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Enough with Basic Income

salon.thefamily.co

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Re: Enough with Basic Income

#101

Post by Nicolas_Colin »

wilwade wrote: post #16

A reasonable article, albeit not capturing the full argument for UBI. One missing pro-argument is reducing the creativity monetary risk barrier. Entrepreneurship is at about 14% working age adults in the US (1). I would say that the number of people who would be entrepreneurs is higher, but limited by risk. Entrepreneurship is very high risk. Reducing that risk would enable more people to become entrepreneurs (a good…

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—and would be more sustainable politically.

You can read this convincing article by Sarah Kendzior: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/12/expensive-c...

Re: Enough with Basic Income

#102

Post by justinmk »

alanwatts wrote: post #99
justinmk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main threats are overpopulation and politics, as tech seems to be ticking along quite nicely. If [over]population is a factor, then "post-scarcity" is fiction. This makes me think BI advocates are quietly assuming constraints such as "we'll discourage reproduction somehow"--while constantly mentioning how BI will be free of constraints.

The income itself is what stabilizes the population, this phenomenon is known as the demographic-economic paradox. The real false assumption here is that increased standard of living leads to overpopulation. The data indicates the opposite is true. Reproduction is a survival mechanism. Threaten an organisms survival, and that mechanism is triggered. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility

Ok. But if for some bizarre reason lacking a Nobel prize, people multiply non-linearly, then BI will not be sustainable, correct? And that constraint defies the definition of post-scarcity.

Re: Enough with Basic Income

#103

Post by blahi »

glenda wrote: post #72
blahi wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest starting with Pillars of Earth. It is a popular book, nothing too spectacular but it will put the perspective in your "it can't be worse than what we have today" attitude.

Thanks for the suggestion. I don't believe that "things can't be worse" but rather "things could be better than what we have today"

You literary said "I don't think things could get much worse than where we are today". This is dizzyingly insulting. Do you read that right? You misunderstood things so bad that I felt physically dizzy.

And that's the problem. People imagine BIG BIG BIG problems when the facts are on exactly the opposite side of the spectrum. Things are so good, that it is kind of hard to believe how good they are. Compared with the rest of the 9800 years of human history, we live in paradise. Do you understand what I'm saying? If a person magically comes to our time, he would think he is in heaven.

Re: Enough with Basic Income

#104

Post by AdrianB1 »

nugga wrote: post #93
AdrianB1 wrote: post #80

It would be so nice if the people in favor of UBI would be the only contributors to the system, leaving everyone else to live their lives as they like. But no, UBI means everyone else needs to contribute and convincing is done by force ("you pay your taxes or go to prison, you citizen, and your tax money will be used for what we want").

Doesn't the society you live in already maintain order through force? Aren't you already being taxed and the money used for whatever, including things you may find reprehensible? If UBI were to make more sense than whatever welfare maze we currently have then why not switch? Having a job or means to support yourself is not a guarantee these days, not everyone is as lucky.

That's the point: the entire welfare maze does not make sense, so UBI does not either. I am not talking about maintaining order (by force or not), but about extorting people to pay from their work to give to others. There are many arguments around pro and con, some are simply ridiculous but there are around for so many time and inoculated so well, it works like a religion now: beliefs trumps reason.

Re: Enough with Basic Income

#105

Post by jimmahoney »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #83
jnbiche wrote: post #46

This guy just seems upset that people are offering up a solution to tech-related job loss that isn't with traditional welfare solution proposed by the team he cheers for. He didn't spent a lot of time offering up specific arguments against basic income, but rather on background, and the primary arguments he has are to me some of the strongest arguments for BI: 1) He worries about division and polarization. Well, BI i…

I found your comment constructive and I don't want to start an off-topic debate, just open something up to private contemplation. You, of course, have a right to your own opinion. Many (all?) libertarians lean left on a great many social issue and consider the social part of libertarianism as important if not more important than the right leaning economic part. I think the term "libertarian right" while not an incorr…

I like this notion of "political compass" : https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2 (not unique to this author), in which liberal vs conservative (left vs right) is an axis , but with a second one authoritarian vs libertarian i.e. more government intervention vs less government intervention is another axis.

Essentially this highlights the difference between your particular policy opinions and your enthusiasm for having a government enforce those policies on everyone.

Re: Enough with Basic Income

#106

Post by TheRealPomax »

Kinda stopped reading when he described "the four things states are proxy insurers for", demonstrating a pretty drastic misrepresentation of how modern functional democratic social policies can be grouped and analyzed.

Re: Enough with Basic Income

#107

Post by 13hours »

blahi wrote: post #103
glenda wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the suggestion. I don't believe that "things can't be worse" but rather "things could be better than what we have today"

You literary said "I don't think things could get much worse than where we are today". This is dizzyingly insulting. Do you read that right? You misunderstood things so bad that I felt physically dizzy. And that's the problem. People imagine BIG BIG BIG problems when the facts are on exactly the opposite side of the spectrum. Things are so good, that it is kind of hard to believe how good they are. Compared with the…

>felt physically dizzy

Seriously?

Re: Enough with Basic Income

#108

Post by coredog64 »

Nicolas_Colin wrote: post #89
jnbiche wrote: post #46

This guy just seems upset that people are offering up a solution to tech-related job loss that isn't with traditional welfare solution proposed by the team he cheers for. He didn't spent a lot of time offering up specific arguments against basic income, but rather on background, and the primary arguments he has are to me some of the strongest arguments for BI: 1) He worries about division and polarization. Well, BI i…

Thank you for your response. I wrote this article because it seems to me the basic income discussion is orchestrated by people, notably in technology, who are unaware of politics and reluctant to get their hands dirty. I know that UBI, on paper, looks like it’s a good answer to many of the challenges listed at the end. But I don’t think that UBI, once put in place, would be as strong, politically, as other universal…

To come at it from the other side, UBI is sold as a replacement for a number of other social programs. I find it very hard to believe that, in the US at least, any of those other social programs would be dismantled and stay dead. It is more likely that UBI would temporarily replace one or two programs in the social safety net before being supplemented with two or three more new ones.

As both US parties currently have significant trust issues with one another, I would say UBI is a complete non-starter.

Re: Enough with Basic Income

#109

Post by roymurdock »

Nicolas_Colin wrote: post #89
jnbiche wrote: post #46

This guy just seems upset that people are offering up a solution to tech-related job loss that isn't with traditional welfare solution proposed by the team he cheers for. He didn't spent a lot of time offering up specific arguments against basic income, but rather on background, and the primary arguments he has are to me some of the strongest arguments for BI: 1) He worries about division and polarization. Well, BI i…

Thank you for your response. I wrote this article because it seems to me the basic income discussion is orchestrated by people, notably in technology, who are unaware of politics and reluctant to get their hands dirty. I know that UBI, on paper, looks like it’s a good answer to many of the challenges listed at the end. But I don’t think that UBI, once put in place, would be as strong, politically, as other universal…

Thanks for writing the article. It was well thought out and pretty comprehensive.

I couldn't seem to find a clear definition of UBI in the article, which helps people discuss the concept as many people view possible UBI programs completely differently.

While I am in agreement that UBI is massively overhyped and not a true, large-scale solution to income inequality, I'm happy that it has gotten so much interest and might lead to productive conversations around tax reform.

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