Tag: politics

Basic Income – Teaching a Robot to Fish

Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for life. Build a robot to fish and…?
As I have said before, this world is increasingly bleak and hostile to standard v1.1 Homo Sapiens – Corporations exploit both customers and employees. Unemployment soars. The gap between rich and poor grows. Science and tech are increasingly beyond understanding. Its all Bladerunner and Aliens. 
The ‘Basic Income’ movement is the blue eyed future as it should be. It feels like something out of a Star Trek utopia: 
“What is this ‘Money’ you speak of?” or 
“You mean on your planet people have to work? Here people work because they want to…”
(Pic: https://www.reddit.com/r/biv/comments)

Gresham’s Law in Social Interactions

A pithy piece that captures the essence of some sick organizations I have experienced.
“Gresham’s Law. Gresham’s Law states that “bad money drives out good.” The classic example is that people will attempt to spend coins suspected of being counterfeit before they spend coins that they know to be honest. Does something similar happen with social status? Emphatically, yes. Within the economy of an office, say, we can distinguish between the ‘honest’ status earned by doing one’s job vs. the ‘counterfeit’ status earned by carefully manipulating one’s image. It’s all too easy to reach an equilibrium where counterfeit, image-based status drives out honest, reality-based status. Once an office culture allows its employees to win large amounts of status by ‘talking themselves up,’ everyone drops what they’re doing to focus on seeking credit and avoiding blame. In such an economy, only a sucker does any real work.”

Image: