Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work • Hacker News Board

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#661

Post by tekknik » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 5:22 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #219

roamerz wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? Sounds like you should be part or a dictatorship rather than a democracy. If you support this idea then feel free to donate to the cause. Not trying to be an ass but the so what attitude does not tend to further constructive discussion.

> Sounds like you should be part or a dictatorship rather than a democracy. What a weird claim. Decisions in democracies upset some people too. That's the whole point of voting on things, to resolve conflicts. > If you support this idea then feel free to donate to the cause. Donate to what? > Not trying to be an ass but the so what attitude does not tend to further constructive discussion. "Some people will complain"…

> That's the whole point of voting on things, to resolve conflicts.

It doesn’t resolve the conflict, one side is just forced to accept something they don’t want. The hatred, and therefore the division, builds regardless.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#662

Post by tekknik » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 5:29 AM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #145

jacobn wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those who work and thereby pay for the UBI may feel that freeriding is actually unjust, and not the hallmark of a glorious new post-scarcity society?

As more jobs become automated, UBI will become a necessity to prevent the collapse of civilization. Imagine something as simple as burger flipping became completely automated. There would be a million fast food workers suddenly unemployed. Add making espresso to the mix and half a million baristas lose their job. There won't be a million new jobs created to maintain the automation to pick up the slack.

> Imagine something as simple as burger flipping became completely automated. There would be a million fast food workers suddenly unemployed. Add making espresso to the mix and half a million baristas lose their job.

Both of these are completely automated already.

https://newsexaminer.net/food/mcdonalds-to-open-restaurant-r...

I can’t find a link for the espresso machine but many FAANGs have the ones you can place orders through a website then go to the lounge to pick it up.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#663

Post by tekknik » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 5:33 AM UTC

CraigJPerry wrote: post #254

bitshiftfaced wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And so what if people refuse to do shitty jobs? The "so what" is that basic income doesn't change the ordinal ranking of how much people prefer to do different jobs. Neither does it change people's ability to get those jobs. Better qualified applicants will always have better options. So while basic income might increase the nominal pay of the least preferable jobs, it wouldn't mean you suddenly get to skip over th…

That doesn’t ring true. If you had the capital to make the decision not to work a crap-corp and instead pursue your dream “job” of being painter, musician, rock climbing explorer, artisanal fisherman, etc etc

> rock climbing explorer, artisanal fisherman

I can’t wait to see the GDP “growth” charts…

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#664

Post by tekknik » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 5:35 AM UTC

CraigJPerry wrote: post #307

bitshiftfaced wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about everyone else who now also has the capital to pursue their dream job? Just as before basic income, there's many people competing for a finite number of dream jobs.

What about them? Comparatively enjoyable jobs will pay less, horrible jobs will pay more. Want to “work” as a golfer? Cool, enjoy living on UBI because no one will be topping up your salary for that. The person who cuts the greens earns wayyyy more than you though. Want to play lots of golf? You’re going to run out of UBI to pay for all those greens fees. Maybe you need to think about taking on a side gig in a comfor…

So if there are no golfers, then why are the groundskeepers making so much? Golfing gets more expensive because you have to pay the lawn mowers literally sitting on a vehicle all day, so less people do it, then the groundskeeper is out of a job? Now what?

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#665

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 5:38 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #648

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revenue per employee, usually. (There are many measures of labor productivity, though.) Really, you'd just want to tax corporations over a certain size that are both highly automated (i.e. high revenue per employee), and have lopsided compensation structures (which could be measured by CEO to median worker pay). If a company successfully automates a bunch of jobs, and then makes that money rain equally on all their r…

> makes that money rain equally on all their remaining employees, I'd have no problem with it. why would the remaining employees, who have no invested capital into the business (with which the automation is driven by), receive any of the gains from said automation? The people who invested the capital into the automation reaps the profit. In this case, it's often the shareholders in the end.

> The people who invested the capital into the automation reaps the profit.

Yes, that's how it works today. That's not how I'd like it to work.

Many people here get a significant portion of their compensation via RSUs, ESPPs, and other profit-sharing initiatives, and any company that decides to extend these benefits to lower level workers should be treated favourably by the tax system.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#666

Post by missedthecue » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 5:40 AM UTC

jjk166 wrote: post #561

missedthecue wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm opposed to paying people not to work. Humans and automation coexist. It's not as if all the engineers that used slide-rules and graphing paper went homeless when AutoCAD was invented. Same with farmers and the tractor. Society gets richer as automation makes our labor more efficient.

I'm an automation engineer. Automation and labor are at odds. Yeah, automation doesn't completely eliminate jobs, but it takes a lot fewer people to do those jobs. As per your example with farmers and the tractor, agriculture went from employing 90% of people to The main impediment to automation is the ready availability of cheap labor. Automation requires large upfront investments and lots of technical skill on the…

But you're proving my point here. 90% was pushed out of farming, but that population isn't unemployed right now. We're doing other things, like being automation engineers.

And as we automate other things, life will continue to improve, but humans won't ever run out of things to do.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#667

Post by tekknik » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 5:40 AM UTC

CraigJPerry wrote: post #567

bitshiftfaced wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Comparatively enjoyable jobs will pay less, horrible jobs will pay more. Why? Golfing is a poor example because you can already lose money trying to be a pro. Or, you could become world famous and make millions. What's more is that you don't need to be "hired" to become a golfer. When we talk about jobs that firms pay salaries to fill, then I don't see why the supply of those jobs would change, whether they're enjo…

>> then I don't see why the supply of those jobs would change Are you not underestimating just how radical a change UBI would be? You’re going to radically change which jobs are viable. For example, if you pay every teacher UBI, is it a stretch to imagine more than half decide not to go into work tomorrow? It’s not just a case of paying teachers more when they can afford to say no to your job. You’re talking about co…

> There’s going to be zero room for unruly kids in that classroom.

How come multiple times now people point out UBI as being a way to deal with the entitled people running around right now? And with more entitlements we’ll have more of an issue with entitled people.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#668

Post by seba_dos1 » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 5:41 AM UTC

tekknik wrote: post #660

seba_dos1 wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with that mindset usually greatly overestimate the influence their work has on what they have and underestimate external factors, so pushing them to reevaluate may be a good thing.

So, people that worked and earned what they have and are compensated accordingly don’t deserve it?

Do such people even exist?

Being a programmer, what I earned is a result of several factors - most importantly investments made into me by my parents and by the society (with schools, infrastructure etc. mostly funded with taxes); and also plenty of pure luck and sheer coincidence. Only afterwards comes a lot of hard work I've put into learning what I know. Without the former, I would probably earn only a small fraction of that (and/or under much worse conditions) even assuming that I'd be putting the same amount of hard work. Alternatively, with more dumb luck I could be earning much more while putting less work into achieving that. Of course, this is just barely scratching the surface, as there are also other ways to get rich than working hard or being lucky; mere ability to invest your time and effort into "working hard" is often filled with external factors as well; and "being (un)lucky" itself contains so many factors to consider that I wouldn't even know where to start.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#669

Post by tekknik » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 5:43 AM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #333

CraigJPerry wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who would pay the multi-million dollar salary of the top footballers if that came to pass? If people were suddenly paying a LOT more for strawberries and garbage collection, would they have disposable left over for footballers? There’d still be footballers - the person who was picking fruit left that role to follow their UBI funded dream of being a footballer. They’re just not going to make the same amount of money.…

Believe it or not, poor people generally don't buy football tickets. If their TVs were made by UBI workers, then they wouldn't be able to afford those either. Material things would become scarce again due to the artificially inflated cost of labour. You're basically rewinding all of the gains in productivity we've made by imposing a high floor. CEOs aren't paid a lot because the assume risk, they're paid a lot becaus…

> Believe it or not, poor people generally don't buy football tickets. If their TVs were made by UBI workers, then they wouldn't be able to afford those either.

This is not my experience at all. I once had a job setting up home PCs and internet for low income people in my community. Almost every single home had a projection TV (the top of the line at the time) and a recent mercedes in the driveway. They’re able to afford these things because they are actually receiving income, it’s just not reported (and therefore also not taxed)

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#670

Post by tekknik » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 5:45 AM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #593

thegrimmest wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just less strawberries, but less everything that involves domestic/UBI-competing labour, which is a lot. If we did this worldwide, it would be everything .

Again, this is exactly what happens in high-productivity locations. Local, labor-intensive services like haircuts, waiting tables at restaurants etc. are paid more, because the workers have alternative opportunities in high-paying sectors. The flip side is that quality tends to improve as well due to efficiency-wage effects. It's hardly a disaster.

So this makes everybody poorer. Nobody is being lifted up here. If things cost more then your money doesn’t go as far. That’s called inflation. UBI seems like a great idea on paper but you’re pointing out its problem as a feature.