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Why we should all have a basic income

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Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#421

Post by dpc59 »

cpursley wrote: post #410
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you rather pay somebody to build the next Lincoln Tunnel or pay for them to write some poetry and start an emo band? Would you rather pay somebody to build the next Bridge to Nowhere or pay them to start the next Apple?

Nobody is going to start the next Apple if you pay them. Nobody. Great progress and innovation only come out of great tribulation.

Gates and Zuckerberg were literally going to Harvard on trust fund money, no effort at all was required of them, butthey had the privilege of resourceful parents with high expectations. If we replace resourceful parents with high expectations by a resourceful society with high expectations, the children that have shitty parents wont have a choice but to do better, that's what happened for my father.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#422

Post by alexandercrohde »

unstatusthequo wrote: post #374

As a payor of six digits of taxes, this sounds expensive and likely to be taken advantage of by the lazy. When I grew up my basic income was something called "wages," for which I worked to earn. Someone has to fund shit like this. Handouts do not promote self help, but the opposite: dependence on the government. Is that something to be proud about?

I find this attitude dismissive. It's easy for those of us who are very successful financially to internalize an attitude that we got wealth because we deserve it, because we tried hard. It's nice to believe the things which allow us to pat ourselves on the back and not need to be bothered with anything like "research" or "trying it out."

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#423

Post by braveo »

simonh wrote: post #292
braveo wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why does it matter? The point of UBI is to allow people to do what they want.

This is a persistent and pernicious misconception. UBI is intended to increase people's autonomy, but manly by eliminating the poverty trap. Too many people live off benefits they would lose if they took a low paying no job, so are better off or only marginally worse off not working. UBI takes that problem away to that everyone would always be substantially better off working. It would act as a major subsidy for low…

> UBI is intended to increase people's autonomy

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/autonomy

1. the quality or state of being self-governing; 2. self-directing freedom and especially moral independence

exactly. The point is that they can do what they want.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#424

Post by mhb »

jondubois wrote: post #323

If I had basic income, I would go back to study, get a PhD in Computer Science Majoring in AI/Machine learning and then I would try to do something meaningful with it. I am tired of doing pseudo-intellectual software 'engineering' tasks - I would like to use my intellect to tackle difficult problems instead of trivial problems like building UI components and managing databases. Unfortunately, I can't afford to go to…

The UBI the article suggests is $12K per year. Do you think that would be sufficient to pursue your alternative? Couldn't you save up the equivalent amount and do that on your own?

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#425

Post by TaylorAlexander »

I think a basic income is a dangerous and bad idea.

If we expect the wealthy class to give their money to the masses to fund their survival, the masses would become functionally dependent on that transfer continuing. At which point the wealthy class would have incredible power over the masses.

Asking for a basic income is like asking to go to prison for the free food. It is not a good idea to become dependent on others with such different interests.

Instead, I advocate the development of open source automation solutions that provide everything necessary for human survival. Open source machines can be manufactured by any corporation and purchased by groups who would then own the means of their own survival.

A basic income becomes a source of leverage for moneyed interests to get their way. But if we all own the machines that support our survival, we can choose for ourselves when we work and when we study to better ourselves.

I've written about this recently, here: http://tlalexander.com/machine/

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#426

Post by monksy »

jondubois wrote: post #323

If I had basic income, I would go back to study, get a PhD in Computer Science Majoring in AI/Machine learning and then I would try to do something meaningful with it. I am tired of doing pseudo-intellectual software 'engineering' tasks - I would like to use my intellect to tackle difficult problems instead of trivial problems like building UI components and managing databases. Unfortunately, I can't afford to go to…

Due to a Basic Income you're already admiting that you would want to drop out of the higher income bracket, and fall to where the BI it would benefit you more.

A few things about that:

1. You never said anything about BI handling out of work situations.

----

I think what would incentivize you to accomplish this would be:

1. Setup financial goals that would support you during this time. (Think FIRE) To me it sounds like your finances aren't in order to do this.

2. Step away from that over-ambitious goal of PhD. Go for a masters. It's only 2 years. PhDs aren't as great as the school sells them. (They're in the market to convince you to do that)

3. Try to elevate yourself by practicing for grad school by doing online classes in the evening.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#427

Post by cocoa19 »

One thing I haven't seen discussed. Would we need some sort of population control with UBI? Even if robots produce all basic necessities for human life, the earth cannot sustain unrestricted population growth, which is a possibility.

I don't know it's true, but I've heard of stories in Brazil where women in certain towns have many kids so they can collect additional welfare benefits for each kid.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#428

Post by vessenes »

DougN7 wrote: post #234
vessenes wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too think your economic arguments are pretty far off from a likely scenario, so I'll try to say a little bit in counter. In your example, $12bn goes to people who are 'poor'. You imagine all of this will be spent on scarce consumer resources and housing, creating increasing cost for those items. You make a number of assumptions that have to be teased out before we can know how likely that scenario is: 1. Poor peopl…

Try this experiment: imagine we gave everyone a UBI of $1 Billion per year. Sure, it's rediculous, but think of the ramifications (changes in prices in particular). If you could chart how much you give everyone (from 0 to $1 billion) vs the amount prices would change, you'd have some continuous upward movement. Maybe linear, maybe not. The point is giving everyone $1 billion obviously will increase prices. But there…

Again, I think you're assuming that at the far left of that 'linear' chart people spend solely on scarce goods. Research shows that isn't so. I think the actual chart would look like a tiny price bump which went mostly flat until some critical amount, well over $12k a year, was reached, at which point we'd see something like what you're describing.

Re: Why we should all have a basic income

#429

Post by jusq2 »

dbg31415 wrote: post #329
ycmbntrthrwaway wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Street promoters make me sad. If they can find no job they better stay at home and learn something new, but they have no time for it, so they are stuck doing useless, maybe even harmful, work.

I've met someone who spun a sign for a living... he was a huge stoner... I love weed, but he clearly smoked too much of it while his brain was still developing and he could barely hold a conversation... Now... maybe he was self-medicating or whatever... but the point was he failed out of high school, failed out of a few jobs... and then ended up spinning a sign because he really had no meaningful skill to contribute…

Agree.

While we are making recommendations about what people with issues should be doing with themselves, let me add, on the other end of the spectrum - overconfident, mindlessly ambitious characters in society, should be sent off to explore the deep sea, climb mountains etc. So that whatever random goal they are chasing has minimal impact on society at large.

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