Interesting that UBI is now such a mainstream topic, and this trend will only grow from now on.
Despite what Mr. Sacks might say, the day is still coming when robots & AI will be able to do most work, and be so cheap as employees, humans won’t be able to compete against them in a free market economy.
What won’t change either is that our existing financial order - stocks, 410ks, property prices, taxes that pay for a military - is predicated on humans being the ones that earn the money.
Mr Sacks is part of a political force driven by blue-collar discontent with globalization. He might be against UBI, but the day is coming when his base may be clamoring for it.
Trump’s AI czar says UBI-style cash payments are ‘not going to happen’
I think you could start a decent riot with 500 people
Wouldn’t happen for several reasons. This was a small, shitty, southern town. The reason this town had manufacturing was because of tax breaks. Education officials actually met with some of our management to ask what would make their students better workers. Class consciousness was the furthest thing from feasibility.
Also, the way the shutdown was done spread out the impact. The facility was originally 3 buildings with several stages of the manufacturing vertically integrated. Over ~5 years they outsourced those prior stages to outside suppliers and slowly shut down lines until only one building was still in use. By the time the announcement was made, we only had maybe 200 employees and the plant would slowly wind down over 1.5 years with a few people getting a buy out and some getting paid more to stay to the end. If it was one big moment, maybe the people would’ve felt the impact.
Also, this was a “right to work” state. Aka, unions are banned statewide.