Showing posts with label universal basic income. Show all posts
Showing posts with label universal basic income. Show all posts

Friday, April 29, 2022

Musk Reveals His Political Leanings, And It's Dangerous



Free Speech And Just Society
Should Elon Musk Be Owning All Of Twitter?
Marc Andreessen Is A Dud When It Comes To Politics
The Masses, Not Mars

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Friday, November 15, 2019

Neil Sahota, Andrew Yang And The Creative Destruction Of Jobs By Robots And AI

Neil Sahota argues that, yes, jobs will be destroyed, but many more and higher quality jobs will be created. That jobs will be destroyed is much talked about. But that new jobs will be created is not much talked about. Neil's take is much-needed optimism in an otherwise gloom and doom mood swing.


Thanks To Robots, Humans Are Finally In Demand the most employable people in the future will be those who act like … well, people........ there is one area where A.I. is going to be very slow to surpass human intelligence: The Arts. That’s why we now talk about STEAM. ....... the importance of developing “soft skills” to thrive in a future in which robots can do tedious work once reserved for mankind. “We should be emphasizing problem-solving, leadership, creativity, collaboration, and, of course deploying emotional intelligence” ....... “We created an assembly-line system meant to churn out assembly-line workers” ...... “The bell rings, you move to where the schedule puts you, the bell rings again, you do as you’re told. Everyone gets processed in the same way, and at the end of the line you emerge with a certificate of quality.” ...... Automatons, while adept at taking orders, are not valued for their critical thinking abilities. ........ there are many robots capable of doing repetitive tasks, from stocking warehouses to dispensing prescriptions. ....... So, what can’t robots do? .... They cannot think. They cannot feel, dream, or imagine. And there are many theorists who suggest they never will...........

Unlike during the previous era, the coming automation age will prize human attributes like never before.

........ rather than being a zero-sum scourge upon the workforce, the rise of A.I. promises to tilt the nature of work in wonderfully positive, unprecedented ways....... we’re at the dawn of a new vocational reality. Today’s workforce stands to benefit not by taking orders or fulfilling rote tasks, but by doing what makes us uniquely human. .........

creativity is the most important skill for thriving in the 21st century



Andrew Yang: Yes, Robots Are Stealing Your Job Self-driving trucks will be great for the G.D.P. They’ll be terrible for millions of truck drivers.......... most factory job losses from 2000 to 2010 were caused by automation ........ 88 percent of factory job losses from 2000 to 2010 were caused by automation. ....... Automation doesn’t just affect millions of factory workers and truck drivers. Bookkeepers, journalists, retail and food service workers, office clerks, call center employees and even teachers also face the threat of being replaced by machines.......... 83 percent of jobs paying less than $20 per hour could have substantial parts of their work given over to automation....... Around five million manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2000, with automation being a main factor. Many of those jobs were in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Iowa — states that swung to Donald Trump in 2016. ...... about half of the Michigan workers who left the labor force may have filed for disability and many might never get off it, as the rate at which people come off disability benefits is extremely low. We then saw surges in suicides and drug overdoses to the point where life expectancy has either declined or stayed flat for three years in a row, something that hasn’t happened since the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918......... ....stock market prices don’t mean much to the 78 percent of workers in this country who are living paycheck to paycheck or the 40 percent of workers who are a $400 bill away from financial crisis ........ Human-centered capitalism would ensure that people are more important than money and that markets exist to serve our common goals and values....... four in 10 people in the United States live with unhealthy air or that nearly three in five adults with mental illness do not get treated..........

Our G.D.P. is over $20 trillion, and yet the average American is struggling.

..... A millennial has only a 50-50 chance of doing better than their parents. For someone born in the 1940s, the likelihood was 90 percent. The American dream is dying by the numbers.


For Andrew Yang, New Hampshire is a "homecoming" and a big bet At the very top of every New Hampshire stump speech, presidential candidate Andrew Yang notes his somewhat tenuous connection to the state: "How many of you know I went to high school in New Hampshire?" ..... "When I first showed up here in New Hampshire, I was like, does that count?" Yang chuckled to college students at Plymouth State University. "They were like, 'Oh yeah, that counts.'" ...... While other 2020 contenders have slashed New Hampshire based staff and travel in favor of Iowa, Yang has spent more days campaigning in the Granite State than any other presidential candidate this year, with more than 70 appearances in 2019 alone. He placed a "mid-six figure" television ad buy in the state on Thursday, rolling out two new spots. ........ ....Last month, the political upstart rendered a bold declaration about his campaign to nearly one hundred witnesses in a packed coffeehouse: "If this does not come out of New Hampshire, it dies." ....... Conversations with half a dozen of Yang's high school friends reveal a rebellious teen, albeit the kind that still aces exams and arrives early to Glee Club. "Andy" was "low-key funny," wore a black trench coat, and openly hated school. ...... "James Dean was like a rebel without a cause, right? He didn't give a s***," high school friend and close confidant Fiona Singer says. "He's a rebel with a cause, for sure. The free-thinking kind." ...... Hat sales have raised $1.2 million for the campaign, accounting for approximately 8% of all fundraising revenue........ "To give you an order of magnitude, you're looking at something like 60,000 voters would put you in the top 2 or 3, in all likelihood, in New Hampshire," he said recently at a rally in Boston........ "If we get 60,000 people on board with our message in New Hampshire, then imagine the headlines in February of 2020."



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Friday, November 08, 2019

Bill Gates, Elizabeth Warren, And Andrew Yang



Bill Gates is in news saying something like, I have already paid $10 billion in taxes, "more than anyone else," and you can have 10 billion more if you want, but if you want all of the 100 billion, I got a problem with that.

Now the media being what it is (they want a fight!) all sorts of brand name media outlets (this is not yellow, tabloid journalism, this is mainstream media, the kind that informs heads of state early in the morning) are saying Bill Gates prefers Donald Trump over Elizabeth Warren. After all, he is just another rich guy.

First off, Warren has never proposed taking all of Bill Gates' money. Her 2% wealth tax means Bill Gates would pay two billion, which is less than the 10 billion he has already offered to pay.

Second, someone who might be super smart in one niche might or might not be equally informed in another niche, or in the same niche in another era. We think Tesla was so smart, Elon Musk has named his most famous company after him, and Musk is today, and Tesla was indeed smart. But Tesla never bought into whatever Einstein was proposing. Tesla was a pre-relativity kind of guy.

Bill Gates is a PC-era guy. No tech entrepreneur who starts in 2020 can not buy into the idea of a Universal Basic Income (which I have never defined as American Basic Income). UBI is to the fourth industrial revolution what electricity was to the second and what the internet has been to the third. It is basic. It is infrastructure.

In all fairness, I did not hear Bill Gates say anything about UBI. I'd be very surprised if he was opposed to it. But if he is saying, you have already taken 10 billion from me, take 10 billion more, but don't take away the entire 100 billion, because I have a foundation to run.

Only the mainstream media can interpret that as an attack on Elizabeth Warren, or the idea of UBI. I can't.

I actually subscribe to Bill Gates' newsletter. So he has a tendency to show up in my inbox. He is a smart interesting guy doing good work, although it is my firm conviction 100 Gates Foundations will not be able to solve the problems of the world, what we need is a world government.







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Friday, September 13, 2019

UBI Blog Post Twitter Marketing

Universal Basic Income (aka Freedom Dividend) Is Not Free Money



























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Thursday, November 22, 2018

In Defence Of Facebook

It feels like 1999 for Facebook. Microsoft did not split, but all the DC harassing was a hint it was no longer on the cutting edges of innovation. Facebook feels like on a standstill. It has taken quite a beating. There is a backlash.

Facebook is not the next Facebook, and Google is not the next Google, although some of Google's so-called moonshot projects are quite impressive, and in the pipeline.

Today I make free video calls to my parents in Nepal, thanks to Facebook Messenger, although it is true there are others like it. When I showed up for college in Kentucky, and the Internet was the new kid on the block, I had to pay something like two dollars per minute to call my parents. The college phone service was a monopoly. VOIP was unheard of. So when a few years later I came across 20 cents per minute deals, it felt like rocket science to me. Also, at that work study college, you were legitimately paid way below minimum wage. Which meant a week's wages could easily be spent on one conversation. :)

In my home village in Nepal, one of my failed initiatives was to launch a library. It did not fail. We did collect a few books. I donated most of it. But it did not take off as envisioned. Well, in that village today you can get a phone with a data plan. And, boom, there is a library called Google.

The tech giants are subject to public criticism, sure, why not. But let's maintain perspective.



The Big Four -- Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook --- have collected a lot of data on each of us. True. But what would be the best next step? I think data portability. The data around each person is a personal oil well. It will pay for Universal Basic Income. 

FACEBOOK BOARD DEFENDS HOW ZUCKERBERG, SANDBERG HANDLED CRISIS

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Saturday, September 16, 2017

The Basic Template Of Entrepreneurship

Steven Spielberg, rightly thought of as one of the most creative movie directors, once said, it makes sense to keep the same team and churn out movie after movie, like they produce cars at factories.

What has happened with technology and innovation in just the past 20 years has been amazing, but all that is nothing compared to what is about to happen. And it makes sense to firm up the basic template of entrepreneurship. So we can focus on the more important stuff, like the technology and the innovation.

Curiously that template is waist deep in politics and public policy. The very idea of who owns the company is about to fundamentally alter. The inevitable Universal Basic Income (UBI) will be a huge boost to the innovators. Without that true large scale wealth creation is simply out of reach. The UBI is the oxygen mask that takes you to the top of Everest.

The idea of the corporate culture should be on the cutting edges of social science fiction and egalitarian thinking. Treating people right does not take away from competition or innovation. The second coming of Steve Jobs was primarily that he had learned to treat people better, like he himself admitted. But it goes beyond smiles and handshakes. It is about making fundamental leaps on race and gender.



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Thursday, February 04, 2016

Android Phones Should Machine Record All Talk

Android phones should machine record all talk on all Android phones all over the world and feed all that to AI, so as to later enable voice search in all languages. Literacy is over rated. What if all knowledge could be translated into every human language? And not just in writing but orally. Literacy is primitive tech. I like it, but it should not be the gatekeeper it is. You should be able to access all knowledge orally. Too many human brains are going to waste right now. Human beings should not have to do robot work. Planting rice is robot work. And Android phones should be solar and drone powered. The drones give you the Internet access and solar gives you energy. There is no wire in sight. If everybody is armed with a phone, we could provide police service to every human being at a much lower cost. Much, much lower cost. 911 would be an app on your phone. Your phone knows who you are, and where you are. We should build a world government, and get every human being to directly vote. You vote on your phone, you have a biometric ID. You press your thumb during the vote week, and you vote through the vote app. Barack Obama should run for President Of The World. POW-WOW. Everyone should have ready credit on your phone. You graduate high school, you get credit. The credit shows up on your phone. Google sends "checks" to your phone for all the data it collects on you, from which it makes money. And there is a Universal Basic Income. Food comes from Iowa. Iowa and the Caribbean, and Bihar. 911 is number one. Education. Voting. Credit. And you unleash unprecedented creativity.

Would it not be great? To have a directly elected President Of The World? Black lives matter, and every vote counts.


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