I've been through this since 1984. I recognize the walk and the talk.

If he could, he would replace every worker except himself with AI.

That's basically true. But some people might make it even if most are screwed based on the choices they make. And that number who survives could be higher based on the choices society makes.

Global population will begin to decline in 2080.

However, the population of people 40 and under *has already peaked* and is declining. That means *not enough people working* to pay for benefit programs for people over 60 starts *today* .

So you are not having kids-- big whoop. Basically you are saying, "after me the deluge"

Population growth is occurring because of improved medical care and longer lifespans. But having 5 billion seniors, 2 billion adults, and 1 billion kids isn't going to be healthy.

I'm going to move on now. I can tell you are a flat-earther type. Further discussion with you is pointless.

This was a typo: "I think these are tilted apostrophe's instead of hyphens."
It should have said, "I think these are tilted (leading and trailing) apostrophes instead of vertical apostrophes."

I think my editor *automatically* makes this adjustment because it's a word processor.

You could replace "mosquitoes" in that headline with polio, smallpox, measles, AIDS, malaria, or any one of a thousand different pathogens. No one is agonizing over eradicating them.

Except RFK Jr.

So Who'll .. do the tough jobs

I think that for most use-UBI-to-deal-with-AI advocates, the premise is that robots will do that, and presumably would already be doing it by the time UBI is enacted.

If this is a problem (i.e. robots can't do it yet, or they can't do it as economically as humans), then you're not in a post-work situation yet, so you can't have a post-work utopia yet.

Keep improving those robots! You're not done until unemployment is over 90%, and ideally not until 100% though that may be asymptotic.

What does *he* envision a hypothetical scenario where AI has taken over an extremely large amount of the labor?

Your question wouldn't make any sense to him or any other Trump supporter. Let me rephrase it so that it can be answered by MAGA.

What does he envision, in a scenario where the people Trump currently steals from, no longer have anything to steal? How does a thief find new victims once the old ones are used up?

I think the best MAGA answer to that, is that someone will own the AIs, and reap the "wages" that the AIs earn. Steal from them, because they'll have something to steal. AI will be no different than anything else which changes the distribution of prey: you just gotta keep up with who and where the prey are.

If people boycotted the expensive software options for one year and slammed the IRS with paper forms, this would be reversed post haste.

If we did that, do you know how much it would inconvenience every House member and Senator?

None at all. Their lives will be as damaged as a bulldozer that just ran over Arthur Dent.

Reforming the tax code will cause some people to pay less tax and some other people to pay more.

Whatever your approach, the people who would end up paying more, think your "reform" idea is stupid and evil. I don't remember all their detailed criticisms, but their overall tone was clearly unfavorable.

They hate it. They hate you. Why didn't you make someone else pay more instead?

Why complain about making it easier for them to give it back to you?

Because when Intuit contributes to my political campaign, they tell me they wish it was harder.

(Okay, I take that back: there's one version in which I'd be okay with them lionizing Sam, but it'd have to involve actual lions)

I just hope they're not going to lionize Sam. That's the last thing we need. He pulled a classic sociopath-style manipulation to retain his position in the face of legitimate concerns about his abuse of power in the company.

There's little point in this, if manufacturers can obey this law and yet still have maintenance remain illegal due to federal law.

Can I take this as a sign that a major party is rethinking their up-to-now support for DMCA?

Life is WAY better after the industrial revolution than it was before it.

People have this fantasy image of what life used to be like, thinking of picturesque farms, craftsmen tinkering in workshops, clean air, etc. The middle ages were filth, you worked backbreaking labour long hours of the day, commonly in highly risky environments, even the simplest necessities cost a large portion of your salary, you lived in a hovel, and you died of preventable diseases at an average age of ~35 (a number admittedly dragged down by the fact that 1/4th of children didn't even survive a single year).

If it takes people of similar social status as you weeks of labour to produce the fibre for a set of clothes, spin it into yarn, dye it, weave it, and sew it, then guess what? It requires that plus taxes and profit weeks of your labour to be able to afford that set of clothes (and you better believe the upper classes were squeezing every ounce of profit from the lower class they could back then). Decreasing the amount of human labour needed to produce things is an immensely good thing. Furthermore, where did that freed up labour go? Into science, into medicine, into the arts, etc etc. Further improving people's quality of life.

And if your response is "But greater production is more polluting!" - I'm sorry, do you have any understanding of how *miserably* polluted cities in the middle ages were? Where coal smoke poured out with no pollution controls, sewage ran straight into rivers that people collected water from and bathed in, where people extensively used things like arsenic and mercury and lead and asbestos, etc etc? The freed-up labour brought about by the industrial revolution allowed us to *learn* and to *fix problems*.

Meh, you do you. I'm rooting for the Torment Nexus.