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Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

businessinsider.com

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Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#171

Post by dane-pgp »

mamon wrote: post #165
mason55 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread. Yes and on top of the obvious absurdity of this statement, there is a second level. As long as we punish things with fines they are effectively legal if you're rich enough.

Which kind of makes sense, because wealth is supposed to be a measure of one's contribution to society. You contributed more, you can get away with more.

> wealth is supposed to be a measure of one's contribution to society

That principle is only relevant in societies that don't have lotteries or inheritance, among other changes.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#172

Post by DoreenMichele »

colourgarden wrote: post #160
DoreenMichele wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fifty-five years of living and formally studying how people work and doing tons of therapy and yadda. We've been murdering Black people in the US for years and years and years. The usual response is "Well, you gotta understand. Policing is hard and it's a judgement call and it's unfortunate that so man Blacks end up dead after the cops get hold of them, but ...blah blah blah." And then a Black guy was murdered during…

Okaaaaaaay then. Your fifty-five years of studying how people work didn't extend to anywhere outside the US then. I'll leave you to it. Have a pleasant day.

My mother is German and I lived in Germany for nearly four years (as an adult, not counting the time I was there as a child, too young to really remember it).

Dismissive snark isn't really how you are supposed to be commenting on HN, no matter how much you may think I sound like a loon.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#173

Post by ghostwriter »

mrow84 wrote: post #151
unfortun8 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“1 in 7 billion uses luxury of online anonymity to play at being a nihilist. Forgets real world self and political power is limited to whatever the masses enable. Would rather ostricize self politically than speak up.”

I presume you are aiming this at me, and if so it doesn't apply - I was simply asking for a rationale for the original claim that "Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair." I would suggest that your retort, presuming that is what it is, is mere posturing; either you have a substantive answer to the question or not - so far you have not provided one.

Because no one owes you nothing by their unalienable right to be in charge of their own life, and you only get what you deserve by your actions. That's the fundamental moral principle of fairness. If your actions oriented towards creation then you get to hold your earnings by the right of your productive work. If your actions oriented towards extorting the value from those who create it, you deserve to be ostracized.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#174

Post by chordalkeyboard »

mrow84 wrote: post #96
baconandeggs wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that is why it will fail. Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair. Real fairness is everyone playing against the same rules and being treated the same under the law. Sadly governments and politicians are too corrupt to implement real fairness and have decided instead for the populist way out while keeping their insane advantage intact.

> Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair. Can you explain why? And if your answer amounts to "because people provide different amounts of [effort|value] to society" how would you reply to "so what?".

because the stuff they get for existing has to come from someone else.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#175

Post by searchableguy »

baconandeggs wrote: post #130
searchableguy wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fairness is leveling the playground. It's not equality. By birth, you are unequal. Would you say we should have the same measures for people with physical disabilities from birth and healthy athletes? No. That's why we have separate categories or measures. That is fair. And that is not treating everyone equally.

As sad as it is, I say we have to accept reality, and that means that a person with disabilities will not be able to do certain things, which does not mean he/she has nothing to do. Maybe he won't be an athlete but he can of course be a novelist. But we first have to accept the real world and get off this childish notion we are all born equal because as you pointed out, we sadly are not.

I think you missed my point. We evaluate people differently on their backgrounds already.

A 10 year old will be judged and rewarded in a favorable way compared to a 30 year old programmer. My example was to highlight the bias that people already acknowledge as fair. Poverty is a handicap in similar fashion. When we acknowledge the former in age should be judged more leniently and with grater praise, we refer to the statistical odds of a 10 year old being as good as a 30 year old and other 10 year olds.

That's the reality. You are refusing to accept it by removing the background of people in your hypothetical world. Fairness is not based on outcome.

Someone who never had access to computers, internet, mentors, etc would be judged differently compared to someone who always did. At least I would.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#177

Post by chordalkeyboard »

baconandeggs wrote: post #131
skybrian wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People talk about it a lot but I don’t think there is any agreement on what fairness is. Note that having a leader at all means someone has more power, and that’s inherently unequal, but most people think the benefits are worth it.

The law should be the leader . Sadly we have forgotten that.

then the people who write the laws become the leaders, except with a layer of obfuscation. how do we make laws that treat everyone equally?

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#178

Post by koonsolo »

Last time I asked this question here, I got downvoted without any answers. So here is my second try, this time specifically for Germany:

Show me the calculation of where the government will get the money for paying their entire adult population this amount. And let's assume everyone will keep working at their current job. (Which they won't since at a "Basic Income" pricepoint, lots of people would prefer spending more time with their family and so would opt-in working part-time etc).

So yeah, were is that realistic calculation of how to pay for full country UBI?

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#179

Post by mrow84 »

aeternum wrote: post #158
mrow84 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might agree with what you are saying, but it doesn't address the question, which is to provide a rationale for the claim "Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair." Your statement is about motivations, not fairness.

You're right, it's not very clear, this is what I was going for: It's not very fair to society as a whole if we implement policies which impede standard of living increases.

Again, something I could probably agree to, but it is interesting that we seem to have to move the frame from the individual up to (the individual's share of) society in order to provide a meaningful answer.

Despite others' somewhat antagonistic answers I really just wanted to explore the reasoning behind the original statement, which I think many people instinctively agree with whilst not being able to convincingly explain why (without referencing other ideas).

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#180

Post by chordalkeyboard »

dragonwriter wrote: post #162
missedthecue wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The thing about government programs that hand out cash is that the money will be circulated back into the local economy most of the time, which is a net benefit How is taxing the local economy to spend in the local economy (and some abroad) a net benefit? That's just transfer payments with some friction loss.

> How is taxing the local economy to spend in the local economy (and some abroad) a net benefit? Taxing the rich, who have a lower marginal propensity to consume and consume locally, and transferring to the poor, who have a higher marginal propensity to consume and to do so locally, increases the local velocity of money.

that increases the consumption of resources while reducing the incentive to create more.
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