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Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

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

#771

Post by tekknik »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #731
tekknik wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I haven’t. You are assuming people give out info for free. What you’re saying is essentially that your degree was free. Someone had to pay for it. For me it was buying books. Did those authors help me with free books? No they charged me just the same. How is this getting help from others? Unless you believe that if you gain knowledge at all even with compensation from someone else is help. But that’s just commerc…

> You are assuming people give out info for free. They do. I learned a lot thanks to them. > What you’re saying is essentially that your degree was free. My degree that does not exist?

> They do. I learned a lot thanks to them.

Since you’re still not following, why do people post blog articles? Why do people write research papers? Just to get the info out there? No, they do it because it gives them some advantage over others. FAANGs won’t hire you without proof of knowledge. The other side of it is SEO. You want to exist on google you have to look like an expert, so you write a lot of articles to increase your score. Both of these situations are driven by money, not by some desire to help others.

> My degree that does not exist?

Fine, then you’re essentially saying that all the learning you did was free for you. It required no effort at all, all you had to do was read. If your self taught, or went to school, you know this is just dumb.

So back to the point, did you or did you not work for the knowledge you have? Or did it just get matrixed into you?

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

#772

Post by tekknik »

noogle wrote: post #756
tekknik wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The trillions of dollars printed by the Federal Reserve in the past two years beg to differ. The inflation we’re experiencing now wants to have a word with you.

From another comment: > Seems to be worth the inflation IMO. Some things will become expensive. Some might be balanced. Construction cost will increase, but land value may decrease (since there is no necessity to crowd in job hubs). Taxis and Uber will probably increase as people are not forced to work at all costs, but people might find this trade-off favorable: unemployment is far more painful than having to take t…

I’m glad we can predict that far in the future. IMO, it won’t be, as inflation will continue as we spiral downward. Venezuela will be super jealous of our inflation.

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

#773

Post by tekknik »

staticassertion wrote: post #743
tekknik wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people are getting paid $80k a year to do nothing Im quitting my job and living in the woods. 1 less software engineer.

The point was to pay less than median income. So you're looking at closer to 30k at the high end.

So those in high cost of living areas are still just screwed? $30k/yr isn’t even enough to pay rent.

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

#774

Post by staticassertion »

tekknik wrote: post #773
staticassertion wrote: post #743

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point was to pay less than median income. So you're looking at closer to 30k at the high end.

So those in high cost of living areas are still just screwed? $30k/yr isn’t even enough to pay rent.

Do you want me to write a full, detailed policy? Or can you just use some common sense?

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

#775

Post by rottencupcakes »

xyzzyz wrote: post #440
rottencupcakes wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming we don’t want to MMT / money printer this, to keep a balanced budget, any UBI system would have to be accompanied by an increase in taxes. These taxes would presumably be very progressive. This effectively would end up more than negating the effect of UBI on the richer people, thus turning it into a directed welfare program. UBI and directed welfare are essentially same same.

In US, these taxes wouldn’t be particularly progressive. US taxes are already very progressive, much more so than in Europe. In US, the wealthy already pay overwhelming majority of the tax. If US was to embark on European level governmental spending, it would have to introduce more European-like taxation system, where bulk of the revenue is collected from middle and working class.

20%+ VAT baby.

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

#776

Post by Kim_Bruning »

tekknik wrote: post #764
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the company maybe? Were you in a project that went bad? Last time I did a robot project, the people who would ultimately be the machine operators were involved every step of the way, learning and building together with the team. I'm not sure how installing a handful of machines in one small corner of a huge factory that's already full of machines would somehow change someone's entire life. Hopefully it doe…

> Depends on the company maybe? Were you in a project that went bad? I have never worked in robotics, save for hobby drones and hexapods. The question is not whether we would enjoy it, it’s whether someone else will. You seem very convinced that you should decide what people do for work. That’s the part I’m trying to get across to you, you should not have that power for anybody but yourself.

I notice I'm confused.

I don't think that I've ever decided what people do for work. I unsure if that that is a thing. As far as I (can/do) know, they decide internally and then hire me to help.

I'm not sure how to proceed. Could you unpack your assumptions for me?

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

#777

Post by seba_dos1 »

tekknik wrote: post #771
seba_dos1 wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are assuming people give out info for free. They do. I learned a lot thanks to them. > What you’re saying is essentially that your degree was free. My degree that does not exist?

> They do. I learned a lot thanks to them. Since you’re still not following, why do people post blog articles? Why do people write research papers? Just to get the info out there? No, they do it because it gives them some advantage over others. FAANGs won’t hire you without proof of knowledge. The other side of it is SEO. You want to exist on google you have to look like an expert, so you write a lot of articles to i…

> Both of these situations are driven by money, not by some desire to help others.

I've learned a lot from pseudonymous or even anonymous people with no money or fame involved. And helped others this way too.

> Fine, then you’re essentially saying that all the learning you did was free for you. It required no effort at all, all you had to do was read.

That's not what I'm saying at all and you would have known that if you would read what I wrote with comprehension. It took a lot of effort, but I recognize that this effort alone is just a single factor that influenced what I earn, and not even the most important one. Other factors outside of my control could have easily ruined (or boosted) it all, and it's true for everyone.

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

#778

Post by Kim_Bruning »

thegrimmest wrote: post #757
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the conclusion of this study was that UBI would not reduce amount of work done overall in the economy. Another study discussed here showed only a mild net reduction in amount of paid work being done on the short term; and arguably the unpaid work being done instead was also beneficial to society. Interestingly, in general, UBI studies don't show really alarming reductions in amount of work done. Sadly they also do…

As it has been pointed out, the studies are fundamentally flawed in that the participants know they are of a limited duration. Getting a stipend for a few months isn't enough to quit your job. Being promised one for the rest of your life certainly can be. UBI is basically communism lite - with all its flaws. People who are provided for tend to behave just like animals who are provided for - after all, people are anim…

So we could quibble over details such as that people in some of the studies did quit their jobs, or whether UBI is actually a very conservative and capitalist concept, and so forth... but ...

Since HN discussions tend to be short and fleeting; I think the point to focus down on would be "free time". Just because you take (some of the) money out of the picture, doesn't mean that there still isn't a lot of work to be done. And it doesn't mean that all the other motivators to do that work aren't still present.

Instead of or in addition to money: people work for power, prestige, recognition; but also for love, honor, duty, "FOR SCIENCE", beauty, tradition, for personal satisfaction&improvement, and many other reasons.

With all these different reasons to want to work, and all kinds of different people and professions, (eg. politicians, artists, homemakers, soldiers, police officers, doctors, nurses, scientists, students, artists ), you might imagine that taking money off the table might not actually have such an influence on these people's desire to work.

If you think back, surely you'll recognize these motivations showing up everywhere; including in stories, newspapers, citations, history books, holy books, and surely even scientific studies. They're all part of the human condition, after all.

The examples you give of farming, construction, hospitality and retail are often mixed motivation. Some people (like you?) only work in those jobs because they need the money. And without further motivation, then surely one won't like the work.

But many people who work in these sectors actually do so because they believe in their job, because they want to build something, and/or because they see it is valued and helps the community. When they are down and demotivated, this is where they draw their strength to carry on.

This is especially true in SME's, which is where I've had a lot of my experiences.

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

#779

Post by thegrimmest »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #778
thegrimmest wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it has been pointed out, the studies are fundamentally flawed in that the participants know they are of a limited duration. Getting a stipend for a few months isn't enough to quit your job. Being promised one for the rest of your life certainly can be. UBI is basically communism lite - with all its flaws. People who are provided for tend to behave just like animals who are provided for - after all, people are anim…

So we could quibble over details such as that people in some of the studies did quit their jobs, or whether UBI is actually a very conservative and capitalist concept, and so forth... but ... Since HN discussions tend to be short and fleeting; I think the point to focus down on would be "free time". Just because you take (some of the) money out of the picture, doesn't mean that there still isn't a lot of work to be d…

I agree with everything you wrote. I think the only question is how much work overall, as a percentage of the economy, is motivated by the avoidance of destitution, and how much is motivated by higher humanistic values. I think if you ask most people, you may be disappointed to find that they give pithy answers about not starving, or supporting their lifestyle, and vanishingly few will cite honor, duty, beauty or tradition. I think you would also find that the frequency of pithy answers forms an inverse relationship with wages. It would be interesting to try to construct a study to answer these questions.

Overall, I don't think the "human condition" is much of a thing. People are marginally more clever than apes on average, and that small margin pushed us past a tipping point into civilization. Give a chimp a smartphone and they start to behave remarkably like people (or is it vice versa).

However, even if you're right, and most people would find humanistic motivation to work, my point is that we just can't have all the people who do menial, necessary, jobs pursue careers motivated by higher values. If all baristas were suddenly free to pursue their dream art careers, who will pour the coffee?

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

#780

Post by StochasticSand »

lr4444lr wrote: post #169
staticassertion wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If my job requires menial labor or involves getting berated by customers (many retail jobs), personally I would absolutely not work. Maybe that's a good thing. It's insane how people in service industries are treated - like they're less than human. Shifting some power to them and giving the job a little more of an air of dignity or status would probably help a lot. And the pay would obviously go up. People would be…

Much as we might agree these workers overall have more money - from whatever source - it does not follow that the pay would go up for crap jobs. The pay need only be high enough above the post tax increase from the UBI baseline to fill the spots. Maybe it won't they populated by people who need to feed their family anymore, but perhaps by college grads who need to feed themselves because UBI is eaten up by their stud…

I mean, it's the law of diminishing marginal utility. Money earned on top of UBI would be worth less than money earned on top of nothing.
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