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Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

businessinsider.com

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Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#81

Post by maxerickson »

goatinaboat wrote: post #62
tempsy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether it’s automation or something else doesn’t really matter. I think it’s hard to argue that there’s a ton of shitty jobs out there, and those shitty jobs are most vulnerable to outsourcing, automation, made obsolete, etc. People in those jobs are the ones that could be most helped by UBI. Of course you need to think about how to replace shitty jobs with better ones over time, but UBI smooths out societal issues…

those shitty jobs are most vulnerable to outsourcing, automation, made obsolete, etc Most of those jobs will be the hardest to automate because Moravec’s Paradox. Automation will wipe out lawyers and accountants long before it reaches sewer maintenance and refuse collection.

My town went from, I believe, 3 trucks with 3 people each to 2 trucks with 1 person each for garbage collection. The last step will take a long time, but the amount of labor has already been dramatically shrunk.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#82

Post by eric_cc »

root_axis wrote: post #31

My main issue with UBI is that businesses will aggressively raise prices to capture that money. Not every business will, but most will, so you can be damn sure everyone's rent is going to increase at the highest rate legally permissible all around the country.

Is this an issue with UBI though? Of course the prices will go up because of supply/demand changes. And thus 12k/year won’t go as far as it does now. That’s not a bad thing though. The people who are at rock bottom still > 0. Leeches won’t be able to do nothing and exist off 12k. For most rent payers, their life will remain the same as it is today: the economy will reach a new equilibrium and their lives will be no better financially. But that’s by design- this isn’t meant to be a free ride through life.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#83

Post by harimau777 »

root_axis wrote: post #27
danShumway wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming you're asking in good faith, so I'll point out three problems with your line of thought. First, you assume that having multiple competitors is pointless if one product is the clear winner. Proponents of breaking up tech giants would argue that Twitter and Facebook are not actually very good products right now, and the reason they're popular is largely due to network effects and anticompetitive behavior,…

> Proponents of breaking up tech giants would argue that Twitter and Facebook are not actually very good products right now Based on what criterion? > reason they're popular is largely due to network effects and anticompetitive behavior, not innovation Can you give any examples of anticompetitive behavior exhibited by social media companies? > the existence of competition would force the original Twitter to innovate…

In regards to your last point:

My understanding is that, for example, Valve might be broken up into two companies:

- Valve: Produces video games such as Half Life, TF2, and Portal

- Steam: Sells video games

If Steam then sold Half Life 3, it would no longer be 1st party software because it is made by Valve not Steam.

Granted, that will never happen because Valve will never make Half Life 3. -_-

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#84

Post by GarrisonPrime »

echelon wrote: post #18
sak5sk wrote: post #2

Great to see tech leaders get behind UBI. Now is the time and Yang is the candidate of a lifetime. I never understood how people buy into the whole "break up the tech giants" argument. It makes no sense, just a great platitude with no real accomplishment. Who wants to use the 2nd best Twitter or Facebook? Not a single person.

How does UBI even work? Won't it just lead to rampant inflation where the basic income is spread thin, eaten up almost entirely by the rising cost of goods? It seems like this in turn will require an even higher basic income, which exacerbates the problem. Isn't an analogous situation that of private loans for tuition? Tuitions have risen across the board to eat up all the new "free" money in the system. Won't UBI ma…

>How does UBI even work?

If Indian reservations in the USA are any indication, it clearly doesn’t.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#85

Post by mrfusion »

intuitionist wrote: post #26

Altman and Yang are a natural fit because they’re both very invested (Altman literally so) in the narrative that automation is coming for huge numbers of jobs. But the economic statistics just don’t back this up. Total factor productivity, a (rough) measure of the technological contribution to economic production, is growing considerably more slowly than it was during the early 2000s, and much more slowly than during…

I think we should be looking at it at the micro level. Every time automation is introduced at the employee level the employee is going to find (or make up) other work to do because otherwise they lose their job.

So we just aren’t going to see the effects of automation. But I bet if you tracked percent of work time used for internet surfing you’d see it going up 5-10% per year.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#86

Post by mrfusion »

nopriorarrests wrote: post #73
tempsy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether it’s automation or something else doesn’t really matter. I think it’s hard to argue that there’s a ton of shitty jobs out there, and those shitty jobs are most vulnerable to outsourcing, automation, made obsolete, etc. People in those jobs are the ones that could be most helped by UBI. Of course you need to think about how to replace shitty jobs with better ones over time, but UBI smooths out societal issues…

>there’s a ton of shitty jobs out there, and those shitty jobs are most vulnerable to outsourcing, automation, made obsolete, etc Shitty jobs are not must vulnerable, quite opposite in fact. Automating some 400K/year quant job at hedge fund makes morse sense than automatng MCjob that pays 40K/year. More to that, shitty jobs are hardest to automate (we are nowhere close to good janitor robot, for example). Also, you c…

Automating bureaucracy could be something that actually creates more jobs. We had to wait 8 months to get a permit to build a deck!

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#87

Post by mrfusion »

kyledrake wrote: post #50

"Altman, who favors UBI, said in exchange for a floor, he’d like to see no ceiling on earnings, as some, like presidential hopeful Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, have suggested. And like Friedman, Altman suggested tying the amount of the basic income to a fixed percentage of GDP. “Right now, because people are rightly angry that there's no floor, and that most people have no real chance to be super successful, we sort…

It’s funny that we think preventing billionaires is easier than campaign finance reform.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#88

Post by petermcneeley »

j8014 wrote: post #65
solveit wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems easier Setting aside ethical issues as you clearly don't care, it really isn't at all easy. It's not like people haven't tried.

Ethics? If you agree with UBI, then ethics do not matter. Why negotiate a minority position, take it all.

Your cryptic comments are confusing people. Just state you are an "American Libertarian" and not have people play 20 questions to find your non nuanced position.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#89

Post by GarrisonPrime »

chr1 wrote: post #39
echelon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does UBI even work? Won't it just lead to rampant inflation where the basic income is spread thin, eaten up almost entirely by the rising cost of goods? It seems like this in turn will require an even higher basic income, which exacerbates the problem. Isn't an analogous situation that of private loans for tuition? Tuitions have risen across the board to eat up all the new "free" money in the system. Won't UBI ma…

It depends on how government would get the money for UBI. If it goes ahead and just prints more money then there will be rampant inflation, but if it redirects money from other programs, the prices of some goods may change, but there won't be inflation.

Then there’s the behavioral factor to consider. Will UBI truly relieve pressure and give people a hand up? Or will it result in a large swathe of the population dropping out of the labor force and accepting a life of poverty and marginalization? Could some UBI pushers actually see the latter as the true goal?

Ask any Native American how empowering a UBI-esque system worked out for them.

Not that I’m rejecting the idea of UBI out of hand, but I’m very concerned about the lack of such discussion.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#90

Post by maehwasu »

dragonwriter wrote: post #49
icelancer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon's tax rate is not 0%. Their payroll tax bill for any given month is more than any and all of the taxes you will pay in your lifetime. To say nothing of the many other taxes they pay.

Payroll tax, including the nominally “employer” portion, is really a tax on worker pay (the employer portion just makes the rate seem lower; for an honest accounting, it would be counted in both employee pay and employee taxes) as it comes out of what the employer is willing to pay for the work.

It effectively raises the price the company has to pay and thus lowers profits.
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