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Trading Time for Money

nicolasbouliane.com

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Re: Trading Time for Money

#71

Post by tt433 »

nicbou wrote: post #66
keiferski wrote: post #18

Analyses like this just make me think Basic Income will radically shake up civilization more than most people realize. In particular, it will help divorce this ubiquitous cultural association between time and money. This reason alone may explain some of the hostility toward implementing even a rudimentary form of UBI. Some of the most rewarding human experiences have zero financial value and subsequently are dismisse…

I sincerely doubt that basic income will make us all Victorian-era gentleman scientists and patrons of the arts. I agree with the premise that culture comes from leisure, but realistically, if you give everyone a fixed amount of money, won't the cost of things just rise accordingly? Instead of giving people free money, wouldn't it make more sense to heavily subsidise the basics? Is there any indication that UBI would…

Not who you are replying to that's a bit of a strawman: he never said anything about Victorian era gentlemen. The book he mentioned doesn't either, at least in the first few pages. Why do you start talking about that? Usually when other people mis-state what I say, I get pretty angry.

Re: Trading Time for Money

#72

Post by okthenletssee »

keiferski wrote: post #18

Analyses like this just make me think Basic Income will radically shake up civilization more than most people realize. In particular, it will help divorce this ubiquitous cultural association between time and money. This reason alone may explain some of the hostility toward implementing even a rudimentary form of UBI. Some of the most rewarding human experiences have zero financial value and subsequently are dismisse…

What rewarding experience has zero financial value?

I think you are very wrong about money.

Re: Trading Time for Money

#73

Post by okthenletssee »

keiferski wrote: post #35
valvar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it will help divorce this ubiquitous cultural association between time and money I think this is naïve at best, and horribly misguided at worst. Time is money is not just a saying. The fundamental currency, the one thing that ever person needs and wants, is time. That's why it's so tightly coupled with other valuable things such as money. Time and money are essentially the same thing, though of course time is less f…

I don’t think you’ve quite understood my comment. I am saying that if a significant portion of the population becomes able to survive without needing a job, the overall culture will shift and things that aren’t immediately lucrative will become more popular. Many of these things are fundamentally important but are brushed aside because they fulfill no role in an economically-oriented society.

Leisure time/spare time has value already. People work so that they can afford to have spare time and go on holidays. You have severe misconceptions about economics.

People not having to work to survive will just lead to people having kids (or migrating to places where they get free money) until society can not support them all anymore, then we will be back to zero again.

Re: Trading Time for Money

#74

Post by bouk »

Thorentis wrote: post #8

> By comparison, my grocery bill is 5€ a day. Do you live on rice and beans? That sounds like you're trading enjoyment for money. We (2 adults) spend about US$150 a week on groceries, and still eat out about once a week. Those groceries include three meals a day, with the leftovers of the night before being taken for lunch the next day. How on earth do people eat healthily and only spend $5 a day?

Groceries in most of Europe are much higher quality for a lower price than in the US

Re: Trading Time for Money

#75

Post by glenstein »

tt433 wrote: post #71
nicbou wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sincerely doubt that basic income will make us all Victorian-era gentleman scientists and patrons of the arts. I agree with the premise that culture comes from leisure, but realistically, if you give everyone a fixed amount of money, won't the cost of things just rise accordingly? Instead of giving people free money, wouldn't it make more sense to heavily subsidise the basics? Is there any indication that UBI would…

Not who you are replying to that's a bit of a strawman: he never said anything about Victorian era gentlemen. The book he mentioned doesn't either, at least in the first few pages. Why do you start talking about that? Usually when other people mis-state what I say, I get pretty angry.

More than a bit, it's massive strawman that wastes everyone's time, no pun intended. To the extent that people have tried to develop a Theory Of Comment Sections and why they are so frequently, unfortunately bad, most of it centers around the frequency of uncharitable bad faith engagement with things that could be interpreted more reasonably.

Nobody addresses themselves to the most reasonable interpretation of the thing they respond to, and that's the primary mechanism that pushes the quality of comment sections down. And I think we've got another datapoint in support of that here.

Re: Trading Time for Money

#76

Post by paulpauper »

keiferski wrote: post #18

Analyses like this just make me think Basic Income will radically shake up civilization more than most people realize. In particular, it will help divorce this ubiquitous cultural association between time and money. This reason alone may explain some of the hostility toward implementing even a rudimentary form of UBI. Some of the most rewarding human experiences have zero financial value and subsequently are dismisse…

>Some of the most rewarding human experiences have zero financial value and subsequently are dismissed or ignored as "irrelevant" by a significant amount of people. It would be fantastic if we evaluated the worth of an activity on its beauty, meaning, or another hundred adjectives other than how much money we're losing by doing it.

If you like birdwatching , awesome, but where ppl object is having to pay for your hobby

Re: Trading Time for Money

#77

Post by Jabbles »

nicbou wrote: post #5
dilippkumar wrote: post #3

So roughly, the author is saying something like: if ( outsourcing_cost * alpha > opportunity_cost ) { outsource(); } and discusses how that alpha should be calculated. The author also mentions some side benefits of doing some tasks and getting better at them. Does HN have any thoughts about living a smaller life by doing fewer things and having more time to just live and enjoy life? If spending time figuring out how…

> wouldn’t such knowledge spread quickly and become common knowledge How to lose weight is open knowledge, but that doesn't make it easier, doubly so if you are also fighting other battles. Sometimes there is a solution, but it's just not attainable for everyone. > are there any real life hacks that are not obvious that result in significant quality of life improvements? I didn't want to make this post about my own l…

> How to lose weight is open knowledge, but that doesn't make it easier

This is a fantastic quote - you could write whole essays on how it relates to open sourcing a software project.

Re: Trading Time for Money

#78

Post by taneq »

nicbou wrote: post #66
keiferski wrote: post #18

Analyses like this just make me think Basic Income will radically shake up civilization more than most people realize. In particular, it will help divorce this ubiquitous cultural association between time and money. This reason alone may explain some of the hostility toward implementing even a rudimentary form of UBI. Some of the most rewarding human experiences have zero financial value and subsequently are dismisse…

I sincerely doubt that basic income will make us all Victorian-era gentleman scientists and patrons of the arts. I agree with the premise that culture comes from leisure, but realistically, if you give everyone a fixed amount of money, won't the cost of things just rise accordingly? Instead of giving people free money, wouldn't it make more sense to heavily subsidise the basics? Is there any indication that UBI would…

> if you give everyone a fixed amount of money, won't the cost of things just rise accordingly?

I hear this argument a lot but I don't think it necessarily follows:

- The supply of low end goods (the sort which you can afford with your UBI) is highly automated and will increase rapidly for any small price increase, making their pricing fairly inelastic.

- The demand for these goods won't rise greatly (except for low end luxury / status items, for which UBI makes the difference between people buying and not) since anyone living above a subsistence level is already buying roughly as much as they need (they're just feeling more financial stress now by doing so).

So overall I'd expect we might see a small price rise but nowhere near enough to cancel out the UBI.

Re: Trading Time for Money

#79

Post by aynyc »

okthenletssee wrote: post #72
keiferski wrote: post #18

Analyses like this just make me think Basic Income will radically shake up civilization more than most people realize. In particular, it will help divorce this ubiquitous cultural association between time and money. This reason alone may explain some of the hostility toward implementing even a rudimentary form of UBI. Some of the most rewarding human experiences have zero financial value and subsequently are dismisse…

What rewarding experience has zero financial value? I think you are very wrong about money.

For me, things such as raising my kids, cooking, fishing, climbing, skiing, reading, drawing terribly, and coding, etc give me rewarding experience and zero financial value. I’m not gifted in any of them, so won’t make money off them other than coding.

Re: Trading Time for Money

#80

Post by fzzzy »

robocat wrote: post #64
keiferski wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The effects of society-wide basic income will be significantly different than just a small subsection of unemployed people. Especially when it comes to social acceptability.

Sure. But social acceptability should have little multiplier effect on the other benefits you listed e.g. artistic output (unemployed/beneficiary artists are already socially acceptable, in my circles at least).

You have no idea how many other people would be artists if there were basic income. Like me. Just because it is socially acceptable doesn't mean I have the energy to tolerate what it takes currently.
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