A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income • Hacker News Board

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#121

Post by Supermancho » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 3:50 AM UTC

_curious_ wrote: post #98

astura wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Who ends up paying for them and why?

The public taxpayer ends up paying for their housing, their food stamps, their bus fare, healthcare, etc. As I indicated, it's multi-generational. However, this is because their behavior is degenerate. They spend all day being paranoid of people coming to take what little they have and lack any sort of trust in each other or themselves. Drugs are involved (including pot) across the board, excepting the little kids who are raised around it.

As an aside, my best friend (prescribed adderall) has always been affected by "the curse of the gifted". When lower grade school is easy. After high school, real intellectual competition breaks that paradigm of "if it isn't easy for me, it's too hard" resulting in similar lazy adult behavior...although he does work. He's never been stable and still hovers just over minimum wage and cannot care for his kids. These problems that have similar outcome (like homelessness) which are often conflated.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#122

Post by rasalas » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 3:50 AM UTC

lazyant wrote: post #69

No mention of the UBI initiatives in Canada https://www.ontario.ca/page/ontario-basic-income-pilot (scrapped by the new Conservative government) and the older https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome (also "free money for surfers"? wtf)

> (also "free money for surfers"? wtf)

I was curious about the surfers as well. It's a reference to something John Rawls wrote in 1988:

"[...] those who surf all day off Malibu must find a way to support themselves and would not be entitled to public funds." [1] provides context.

In 1991, Philippe van Parijs wrote "Why surfers should be fed: The liberal case for an Unconditional Basic Income", which instead supports Rawls's surfers. [2]

[1] https://rawlsbasicincome.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/chapter-tw... [2] https://www.uclouvain.be/cps/ucl/doc/etes/documents/1991l.Su...

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#123

Post by Gibbon1 » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 3:56 AM UTC

zanny wrote: post #115

Gibbon1 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In modern globalized economics the only things that really inflate uncontrollably are things those supply is constrained by forces beyond production scalability. IE patents, copyrights, or things of extremely finite supply like land. It's felt to me like we've gone from Pre 1800: A world where material inputs were very expensive. Complex manufactured goods ditto. And labor cheap. 1800-1980: Where where materials we…

While we keep pipe dreaming about full AI or home automation the number of people required to extract a ton of lumber, iron, oil, etc has dropped an order of magnitude in the span of decades. Likewise the number of people required to participate in the refinement of materials into, say, TVs has fallen by a similar order. And it keeps falling. More industrialized automation begets more as the pipelines scale up and ju…

Over my career I've noted that the 'knee' on the mass production curve gets lower and lower. The NRE for design, molds and tooling keeps dropping. Out of my keester 30 years ago you needed 100,000 units to justify a set of injection molds. Every ten years after cut that number by 10.

Now if you want a 1000 plastic parts, not too complex, NRE is a couple bucks each.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#124

Post by Ididntdothis » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 4:11 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #118

twblalock wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a free market though. It is heavily regulated.

It’s not in the US either. Health care is intensely regulated.

Not the pricing and billing practices. At least not in a way that’s beneficial to the patient.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#125

Post by Der_Einzige » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 4:15 AM UTC

danesparza wrote: post #19

I'm glad to see Thomas Paine referenced in this article. So many Americans don't realize that one of America's founding fathers championed the idea of universal basic income back when the USA was just being created. This was something that Andrew Yang pointed out, but was largely ignored.

Paine was the Bernie Sanders of his era. He was a hardcore humanist and abolitionist. Very few Americans realize how marganalized he became after the revolution. His story is a sad one and he should be celebrated far more than basically any other founding father by persons of conscious

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#126

Post by boomboomsubban » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 4:16 AM UTC

tgv wrote: post #11

Did it really? I remember strikes against "austerity" measures and such, but a wave of basic grant militancy? > Pilot programs have been set up in several cities and countries — Utrecht There is no such thing. They relaxed the rules for the bottom rung of welfare, which basically scraps the obligation to apply for jobs. Doesn't bode well for the article.

>Did it really? I remember strikes against "austerity" measures and such, but a wave of basic grant militancy

I know nothing about these events, but it's not hard to believe a large number of people came to support UBI during a period of frequent strikes. With huge groups working together for a common goal, you'd expect some of them would start supporting more radical ideas

>There is no such thing. They relaxed the rules for the bottom rung of welfare, which basically scraps the obligation to apply for jobs.

The word "Utrecht" that you quoted links to the ongoing pilot program, also here

https://capx.co/keeping-an-eye-on-utrechts-basic-income-expe...

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#127

Post by lostlogin » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 5:19 AM UTC

mikedilger wrote: post #42

lostlogin wrote: post #15

Below is an article arguing that New Zealand has been testing a UBI for decades with its pension scheme which is available to everyone aged over 65. Be warned - Gareth Morgan has some interesting politics. http://morganfoundation.org.nz/already-ubi-nz-super/

UBI to people outside of the workforce is entirely different. My argument against UBI is that it erodes the desire to work, and we still need nearly everybody of working age to work... until the robots catch up (they still have a lot of catching up to do).

> UBI to people outside of the workforce is entirely different.

If you can make it work for a group that are working for money less that the population average, surely you can make it work for a larger population? Keep in mind that there are other parts to this like sick pay, maternity/paternity leave, unemployment leave etc. There are a collection of separate systems that could be combined, have vastly less administrative overhead and improve incentives (ie more work = more pay).

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#128

Post by mistermann » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 5:38 AM UTC

CuriousSkeptic wrote: post #111

mistermann wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about this idea, if we print money and distribute it "wisely" among the lower income classes, this would debase the currency proportional to the amount printed, harming primarily those who are wealthy, proportional to their wealth, and the money will eventually flow upwards through the financial system, primarily through consumer spending, but ultimately back into the pockets of the wealthy. Of course,…

You might enjoy this proposal https://www.stjornarradid.is/media/forsaetisraduneyti-media/... It’s not directly about UBI but rather money as such. But the analysis do touch on some of your ideas

I will, thank you!

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#129

Post by 6510 » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 5:44 AM UTC

ineedasername wrote: post #50

I think UBI as a single monolithic program for providing minimum resources to provide the basics of food/shelter etc can be much improved on by other means: [0]Instead, I think a constellation of smaller, targeted programs (think best-of-breed) might be more effective and provide a more robust effect: If a society provides universal healthcare, comprehensive unemployment benefits that don't have absurdly low caps, ho…

Think of the oddly familiar security vs usability problem.

The tailored programs always fail to reach some people who badly need them.[1] At the same time they always have some fraud to deal with. You will reach more of the target audience by accepting more fraud. You can also fight fraud more effectively at the expense of those in need. OR you can throw more money at it and try but fail to eliminate both.

Then you'd want to avoid turning it into a blunt instrument. To do this an incredibly large army of skilled and trained people has to be hired (and removed from the private sector) who are tasked with many impossible tasks. (They tried to measure how fucked my back was one time. We concluded that no one had any idea what would happen if I got a job)

Then there is the ego problem of living on hand outs- because A, B and C. Others might not say it but you feel pathetic not being able to take care of yourself.

Also interesting is to wonder who all those industries and markets should be working for. They currently work for whoever has money. This includes you and me but only to a very very limited extend.

[1] - Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. Examples are not doing this chaos any justice. Try picture a combination of someone close to you dying horribly, physical injury, mental problems and losing your administration. We give you some forms to fill out and you simply can't do it. You just want 3 months of alone time. We give you 20 experts who want you to talk about how fucked up your situation is the year round. No way to move on.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#130

Post by 6510 » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 5:51 AM UTC

limomium wrote: post #117

ineedasername wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then people need to go out and shop for those things using UBI, for example compete for housing in markets that may offer no affordable housing, but housing subsidies would help resolve that. If targeted programs can be poorly designed or mismanaged inconsistently, then so could UBI. The whole idea is to thoughtfully design a program. If that is possible, there's no reason we can't thoughtfully design targeted pr…

Far too low for what, exactly? Buying real estate, cars, expensive clothing, huge TVs and investments? If you suddenly lose a well-paying job, food and housing still cost the same for everyone, which you can afford on UBI, by design. You'll have to give up the expensive lifestyle afforded by the lost job, of course. Maybe move to cheaper housing. So what?

A tailored program would not allow you to keep your 100 k in savings.