Topic: Hypothetical question about Bitcoin and a unversal basic income. (Read 1300 times)

This is a very important topic. Thanks to OP.

We use bitcoin, We are the futurist geeks of society. It is our duty to think about the consequences of ‘fully automation’ to the society ( when I say ‘fully automation’ I meant “human out of loop” and the jobs that will disappear as consequence of that automation) 

I do believe that we should start with ethics. Since ethics are build blocks of social rules. (Etiquette, Law and Legislation, Politics, etc).

Thanks to franky1 for brought the general ethical guidance.
Btw anyone more interested about ethics I would suggest a free MOOC course from

University of Michigan
Data Science Ethics
https://www.edx.org/course/data-science-ethics-michiganx-ds101x-1   

I am following that course and I really enjoying it.

When talk about computers, AI, automation, etc I would like to do some analogies that maybe will remind Industrial Revolution and our beloved bitcoin economics  …. I will start my line of thought using Bitcoin Mining (Electricity Traders ?) as my entry point on the conversation and if the conversation involves I will post more comments ...

So my thoughts about automation (under Creative Commons (CC) license) ...

Bitcoin for Kids (a fairy tale book)

In the begin Satoshi had a job. Satoshi was a Bitcoin Miner … he used to mining bitcoin manually with a pencil and paper ..


Ref:  Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day
http://www.righto.com/2014/09/mining-bitcoin-with-pencil-and-paper.html
 
Before Him, his father, his great father .. great great father also was a bitcoin miner but used to mining with differents tools and the hashes per day was less than 0.00000067

Ref: The History of Computers
http://www.ptc.dcs.edu/moody/comphistory/comphistory_print.html

lol
there can be many ways.(again hypotheticals which can be fun if you allow yourself to think outside of the box)
take for instance that each block reward per school is not based on just making a block. but based on school test result(data in a block) totals giving a block value.
EG imagine a school of 1000 pupils and if they all got an A on a weekly test (A represents lets say £20 'credits'/new money) the school can earn upto £20k block reward.
and if they all got an A- on a weekly test (A represents lets say £19.50 'credits'/new money) the school can earn upto £19.5k block reward.
and if they all got an B on a weekly test (A represents lets say £19 'credits'/new money) the school can earn upto £19k block reward.

so lets say on average the 1000 students average C grade. the school would get £18k

each school each week not only creates new money based on test results of students. but the 'value' AND test results can be verified publicly to ensure no test cheating occured. and it also incentivizes schools to try harder to teach kids to better themselves to get better grades thus more funding.

the value is then established because each students tests over their 10-15 years of school life could show they have earned the school upto £800 a year (£8k-£12k school life) which universities/employers could use the childs grades to value them as potential recruits for university/employment, and thus value changes hands

i can think of hundreds of hypotheticals of how to give a block reward transferable value.
but ultimately those school block rewards'student credits' would be fiat2.0 which by law would be legal tender.. and by law if you understand the archaic fiat system employers/retailers/debtors would need to transact in it, which is where 'fiat' has ultimately attained having value anyway

And what does it change?

You are still basically creating money out of thin air. I agree that you can hypothetically reduce mining costs to naught, but you won't be able to change the major, fundamental flaw of this setup. Namely, that the coins just created have no economic validation behind their coming into existence. With fiat, as long as government doesn't abuse the system, new money is created by the banks via credit, i.e. the whole process has at least some economic justification supporting the issuance of new money (validated by the demand from the economic entities)

imagine that 'mining' was not 20 pools competing to win where the aim of the game is to outpower each other.
but imagine each school just had 1PoW miner and they work in unison to lock data in and the funds are distributed through the treasury.
yep each school/hospital just had 1PoW mining node. where there is no benefit in a school/hospital to run more than 1node

we wont be having 20 pools with ~ 20,000asics per pool(10k-50k range per pool) = 400k asics
it would be more like UK having 25000 asics spread over 25000 locations(1asic per location)

P.S i knew about promissory notes(credit agreements) over a decade ago(2007 events enlightened me) and how they are the archaic fiat money creation mechanism

The sleep of reason produces monsters

And sick imagination produces even more ugly ones. If you really understand what I mean, then you should see that your imagination is drawing only a perverted reflection of reality (that's what any imagination basically does). As I told you, mining is just another perverted and ugly method of creating money out of thin air (well, by wasting resources). Until you address this issue somehow (with or without imagination), your whole idea is meaningless and pointless. In fact, it is just stillborn

first of all
you have to learn why people cant get jobs. you will find that thse people who you call bums usually have a health issue or two which makes keeping a job difficult. then when having problems holding down a job, some find that the issues and stresses of signing on for 'job support' benefits is beyond their mental capabilities so they end up being left outside of social security.

if you take away the snobbery of fox news and media protrayal of homeless and start actually addressing the problem properly you will see that its not as simple as 'just get a job'

take for instance.. veterans.. good work history, shows they follow orders, organised even willing to risk their lives for an income.. yet there are reasons why veterans end up being homeless and starve to death.

its not just about "get a job"
now imagine. that without it being TAX.. the treasury(public funds) could pay for social securities and health and education without... (i am going to emphasis this for the Nth time) without TAX

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second of all
the amount of "tax" that goes to pay for unemployment is such a small percentage of the treasury budget that just the interest rate alone covers it

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thirdly
im not just talking about unemployment. im talking about pensions and public sector funded housing/elderly care homes/ health. so dont try to turn it into a snobby debate about the poor must be scum if they need help.

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fourthly for emphasis
so dont try to turn it into a snobby debate about the poor must be scum if they need help. my hypothetical is about taking "tax" away from the debate. by making pblic sector issues self funded.. not tax funded. so snobby comments about tax burdens dont even come into the debate

What you fail to notice is that you don't need a lot of money to have electricity for your bulb and a heater and that toast in the morning. Anyone can afford it by spending just a few hours a day doing something productive. If they can't get those few cents to pay their bill, they won't get more to improve their lifestyle. They are alive, so they are eating something and living somewhere. What makes you think that supporting these needs will make homeless bums pursue a better life?

i actually do understand

again this topic is about hypotheticals.
meaning you can stretch the imagination beyond the limited concepts of wall street.

imagine something new. something that actually solves problems.

if you just try to change crypto to fit wall street world you are failing the point of crypto.. but if you try to change the world to fit crypto then many beneficial things can happen

think deeper than just standard fiat world

here ill give you a magic wand.
(___(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((___()

here ill also give you a ladder so you can get out of the box
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now pretend you could do anything, and come up with hypotheticals of how things could change for the better.
remember its hypothetical. so dont limit yourself to the old archaic rules.. free your mind

Like they are giving to unemployed people in the UK and other countries, and then they stop looking for work... because it is just easier not to

work and suck other people's income from taxes? These systems are not working... just look at what happened when the Berlin Wall came down..

most people from the East side became lazy and when the wall came down, they were not used to the fast pace of the West. { or so the stories

are told }

Economically, that would be six of one and half a dozen of the other

In fact, it would be even worse than inflation tax (via outright printing excessive amounts of money) since when government prints money, it just enters figures in their spreadsheet on a Central bank server without much ado and beating about the bush. Thus, it doesn't damage the environment by burning electricity to mine coins, while mining coins via block rewards is basically the same printing money out of thin air (with terrible waste of resources at that). In short, you obviously don't understand how money works and on which principles it is created. Strictly speaking, banks don't create money out of thin air, they create credit but they can't do it unless there are borrowers. No borrowers no money, no money no honey

Don`t even put bitcoin and universal basic income in one sentence.
We don`t need automation and robotics because we have cheap labor in China and the third world.

It could depend on how you contribute to the community. Some people won't need that much income because robots take care of them. Some people will need more income because they handle decisions that robots cannot (such us what robots to make next) and therefore could need additional income to fund the new plans.

1. this whole topic is about hypotheticals. so feel free to expand your mind beyond the walls and rules of wall street.
2. its not about more money for everyone. its about ensuring everyone has a minimal SURVIVAL amount
3. my hypothetical is not about everyone gets a lifestyle income to go on non-stop vacation because money is meaningless.. its about everyone has a basic SURVIVAL amount to not starve/freeze to death.
4. my hypothetical is not about being funded via tax. its about taking the 'money creation' away from corporate banks. and making money creation occur in the public sector.(government treasury only funded by blockrewards) thus no tax is required to fund the vulnerable, which is actually a tax reduction, not hike


imagine it. no corporate banks. only public sector mining pools. no transaction fee's(tax) only block rewards

Your basic assumption is false

That's why your whole question is meaningless as such (no offense intended). There will never be such a day when humans will have nothing to do (which is what your point boils down to). And it is not so much about automation and robotics as about human nature as such. For example, primates (which are said to be our closest relatives) are already doing essentially nothing all day long even without automation of any kind. Therefore there is no reason to think that automation is going to change anything in this respect. We will always find some obstacles or hurdles to get ourselves busy with overcoming them

What's required for a miners to exist? Transactions. Who would want to buy, hodl, and spend some coin for your local community outside of your local community? Would that small volume be enough to support the currency and therefore generate the rewards from mined blocks to fund the public services?

Most areas of the world already have welfare assistance...what does Universal Basic Income do that welfare programs are lacking? And please don't tell me that UBI would be more money for every person, because if that's what it is then it's just a fancy world for a tax hike. And that's fine, but let's call it what it is.

your thinking too fiat-minded.

imagine every school hospital and emergency service was the 'mining pool' of a new fiat coin.
the rewards pay for the public services and the wages of public servants trickle out the funds to the wider economy.

no more 'banker' money creation. but 'public service' money creation.
basically a trickle UP economy. not a trickle down

Every tax dollar the state collects is spent.

This means new programs like universal basic income can only be funded through tax hikes.

Whenever politicians discuss "new programs" (that are unfunded), it means they must raise taxes to collect funding.

Universal basic income can only be funded through tax hikes on those with jobs.

My approach would need a coloured coin (e.g. realized with OpenAssets or with the Rootstock platform) that has constant inflation (e.g. 1000 coins/day) and is distributed in another way than block rewards.

That coloured coin would be distributed in a random way according to geographical location. So every point in the world, measured by latitude and longitude, would have the same probability to get a "reward".

The idea behind it is that a "universal basic income" in an anonymous and trustless way in Bitcoin is not possible because of sybil attacks - you would need something like an "authority" or a "state" for it. But an decentralized income based on geographical location is roughly equivalent, because in regions with similar population density every person living there would have the same probability to "catch" a reward, e.g. with a client in their smartphone. Rewards that are not claimed (because nobody is near the location that got it) would be burnt.

A problem is location spoofing, but I think it can be managed if the amounts are small enough to make spoofing more expensive than the rewards you could get.

Crazy? Possibly

where have i even said once that the funds should come from taxing people. or theft.
my theory of new fiat. it would be the NEW money.. starts at the bottom and trickles up... not starts at the top and trickles down

imagine if all the public services and social services/care was funded via block rewards. thus 'tax' is not of concern

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im not talking about a basic lifestyle. im talking about a survival amount.
not a 50"tv broadband,
not free electric to run a cinema 24/7 along with a houseparty..
not full english breakfast, a roast lunch and a takeaway evening meal

im saying a survival amount
just 5 hours of electric a day, to run 1 lightbulb at a time in the evening and enough to make toast in the morning and heat up an evening basic meal in a microwave
basic meals like toast for breakfast a chicken salad sandwich for lunch and something simple and basic in the evening

as for your "breeders will breed in greater numbers".. seems you have been reading the snobby media that exaggerates things to make the banking disaster of 2008 some how the poors fault for syphoning funds.

here in the UK the 'lazy people' account for under £2bill, not even 1% of the treasury(and even that is using exaggerated numbers) yet the government hands over £45bill to banks, £30 billion to corporations(atleast)

anyway my theory
take that snobby 'burden' away from tax payers by making the money creation cover all the public services with a trickle up not a trickle down monetary policy.

It would take years before we can eliminate the 50% workforce, i think bitcoin should stay the way it should and let fiat currencies handle those things.
If that scenario does occur in the future the income that the robot would make goes to the owner and also with the taxes there maybe also some  intances that the robots get hijack and income that was made it stolen what will happen to the user starve to death?