Hi Duane
Everything we do, or don't do, as individuals or as societies has trade-offs right?
Yang is stating that the UBI MUST come with NO strings attached, other than if you are already getting equivalent benefits (not including Social Security for one). That is, that such a benefit must be universally thought of as an individual's birthright as a member of society. Hence, there is no social stigma that can attach. As such, there are many existing aid programs that people might opt out of, in favor of the UBI, as these existing programs have such constant surveillance reporting and such.
It's perfectly natural to expect that anyone proposing such as this might have ulterior bait and switch motives. But don't we have this problem constantly? My daddy went to war and fought for our Freedom, .... but did he really do the latter? My daddy did NOT know where the Nazis were getting their funds from.
In the larger context Yang is saying that we need to massively retool our relationships and mindsets to the social order. This is why I suggest that we reimpose slavery, making both robots and corporations our slaves. The latter require undoing what the Supreme Court did in the late 19th century by making corporations literal supercitizens. And in doing so, we can still let individuals, companies, and corporation profit, only all of us have subordinate benefits. Of which, such as the UBI allow for a trickle-up economy that benefits even the rich.
To resist such is really defending the retrograde, traditional crony benefits engrained in the Bible. First, as the inherited benefits of the nobility and royalty (with presumed merits, frequently not borne out (pun intended)), and then followed up by the various disproportional benefits of the crony capitalist system that
incestuously evolved out of the prior. As I have explained elsewhere, this is why, when you look under the rug of Libertarianism and such as Ayn Rand, one will find such as the Crypto-Monarchists (aka traditionalist Catholics) employing their various egalitarian freedom rhetoric, all the while knowing that the system does not provide anything near to equal opportunity and access to success.
Since Roman times we've let people create the legal fiction of a 'corporate' entity under rather surprisingly little burdens, under the rationale that their economic activities will benefit society at least indirectly if not directly. All well and fine, however, such mechanisms allow for massive imbalances in social equity to accrue, sooner or later. The former serfs cum factory workers thus found that the only option for them was to organize to attempt achieving a balance. This at the cost of blood and lives, as the 'police' (and the military) almost always answer to where the money is concentrated. And today, since Reagan's changes, the Democrat elites, at least, have placed themselves firmly at the beck and call of corporate interests. Just like we have been discussing on other threads about the confusion and conflation of the terms Christian and Chrestian and similar, the term Liberal, which once applied 'most' American Fathers, is treated as a pejorative by the 'Right', which is being cleverly steered by the Crypto-Monarchists.
People are talking about banning things like automation, so as to protect workers from doing such mind numbing things like installing nuts and bolts or preparing basic legal documentation, etc.. The problem is, other societies will not take this approach and they will do better. So, as Yang says, we should embrace our new slaves (who will 'love' their burdens) and all profit from it, however you best see fit. So make this a Constitutional requirement.
And, if you don't like a self-driving auto don't get one. I do see utility in retaining a traditional vehicle, and many see that such as families would retain one, while employing self-driving vehicles, owned variously for other needs.
Capitalist competition will force companies to eliminate most truck drivers, and we'll all be better off for it. Computers, while not perfect, don't get sleepy, or need drugs, or make rash judgement errors. If you live in even a small city, you can see how smart phones have lowered the quality of human drivers collectively. And some people could never drive well (for various reasons) in any case.
(those who) LORD(over you) Giveth, Will be the ones who will use it to control you by threatening to take it away
The religious Patriots (the only kind in their minds) love to "LORD it over us" by how much they revere Life, but they have no regard for what happens after a sacred baby pops out of the birth canal. For them, it is rather Survival of God's Chosen Du Jour, not Survival of the Fittest. And, sardonically, God's Chosen Du Jour has little if any moral bearing.
So, if someone threatens to take away your, or anyone else's, UBI, then upon due process they should become traditional outlaws, and you are authorized to hunt them down ... for a bounty of course.
BTW, allowing ourselves new robo and corporate slaves will make the Second Amendment properly justified again, as it was passed to allow slaveowners of yore to protect themselves from uppity slaves.