the world twice. Isn't that proving yourself?

@Babymech
>>> I just don't think we owe it to the people who are the best at a form of exercise to provide them with a living.

Well, there's a whole other discussion we could have about how the world would be a better place if a) people who were really good at anything were paid to do it and b) people in general were owed a universal basic income, but that's probably too broad for this topic.

So let's take it as read that, in the world today, NO-ONE is owed a living based on what they do. I write software, I am not inherently entitled to be paid just because I'm good at it. I'm paid because I provide value for my employer.

My issue is not whether or not anyone should be paid for surfing. If no-one was paid for surfing, I can live with that. But people ARE paid for surfing and my issue is that she's not being paid for two reasons: she's a woman and she's not a model.

Even if you wanted to say that all surfers have to be attractive, well, I'd think that was stupid, but I could deal with it. But no one tells Mick Fanning he's not hot enough.

Because he'd shark punch the shit out of them. Because Mick Fanning is awesome.