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Moving Forward on Basic Income

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#751

Post by tmnvix »

robbiemitchell wrote: post #414
senseless wrote: post #253

Good to see steps like this being made! As a slight aside, there are strong proponents who argue, based on Ricardo's law of rent [0], that any excess income above the basic subsistence level will inevitably be swallowed up by landlords in the form of rents. I'd be very interested to hear from the folks involved in this study if they have an opinion on such an assertion, and if you have any ideas on addressing that ef…

Not enough discussion to this effect. When everyone has more money, the prices of everything will probably go up.

But poorer people that receive payments will have a larger share of the overall wealth than they otherwise would have (even while everyone else receives exactly the same payment). BI is essentially about rebalancing wealth distribution.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#752

Post by ams6110 »

ncallaway wrote: post #321
acgourley wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll find there are two voices for BI, the liberal and the liberatian. The liberal would prefer to keep universal healthcare and food programs and put cash on top, making the total distribution to the poor larger. The liberatian would prefer to simply move the complex paternalistic safety net into a simpler cash payment which doesn't disincentivize work while not increasing it's size. As an aside, if you pay attent…

The thing I'd like to see is government services that will optionally replace portions of your Basic Income. If you're having problems feeding yourself, I would like to see an opt-in program where you can receive food, in exchange for $X out of your BI. If you're having problems housing yourself, an opt-in program for housing in exchange for $Y out of your BI. The same options should be available for all the necessit…

The overhead for something like that would be huge. The goal of BI is to reduce overhead.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#753

Post by bduerst »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #592
acgourley wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll find there are two voices for BI, the liberal and the liberatian. The liberal would prefer to keep universal healthcare and food programs and put cash on top, making the total distribution to the poor larger. The liberatian would prefer to simply move the complex paternalistic safety net into a simpler cash payment which doesn't disincentivize work while not increasing it's size. As an aside, if you pay attent…

I read your "personally" sentence and immediately thought "this person has not lived in chicagoland where purposeful manipulation of such a system has famously been an artform".

Sounds like a problem with Chicagoland.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#754

Post by MicroBerto »

tim333 wrote: post #679
MicroBerto wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I've found here on HN is that there is an extremely large amount of "wishful projection" and selection bias, in that many people here are young and promising entrepreneurs-in-training, and they believe that basic income will allow them to work on their startup dream without having to worry about paying the bills. While that may be true, they fail to realize that they are in the extreme minority of actually-motiv…

The mice in the video bred rapidly and filled the space until it became too crowded. Humans however have contraceptives and entertainment systems and so the population stabilizes before that.

Actually, they never reached their peak capacity of 2500.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#755

Post by williesleg »

If we just abolished taxes and let everyone save their own cash, everyone could create their own trust fund and in one single generation provide enough for their future generations. But then where would the fun be? Elites love to watch their slaves work.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#756

Post by [deleted] »

newobj wrote: post #366
xienze wrote: post #60

So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…

This has got to be the most pathetic strawman argument I've seen on HN in a long time. "BI doesn't work because it can't perfectly protect the most pathological outliers"? Ok. Did anyone say it would solve this scenario? And I'm sorry, but what existing agency currently helps people back on their feet after their 12th car accident in the first place? I'm really struggling to see the unequivocal BI take-down you tried…

[deleted]

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#757

Post by jrochkind1 »

> If the pilot goes well, we plan to follow up with the main study. If the pilot doesn’t go well, we’ll consider different approaches.

What does going well or not going well look like to the funders/researchers, how do you recognize it?

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#758

Post by bduerst »

newobj wrote: post #366
xienze wrote: post #60

So, a question for the BI fans: I've seen it said repeatedly that BI will save us money (or at least, not be so outrageously expensive) in part because we can eliminate existing welfare programs. "Just cut a single check, no more overhead from several agencies", they say. But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all th…

This has got to be the most pathetic strawman argument I've seen on HN in a long time. "BI doesn't work because it can't perfectly protect the most pathological outliers"? Ok. Did anyone say it would solve this scenario? And I'm sorry, but what existing agency currently helps people back on their feet after their 12th car accident in the first place? I'm really struggling to see the unequivocal BI take-down you tried…

They're asking how bad actors will be handled by the system. It's using an analogy to ask a question, not propping up a straw man and knocking it down.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#759

Post by bduerst »

xienze wrote: post #718
melvinmt wrote: post #6

> If the pilot goes well, we plan to follow up with the main study. If the pilot doesn’t go well, we’ll consider different approaches. Interesting. What are the metrics to determine the success or failure of the pilot?

I'll eat my shoe if they come up with any other result than "resounding success!" with a healthy dose of hand-waving around any negative issues. Basic Income seems to be The Next Great Liberal Cause and YC being a Valley firm, I've got a feeling they fall a bit towards the left part of the political spectrum.

BI isn't limited to a political party. Libertarians (conservatives) see it as a way of making the government smaller.

Unless they specifically say so, please don't assume it's attributed to a partisanship.

Re: Moving Forward on Basic Income

#760

Post by exabrial »

If the "pro basic income" people gave 5 mins of their time to charity for every hour they talk about being an online social justice expert, we would have already solved these problems.

BI fixes the symptoms, not the disease. The disease is that people think that they're being charitable by demanding social programs. Wrong. Being charitable means getting your hands dirty, helping people, educating them, physical presence. I dare you instead of typing hacker news comment, Google your local food kitchen, spend $10 on items they need. Show up in the flesh Saturday morning and actually do something besides flap your gums.

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