Mark Zuckerberg calls for exploring basic income in Harvard commencement speech

[applegrove]

Chris Weller at Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-basic-income-harvard-speech-2017-5

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In his Harvard commencement speech on Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg advocated exploring a system in which all people receive a standard salary just for being alive, no questions asked.

The system, known as universal basic income, is one of the trendiest economic theories of the past few years. Experiments in basic income have popped up in Kenya, the Netherlands, Finland, Canada, and San Francisco, California, among other places.

Basic-income advocates say the changing nature of work — from human labor to artificially intelligent robots — combined with rising wealth inequality signal the need for an overhaul of how money is distributed.

"We should have a society that measures progress not just by economic metrics like GDP, but by how many of us have a role we find meaningful," Zuckerberg told the crowd. "We should explore ideas like universal basic income to make sure everyone has a cushion to try new ideas."


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[TheBlackAdder]

1. That doesn't line up well with his sister's Lean In or his alignment with RW oligarchs. Lip service.

.

Bell Hooks does a feminist smackdown of Sheryl's Lean In for placating rich white women.

Mark is too busy sucking up to the 0.01%ers, while doing and saying token acts to make his data mining palatable.

.

[yallerdawg]

2. Robots don't buy shit.

"Many point to economic forecasts that say robots will displace much of the human workforce in the coming decades. A report from Oxford University in 2013, for instance, found that about 50% of jobs could be taken over within the next 10 to 20 years. A McKinsey report released in 2015 backed up that prediction, suggesting that today's technology could feasibly replace 45% of jobs right now."

Bots don't buy shit, either.

[JCanete]

3. Good for him. I hope we get more and more people with a platform to speak on its behalf, and

hopefully, one day soon, a candidate or two promoting it. Maybe a couple big contributions to such a candidate would be putting your money where your mouth is Zuck.

[applegrove]

4. Because back 10,000 years ago we all had access to nature if we

wanted to get industrious and put in the effort to get ahead. Now you can't do that in poor neighbourhoods. They are desserts. Giving people some money so they can get a cell phone, get an education or plan for the future is a great great thing.

[Blue_Tires]

5. Shorter headline: Zuckerberg Kicks Off 2020 Campaign at Harvard Commencement