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p.MsoNormal,p.MsoNoSpacing{margin:0}</style></head><body><div style="font-family:Arial;">Ahhh Nick,<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Such limited vision. You may be correct vis-a-vis money (as nothing more than a pathological distortion — I have no experience) but are <u>so wrong</u>, at least potentially about sex. Like drugs, it can be a gateway to realms of knowledge, inter-personal and social connectivity, human and trans-human experience. <br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">davew<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div>On Tue, May 4, 2021, at 9:42 PM, <a href="mailto:thompnickson2%40gmail.com">thompnickson2@gmail.com</a> wrote:<br></div><blockquote type="cite" id="qt" style="overflow-wrap:break-word;"><div class="qt-WordSection1"><p class="qt-MsoNormal">Dave,<br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"> <br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal">No you can’t have read it. Otherwise your life would have been completely transformed because you would have come to belief that sex- and mone- seeking are pathological distortions of human ambition. <br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"> <br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal">I pretty sure nobody has read it because, so far as I know, nobody has been thus affected. Ergo, …<br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"> <br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal">Nick<br></p><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal">Nick Thompson<br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><a href="mailto:ThompNickSon2@gmail.com"><span style="color:rgb(5, 99, 193);">ThompNickSon2@gmail.com</span></a><br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><a href="https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/"><span style="color:rgb(5, 99, 193);">https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/</span></a><br></p></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"> <br></p><div><div style="border-right-color:currentcolor;border-right-style:none;border-right-width:medium;border-bottom-color:currentcolor;border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-width:medium;border-left-color:currentcolor;border-left-style:none;border-left-width:medium;border-image-outset:0;border-image-repeat:stretch;border-image-slice:100%;border-image-source:none;border-image-width:1;border-top-color:rgb(225, 225, 225);border-top-style:solid;border-top-width:1pt;padding-top:3pt;padding-right:0in;padding-bottom:0in;padding-left:0in;"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"></p><div><b>From:</b> Friam <friam-bounces@redfish.com> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Prof David West<br></div><div><b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, May 4, 2021 8:45 PM<br></div><div><b>To:</b> friam@redfish.com<br></div><div><b>Subject:</b> Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI<br></div><p></p></div></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"> <br></p><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><i><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">Diamond Age: Or, A Young Woman's Illustrated Primer</span></span></i><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;"> by Neal Stephenson</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;"> </span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">Required reading for any discussion of economics when the robots produce abundance, or things are too cheap to meter.</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;"> </span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">Nick won'ty read, pretty sure Steve and other already have.</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;"> </span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">davew</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;"> </span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;"> </span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">On Tue, May 4, 2021, at 3:31 PM, Steve Smith wrote:</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> I'm glad I held back from throwing in my own $.002 on this topic</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> earlier... I like the general arc it is on and is being articulated much</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> more gesturally than I think I am capable of. I can't say I *fully*</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> follow Glen's use of reduction and reconstruction in technical detail</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> well, but it suggests an abstraction that rings hopeful if not</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> (necessarily) true for me.</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> </span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> Given that my trite belief that "when the road hazards are coming at us</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> faster than we can see much less avoid, that we should pump the brakes</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> and downshift" is based in an inapt (inept?) metaphor, and that in any</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> case we aren't going to do a whole lot of self-limiting under the</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> current aesthetic we (mostly) share (pedal to the metal and let 'er</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> roar!). </span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> </span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> The Prepper/Survivalist community is mostly about trying to gather up</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> the resources they think will help them survive a crash or more</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> importantly the aftermath. The post/transhumanists seem to be trying</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> to figure out how to strapon (or grow out of their own bodies') wings</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> and jet packs and road armor to escape or survive the inevitable crash.</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> </span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> Careening vehicle metaphors aside, I'm pleased to hear more and more</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> discussion that frames the economic aspect of "the culture war" as</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> *post* rather than *anti* capitalism. Whether technology makes</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> *everything* too cheap to meter or not, I think the relative abundance</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> of manufactured goods as well as commodities for the top 50% of the</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> first world is confronting the *scarcity* model that was (maybe?)</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> necessary to keep the engine (oops, vehicles made it back in) of</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> consumerist markets accelerating. </span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> </span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> I am not sure that Yang has all (or even many) of the answers but I do</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> give him great credit for having promoted the question on the national</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> (and world?) stage with his run for President. I had thought about UBI</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> and similar mechanisms before but somehow his presentation or affect or</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> maybe just timing brought it to me in a much more compelling way than</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> before.</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> </span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> I very much appreciate Glen's point about UBI being an intrinsically</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> capitalist proposal to try to keep their system going as long as</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> possible, I just hope we will use whatever time that buys us without</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> significant disruption to plan out what things might/could look like on</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> the other side of a revolution in (socioeconomic?) thinking that now</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> seem inevitable to me. When I used to ski (poorly), on any given run,</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> there was likely a brief period of time when I realized I as absolutely</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> going to crash and burn, and if I had any choice in the matter it was</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> whether I was going to do it earlier rather than later and whether I was</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> going to take a big bite of ice-slicked mogul, some off-run powder, or</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> maybe a tree. Maybe I'll just leap off a mogul and evaporate in the</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> sunlight mid-air (Kurzweil's Singularity)?</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> </span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> - Steve</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> </span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> On 5/4/21 12:52 PM, uǝlƃ </span></span><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Segoe UI Emoji", sans-serif;">↙↙↙</span></span><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;"> wrote:</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> > Reduction. All things in moderation, including moderation. Reduction is a triumph, if it captures what you're looking for. And fiat currency has done great things for the world, a cultural technology that allows us to explore possibilities we wouldn't have otherwise explored. Financial instruments have allowed us to spread ownership across demographics that would never have been allowed based on real property.</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> ></span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> > But those instruments are a reconstruction of the space that currency reduced out. And I think we're seeing that the reconstruction is trending dysfunctional. So, it's time to reconsider the initial reduction and, importantly, why the reconstruction isn't a cover for the original (full) space.</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> ></span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> > We are doing that in both ad-hoc ways (e.g. the Psychology today article, finding other dimensions by which to bolster the reduction) and fundamental ways (e.g. transhumanist experimentation of "what are we"). UBI is a reasonable suggestion to reduce suffering. But, ultimately, it's a capitalist suggestion, proposed by *conservatives* who want to prolong the status quo, to milk the current system for as long as they can. That's OK, of course. We try to balance exploitation with exploration and nobody knows crisply when to emphasize which.</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> ></span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> ></span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> > On 5/4/21 11:16 AM, <a href="mailto:thompnickson2%40gmail.com">thompnickson2@gmail.com</a> wrote:</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> >> Ah, now THIS is the Glen I know and love. Your 10:00 post rekindled old rage concerning the incentive-value of money. Here I go. Up on my high horse. Hi, Ho, Silver. Budda bump, budda bump, budda bump, bump, bump.</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> >></span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> >> The very little Marxism I know tells me that it is the "triumph" of capitalism to reduce all relationships to money. This seems right to rich people because the richer you get, the truer it becomes. I can imagine Besos, Gates, and Musk falling asleep at night, musing about which of them will first reach a trillion. If you've lost your soul and you've lost your wife, what else could they possibly want. Such people even turn women into a kind of coinage. (Cue Waspish Moral Outrage). But isn't that the point of UBI; that it frees people to think about something else? And yes, what IS this so-called "productivity"? The "happy ditch digger" and the "carefree slave" are all part of the same self-serving capitalist iconography. I am sure there are people who love to dig ditches, but if that's what they love to do, give them a thousand dollars a month for free and let them dig ditches for Habitat for Humanity in Peru, if that's what they feel like doing. </span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> >></span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> >> Glen, keeping your ad hominem firmly in mind, I am again going to use your post as opportunity to flog my old work which argues that it is capitalism's reduction of all ambition to coinage that makes it so toxic. </span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> </span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv</span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 <a href="http://bit.ly/virtualfriam">bit.ly/virtualfriam</a></span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> un/subscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a></span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> FRIAM-COMIC <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a></span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> archives: <a href="http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/">http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/</a></span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;">> </span></span><br></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Arial", sans-serif;"> </span></span><br></p></div></div><div>- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .<br></div><div>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br></div><div>Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 <a href="http://bit.ly/virtualfriam">bit.ly/virtualfriam</a><br></div><div>un/subscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a><br></div><div>FRIAM-COMIC <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a><br></div><div>archives: <a href="http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/">http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/</a><br></div><div><br></div></blockquote><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div></body></html>