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Comment by cgrealy | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure there's a "what if" at all, more like a "when will".

At some point, a UBI will become a necessity. The most likely other options are a dystopian nightmare or a complete overhaul of our basic economic principles (i.e. a post-scarcity Star Trek-esque society)

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For the most part I agree, but the important fact is that that point might not be now. Just because you might know the end point, doesn't mean you can skip the steps in between or try to get there too quickly. That can lead to disaster as you'll probably not have the right conditions or supporting structures in place.

Our current pandemic and the economic consequences certainly will make more people open to UBI. Once the recovery starts, look for businesses to invest heavily in automation so they're not caught in a labor crunch again when their human labor get sick, quarantined, or ineffective due to social distancing. This may cause a permanent shift in labor demand that never again comes close to matching the labor supply. Or maybe it'll end up like other revolutions with new currently unknown jobs opening up over time.

Check out the "Future of Work" where they cover the top 5 most popular jobs and how they are in danger. The self driving trucks shock the human truck drivers in the diner.

Makes me sad to see their faces when they realize just how far along and how good the self driving trucks have become:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iaKHeCKcq4

UBI will become a necessity because the alternative will not be pretty.

Self driving trucks probably are going to be considered a national security issue going forward. We can't have cargo sitting around waiting for humans in a health crisis. That will indeed be a huge gut punch to that segment of the labor market. The only slightly silver lining is that trucking has very high turnover so the number put out of their jobs will be less than you might think. What will hurt though will be the loss of opportunity to be a truck driver, even if only for a few years.

Have you seen all the homeless people in SF or NYC lately? I'd love to see the reaction to some cushy FAANG engineer telling them "the time for UBI might not be now".

The other option is, that as we progress towards a post-scarcity economy (arguably we're almost there in some areas, e.g. food in the West/US), prices will decrease towards 0. Now, if we could only get rid of those pesky rent-seeking real estate landlords...

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