Viewing profile — Nicolas_Colin

Yes that is the proper way to frame it :-) Being unsuccessful is part of the startup life. Being a Zombie is not!

The problem is not the salon itself. Rather it's zombie entrepreneurs being all over it, and non-zombie entrepreneurs wasting time in it trying to catch up. Neither is happening at…

Sure, will do ;-) But it was also meant as a distraction for those who are experiencing election anxiety.

A few weeks ago, I published a paper under the title “Enough With This Basic Income Bullshit”, which was extensively discussed here on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/ite…

Erm but I'm not a candidate, so I don't really care for your vote. And I definitely agree with the idea that political engagement is both voice and exit. That being said, what I su…

I meant it as a conciliatory opening... What I meant is that if you care for economic security and lesser inequalities, then you have to fight for the whole liberal agenda (improvi…

They're more stable because the rich, while paying more, also receive more. The pension amount is proportional to past professional income, as is that of unemployment benefits. The…

Well, yes, that's my position: - there have been a lot of large-scale BI policy experiments in the past in many countries, and none turned out so well on the long term. Yes it's tr…

"Means testing is how you would LOSE political support" => yes you're right. And this is the reason why those (the Republican Party for instance) who are opposed to social policy o…

I wrote the article, whose point is precisely that: what I called "bullshit" is the endless "problem-solution" conversation around basic income which, in my eyes, ignores politics …

I agree as for what Blair did for the NHS, but it was precisely his way to deal with the NHS being a thorn in the side. What's interesting is the underlying philosophy: instead of …

How so? It's exactly the way it's grouped and organized in all European social systems. It's also the framework used by Yale University's Jacob Hacker in "The Great Risk Shift" to …

Maybe in the future you can vote for a party with which you are not perfectly aligned, then weigh on it while it exerts power to bring it closer to your views? I happen to think it…

Proof of current progress: http://a16z.com/2016/05/16/regulatory-hacking/ I can't wait for regulatory hacking to join the field of social policy. Many people will convert to social…

Thanks for replying. I'd say Silicon Valley is synonymous with tech industry here (the article effectively mentions "Silicon Valley and its satellites"). As for the second argument…

I wrote the article so I hope you'll continue reading :-) Technology destroys some jobs and it creates others, but those new jobs are numerous enough only if we put in place the ri…

It's true, but those two arguments exist only on paper. In practice, my guess is that it wouldn't be long before UBI is converted a means-tested benefit, for both financial and pol…

Actually, talking is not the only way. Were 19th century factory workers content with talking? No: they initiated the labor movement and conquered the modern social state. The fact…

The dynamic (converting universal benefits into means-tested benefits) happened 2 years ago in France with universal childcare benefits ("allocations familiales"). It's true that p…

I sincerely regret that the US is currently missing critical opportunities such as that to deploy a state-of-the-art universal health insurance, while most of the energy of those w…

I wrote the article. Thank your for your response. I get your point about painters and writers. But my guess is that working on affordable housing would do more good on that front—…

I wrote the article. Thank you for your response. I'm certainly not the first to point out that Silicon Valley, as an ecosystem, is fundamentally uninterested in politics and histo…

I wrote the article. Thank you for your response. I don't think post-scarcity will eat the entire economy anytime soon. In particular, I think that it will still be unaffordable to…

I wrote the article. This is not my point. The French RMI was enacted in 1988 with wide bipartisan support and really resembled a UBI at the time. Then, in the following decades, m…