Wednesday, 20 December 2017

UK Conservatives to replace Labour's anti-robot dystopia with pro-robot Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR)

quote [ Alan Mak, Conservative Member of Parliament for Havant: The world is witnessing an unprecedented fusion of new technologies that blur the traditional boundaries between the physical, digital and biological spheres. As Conservatives, we must be the first to respond – and help Britain get to the future first. Ensuring Britain leads the 4IR is the greatest economic opportunity – and challenge – of our generation, and we mustn’t let Labour steal a march on us. While Jeremy Corbyn plots nationalisation and taxing robots, we must plan for productivity. ]

Robots should be welcomed by human managers and VR executives instead of being taxed and threatened by picketing unemployed humans.

To avoid hotlinking a PDF, the main link goes to some short blog about Alan Mak's brochure that includes the wonderful, actually non-satirical, cover art.

Filed under Dystopian Violence since apparently Mak hopes to avert violence against robots that would occur under Labour's dystopian vision of robot taxation.
[SFW] [dystopian violence] [+2]
[by Ankylosaur@10:52pmGMT]

Comments

moriati said @ 10:49am GMT on 21st Dec [Score:2 Underrated]
Shift the basis of tax on business from labour utilised to resource / energy / water consumption. If the same innovation and investment that has been applied to improving labour productivity was applied to increasing resource productivity then economic growth could be decoupled from resource consumption and associated environmental degradation.

p.s. Merry Christmas to all
bbqkink said @ 5:43am GMT on 21st Dec [Score:1 Classy Pr0n]
conception said @ 11:40pm GMT on 20th Dec
Taxing robots seems like bad policy since we should encourage the use of automation and technological prowess. If there is a more efficient way to make something other than people using their hands to make or do it, that's rad.

If it puts people out of a job, perhaps permanently as a result of age and skill set or other factors, then its up to society to use some of the gains from the technological progress to make sure people don't fall down in the cracks.

You just tax the corporate profits and provide for the people put out. You probably don't even need to change the rate probably since the increased automation will lower margins and increase profits anyway.

You just don't cut social security nets and corporate taxes while the human is being invented out of blue collar work.
foobar said @ 12:33am GMT on 21st Dec
Doesn't work if all the profit "happens" in Ireland.
conception said @ 8:14pm GMT on 21st Dec
I mean, there are lots of things to fix with corporate tax structure but that's a different issue.
Hugh E. said @ 1:24pm GMT on 21st Dec
Isn't "use some of the gains from the technological progress to make sure people don't fall down in the cracks." what "taxing robots" means?
conception said @ 8:12pm GMT on 21st Dec
It is potentially just a semantics issue - but there is, for instance, a difference in taxing, say, the use of oil vs the production of CO2.

What is a robot? What about software algorithms, do those count? When does a tool cross over into being a robot? etc etc

Just tax profits and don't worry about the regulation side.
Spyike said @ 11:58pm GMT on 20th Dec
Never heard of him, and after a bit of googling he appears to be a generic Tory, with a slightly greater than average interest in A) technology, B) self promotion. Shit like this is done to get noticed. He's a little squit.

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