#Capitalism #CapitalismKills #capitalismisascam #CapitalismIsACult #NoMoreBillionaires #TaxTheRich #exploitation #livingwage #RaiseTheWage #SocialDemocracy #safetynets #homelessness #hoarders #hoarding

if my last name was Kennedy, I might be willing to take more risks too...#safetynets

@FrostPoem

Some tallied it thrift,
slashing social programs. Yet...
it cost us our soul.

#haiku #senryu #poem
#MicroPrompt: thrift
#Justice #SocialJustice #SafetyNets #society #government #budget #spending

#DebtCeiling #republicans #safetynets #14thamendment

#DebtCeiling #mccarthy #Debunking #safetynets #trump #joebiden

@KPED

Someone I know well did professional typography. Once a visible art form, now mostly niche, as too many publishers decided it wasn't moving books and settled for either the "good enough" of automatic layout, in part because that made books retargetable to various media. But it's not art. Same deal as commercial clothing and furniture. One by one more industries will go this way.

Our problem as a society is that we are contriving ways to save labor, but not conveying the benefit of the savings to the laborers. In plain terms, it's not about the smarts, it's about the utility, and it's not about the wealth but the distribution of wealth.

If artisans still got paid they could do their work as a hobby, or not. But we have no social plan for the unemployment. Claims other jobs will come but no path for those laid off to get those jobs. Or just universal basic income.

We have as a society, as they say, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, creating a society that requires far less labor to survive but demands ever more just because it suits the ever more tyrannical lusts of those hoarding the spoils.

All egged on by technologists who think they're enriching society when really they're widening the gap between rich and poor. This cannot end well. We must stop debating singularities and start seriously debating humane social safety nets and wealth sharing.

In such a world, too, education becomes a cruel economic gamble because one may find one has trained for a dying career and is stuck with the tab. Another reason education must all be free, so people aren't burdened by risk and cost of ever more frequent need for reeducation. (This, too, underscores the importance of UBI, to eliminate need for some reeducation, and to cover life expenses as it is still otherwise forced.)

#WritingCommunity #Capitalism #OpenAI #AI #ethics #society #UBI #SafetyNets #education #tuition #TuitionLoans #debt

@nlowell @indieauthornews

Nathan, you wrote "Every minute you spend managing promotional efforts is a minute you don't have to write and publish the next book."

This is how I end up being a strong advocate of Universal Basic Income (UBI). It saddens me that so many see it as a mere safety net, though it is that. That unfortunately leads to a tired and stingy discussion of people as dead--weights looking for a handout.

But I come at this from the other side: why society should want to PAY such a thing. It's taken as a given people want to receive it.

Almost every writer I know must work a day job. Even the good ones spend time on promotional tours. And they die having written fewer books. Same fot musicians, artists, etc. So the world is poorer for lack of their unique creativity.

Meanwhile, and importantly, if they work a day job or travel a lot, those make-work activities we require so they may be fed almost surely consume unnecessary resources that fight sustainability. See my essay Corny Economics (http://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2012/05/corny-economics.html) for a more entertaining pitch on that.

People often take jobs that are not just grungy and soul-deadening but sociopathic if they have to eat. Many jobs that are worst for society, that require breaches of ethics, morality or even law are sustained by nice people feeling they have no choice but to do them and get paid so family can eat. UBI would fight the need for that.

In an increasingly automated world, we as society should want people freed to do the things that bring them joy, which are probably things that bring us joy. Imagine the productivity that would unlock.

Some might just stay home and take care of friends and family. Society is not poorer for that.

But even if many chose to be "couch potatoes" because they didn't have anything to offer family and society, society can better sustain the cost of a couch and a gaming system for them than it can sustain the cost of their daily commute to a pointless job that consumes resources to make things no one really needs.

Everything points to UBI as the way forward for society, and NOT because of what individuals need as handouts but what society could get if it treated people as potential sources of beauty instead of expendable rags to be ground under foot if they don't do something superhuman to prove they have value at all.

We have a society based on the worst cynicism about people but we could do better.

It's true, we have too many people. But that is true under any system. Minimizing per person resources by not making people do things neither they nor society needs can help some in the short term. It can also help to make it clear that forced pregnancy is never acceptable. But long run we have to have a societal dialog about family planning and curbing population. There's just no way out of that.

#UBI #economics #society #business
#art #music #writing #WritingCommunity
#food #income #SafetyNets #politics
#climate #environment #sustainability
#inequality #ForcedPregnancy #population #FamilyPlanning

New Spending Bill Makes It Easier for Americans Saving for Retirement https://nyti.ms/3v5rM37 lower- and middle-income workers will receive a new benefit that amounts to a matching contribution — up to $1,000 per person — from the federal government. Another provision will make it easier for part-time workers to enroll in workplace retirement plans #SafetyNets

This #ScientificAmerican article on #moralinjury is fascinating. Feels like something that, even out side of a medical provider context, lots of people are struggling with as our #safetynets and #socialcontract are undermined by #rightwing nut jobs. Nothing feels stable, everything seems to be damaged and it’s overwhelming to try to make a difference…

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/moral-injury-is-an-invisible-epidemic-that-affects-millions/