See Comment #58, which somehow got mangled - no doubt an evil AI..
Ahem. I've written two major blogs that got into this issue:
One recently on a general solution to poverty worldwide, in which I proposed a fairly small global dividend, an equal amount to every human on the planet, just to equalize the books on social justice and to keep a billion people from starving and give them some basic working capital to start producing. $500~$1000 annually per person everywhere.
One on an equal lump sum payment to every U.S. citizen to offset the losses to the lower end of the income scale due to massive predation by crooks who were profiting at the high end.
Hopeless people who are now artificially excluded from much of the market due to predatory political/economic/military policy will not be any happier when their efforts to becoming self-supporting are further undercut by robots taking over all the drudge jobs... Unless they see that it will actually profit them personally.
Right? So the Swiss referendum idea was pretty close to the mark - leaving some fairly minor questions* as to implementation unresolved. It could work nationally or internationally, but long-term best worldwide. If everyone at least has the bare basics guaranteed by a national or world dividend (think Alaska), then those people who were previously hopeless would have a starting point to building a life.
It's either that or a likely world war, with robots on all sides. Guess who will survive?
*There was the issue in the Swiss deal as to whether everyone got exactly the same amount. I say YES, because one of the great benefits of a flat dividend is that it takes much of the politics out of the picture. You're not voting to advantage your groups against everyone else. Instead, the only vote - direct or via some representative process - would be on the decision as to the raw size of the dividend, and that should be subject to rational analysis, with some disagreement of course. But I and probably most people would be happy to see a dividend that didn't kill the golden goose.
Let the robots and their wealthy corporate owners take all the jobs and make all the money, so long as I get a share based on me being a member of a species that provided them with the basic environment and capability to do so. Not to mention the contributing share of the Earth's ecosphere. Would the robots have ever evolved by themselves? Look around the solar system. Where are they? They OWE us. Just a fact.
