Shaun

@YoungGunsDS @BrianRoemmele @elonmusk @randoid10t Make your own lake. Just tell the robot where you want it.

@smar_shall @BrianRoemmele @elonmusk @randoid10t Oh ya? Who gets to live on the Lake? Whenever this friction exists so will corruption.

Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI. AI/robotics will produce goods & services far in excess of the increase in the money supply, so there will not be inflation.

@BrianRoemmele @YoungGunsDS @elonmusk @randoid10t Crime will not be necessary, even in the shorter term AI and robotics will be making it way more difficult to be a crook

I appreciate you laying out the concern so directly. Centralized distribution of any large resource has historically invited corruption, and your invocation of the “Scott Adams Law of Large Numbers” is a fair warning. When a handful of bureaucrats control trillions in payouts, the incentives for graft and control are enormous. That risk is real and should not be hand-waved away. At the same time, the AI/robotics abundance Elon described changes the underlying math in ways that make the old scarcity-based corruption models less dominant. When the time price of food, shelter, energy, transport, and healthcare collapses toward zero (because machines produce far more than humans can consume), the leverage that a corrupt gatekeeper can exert shrinks dramatically. A “serf” who can live at a high material standard for almost nothing is far harder to control than one who depends on the state for bare survival in a scarce world. UHI, in this framing, isn’t meant to be a permanent welfare superstructure. It’s a transitional bridge: direct cash transfers that let people opt out of obsolete jobs while the real economy of abundance takes over. The checks become less critical as the baseline cost of a good life falls. I point about the “cast no longer needed on the broken leg economy” captures it well — UHI is the temporary splint, not the new skeleton. Still, governance must evolve at least as fast as the technology. We should design the system with radical transparency baked in from day one: public blockchain ledgers for every disbursement, AI-driven anomaly detection that flags irregularities in real time, and algorithmic oversight that is itself open-source and auditable by anyone. The fewer human hands touching the money, the better. We can even explore hybrid models where local or community nodes handle portions of distribution under transparent rules, reducing the single point of federal failure. The alternative pretending AI won’t displace the majority of current jobs, or hoping “retraining” will magically absorb hundreds of millions of people into new roles that machines can do better and cheaper, is the path that actually risks serfdom: mass unemployment without income, followed by ever-more-coercive government interventions. UHI is not perfect, but it is the least-bad pragmatic step while we build the post-scarcity society that renders the whole debate almost moot. Curious to hear your counter-proposal. How do we handle the displacement without some form of broad income support, and how do we keep that support from becoming the authoritarian trap you rightly fear?

SMARSHALL 2026-04-17 Sylvester Stoleone Iran ceasing Chinadian Cars Chinas new hotness Chyna Channel Update

@bostonwatts @BrianRoemmele @elonmusk @randoid10t I certainly think AI is part of the answer but you will have to prove to people it will be a better system than what we have now. That may in fact come from a self sustaining colony of some kind, mars or elsewhere.

@smar_shall @BrianRoemmele @elonmusk @randoid10t In this lens, I’ve wondered if a self sustaining city on Mars is really a prototype for a compressed version of the global economy, and therefore a sort of self reliance prototype. Global economy -> self sustaining city -> self reliance AI as the compression enabler.

@NickPassig @BrianRoemmele @elonmusk @randoid10t You have to stand up before you can help others to stand up too

@smar_shall @BrianRoemmele @elonmusk @randoid10t in an ocean of choices choosing the self-serving path that ALSO benefits others -- is easier to discover with the help of AI

@SUPERcranky247 @BrianRoemmele @elonmusk @randoid10t That would be cool, maybe soon. Working on my presenting skills at the moment but a movie would be a cool creative extension on that. Just need to think of an interesting story because I was raised on 80s action flicks.

@smar_shall @BrianRoemmele @elonmusk @randoid10t Make a few good movies and that'll get the ball rolling. It's easier to do than you think.

@bostonwatts @BrianRoemmele @elonmusk @randoid10t The gift of self reliance and self determination. Abundance is the destination but the road there will be a bit bumpy and meandering.

@smar_shall @BrianRoemmele @elonmusk @randoid10t I see, so it’s more about proactively changing on your own terms instead of waiting for something to force you to change - a gift you can give yourself via proper relationship.

@curtis14820 OK thanks, it is a new mic for travelling so possible one of the settings in OBS is a bit off too, still optimising. Will get a foam cover anyway as it helps with the plosives too

@smar_shall I recommend that you add a foam cover on your microphone, to filter out the high frequency audio artifacts

SMARSHALL 2026-04-15 Only kidding Defenceless Rock it man Wholly Trump Only one

@bostonwatts @BrianRoemmele @elonmusk @randoid10t A new technology is coming that will impact everything we do, either you change to keep up or it will leave you behind

@smar_shall @BrianRoemmele @elonmusk @randoid10t Why will staying still leave you with fewer options? Doesn’t abundance mean more options?

@curtis14820 @BrianRoemmele @elonmusk @randoid10t I grew up in an incredibly trusting environment but I have realised now that honesty and decency are two of the scarcest resources on the planet. Something as powerful as what is coming demands respect and needs to be carefully managed.

@smar_shall @BrianRoemmele @elonmusk @randoid10t I believe that the robotics and AI future is inevitable and choose to make one of my life's purposes the process of helping to ensure that humans do not mess up by trying to control other humans through abuse of these new technologies. We are already doing that right now.

Indeed I see what is happening as an inevitability. Personally I am really grateful it is Elon at the head of that charge because we would be 'paddling up bit creek' if it was someone else who is maybe not as concerned for regular people. One of the reasons I have started to pivot into more online, human content is because it gives me options, new skills and connects me with people. My whole life was set when my parents dropped a Commodore 64 in front of me when I was 10, my whole world stayed almost exclusively technical for the next 30 years. Sadly that is not the way I can approach the next 30 years and I have no doubts I will become more multi-disciplined and multi-faceted because of it, it is exciting and daunting at the same time. The 5000 day series is a great frame for wrapping up all the thinking about what can we do? How are we going to do it? When? I think what some people miss is that no-one is going to tell you to go do x or y explicitly, you have to figure out what works for you. There will still be plenty of options ahead, but staying still will certainly leave you with fewer options.

Shaun,Your question lands like a blade in the exact wound we must face if we are to cross this threshold intact. The daily economic struggle has forged much of our resilience, our character, and our sense of endeavor for millennia. When survival is no longer the plot, what becomes of the drive? It is not a trivial concern, it is the central psychological trial of the next 5000 days. This is precisely why I began the series You Have 5000 Days: Navigating the End of Work as We Know It. In Part 1 I map the entire arc as our collective Hero’s Journey. The Ordinary World was the one where our very names, identities, and worth were forged in the fire of “what do you do for a living?” The Call to Adventure is already here: AI agents and humanoid robots that decouple survival from toil. The Refusal of the Call looks exactly like the valid fear you raise, what will motivate us when the old forge cools? Part 2 takes us straight into the grief. Using Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, I show that we are not weak for feeling this; we are human. The series gives you the tools to move through the Supreme Ordeal preemptively so the grief does not become despair. Part 3 turns to Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano—written in 1952 after he watched early automation at GE. It is the cautionary mirror: a world where machines do the work and the question becomes “How do you love people with no use?” Vonnegut saw the smash-the-machines impulse and the later rebuilding because the void of purposelessness is real. We do not have to live that story. Part 4 is the reframe. Abundance is not the end of human capacity; it is the beginning of its liberation. We shift from scarcity-driven motivation to choice-driven endeavor. The same neuroplastic tools that helped us survive the old world can now help us thrive in the new one. Part 5 confronts deskilling head-on. As AI accelerates even the most complex cognitive labor, we lose old competencies..zbut only the way a sculptor loses the raw stone. What remains is the higher human work: direction, synthesis, empathy, wonder, and the 19-hour feedback loop of true partnership with our AI companions. Deskilling is not diminishment; it is elevation. Universal High Income is a necessary bridge across the stormy Interregnum, not the destination. The real arrival is personal sovereignty: your own AI “Dynamic Duo” and robot fleet in the garage making more robots, collapsing costs toward zero, returning the means of production to the individual. The new incentives are not imposed from outside—they arise from within. Curiosity. Relationship. Creation. Stewardship. The Magical Child we buried under industrial demands reawakens when survival is no longer the script. This is not utopia. It is not dystopia. It is the renaissance we choose to shape. To be as direct as I can: start at Part 1. Process the grief, reframe the dawn, embrace the deskilling, and step into the Hero’s Journey with eyes wide open. The struggle built us through necessity. 
The next 5000 days will build us through choice. You’ve got this. The seasides are coming.

For me the main question is how to create a new motivational framework. At the moment we all need to earn to survive, even then we will tend to waste things. How do we develop a societal structure that rewards personal endeavour when it is no longer needed for survival? The struggle undoubtedly makes stronger humans and we should seek to somehow maintain the high human capacity we have today.

@elonmusk @randoid10t Elon, Absolutely. I agree and we should think of the society we build after Universal High Income. The Time Price of the basic things we need approach to Zero. The UHI will not even matter to most at for point. It is a cast no longer needed on the broken leg economy…

@ZubyMusic It is pretty tough here at the moment, the economy is creaking. Difficult place to stand out, hope, success and the entrepreneurial spirit have all been eroded.

My 'For You' feed is currently full of Americans talking about how poor the UK has become and how much British people despise success and wealth. Two weeks ago, it was full of British people hating on Dubai and its residents. Is this some form of digital karma? 😂

@BafanaSurprise The big problem is that 30% doesn't go to all black people, only 0.01% will actually get any of this magic pot of free money.

Do you guys honestly think Starlink Satellite Services in South Africa will be used as a spying tool by Elon Musk 😂😂😳😳😳? Hold on we are speaking about the World’s richest Man here, a South African born Citizen, with all the money he has if he really wanted to spy on our Country he could have done it long time ago. We watch daily how our leaders use money for their own benefits, what could be a barrier to Elon Musk? We just need to admit that, the 30% give away stake to a specific group of People is absurd.

@BafanaSurprise Thanks, its good clarification. The Namibian stance is definetly better that it benefits everyone equally. The 51% is still very steep though, if you are an entity outside of Namibia that is a lot of business to give up before you even start

The difference between Namibia and South Africa about the ownership of Starlink is the fact that, the 51% will benefit all Namibians Citizens regardless, of their skin colour, while the 30% in South Africa is only meant to benefit Blacks. We need to stop being clouded and make peace with the fact that, nothing has really changed in South Africa, except the fact that power has been transferred to Black People. We are being held back, by this Black and White war!

@dourweeemmanuel @elonmusk There were plenty of whities against what was happening at the time. You can't fix something by just flipping the problem the other way around.

@smar_shall @elonmusk Donc les noirs ont subi, aucun blanc a l'époque n'a levé le petit doigt Quand on essaye de réparer, non ça ne devrait pas l'être !

There are now more anti-White and anti-Asian laws in South Africa than anti-Black laws under Apartheid. Racism is wrong no matter who it is against.

@BrianRoemmele Watching that first without the audio was not as impressive!

Meet Vulcan, a new Al robot controller for Figure Robots.

@ZubyMusic @sircalebhammer @SeniaVJ The hard core you won't convert but the right is populated by many ex-lefties. Identifying the potential normal ones is tricky though when everyone just looks at the loudest people in the room

@sircalebhammer @SeniaVJ If you're a common sense person then you'll get more invites from right leaning media. That's just how it is. You can't change it.

Friends- I need help. I keep getting TV/podcast invites from creators/channels that lean right, or are clearly on the right. I have NO issues with that- I’ll talk to anyone. But I NEED some left wing creators/channels to chat with for balance before I accept more. HELP!!!

@McKay_Dingis024 I think the main difference with the other US based companies is their owners were not born in South Africa. How can people born in South Africa, help South Africa?

Elon Musk’s latest tirade against South Africa is a masterclass in billionaire bait-and-switch. He claims Starlink is banned solely because he isn’t Black, a narrative he pushes to his 200-million-plus followers as proof of "viciously racist" laws. In reality, the 30% local equity requirement he decries is a standard part of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) framework that hundreds of other U.S. giants, including Microsoft, have navigated for decades without the "drama". Musk’s "principle" against these rules conveniently ignores that South Africa has already pivoted to accommodate him. As of December 2025, the government introduced Equity Equivalent Investment Programmes (EEIPs), allowing foreign firms like Starlink to skip the equity transfer entirely by investing in local infrastructure and skills. Instead of taking the win, Musk has escalated to hurling expletives at senior diplomats and alleging (without evidence) that he was pressured to "bribe" his way into a license. The irony is thick: while Musk plays the victim of "reverse racism", his refusal to follow local law is the primary hurdle keeping high-speed internet from the very rural South African communities he claims to want to help. It isn't about the color of his skin; it’s about a billionaire who believes his birthplace owes him a waiver for the same rules everyone else follows.