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canastrophee t1_j1qxll5 wrote

Ideally, there would be effective corporate tax rates to balance out the amount of revenue they're vacuuming out of circulation without the need to pay human workers. But I really think most people would be artists or gardeners or craftspeople, given the chance, so we'd return to more of a pre-industrialization saturation of small businesses. UBI would allow people to comfortably take up professions like cobbling and woodworking and shut-in poet laureate without the economy trying to chase them into more financially weighty careers.

We end up with better artists that way, as well. It's easier to practice when you're not worried about starving or freezing or getting medication, but also, people who are good at one difficult skill are usually good at another difficult skill. Mathematicians are frequently also musicians of notable skill -- but math pays exponentially better, so they almost invariably choose math, even when it's not the kind of math they want to do. And I really, really do not blame them.

So if we're following the Thomas Jefferson path of war -> math and science -> arts? We're nearly there, lads.

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