Big Tech’s View of Universal Basic Income Is Deeply Flawed • Hacker News Board

Re: Big Tech’s View of Universal Basic Income Is Deeply Flawed

#11

Post by throwawayjava » Mon, Jul 16, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #4

I am really having trouble sussing out the author's thesis. What are they arguing, exactly?

IMO the central thesis is that society should have a negative view of tech companies and tech workers. That's the only thesis that each argument made in the post actually justifies. So if that's not the true thesis, then I guess the article is just a sequence of incoherent and poorly constructed arguments about UBI, education, corporate taxation, etc.

A counter-argument to the "you should hate tech people" thesis might be the pronounced support among tech workers for fixing the problems their industry helps create. The author argues that this is actually yet another reason why we should have a negative view of tech companies and tech workers, because UBI won't work and because we could fix college affordability by forcing Harvard to fund a few more full rides.

Re: Big Tech’s View of Universal Basic Income Is Deeply Flawed

#12

Post by TomMckenny » Mon, Jul 16, 2018, 5:34 PM UTC

Perhaps UBI does require thinks like universal health coverage but that would not make it "deeply flawed" that would mean tweaking is needed.

And that UBI requires low unemployment is directly contradicted by the head of the article where UBI is described as a potential solution for loss of jobs due to automation.

But either way theorizing beforehand why it will or won't fail is comparatively unproductive; we can actually experiment and see if it works.

And interestingly two conditions of the article; a sort of universal heath care and low unemployment, currently apply in the US. So the article should be predicting success there.

Re: Big Tech’s View of Universal Basic Income Is Deeply Flawed

#13

Post by sharemywin » Mon, Jul 16, 2018, 5:34 PM UTC

"That’s why I remain fascinated by smart people in the United States being so misguided about the implications of the UBI in a country that has no decent healthcare system, a poor primary education complemented by a horrendously expensive higher education system. A state in which having more than two children is a mark of social status and in which any life crisis can lead to a social precipice."

from the article

Re: Big Tech’s View of Universal Basic Income Is Deeply Flawed

#14

Post by thorell » Mon, Jul 16, 2018, 5:36 PM UTC

pitaj wrote: post #5

I'm a libertarian, and don't support a welfare state in general. I view UBI as a great replacement for current welfare programs including food stamps. It largely eliminate the "welfare gap", where when people earn more money, their benefits start dropping off, resulting in a reversed incentive structure leading to trapping people in poverty. UBI implemented as a negative income tax would result in much less waste and…

My preferred argument in favor is that depression can render government form-filled disability bureaucracy into an unnavigable hellscape and since it's one of the most common disabilities, a lot of human misery could be spared by making a living income automatically accessible.

Re: Big Tech’s View of Universal Basic Income Is Deeply Flawed

#15

Post by zqfm » Mon, Jul 16, 2018, 5:36 PM UTC

bandrami wrote: post #9

This will be unpopular, but: what if an uncomfortably large part of the population just really doesn't have anything economically worthwhile to offer in the modern context? Nobody wants to say that, but if it's true, then something like a UBI or dole (even granting the author's problems with it) is all we can do short of mounting a massive Plato's Cave-like conspiracy to convince people they are doing something usefu…

> mounting a massive Plato's Cave-like conspiracy to convince people they are doing something useful

Maybe I'm missing something but I feel like that's what most of us are doing now anyway.

Re: Big Tech’s View of Universal Basic Income Is Deeply Flawed

#16

Post by pretendscholar » Mon, Jul 16, 2018, 5:36 PM UTC

sharemywin wrote: post #13

"That’s why I remain fascinated by smart people in the United States being so misguided about the implications of the UBI in a country that has no decent healthcare system, a poor primary education complemented by a horrendously expensive higher education system. A state in which having more than two children is a mark of social status and in which any life crisis can lead to a social precipice." from the article

>A state in which having more than two children is a mark of social status?

Really? I never knew that was a thing.

Re: Big Tech’s View of Universal Basic Income Is Deeply Flawed

#17

Post by olefoo » Mon, Jul 16, 2018, 5:37 PM UTC

Any UBI program that doesn't take basic living expenses ( housing, healthcare, bandwidth, food ) into account is just a fancy detour for the money to go back into the pockets of the ownership class rather than creating lasting wealth for society at large.

At best UBI is one element of a comprehensive restructuring of society towards one that actually tries to be a knowledge economy where unique individual talents are cultivated and useful knowledge is discovered and disseminated as widely as possible for the maximum benefit of society as a whole.

Re: Big Tech’s View of Universal Basic Income Is Deeply Flawed

#18

Post by paulsutter » Mon, Jul 16, 2018, 5:38 PM UTC

The author seems to believe that UBI proponents are opposed to single payer healthcare, and this could be his central beef. He never criticizes UBI itself, he's yammering on about big tech's "view". But it's hard to tell, I had to dig for a while to find an identifiable point.

> Yep, but not with five hundred bucks a month, Marc. At least not in your country, where 44% of the population can’t afford a $400 medical emergency.

Re: Big Tech’s View of Universal Basic Income Is Deeply Flawed

#19

Post by _bpgl » Mon, Jul 16, 2018, 5:39 PM UTC

bandrami wrote: post #9

This will be unpopular, but: what if an uncomfortably large part of the population just really doesn't have anything economically worthwhile to offer in the modern context? Nobody wants to say that, but if it's true, then something like a UBI or dole (even granting the author's problems with it) is all we can do short of mounting a massive Plato's Cave-like conspiracy to convince people they are doing something usefu…

There's another way to frame that: What if it's a coincidence that the rent of labor has afforded a tolerable lifestyle for the masses and lavish lifestyles for capital owners for nearly 200 years? And, what if this coincidence that has supported a social order (explicit or de facto capitalism) is coming to an end?

I'm fond of Zizek's remark that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. It seems apposite, here.

Re: Big Tech’s View of Universal Basic Income Is Deeply Flawed

#20

Post by shafte » Mon, Jul 16, 2018, 5:39 PM UTC

The author makes a false equivalence between the RSA in France and the typical UBI proposal. An individual's RSA benefit decreases as their work income increases. This has the effect of making an individual weakly indifferent to working, since it will provide no marginal increase in income. Most UBI proposals involve a benefit that doesn't phase out with income (or phases out at an income level so high that it doesn't matter). The RSA, in both design and implementation, is a lot like the already-existing EITC in the US.

The whole point of guaranteeing income is to try to avoid the distortion of incentives that comes from means-testing benefits. When the author claims that a UBI (like the RSA) would create a permanent class of non-workers, he is basing his argument on an elementary misunderstanding of policies involved.