Recently, I have read quite a bit about Universal Basic Income (UBI). Philosophically, I am opposed to giving people money for merely existing, but I am intrigued with the idea of UBI. I think that there are plenty of things swirling around that is causing UBI to continue to be in the discussion/
The first thing is the discussion about robots taking over jobs that human do right now. I discuss this concept briefly in the post Future Proof Yourself. This topic seems to be gaining steam and it is an interesting concept.
I think that it is still a little premature to be worried a robot taking over your job. That being said, it is important to realize that Project Managers and other workers need to consider that aspects of their jobs can be automated and which must be done with a human. There are things that a machine simply cannot do, which includes dealing with other human beings. Human relations is not a straight logical operation that can be boiled into a math problem. The same with the Earth and our environment, just look at all the incorrect weather predictions as evidence.
One argument for UBI is the unleashing of all the human capital that would be unrestrained by something so menial as a job. This argument forgets that the greatest things built in human history are not produced by comfort, but are produced in struggle.
Struggle is where human greatness is exposed. I can not think of anything great created by someone who was not forced to out of the comfort zone. The comfort zone is the enemy of greatness.
If we are truly on the road to UBI, then lets craft it in a way that builds incentives for people to actually work and contribute to our society.
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