The flip side of UBI/ Universal Basic Income - beware what you ask for - [MONEY]

Zenaan Harkness zen at freedbms.net
Mon Jan 13 19:55:16 PST 2020


Exhibit #1 :


  As Trump Threatens Tehran Over Censorship, Facebook's
  Thought-Police Censor Pro-Iran Posts
  https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/trump-threatens-tehran-over-censorship-facebooks-thought-police-censor-pro-iran-posts
  https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/while-trump-warns-tehran-of-censorship-facebooks-thought-police-censor-pro-iran-tweets_01132020

    The hypocrisy is unbelievable.  In order to comply with United
    States sanctions on Iran, Facebook’s thought police have taken to
    censorship on behalf of the government.  At the same time,
    President Donald Trump warns Iran not to use censorship.

    ...

      “These massive Big Tech corporations are Thought Police for the
      US government: Facebook and Instagram are removing posts
      expressing support for Iran’s top general Soleimani,”
      journalist Ben Norton tweeted. “They say it’s to comply with US
      sanctions, but how do posts violate sanctions? –RT
      https://www.rt.com/news/478044-instagram-iran-trump-censorship/

    ...




----- Forwarded message from Zenaan Harkness <zen at freedbms.net> -----

From: Zenaan Harkness <zen at freedbms.net>
To: cypherpunks at lists.cpunks.org
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 21:46:06 +1100
Subject: The flip side of UBI/ Universal Basic Income - beware what you ask
 for - [MONEY]

UBI, what could possibly go wrong?

IOW, be (very) careful what you ask for ...


  Universal Basic Income: A Dream Come True For Despots
  https://www.zerohedge.com/political/universal-basic-income-dream-come-true-despots

    ...
    “What do you think the potential disadvantages of the basic
    income would be, then?”

    [My neighbour] replies, “There aren’t any.”

    Trade-Offs Are Inescapable
    ...
    But the universal basic income seems unaffected. It’s going to
    cure poverty, eliminate stress, reduce crime, unleash
    entrepreneurship, emancipate women, save us from AI, and fight
    climate change. I’m not not exaggerating. I googled, and there
    are multiple articles claiming that, not only will the UBI save
    the economy from flatlining due to a lack of consumer demand by
    increasing consumption, but somehow also put a halt to global
    warming as well — contradictory as these two aims may seem.

    ...
    Trusting the World's Regimes to Do Good?

    Most people agree that politics is a dirty game and that
    political powers will inevitably be used to further the agenda of
    officeholders and their cronies. That said, despite being
    immersed in the current thinking regarding UBI for three years
    now, I have seen precious little worrying as to what the
    government — or a future government — might actually do once it
    has seized control over everyone’s purse strings.

    After all, these governments are composed of the same people who
    launched a permanent war in the Middle East, wasting trillions of
    dollars on destroying millions of lives. These governments bailed
    out the banks from the public purse and gave themselves raises
    after telling the rest of the nation we had to tighten our belts.
    They have robbed the young of the opportunity to own a home by
    sending house prices through the roof and mean to leave them a
    nation in ruinous debt. They continue locking away huge numbers
    of people for decades for victimless crimes, leaving their
    children to be raised single-handed. They created an oligopoly of
    higher education provision forcing generations into student debt
    that cannot be defaulted on, and healthcare systems that are so
    restrictive that people must pay inordinate sums to get care or
    are otherwise forced onto government waiting lists so long that
    many of their conditions are chronic or untreatable before they
    are seen to.

    Am I the only one who thinks these powers may be used for evil
    rather than good?

    China’s “Credit System”

    One such cautionary tale may be found in China.
    ...

    [ -------------- money quote --------------- ]
    Now a basic income guarantee may begin universal, but as the
    years wear on and it proves expensive to provide, it might be
    that corners have to be cut in order to ensure its continued
    fungibility. Hardly anyone will object to the UBI being withdrawn
    from criminals, for example. And then perhaps for antisocial
    behaviour. People may have their universal basic income docked
    for committing petty crimes like littering the street. A few
    might moan that this is the beginning of a government social
    engineering program, but to most people this will seem like a
    quite a sensible and reasonable measure. After all, we all
    “benefit” from the benevolence of society providing our roads and
    schools, and now our basic income. So if some choose to repay
    society in disrespect, with such vulgar behaviour as littering,
    throwing away the ends of cigarettes, spitting on the street,
    failing to remove their dog foul, or what have you, why should
    society continue to furnish them with the fullness of a basic
    income? Besides, if their basic income is docked for several
    months they are unlikely to repeat the crime — they will soon
    learn their lesson. It will save money on law enforcement,
    lengthy court trials, and prison sentences as well, all of which
    are costly. Clipping people’s basic income will soon seem the
    most sensible and appropriate response to many crimes and
    misdemeanours. People may be sanctioned for things like not
    sorting out their recycling. After all, the government provides
    garbage disposal for us, and the environment is at stake.
    Governments are already looking at sanctioning people for this
    kind of behaviour, so the step would not be much of a leap. These
    steps will simply be designed to acclimatize people to the idea
    of being “nudged” in the right direction before more radical
    measures are taken to use the UBI to shape their behaviour.

    ...
    In China people can have their social credit score docked for
    posting fake news online. We may, of course, ask, fake according
    to whom? After all, the Chinese government maintains that the
    Tienanmen Square Massacre of 1989 was “fake news” drummed up by
    the West to undermine the regime. Closer to home, the mainstream
    media was entirely complicit in selling the war on Iraq to the
    public, but I very much doubt we will see people being sanctioned
    for posting news from mainstream sources such as the BBC or
    MSNBC. Our leaders are above falsifying our historic records and
    sending embarrassing incidents down the memory hole for permanent
    deletion. The purse strings of the universal basic income also
    present a grave threat to freedom of speech. Anyone who has been
    following the “woke wars” on Twitter and other social media
    platforms will have heard of people receiving lifetime bans for
    tweeting things like “Men are never women.” Now whether you
    believe such a message is transphobic or otherwise, you may at
    least believe that someone has the right to tweet it, and be duly
    educated as to the wrongs of their action by other users. The
    universal basic income could easily become the new weapon to
    wield against those who hold unpopular opinions or those that are
    simply no longer politically correct. It will be first used to
    strike against unpopular groups such as racists, misogynists,
    homophobes, and bigots. Not many people will come to their
    defense when they lose their basic income for spreading hate. But
    one day you yourself may hold an unpopular opinion that is
    relatively benign. Maybe you will say that people shouldn’t have
    their basic income docked just because they say unpopular things
    on the internet. You will not just be slapped with a Twitter ban,
    you will potentially lose $1000 a month.

    ...
    The UBI will institutionalise the state as each of our patrons —
    and us as wards of the state. Once this relationship is
    established we will enter into a frightening era where the
    government is our provider and the UBI can easily be weaponized
    by our rulers to shape us into compliance.

----- End forwarded message -----


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