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Comment by llsf | Hacker News Reader

Yes, that has been the rule for now. But I am wondering that if the prices drop so much, but the price to pay for that abundance would be the loss of significant part of job market, then how can we keep the economy humming ?

We would need to find a way to give money to people so they can keep participating in the economy even though everything is cheap. If not UBI, we would need to find ways for the majority to do something that is not automated, and give them some coins in exchange.

For millennia the currency has been energy (human labor, then machines) and intelligence (human intelligence, then artificial intelligence). If energy and intelligence price goes down, and the amount of energy and intelligence increases, then what is left for humans to claim some reward/coins ?

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> But I am wondering that if the prices drop so much, but the price to pay for that abundance would be the loss of significant part of job market, then how can we keep the economy humming ?

Money is an abstraction, so prices are always relative to wages. If prices go down, that's equivalent to wages going up. If your costs are $1000 and your wages are $1000, that's the same to you as if your costs are $100 and your wages are $100.

So the problem solves itself. You previously needed a job that would pay you $1000 to cover your costs, now you only need one that pays $100. And there is still $100 of work that needs to be done, because that's why things cost $100 instead of $0.

I agree, so the prices of everything would go down. People would be unemployed. Do we plan to give some money to pay for basic stuff (food, shelter) ?

Even if the cost for food and shelter is $1 per month, if there is no revenue, it is still too expensive, right ?

I am trying to understand the speed comparison between how fast the prices will go down, vs. how fast people will lose their jobs. If job loss goes faster than the price decrease, we might have a problem to solve.

> Even if the cost for food and shelter is $1 per month, if there is no revenue, it is still too expensive, right ?

Why would there be no revenue? Right now you need a job that pays at least e.g. $2500/month to afford basic necessities. If those jobs disappear but the cost falls to $1/month, you don't need those jobs, because a job that pays $3/month leaves you in fat city, much less one that pays $50/month.

> If job loss goes faster than the price decrease, we might have a problem to solve.

That would be a transient problem while the prices catch up, not a long-term problem. You could solve that by e.g. printing some money in the short term.

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