a nice summary if you have been living under a rock

My main assumptions for the next 20 years are:

• Automation will make more and more people unemployable
• No dystopia: Democracies will continue to function “reasonably”
• Some form of Universal Basic Income (UBI) will become common

• Minimum wage will probably disappear: Unions will fight a rear-guard action but in a sense, once you have UBI, much of the justification for minimum wage goes away. And even if “officially” it stays, people will simply become independent and do “consulting jobs” which are exempt from unions
• Capitalism will be alive and well: While UBI sounds a bit like socialism, and taxes will probably be higher, capitalism as we know it will continue.
• Automation will accelerate: Once UBI exists, why would somebody do unpleasant work? Well, if it pays very well, or it is challenging. So there will be a bigger push to automate things which are currently done by people on very low wage.

Also, once many / most people are on UBI, I think luddites / unions / special interest groups will find it harder to block further automation: People on UBI will look unkindly on a group suggesting that a service / product should stay expensive just so that group will keep their jobs. Will inequality grow? Depends on how you look at it: Income inequality will probably continue rising (even though taxes will be higher to finance UBI). But how about Quality-of-Life inequality? That’s a lot harder to measure. So what will everybody do?

• There will be cheap, good education
• People will have more fun
• Everybody will be an artist
• Religions / alternative / new-age stuff
• Helping others

• Uncategorized