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Aug 16Liked by Simplicius

Digging your claws in a little deeper this time, I'm happy to see :)

Let's break down a few core issues:

1) The "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality was first codified by Horatio Alger. And while it has a million offspring (including "The Secret" and the "Kingdom of Prosperty Gospel"), all equally falacious, it IS resting on one pillar of reality - prior to 300 years ago, there really WAS no way for people to shift up in their "social class" but now there are a tiny percentage of individuals who can. But, at the end of the day, it's like saying "play the lottery to get rich." It does work - but only for a very few.

2) As for the concept of the elites micromanaging every aspect of human behavior, see "Wrench in the Gears" and her blog for a LOT more on this. She calls it the "ant computer," and there are a LOT of very wealthy and powerful corporations/people/universities working to make this happen. And Sam Altman is just the tip of the iceberg.

3) While there are a lot of reasons why people support the building of the ant computer (see point #4 below), the deepest and most fundamental reason has to do with the nature of capitalism itself.

In short, capitalism is converting something worthless (fiat) into something real. For a long time, this involved expanding markets, whether it was new nations to colonize or pushing people to buy 10 items when they need only one. The problem NOW is that they're running out of markets. Already, even things such as air (rights) and rivers and forests are being traded and sold.

So what do you do when every tree and rock is "capitalized" and turned into a tradable commodity and there's nothing left to commoditize? The answer is: commoditize humans. And not just in the crude 1800s way of slavery where all you can do is buy or rent an entire human. No, that just won't suffice.

Every single thing ABOUT that human can be commoditized, including exactly the things measured in that UBI experiment: education levels, hours of employment, driving/transportation, hours of leisure, etc, etc, etc. In other words, a giant "Sims" game where you turn every human activity (including sleep!) and accomplishment into a tradable commodity. It's literally the last frontier for capitalism and thus, their Holy Grail.

4) The ant computer also nicely dovetails with other sinister impulses, including eugenics, Big Pharma profiteering, "do-gooder" impulses to corral the homeless and the "unbanked" back into the system, longtermism, and, of course, a totalitarian one-world government.

But all these are resting on the foundation of an urgent need to save capitalism by commoditizing human beings, including right down to their thoughts (see the "fun" WEF video on that).

5) It's a bit of a misconception that the ancient feudal lords of Europe (or Japan, etc) were completely out of touch with the "peasants." But today's elites certainly are, and the reason for their myopia is precisely because this is the outcome of capitalism.

Because capitalism ALWAYS means that someone gets rich at someone else's expense. You literally have to steal in order to prosper, and if you ask a truly rich person, they'll admit it's true (and that it eats away at their soul, which is why they always either end up repenting and making amends or drowning themselves in ever more gaudy distractions and vice).

5b) To be clear, I'm not a Marxist in any way, shape, or form. All I'm saying is that stealing from your neighbor to prosper is a doomed philosophy (Marxism is doomed for other reasons). And capitalism WILL come crashing down sooner or later. Unfortunately, surviving until that "later" happens is gonna be really, really tough.

TL'DR: Be prepared to be processed into Skynet/the Matrix or else get crushed unless you can find a hole to crawl in and survive until humanity throws off this cancer called civilization.

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I agree with much of what you say but not all, though much I guess depends on definitions. Capitalism used to mean free enterprise, which when allied to technological progress, created vastly expanded wealth and also spread it widely over much larger numbers of people, absolutely and relatively. However what we now see in the West (at least) is financialisation and an icreasing concentration of wealth and icome away from the middle classes and towards the top 1% or really 0.1%. Some might argue that this was inevitable, but in any case it is real.

My guess is that UBI is not a sinister method of population control but a sop to a population reduced to economic serfdom, in the absence of a clear route to personal and famial improvement. Like the author I think its premise ignores universal human nature which doesn't change. If you give people free money, they try less and work less. Welfare payments create poverty in my world. If you pay single teenage mothers to have babies and give them free housing, then it becomes an attractive career option for all too many.

However my world view is not shared the idots savants in charge. IMHO you did not need a study to prove that UBI is a very flawed concept and would prove counter-productive in every aspect.

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You are so right! Serfdom is the key. See what I wrote above.

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If people don't work , something is wrong with the social environment there. Also 1000 dollars means nothing. U have to give 6000 dollars per month to satisfy people.

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Good to see you smart people over here! Agree fully with your conclusions and I have to read about the Ant computer!

Where I differ in opinion and definition from Simplicius's thesis, that the Elite do not understand human nature and are independent from the peasants, is that they always do things on purpose and ulterior motives. They know EXACTLY how the simple human works. They have studied us for hundreds of years and use the knowledge to siphon more money and man hours from us. Wage work is a mild form of slavery (because slavery cannot be imposed directly). The increase in production that has taken place since WW2 and especially in the last 40 years has not reached the lower or middle class. Middle class people are literally working and stressing themselves to death right now. At the same time, their children are worse off than the generation before. At the same time, the 1% are extremely much richer than in the 80s. The idea of ​​UBI and you should own nothing and be happy is nothing more than a diabolical plan to introduce the Fifth Reich (the fourth is the US). Ever since the fall of the Roman Empire, there are elites who control knowledge who want to reinstate a world domination and slave society. Second Roman Empire had its feudal rule of peasants and day laborers who were later challenged by the growing bourgeois society (they in turn a product of the trickle-down effect). The basic idea of ​​the Third Reich was that supermen should rule over untermensch. Something that Great Britain could carry on unmolested until after WW2. GB was the real Third Reich. The US Fourth Reich is now based on super cheap labor wherever you can find it. If people feel bad, they are fed fentanyl or the milder form; drugs, entertainment and porn.

No one can make me believe that it is misguided kindness from the Elite or that they "don't understand" human nature when they come up with their social constructs. There is always a hidden agenda and ulterior motives camouflaged with presumptively good intentions of individual freedom, equality and happiness.

It's all about enslaving ourselves while we walk around with our eyes open, our hearing working and our sanity intact. It is the greatest manipulation in the short history of man. The "homeless" who have turned their backs on society have understood it. Ted Kazynski was one of them (who also wrote a manifesto).

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Yes,I thought that. They understand us all too well. It's similar to when people (in UK) say why are all these rich people making all our laws. They are rich,they don't have any idea what life is like for poor people. The laws they put in place aren't helping us. They're out of touch. They dont know what real life and poverty is like. And I always think - but they do know what being poor is like - THATS WHY THEYRE RICH!

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First of all, if so-called Artificial Intelligence is capable of doing everything that we do, then we are finished as a species, and the discussion of UBI makes no sense.

The second thing is that the so-called Artificial Intelligence does not even come close to our capabilities, therefore the real objective of the UBI discussion is to see if this is a possible way to continue lulling the population enough to continue supporting the present dystopian capitalism (where the exponential multiplication of money through money, without the generation of real value, is the only thing that matters). The UBI proposal represents a complete inversion of traditional virtues (see Aristotle) in the name of the "virtue" of "justice", and therefore it is quite obvious that it seeks to turn men into something less than mere animals (since a mere animal is self-sufficient) ..

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It's a fraud and a fake just talked up a lot. Doesn't exist really. Mind you,does actual human intelligence exist,lol.

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