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

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

#711

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 2:24 PM UTC

nec4b wrote: post #706

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get as pedantic as you want about the definition of socialism, but the point is, there's no evidence that a program like single-payer healthcare or UBI will drive off everyone who pays into the system.

There is also no evidence of pink unicorns not existing.

What evidence we do have says that people are not going to mass-flee a country just because taxes go up to benefit the lower classes at the expense of the higher earning ones. I therefore assert that inglor_cz's assertion is baseless. Feel free to provide a counter-example.

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

#712

Post by tonyedgecombe » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:01 PM UTC

throwawayboise wrote: post #452

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you're paying large numbers to do nothing, the value of that money plummets and people will starve. We already pay large numbers of people to do nothing, retirees.

Ostensibly, we are paying them back the Social Security taxes + interest that were withheld from their pay when they were working, supplemented by any pensions or savings they may have.

Whatever way you look at it they are doing nothing and people aren't "starving".

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

#713

Post by jjk166 » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:17 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #666

jjk166 wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People weren't pushed out of farming, people abandoned farming. The large investments in mechanization were made after migration to cities made it increasingly difficult to find low wage workers to tend farms. The automation wound up being much better than the humans it replaced, allowing agricultural productivity to skyrocket even as its labor force plummeted, but despite being the biggest beneficiaries, the farm owners had spent decades resisting these improvements. The average time from when a new farm mechanization was invented to when it started being commercially adopted was about 30 years. Progress begins with change.

No one is arguing that humans are at risk of running out of things to do, nor is that at all relevant to a discussion of UBI. No one is going to leave a fulfilling and rewarding job to live around the poverty level on UBI, UBI is about getting people out of the low paying, menial work that should have already been automated were it not for the glut of cheaply available labor, the jobs people only take because they will starve to death if they don't. The moment you take away the risk of starving to death, these people can do things besides burn away their hours - they can learn new skills, move to areas with more opportunities, or maybe just work on themselves, and then opportunities which were previously out of reach become available. Not everyone will necessarily find something better to do, but whereas under our current system these people would clog up the gears of progress by continuing to work automatable jobs, with UBI they are taken care of while society advances.

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

#714

Post by tekknik » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:35 PM UTC

CraigJPerry wrote: post #682

tekknik wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>> everybody poorer The people who are currently not able to make ends meet are suddenly succeeding. So not everyone is poorer. You’re confusing “things will be vastly different” - which is not disputed. The richest today will be relatively less rich.

No, you’re either taking from the rich and killing innovation, and thereby jobs, or you make everything state owned and go full on socialism, or you cause inflation. All of these make everybody poorer.

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

#715

Post by tekknik » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:37 PM UTC

CraigJPerry wrote: post #681

tekknik wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 af…

>> They’re able to afford these things because they are actually receiving income, it’s just not reported Everyone’s a drug dealer? Doesnt sound plausible. Or at least They’re getting so much income they can afford to run a fancy car (debt free because who’s lending to a person with minimal documented income). I mean is that a poor person when they have $50k laying around to go buy a fancy car outright? Something abo…

> Everyone’s a drug dealer? Doesnt sound plausible.

Where did I say drug dealer? Or is this the first time you’ve heard of jobs getting paid under the table?

And yes some of them had much more than $50k judging by their things. But hey, make them more wealthy. Some people are really good at gaming the system.

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

#716

Post by tekknik » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:40 PM UTC

CraigJPerry wrote: post #685

tekknik wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

>> And with more entitlements With more money in some cases and less in others. Entitlements, that’s far too broad an umbrella. What exactly would you be entitled to beyond sufficient money to make a basic living and pursue the free pleasures in life (which are generally among the best available in life). What’s more fulfilling, spending $130k to ride the vomit comet for a couple of hours - i say this as someone who…

> But back to the entitlements - why is a teacher going to agree to teach an unruly kid?

You missed my point, the kid is unruly because of the entitled attitudes running around this country. If you pay people UBI, it doesn’t fix this, it exacerbates it. Fix the entitled attitude by making people earn what they get instead of handing it to them and maybe we’ll fix that attitude and not have to destroy our economy?

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

#717

Post by tekknik » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:41 PM UTC

CraigJPerry wrote: post #683

tekknik wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

>> So if there are no golfers Why are there no golfers? If everyone has basic needs met, shelter, basic food, healthcare, you’re telling me no one is going to make use of some time to go play some golf? Why? >> why are the groundskeepers making so much? Golf courses dont magic out of thin air, ubi can do a lot but it’s not magic. You’re going to have to pay someone enough that they choose to specialise then take on t…

> Why are there no golfers?

I explained why, read it again. And golf is not a basic need, it’s entertainment. Which in hard times nobody pays for. You’re gonna choose golf over eating?

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

#718

Post by tekknik » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:41 PM UTC

CraigJPerry wrote: post #687

tekknik wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rock climbing explorer, artisanal fisherman I can’t wait to see the GDP “growth” charts…

Why do we need GDP growth? Is there no other point on the spectrum which is sustainable? E.g. instead of “grow” - which is inherently unsustainable, you run out of materials and labour to feed the economy - i mean we can continue to kick the can down the road for a few generations yet and pretend we don’t understand what “grow” means in the context of finite resources. Instead of “shrink” which is also unsustainable.…

Because that’s why our money is worth anything in the first place. Unless you’re trying to make arcade tokens worthless outside of the arcade.

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

#719

Post by tekknik » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:42 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #703

tekknik wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Nobody earns what they have in a vacuum. There is a society that exists around you and enables what you do.

And we pay taxes to cover that.

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

#720

Post by tekknik » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 3:45 PM UTC

seba_dos1 wrote: post #675

tekknik wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do such people even exist? You’re talking to one. I have no degree, am self taught and a software engineer. The most help I got was reading open source code, which was pretty difficult to do when I started. My parents had no money for school for me, and I joined the military to try to get some education. That still wasn’t enough to actually get a degree so I had to work low paying jobs knowing I could do better whi…

I'm not. You were able to read open source code and learn from it, taking advantage of a lot of effort its authors put into it (who knows, maybe you even stumbled on some of my work out there?). You had access to computers and to the Internet, and had time to use it, most likely thanks to your parents, which isn't a given. You admitted yourself that you turned into publicly funded military for it to invest into your…

> You were able to read open source code and learn from it, taking advantage of a lot of effort its authors put into it (who knows, maybe you even stumbled on some of my work out there?).

I knew you were going to fixate on that, as you’re grasping at straws, which is why I put it in there. The amount of source code I read was one project, a php web framework. Yea I learned about 2 things from it back then, which I’ve long forgotten now.

Since I didn’t earn what I have, call your school, revoke your degree, quit your job and start over again with only unskilled jobs on your resume. Until you do that you won’t understand.