Thread by @scottsantens

There's a new book coming out in April with an urgent call for Universal Basic Income. It's titled "The War on Normal People" (@WoNP_Book) and the author is @AndrewYangVFA. It's a must-read! Stay tuned to this thread for excerpts.

Pre-order: amzn.to/2iRRByv #BasicIncome

Here's the Table of Contents to get an idea of just how many important points this book covers, and the fact it also offers real and entirely necessary solutions like Unconditional Basic Income as America's Freedom Dividend. Make no mistake, we need UBI ASAFP.

#BasicIncome #UBI

"A wave of automation and job loss is no longer a dystopian vision of the future - it's well underway. The numbers have been telling a story for a while now that we have been ignoring… this is the most pressing economic and social issue of our time."

Exactly.

#BasicIncome #UBI

Markets don't want to provide for unemployed truck drivers or cashiers. Uber is going to get rid of its drivers as soon as it can. Its job isn't to hire people - its job is to move customers around as efficiently as possible.

It's time to rethink working to exist.

#BasicIncome

"We are already on the edge of dystopia... We need to establish an updated form of capitalism... We must make the market serve humanity rather than humanity serve the market." -@AndrewYangVFA

#BasicIncome

Technological unemployment is already here and it is decimating local economies and cultures across the US. The market is turning on us, and it's up to us, to make technology work for all of us instead of against most of us. We need Unconditional #BasicIncome, and we need it NOW.

If you were born in the 1940s, your odds of doing better than your parents was 92%. Decades later, with productivity more than double what it was then, with incredible new tech, if you were born in 1990, flip a coin to find out if you'll do better than your parents.

#BasicIncome

"The share of GDP going to wages has fallen from almost 54% in 1970 to 44% in 2013, while the share going to corporate profits went from about 4% to 11%."

Those who think #BasicIncome is "free money" need to look up, not down, to see that work isn't paying, but owning sure is.

"Although the seriousness of the situation has not reached the mainstream yet, the average American is in deep trouble. Many Americans are in danger of losing their jobs right now due to automation. Not in 10 or 15 years. Right now."

#BasicIncome

There are already people in homeless shelters whose jobs have been automated, and this is only the beginning. The "automation tsunami" is coming and without unconditional #basicincome, we are not even remotely prepared. We must make automation work for all of us, not just the 1%.

More department store workers lost their jobs over a span of 7 months than the total number of people still employed in the coal industry. Even the peak of the financial crisis did not see this many retail locations shutting their doors.

And now there's Amazon Go…

#BasicIncome

It's estimated that 400 malls will fail in the next few years, with hundreds more on the brink, where each lost mall means about 1,000 lost jobs leading to $22 million in total average lost wages to its local community. This is a result of both technology and insufficient income.

Many of our communities are going to have giant holes blasted in them by a level of technological progress never before seen, and if the answer is to turn everyone into software engineers, there is no hope but for the fortunate few. We must build a floor upon which all can stand.

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: The first candidate to run for President of the United States in 2020 on a platform of Universal #BasicIncome is the author of this thread's book, @AndrewYangVFA. He believes it's time we put humanity first. As a human, I agree.

"We're not trying to schedule our workers more efficiently. We're trying to replace them altogether."

"The robot arm is only going to get cheaper and more efficient, while the fast food wage has nowhere to go but up."

Automation is here. Think about it.

#basicincome

Despite manufacturing more stuff now than ever, more than 5 million manufacturing workers have lost their jobs since 2000 and 80% were due to automation. Did they all get new better jobs?

Nope. In reality, most exist now outside the workforce.

#BasicIncome #ReadAcrossAmericaDay

Self-driving trucks will save so much money in fuel savings, reduced labor costs, fewer accidents, and increased productivity that truck drivers could be given their current salaries on the condition they stop driving trucks, and we'd still save around $100 billion.

#BasicIncome

Self-driving trucks will be hugely disruptive. Millions of jobs exist because of humans driving around in trucks. Entire local economies depend on the consumption spending of truckers. In Nebraska, 1 out of every 12 jobs relies on the trucking industry. #BasicIncome is necessary!

I interrupt this tweet thread to urge you to pre-order this book coming out on April 3rd about automation and universal basic income (UBI).

Pre-order link: amzn.to/2Ag76Iw
Author's feed: @AndrewYangVFA
Presidential campaign's feed: @andrewyang2020
Book's feed: @WoNP_Book

Internal projections at Uber/Lyft predict that half of all rides will be automated in just 4 years. Meanwhile, 5% of Gulf War veterans work in transportation and 10% of truckers bought or lease their own truck. What happens when the anger of increasing economic insecurity builds?

If you think the level of automation made possible by AI advancements will only affect those in jobs like car/truck driving, you're in for an inconvenient truth. Everyone, yes even you, will be affected. AI will compete in the labor market against even the most skilled among us.