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A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

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Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#81

Post by Supermancho »

mikedilger wrote: post #44
mikedilger wrote: post #40

I don't think there is any sort of unanimity regarding UBI. Being compensated for staying home is not UBI, because it is not ongoing. I'm against UBI for reasons that became apparent while playing MMORPGs. Stay with me here and I'll explain. Players of an RPG want a fun game. But they also want to succeed/win. These goals partially conflict. If they prioritize winning too highly, and pester customer support to make t…

If you downvote me because you disagree, PLEASE share your thoughts on this. I cannot understand why you disagree if you simply downvote.

There are too many ideas in your post. Some of which make sense, some do not.

> Players of an RPG want a fun game.

I don't think you understand game theory and design well enough to be commenting. Generally, games are about learning about the world and performing pattern recognition to optimize in a constrained environment. MMORPGs have LOTS of games within them, some of which are completely player driven.

> as a society, if a lot of people like me slack off more, the real economy will suffer

Slack off? Real economy? Suffer? Soft terms that are composed into an unqualified statement. There is sentiment, but no meaning.

> Robots could save us but we are not there yet, not by a long shot.

Now meandering on to robots for some reason, which is not related to previous points.

Some forums (like this one) prefer smaller assertions with arguments and typically reward those who track down supporting documentation or revealing technical support (equations, papers, historical references, active research, etc). Ironically, HN posts are preferred when people put work into them :)

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#82

Post by mikedilger »

dragonwriter wrote: post #58
mikedilger wrote: post #40

I don't think there is any sort of unanimity regarding UBI. Being compensated for staying home is not UBI, because it is not ongoing. I'm against UBI for reasons that became apparent while playing MMORPGs. Stay with me here and I'll explain. Players of an RPG want a fun game. But they also want to succeed/win. These goals partially conflict. If they prioritize winning too highly, and pester customer support to make t…

> In life, we want to be lazy. Therea plenty of evidence that this isn't really all that true, and that if there is even a modicum of apparent reward for extra labor, people will continue to put extra labor in for that reward, often even past the point where that extra nominal reward seems to provide any additional real utility for them. > . I'm already working less than 20 hours per week (pre-COVID) because my mortg…

I may have overstated, believing people on average are more like myself than they are. But I think you're likely doing the same thing in the opposite direction, believing people will keep working hard for little benefit when many of them wont. Let's just agree there are different kinds of people and they will behave differently, and my argument has some merit, as does yours.

There was no anthropomorphizing in my statements.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#83

Post by zozbot234 »

mcv wrote: post #71
franciscop wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly enough, 5-10 years ago in Spain you could hear some proponents of private healthcare to compare it with the US. Now I think there's enough understanding that the US model doesn't work that the proponents instead talk about Singapore or other private models, no one compares them to the US anymore. Some arguments against universal health care I have heard in Spain: • Not enough choice, since you cannot e.…

My impression is, if you compare health care costs across various wealthy countries, it's pretty clear that socialised health care is cheaper than privatised health care. Netherland has universal but privatised healthcare, and has one of the most expensive health care systems in Europe, costing more than half that of the American health care system. And it's not particularly better than the more socialised healthcare…

> it's pretty clear that socialised health care is cheaper than privatised health care

Causation goes the other way. If your healthcare is cheap, you might as well socialize it, and it will mostly be OKish; if it's too expensive (as in the U.S.) you have no chance of running a satisfactory socialized system. Switzerland has largely private healthcare and mandatory ("universal") health insurance, but its costs are not too high despite it being a comparatively small country with inherently higher costs of providing such services.

> For everything else, it's your health and possibly your life at stake; you can't really say no to treatment, so you pay whatever it takes

This is not really true. There is such a thing as pointless overtreatment, and the right balance of benefits vs. costs can only be reached with increased price transparency on the part of providers.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#84

Post by jupp0r »

mcv wrote: post #71
franciscop wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly enough, 5-10 years ago in Spain you could hear some proponents of private healthcare to compare it with the US. Now I think there's enough understanding that the US model doesn't work that the proponents instead talk about Singapore or other private models, no one compares them to the US anymore. Some arguments against universal health care I have heard in Spain: • Not enough choice, since you cannot e.…

My impression is, if you compare health care costs across various wealthy countries, it's pretty clear that socialised health care is cheaper than privatised health care. Netherland has universal but privatised healthcare, and has one of the most expensive health care systems in Europe, costing more than half that of the American health care system. And it's not particularly better than the more socialised healthcare…

While I agree with your point generally, it can still be useful to have competition between hospitals.

The NHS in the UK had great results with publishing clinical outcome statistics making people shun places with bad practices. This lead to a decline in deaths and complications.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#85

Post by Jedd »

twblalock wrote: post #73

The problem with UBI is that we would turn it back into the welfare system we have now. Let's say we pass a truly universal basic income bill -- every person gets the same amount of money from the government, every month. It wouldn't take long before politicians propose giving more money to teachers and single mothers, or taking benefits away from convicted felons and sex offenders. Over time, bit by bit, we will ent…

> The problem with UBI is that we would turn it back into the welfare system we have now.

That's not a problem with UBI.

IMO that scenario is not likely, let alone guaranteed.

I appreciate a pessimistic outlook as much as the next guy, but I don't think we should abandon UBI because you think it may change in the future.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#86

Post by astura »

Supermancho wrote: post #70
astura wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the whole idea of ubi is you replace the patchwork of various social programs (and the overhead of each program) with a basic ubi for everyone. It's supposed to be much more efficient and there's no disincentives to self improvement (because you never lose your benefits). I personally don't actually think it disincentives working very much because people who want to work for more than just the minimum always wi…

The majority of my wife's family also do not work. It has been this way for at least 3 generations and are raising another generation of the same.

So what's your opinion on ubi given your observations with your wife's family finding ways to get out of employment, if you don't mind me asking.

Personally, I don't think that you're ever going to get rid of those sorts of people, so someone ends up "paying for them" anyway.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#87

Post by jariel »

devit wrote: post #35
rriepe wrote: post #21

Once we implement UBI, what's the argument against doubling it?

The fact that UBI should not be about giving an amount of money, but rather about giving essentials like housing and food or the equivalent in money, and "doubling" essentials doesn't make as much sense, since you don't have much use for two beds or twice the food.

What constitutes 'basic necessity' changes every year.

Is a car a basic necessity? What about a mobile? Broadband? Netflix/Cable wouldn't be an obvious choice but many will argue it is. Washing machine? What about food delivery for those over 55?

You know those 3-wheel motorized chairs, between scooters and wheelchairs for the elderly ... they are definitely a 'necessity' for some but really quite 'in between' for others.

Once UBI is initiated, the arguments to increase UBI will be unyielding.

The next generations' youth will make arguments about the 'inhumanity' of such and such. They may have a point, but we will be the 'old timers' thinking they are mostly ridiculous and actually voting.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#88

Post by rafd »

ralusek wrote: post #76

I am a free market advocate, libertarian-lite, that believes that UBI is the correct social safety net. I am clearly not unique in this regard, as this actually seems to be the most common type of UBI advocate I've encountered. That being said, the one lingering question I have comes down to a variant of inflation. I think most people think of inflation as something that only happens as a result of monetary policy, b…

Some scarce things that everyday people want are likely to go up in price (ex. rent in cities that are already struggling with housing prices).

Some things may drop in price (higher demand allowing to spread fixed costs over more units; or, lower volatility allowing for smaller margins).

Some prices that would increase, may only do some temporarily, as the market catches up with production or competition (ex. greater stable demand for basic housing makes it less risky to build said housing, so more of it gets built).

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#89

Post by rafd »

jariel wrote: post #87
devit wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that UBI should not be about giving an amount of money, but rather about giving essentials like housing and food or the equivalent in money, and "doubling" essentials doesn't make as much sense, since you don't have much use for two beds or twice the food.

What constitutes 'basic necessity' changes every year. Is a car a basic necessity? What about a mobile? Broadband? Netflix/Cable wouldn't be an obvious choice but many will argue it is. Washing machine? What about food delivery for those over 55? You know those 3-wheel motorized chairs, between scooters and wheelchairs for the elderly ... they are definitely a 'necessity' for some but really quite 'in between' for ot…

If we could afford to live in a world where everyone was given $5000/mth, would we want such a world? (where work was optional) I think yes.

...can we afford that? At this point, probably not. But is it something to strive for?

I think it is eventually possible to get the costs of providing basic needs to everyone (say, through automation) to the point where they can be easily covered by taxes on those who choose to work.

I fear though, that housing is an obstacle to this vision, because in many countries, people rely on housing to be an investment (ex. my parents house is the majority of their retirement), and so the politicians protect it as such, and developers have weird incentives... and so the prices don't go down.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#90

Post by mikedilger »

Supermancho wrote: post #81
mikedilger wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you downvote me because you disagree, PLEASE share your thoughts on this. I cannot understand why you disagree if you simply downvote.

There are too many ideas in your post. Some of which make sense, some do not. > Players of an RPG want a fun game. I don't think you understand game theory and design well enough to be commenting. Generally, games are about learning about the world and performing pattern recognition to optimize in a constrained environment. MMORPGs have LOTS of games within them, some of which are completely player driven. > as a soc…

The reason I asked was to learn more about UBI and other people's perspectives on it. Not to be chastized and offended. None of this comment was helpful. I'd explain why sentence by sentence but I doubt that would be a fruitful exercise.
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