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

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

#21
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…

> 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

What are you talking about. People on HN say that all the time; it's one of the core premises underlying the feeling that UBI will eventually be necessary? Indeed, that seems to be the prevailing view even though it flies in the face of the evidence that gains from automation are far away from replacing human workers.

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

#22
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…

We can either ask people with money/power to support those without -- which I don't think will ever be a good or even stable solution -- or we solve the hard technological problems currently preventing self-sufficiency. The difficulty in the latter is not to be underestimated, but there's also more potential upside if we figure it out.

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

#23
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…

I don’t think it’s unpopular. That’s part of the reason why people like me support things like UBI. I mean, let’s be real here. I’m a mid-40s, above-average-IQ nerd millionaire, but if I graduated college today, I’m pretty certain that I wouldn’t make it as well economically. And, I’m really certain that if I was born less-lucky in mental capacities (or other factors) I’d be pretty screwed, no matter how hard I worked.

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

#24

"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.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/10/fashion/The-Growing-Three...

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

#25

"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.

It's not. I honestly can't even imagine where the author would get this idea.

If anything, having fewer/no children is a mark of status, both globally (higher income countries tend to have lower birth rates) and in the US (vaguely implies both parents are working and have access to contraceptives, etc).

To be clear, I don't think that there's much of a status signal either way.

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

#26
What I don’t get about articles like this is how they just go on and on about how bad of an idea UBI is but don’t propose any kind of a solution.

It’s not like UBI was created just to have fun, there are legitimate problems facing our society and our current trajectory is that the problems are getting worse.

Maybe I am just missing some part of the article but what’s the point of saying something is bad without even talk about ways it could be implemented better or alternatives.

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

#27
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…

We also have the problem that people are forced to evaluate what activities would be productive for them in terms of the money paid to them, but it's debatable whether the aggregated signals of demand in a given economy truly reflect what people would believe are "important" or "needed" or "valuable" activities (using scare quotes specifically because obviously the whole debate revolves around how to determine the meaning of these types of terms).

My mom is an example. She works a highly menial and thankless job at a rural county courthouse in the Midwest, where she is paid an extremely small salary, given very few benefits, very little vacation time, and has no prospect for retirement, regular raises, career growth, etc. The courthouse could operate with probably 25% of the current staff, but they keep headcount artificially high because state funding and other programs depend on how many employees they have.

Largely, my mom is paid money to endure slight sexual harassment from small town attorneys and judges, and to do a tiny workload of clerical work. And the amount of money is barely enough for basic living in her area, even after accounting for the lower cost of living there.

It seems bang obvious that her employment is inefficient. The same exact thing happens for thousands of people in her area, whether in government, school jobs, private companies. There's just a ton of excessively meaningless work that companies or employers have ulterior reasons to sponsor with a paycheck even fully knowing that the labor itself is not productive or necessary at all.

I think if my mom knew she had a reasonable guaranteed basic income, she would volunteer her time at the local hospital, deliver meals to sick people, do more productive labor around her own home or through child care provided to my siblings and their children, perhaps create craft works to sell online, etc.

The net result could easily be that her overall labor productivity in the big picture sense would go way, way up after she is free to quit the essentially pure loss menial job and focus on things where she knows she can add actual, obvious value for people.

Unfortunately, I think most developed nations suffer this problem. Lots of jobs exist because of weird misaligned incentives on the part of the employer, who could truly not care less about the actual labor productivity of a bunch of employees and has them on the payroll for totally separate reasons.

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

#28
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…

>uncomfortably large part of the population just really doesn't have anything economically worthwhile to offer in the modern context?

Someone still has to do the jobs. The sanitation workers, the McDonalds employees, the truck drivers, the waiters, the cooks -- they all have a role in society and are economically worthwhile -- it's just that nobody has had a raise since the 90's and income inequality is the highest it has ever been in history while the cost of essential needs for humans continues to rise. When's the last time you've seen rents go down?

In my opinion, UBI is a band aid on the problem of late capitalism. Simply guaranteeing health insurance, implementing full employment, would raise the country economically (but not for the poor shareholders!) enormously but our current corrupt system of crony deregulating late capitalism won't allow this at the expense of the middle & lower classes. I keep saying this here: workers really need to see the surplus value they create instead of just their wages; the surplus value goes into the pocket of the shareholder and benefits absolutely nobody.

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

#29

> Education is ripe for disruption. There’s a commonly believed fallacy right now that technology companies, specifically VC-backed technology education companies, are going to disrupt education. That’s bullshit. Instead, Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Stanford are the favorites to disrupt education when they fall under heavy and sustained government pressure over the irrational and immoral hoarding of their mammoth endowme…

Maybe I'm just cynical, but I have a tough time believing that the preference for graduates from "top" colleges is entirely because they produce the best results rather than just a way to (necessarily) artificially limit access to a scarce resource. Just for the sake of round numbers, let's say there are enough quarter-million-dollar-a-year jobs for 1% of the population, but 10% of the population, with a bit of training, could step in and do those jobs. What do you do? You set up some semi-artificial, but still realistic, hurdles to limit the applicant pool. Doubling the applicant pool isn't going to solve the "problem" (if you even see it as a problem); it'll just necessitate an extra hurdle.

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

#30
post #19
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…

>I'm fond of Zizek's remark that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.

Can you provide a source for that? Only because I'm reading some Zizek books right now :)

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