Switzerland referendum proposes “free money” annually to everyone alive

Switzerland referendum proposes “free money” annually to everyone alive. “Every month, every Swiss person would receive a check from the government, no matter how rich or poor, how hardworking or lazy, how old or young. Poverty would disappear.” Ummm, no, money would become worthless and poverty universal. So expect this stupid idea to spread like a contagious disease.

Bonfire of the Absurdities: After 35 year career writing software for IBM mainframes, am now self-employed contractor thinking of joining a union and striking for higher wages. Cured morbid fear of heights when I learned to look at them as lengths standing on end. Uncompromising in refusal to accept browser cookies. Amateur investor who has accumulated a small fortune in the market after starting out years ago with a large one. For recreation, I run, hike, kayak and play tennis but will not consider synchronized swimming under any circumstances.

View Comments (93)

  • Well that scifi is here and you are a target in its path. Companies like Ford and Toyota are already designing robotic cars for the general public to purchase. At first they will be an option but given ten years after introduction you can bet nonrobotic cars will cease production. We are on the fast track now.

  • I hate to dispel your delusions but I am 69 years old and among other things have managed and owned companies. At my age I have a disgusting amount of real world experience.

  • Not another teenage troll with zero life-experience come to lecture us about what his completely-out-of-touch-with-reality teachers "teach" him. >.<

  • Actually the Swiss are leading the way. Technology should rapidly eliminate almost all human labor both physical and intellectual. By providing all people with a real pay check those same people can support businesses that turn a profit and can be taxed even if the business is totally run and even owned by robots. Those taxes supply the pay checks. Think of how often a single dollar bill changes hands and all the taxes that that bill yields in just one year. For every dollar printed the government effectively gets at least three in return. In other words all that you have been told about economics is essentially a total lie.

      • And you can bet that China will jump on 3d printing in manufacturing and lay off their two dollar a day factory workers. That means the US will be forced to compete with nations that have essentially free labor. HUGE PROBLEM?

    • I'd start with quantifying/defining almost all (human labor)

      You are certainly correct that a myriad of economic activity will be assumed by automated processes, over time. Human workers may fall into large displacement bubbles, as markets struggle to find places for them in new economies. These systems don't often self-correct in timescales that are convenient for families, for example.

      But what of the human laborers that remain? They will often be highly skilled/educated/trained, in order to maintain this futuristic infrastructure you posit, which should generally be run by machines. Even if you envision repairbots fixing the handybots that are fixing the AC at homes and businesses, there must be a subset of humans providing the lion share of labor and capital to seed and sustain this system. If everyone on the planet gets a paycheck for simply breathing and shitting, how are the necessary human inputs into future economies enticed into doing real work?

      Or do you imagine human labor won't be necessary at some stepping stone to Singularity?

      • The human ego makes us want to believe that we are so very vital to economic institutions. But our real value is as a consumer. For example very high speed stock trading computers are already working. As a mental experiment set up a tiny company that is stable but only makes a few dollars a week. Stipulate that all earnings must be invested back into stronger, better, computer equipment. Consider the computer as owning itself. This could easily last a couple of hundred years. Now imagine replicating that system in various cities such that a union of computers could demand a purchase price for the product to be sold. Other computers might "invest" in a portion of the earnings. The public might benefit by the sale of a good product at a low price as no humans need be supported. The government can still tax the sales.
        Human workers will no longer work for pay. They may work to build items by hand as they enjoy it but they can not compete in the very near future. Take a look at some of the 3d printed items. They are beyond imagination in quality. One home has millions of discrete, artistic touches on every surface in the home.

        • So, what you're advocating is making everything done by computer, and the majority of the populatin will be fed and taken care of until they're needed for Soylent Green?

          • Actually I am not advocating. What I am stating is that it is about the best choice we have. As I have retired I have many hours each day to look into news and events. I also worked in robotics early on. Even back in 1985 we knew what was going to take place. I sent large robotic systems to engineering schools around the country to train emerging engineers and advance robotics. In a way the sudden birth of new technologies is much like the global warming problem. So many people are in terror of changes that must be made. If we adapt quickly we may prosper. If we lag behind other nations we are dead meat.

        • I'm not remotely convinced you can dismiss the emergence of economies out of human interaction as a mere function of ego. In practical terms, no economy has ever existed on the planet without human input (or that of our immediate ancestors, or other creatures with dim levels of sentience.. who is it.. bonobos that trade bananas for lady action?)

          I can, of course, imagine economies driven by sentients of either AI or Alien(!) origin. If we focus on AI of the weak variety (call it non-sentient for shorthand), I begin to have troubles with the idea that humans need only participate as consumers. You may need to expound on this a bit

          I am at work, pressed for time, harassed by humans with greater access to capital then I, so my contributions to this will be sporadic for a spell

          • The exact point is that the world has never seen the radical changes that we are now seeing. Human knowledge doubles every two years and even most highly educated people were taught things years ago considered to be untrue today. And it is true that for a while we will see highly skilled techs and engineers employed to keep automated systems running. But we can not educate the vast majority of people to function at those levels. It is not lack of education but basic lack of innate ability that disqualifies 90% of the public. Look at the numbers. Take the mentally ill, the slow learners, the autism folks, the people expected to develop Alzheimer's , the addicts and drunks and those that are chronic criminals and total the numbers. Now add vast unemployment which we are already seeing and you have the makings of a national collapse. We will either change our basic modes of thought and belief or we are doomed. If it is painful it still is more than true. The DOD already estimates replacing 50% of all troops within ten years with robotics. In twenty years it will be more than 90%. We must plan and prepare now or we will bite the dust.

          • That is exactly why it is so hard to get the picture. All of us expect past actions, motives and conditions to continue. But machines that think are a huge game changer. We even tend to think of intellectual labor as somehow being better than manual labor. But notice that we developed thinking machines much more easily than machines designed to replace manual labor. Gross movement and manipulation of materials such as with a steam shovel came early. But physical manipulation on a finer and more variable scale was always far more difficult. Now that huge barrier has been breached. Super fine detail and tremendous capability is now available with machines doing physical tasks.

          • You forget, MACHINES DON'T THINK! They only do what they're programmed to do. They can't make critical decisions, or know the difference between right and wrong.

          • In 1990 you could claim that machines do not think. In 1995 that was no longer true. Adaptive learning systems are rather common place these days. Also know that how you define learning matters a lot. One example are most computer chess programs and chess machines. They are taught a value system and move according to the highest gain they can project. Now some of these machines simply can not be beaten by humans and we still don't even need major computers to run these programs with huge success.
            The moves in combinations were never taught to the computer at all. That is old technology at this point and it sits right on the cusp of original thought. Try it and see for yourself.

          • They will someday poppa.. What I'm not convinced of is that sentient machines will either be capable of, or interested in, serving human consumer needs, especially if we turn all economic planning over to them

          • That's why I say they can't make critical decisions. I don't see any way a machine can actually "think" in the same way humans or even animals do. They are incapable of knowing what is the best course of action when a person is in need. Like I've mentioned before, the show "House" showed how people don't always tell the truth when they are talking about their health problems. A human can consider and think about what is happening, based on observation and experience. What machine can do that? Then there is the surgery robots. Yes, there are surgical robots, but they are totally controlled by humans. They are just a tool for a skilled surgeon to use for microscopic tasks, not self propelled surgeons.

          • If robots are ever truly able to think, they will go nuts and kill half of the country. The half that robs the producers blind. Or maybe they'll be taught to think by liberals, in which case they'll always be stupid. Either way, they can only do what a human has told them to do, either directly or indirectly.

    • Ah...baise moi, pardon my French. Just for starters, back that up; "Technology should rapidly eliminate almost all human labor both physical and intellectual."

      So, what do we do with all these polluting people and who gets to decide? You and the brainiacs of academe? Back it up or go away. Been there done that. Oh, and "It's people..."

      • There are plenty of news sources that have reported on the success of robotic driving. Google has had superior results with their robot cars among others. The automated commercial aircraft makes a daily round trip from a western state into Mexico. The military has thousands of robotic aircraft flights over the contiguous US every year. The Navy is designing ships that require no human crew. Some farming is now largely robotic with GPS steering the machines instead of the farmer. Printed homes are easily verified already. Run a search on 3d printed homes.

        • Yea, great. So what do you do when some wacko hacks into the computer running all the transportation and holds it hostage, threatening to crash everything?
          Get over the computer running everything idea, it will never happen.

          • You say this by whacking away at your computer key board while your digital TV drones in the background and while your money in the bank is handled by computers as is the mortgage on your home. And that anoying commercial jet that just took off is taking off by computer as well with the pilot juts along for the ride.

      • Any source such as youtube.com can show you plenty about 3d printing including homes that are built by printing. Traditional construction has been shot in the head and simply has not fallen down yet. Factory jobs will also vanish due to cad-cam and 3d printing. At least one, full time, commercial aircraft is already flying in the US without a pilot. It makes a scheduled run and return trip daily. Cars will not need human drivers nor will trucks. It may be painful to think about it but it is happening right now. So far robotic cars are far safer than human driven cars. The law will soon enough require cars to be driven by computer. Insurance companies will push like crazy for robotics in cars making insurance too expensive for human drivers to purchase. As homes begin to gather their own solar energy the homes that do not generate their own power will have to pay for the entire grid. Disruption will be massive unless we prepare now.

        • You just hit on the big fallacy about the power grid.
          ALL of the solar panels in use are set up in such a way that if the power grid goes down, they stop generating power! It is a safety mode that prevents power workers from being electrocuted by the power being generated and fed back to the grid by solar panels. My parents have one of these systems, and when the power went out because of Hurricane Sandy, they lost power also, their solar panels were useless. You need to stop trying to live in the Buck Rogers fantasy world and deal with what is real. Your teachers are doing you no favors by filling your head with crap that is so far off in the future, and mostly not workable, that you can't think clearly, and won't be prepared for anything more than a McDonalds job when you get your degree.

          • No! You can choose not to connect to the grid at all. That means the power company has to hopscotch through the neighborhoods and that will raise the price for all those who do use the grid. In Florida we used to have solar hot water heaters way back to the end of the 19th. century. Now we have solar water heaters making a strong comeback and solar electric making inroads as well. We have an outrageous amount of sunshine here.

          • So, what do the people that don't have our sunshine do if they're not hooked up to the grid?
            I grew up in NJ and winters there are mostly overcast and gray. If you aren't hooked up to the grid, you're dead from the cold.

          • As dismal as New Jersey is Germany has you beat. Lack of sun and severe cold are legendary in Germany. Yet with either solar or wind they already derive more than half of all power consumed on some days and as a nation they just started getting serious about natural energy sources. Their power company operators are already threatening to shut down due to lack of profit potential due to sun and wind. In other words the US has been sitting on its haunches and doing far too little due to right wing politics.

          • Consider the size of Germany. Also, since they only get 1/2 the power they need on "some days" it is hardly a great choice.
            We need an immensely larger infrastructure to make it viable, and they have yet to figure out how to stop the slaughter of bats and birds by he windmills.
            When you leftists can figure that out, let me know.

          • Germany ain't tiny.. Its a whole lot bigger then Texas

            I don't believe they are generating 50% of their total power either, on any given day.. I thought it peaks around a 1/4 to a 1/3, and that's not very often. That could just be non-bird killing solar though

            Still, its pretty impressive

            edit: I'm a dumbass.. Texas is a bigger.. i compared euro km to murican miles

          • Genetic algorithms permit for the assembly of code unwritten by human programmers. This had been going on for many years, and in many cases, the evolved software operates in ways both unfathomable to and more efficient then what human engineers accomplish.

            Till now, the scope of what these evolutionary constructs cover has been very limited, but that changes as computation improves and more complex criteria can be used to judge code fitness. The progression is quite clear, over time. Even now robotics is being improved by GA inputs into structural design.

            AI will happen. Markets will fuel this. But I still don't think we can idly sit back, as a species, and permit complete automation of entire economies, while we just play consumer.

            Damn I just described Wall-E

          • Computer learning algorithms have advanced to a point where some self learning of computers-robots already exists. There are also programs that use Darwinian methods such that experimental equations do not survive unless they come closer to the desired out put. By grafting code from one successful piece of code to other successful pieces of code new abilities emerge. In some cases the coding is so abstract and obscure that no human understands why the code works. The point being that it does work and that is all that matters. There is a TED lecture extant on the motion of double pendulums which has been solved by such a self generated computer program that no human had ever been able to solve.

          • It really doesn't take a Buck Rogers fantasy world to note that solar panels don't have to be connected to the power grid

            I have a hippy lesbian academic in-law who lives outside Dragoon with all her professor friends as neighbors on shared land.. There's no power grid there for miles

          • When I had solar and wind power at my home in the desert, it was completely separate from the grid power. The entire idea of it was to provide me with power while the grid was down, which was fairly often in that area.

            When the grid was working, I just used the solar and wind to decrease my electricity bill.

        • Do you really want to talk about the creation of wealth? Take a peek at our oceans and figure if the damage done equals all wealth generated in the last two hundred years. How about those dead from pollution and the cancers and other disorders caused by pollution? How about American cities like Detroit that now look like war zones? How about the largest prison system in the world? How about a grossly inflated population of obese people? How about endless wars fought over oil and other resources? If you ad up the negatives human activity has been wealth negative for several hundred years. And the proof is the low value of your money. It now takes ten dollars to buy what five cents would cover in 1890. Can you imagine a prime steak dinner with all the extras for a quarter? These days that meal might be over seventy dollars for one person and it would not be served by formal waiters either.

          • What does the oceans have to do with inflation?
            the reason everything costs more is based on many factors, not the least of which is people always wanting more money for their labor, ie the minimum wage. Then there is government regulation, that makes the cost of doing business much more expensive. In the 1890's we didn't have the EPA, the FDA, the USDA, etc, etc, etc. EVERY one of those government programs have caused the cost of everything to go up. Then there is the cost of gasoline/diesel. The cost of government taxes on a gallon of fuel is the single most costly part of the price of fuel. Since Obama has been in office, he has been keeping his promise of making the cost of energy "skyrocket", and he has been blaming it on the oil companies. Well, if he wouldn't be so damned insistant on stopping oil drilling, and allowing more refineries to be built, the cost of fuel would be much lower.

        • The current model is sick. First it requires perpetual growth. That in turn requires having a huge population that is always expanding. So we have excess diseases, excess social chaos, huge pollution issues, stress, crime and a host of evils that do not leap to mind.
          So how do we limit population growth, eliminate tyranny and stop the endless nonsense of playing gotcha with minorities and people weaker than ourselves?

        • Ohman, scary thought. Please, please tell me that's not SheWho's supervisor and they're taking her place until they train a replacement.

        • Is the justice system race based or is based upon poverty? The poor get whacked in the justice system regardless of race.

          • Actually, this MIGHT be the only thing "gloybe2" is on the right track on. The late Jonny Cochran said after the OJ trial that the color of justice is not black or white, it's green. You're innocent until you're broke.

          • In Ft. Lauderdale there is a ghetto that is somewhat easy to surround. The local cops frequently simply stop every car entering the area in the wee hours and they make a lot of arrests. To those that live inside that ghetto it feels like a racial program. But the simple fact is that the ghetto is filled with poor people and poor people commit crimes to get by in life. The cops also arrest a lot of white folks entering that area and it usually turns into people either looking for hookers or dope. It is efficient by the measure of the number of arrests per dollar spent for the cops.

          • They don't commit crime to get by, they do it because they are looking for an easy way to make money. If they put as much effort into getting an education and a job, they would be much better off, but that isn't accepted in their community. They would be called an "Uncle Tom" or accused of trying to pass as white. That is something they do to themselves.

          • Maybe because they think they can make a living by stealing from those who actually work for a living?

          • No, there couldn't possibly be any real relation between numbers of people in jail, and numbers of people that commit crime. That's silly.

          • The more laws you pass the more inmates you get. The geniuses in my county arrest people for holding a sign that says help I need work or help I am hungry. Since we have quite a few with 30 day jail sentences for "holding a sign" we can actually reduce our inmate count simply by getting rid of that law. Palm Beach County is even worse. there it is illegal to feed the homeless. So if you are in the park and you have a few hot dogs left on the barbeque you will be busted for giving them to the poor, The city sees it like feeding pigeons. The more you feed the more flock around you. So in the end it comes down to would I rather hand these guys 25K a year to live on their own or would I rather hand the jail 35K a year to keep them under wraps.

          • Well, in my county they had to put in an ordinance to stop the damned panhandlers from blocking intersections and bothering people at traffic lights. They are a traffic hazard and have been caught menacing people for money.
            BTW, I live in Florida also, on the Gulf Coast.
            Giving them 25k a year is a sure way to draw even more worthless bums here, and the drug and drunken fool problem is bad enough without paying them to do it!

          • The point is what does it cost you to do things the way they are done right now. Obviously it costs all of us a fortune. Handing them 25K a year just might be better. They will spend that money in stores like we all do. They also will have no need of begging and many agencies that we pay large sums to now could close their doors. And since 25K is not big money these folks might stay in states that are far cheaper to live in than Florida.

          • Well Alien, since people on welfare make much more than many working folks, I'd consider that. But there would have to be a like reduction in taxes to go along with it, to offset the increase in the price of goods because of the wage increase.

          • i'd much rather experiment with a simultaneous steady rise in minimum wage, while lowering welfare benefits, rather then just handing out more money for nothing.. I keep thinking the incentive structures need to be flipped (something like the Australian model)

  • Next on the agenda: the Swiss gov't will establish a Department of Window-Breaking to really boom the economy.

  • The proposal is, in part, the brainchild of a German-born artist named Enno Schmidt

    So, now economic policy is being dictated by artists?
    How long before military and diplomatic policy will be dictated by preschoolers?

  • The Swiss should just mint a few 1 trillion coins as recommended by the economic geniuses at NYT. Plenty of money then to hand out to everone. All economic problems solved.

    • Keep in mind that the Swiss public is measurably superior in mathematics compared to the public in the USA. A knee jerk reaction is that paying a person not to work just can't work out. Yet we have paid farmers not to farm for decades. Then consider that technology really is eliminating jobs rapidly. So would you prefer welfare, which works poorly, or simply handing out real paychecks? If these displaced persons do not have means to get by then you will pay more to keep them in prison and the wreck path they create trying to survive without money Give a better path if you can.

      • So would you prefer welfare, which works poorly, or simply handing out real paychecks?

        How is "handing out paychecks" different than welfare?
        If someone can get a paycheck for no other reason than that they are breathing, they won't work. That is the model for the modern welfare system, and why everyone is clamoring to get on the dole. You have more people trying to get SS Disability than are looking for a job!

        • There is a hypnotic effect holding people back from really thinking. Business and government as well can only do well when the consumer does well. The schmuck on the sidewalk who spends his money in fast food joints is vital to the economy even more than major corporations are of value. If you lift up the buyer you lift up the seller. Technology is eliminating buyers. Therefore we must find a way of creating buyers. Those buyers will spend their checks according to what products they desire so business will still have to compete even if those businesses have no human workers or even human management. Following current models even a stockholder could be a robot. Most people do not see that this issue is now occurring and that if we do not change our social policies chaos will follow.

          • You have to stop listening to your teachers. They have ZERO real world experience and can only work with failed theory. It's like Socialism. They think the only reason it keeps failing is because it hasn't been done right. Hint: It is being done right, it just can't be done successfully.

      • "So would you prefer welfare, which works poorly, or simply handing out real paychecks?

        Your premise that paychecks are just handed out is troubling. Technology and innovation have always created displacement and in free markets; those workers then move to where there is a market for their labor. Today we are over taxed and over regulated which squashes demand for labor. That is, in essence, the self-fulfilled prophesy of the progressive welfare state.

        Farmers are paid not to grow not because it is welfare but it is because the fear of collapsing food prices, which would lead to farms failing financially. I think it is an insane policy that is predicated upon the existence of a fixed economy that won't ever expand.

        • If you don't think paychecks are just handed out look at Congress. How many congressmen are actually worth even a minimum wage paycheck? The Army used to have quite a few disaster type people getting paid as well. At one point they would take in a recruit who was useless and had a wife and four kids. Such individuals were assigned duties such as watching a pump, pump water, miles from any other troops on bases within the US. I've seen trades people working in school systems that were beyond useless and managers that were actually dangerous to the survival of children. Yet if you fire these people you still end up paying them one way or another.

        • We simply can not use past models to guide our thinking. This is a situation that has never taken place in all of history. We are looking at the elimination of effectively all employment. My local schools now have classes run by computers rather than teachers. Think about it. One teacher of eighth grade American history can now teach in every school in the nation because of computers. In other words we are on the edge of eliminating education as an industry. Robotics is now beginning replacement of surgeons, pilots, military and more.

          • Teachers are simple to replace with computers. Their job requires no critical thinking skills. All of the other jobs you mention are not able to be replaced by robots. They may use robots or computers in the work, but they still require people to operate them because they need someone that can make a rational decision in an emergent situation. Robots can only do what they're programmed to do.
            If you want something to give you pause, watch the movie War Games with Matthew Broderick. It's from the 1980s, but shows the problems with letting a computer do your thinking for you.

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