Basic income is sometimes regarded as an inevitable result of technological progress. If automation takes away all jobs, the state will have to pay people to do nothing goes the logic. This could be paid for by a tax on robots, say some. Netopia has lots of objections to this argument, as has been discussed previously. But what about the other perspective – what happens after basic income? What does life look like? Because sci-fi really only works well as dystopia, of course the take is not very positive in the James S A Corey-short story The Hunger After You’re Fed that Wired Magazine published as part of its fiction-special earlier this year. Read it as a cautionary tale. Or as comment on writing. Or just to find out Héctor Prima is.
