XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.economics   
   From: j_d@invalid.org   
      
   For years, I opposed Universal Basic Income, firmly and reflexively. I   
   treated it as a liberal fantasy — an invitation to idleness, a subsidy for   
   stagnation, a sedative administered by a bloated state. Work, I believed,   
   wasn’t merely how societies functioned but how men and women found   
   meaning. Pay people for nothing, and you dissolve discipline. That was the   
   story. I told it often.   
      
   That position no longer survives contact with reality.   
      
   Something fundamental has shifted, and pretending otherwise is nothing   
   short of denial. The AI revolution is here, and it’s gutting entire   
   sectors with hurricane force. This isn’t an industrial transition, nor a   
   replay of mechanization or globalization. It is a technological rupture of   
   a different magnitude. Machines replacing not only muscle but cognition   
   itself: judgment, pattern recognition, reasoning. And it’s advancing at a   
   pace that outstrips legislation, labor markets, and political capacity,   
   moving faster than most in government are willing to admit.   
      
   The most sobering warning comes from Geoffrey Hinton, one of the   
   architects of modern AI. Hinton hasn’t joined the hype merchants. Instead,   
   he has joined the alarmists. His claim is troubling: AI capability is   
   effectively doubling every seven months. Not every decade. Not every few   
   years. Every seven months.   
      
   At that pace, change doesn’t arrive gradually but in overwhelming waves.   
   First, it replaces what we dismiss as “menial” cognitive work — call   
   centers, customer service, scheduling, transcription. That phase is   
   already underway. Then it moves into clerical roles, basic accounting,   
   paralegal research, routine journalism, marketing copy, and compliance   
   work. Those jobs are next. After that, no profession is spared, not even   
   software engineering itself.   
      
   Hinton insists that within a few years, AI systems will complete monthlong   
   programming projects in hours. When that happens, junior developers will   
   be removed rather than retrained. Teams will shrink. Entire layers will   
   vanish. If the people who build the systems can be replaced by the   
   systems, then no white-collar profession should feel insulated.   
      
   Lay out the timeline honestly, and it becomes terrifying. In 2026, AI   
   replaces support roles. In 2027, it consumes administrative and clerical   
   work. By 2028, it’s performing serious professional tasks at scale. By the   
   early 2030s, much of white-collar America may no longer be necessary to   
   the current economic structure.   
      
   This brings us to the politically radioactive part: The United States has   
   no plan. None. No labor transition strategy. No reskilling conveyor belt   
   capable of operating at this speed. No serious public conversation about   
   income decoupled from employment. Just vague chatter about “innovation,”   
   paired with the familiar promise that new jobs will somehow appear, as   
   they always have.   
      
   We must dispense with the dangerous fiction and start facing the brutal   
   reality.   
      
   A society where tens of millions are unemployable is not a sign of free-   
   market success but a powder keg. You can’t preach personal responsibility   
   to a population for whom responsibility has been rendered economically   
   irrelevant. You can’t defend social order while ignoring the conditions   
   that make order possible.   
      
   Universal basic income, viewed through this lens, stops looking like a   
   left-wing indulgence and starts looking like a stability mechanism.   
      
   That doesn’t mean unconditional generosity or bureaucratic bloat. The   
   conservative case for universal basic income is about preventing social   
   fracture while preserving incentives to contribute, where contribution is   
   still possible. It is about replacing a maze of failing welfare programs   
   with something simple, transparent and limited.   
      
   Most importantly, it’s about buying time.   
      
   Universal basic income is not an end state but a bridge. A way to prevent   
   mass dislocation while society renegotiates the relationship between work,   
   dignity and income as the 9-to-5 day fades away.   
      
   I say this reluctantly, but honestly. Before AI, my opposition to   
   universal basic income was rooted in a world that no longer exists. I   
   assumed work would always be available for those willing to do it. That   
   assumption is now obsolete. Not because people are lazy, but because   
   machines are becoming capable faster than institutions can adapt.   
      
   The most dangerous response is to pretend this is a liberal argument,   
   detached from objective reality. It is not. The social consequences of   
   mass displacement — crime, despair, radicalization, resentment — spread.   
   They destabilize everything conservatives claim to want to conserve.   
      
   We are approaching a moment where the question is no longer whether AI   
   will replace jobs, but how a democratic society survives when it does.   
   That conversation needs to begin now, while there is still time to shape   
   policy deliberately rather than in panic. The country is already near a   
   breaking point, marked by diminishing trust in institutions, the   
   presidency and even one another. Some will argue that things could   
   improve. They might, but it’s increasingly unlikely. For that reason,   
   waiting is a luxury the country no longer has.   
      
   https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/5713876-ai-displacement-and-ubi/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)