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Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

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Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#221

Post by dragonwriter »

aodonnell2536 wrote: post #63
dragonwriter wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UBI is a bane because it kills meritocracy. UBI enables meritocracy, it doesn’t kill it.

How so? A big motivating factor to be successful for most people is to set themselves apart financially from the masses. Edit: And of course, what would be the motivating factor for someone to give their best possible work, if the other 12 guys in their position get paid the same for less quality work?

> A big motivating factor to be successful for most people is to set themselves apart financially from the masses.

UBI isn’t “no one gets paid on top of UBI for value delivered”. UBI does nothing to limit that motivation.

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#222

Post by Tiktaalik »

zeryx wrote: post #147

This doesn't just resonate with creatives - the startup / path to tech entrepreneurship is structured in a very similar way. I've seen lifers, trust funders and day jobbers succeed and fail in different ways, raise funds or bootstrap with nothing for years. Obviously the trust fund kids succeed substantially more often than the lifers or day jobbers

Pretty much everywhere really.

Several years ago I was mulling starting up a retail store in my town and when I looked closer at some of retail stores I liked in similar/adjacent markets I couldn't help but notice the backgrounds of the young founders of those stores, that they just so happened to come from enormously rich families and were obviously independently wealthy.

Their outwardly appearing successful stores may have well been simple hobbies and passion projects.

Possibly these persons were also great business persons and those stores were genuine profitable successes, but there was really no way of knowing. It was something that did dissuade me somewhat from my idea of venturing down the same path.

I absolutely did not have the sort of infinite safety net that they had.

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#223

Post by kafkaesque »

tomdell wrote: post #5

As someone who tried the music-or-nothing approach for several years after college and two years in ended up with semi-regular panic attacks, persistent existential dread, and crippling anxiety over finances, I can't recommend getting a day job enough. It saddens me to think of all the creative work I could be doing and all the artistic growth I could be seeing instead of developing marketing software, but at least I…

I tried living off my music for 10 years when I was young. I was on the verge of homelessness at the end. The existential dread was good for my art, but not my mental health. I was very creative, but also on the verge of not wanting to exist. After that, I sold all my gear and focused on a career in software development. I live a comfortable life now and slowly building back up my home studio and making music again. It doesn't feel the same and I have to really think about how to be creative, whereas before it was more intuitive. It's a trade-off. It feels different.

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#224

Post by jdmn73 »

austhrow743 wrote: post #212
digging wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my partner is a working artist and, though successful, would not be able to live in our city comfortably if they weren't with me (or someone else with similar income). it's depressing, although I'm thrilled to help. it means I can't easily quit if I want to pursue another interest. it means we both have incentive to stay together even if something goes wrong romantically. neither of these points are a problem for us…

How does that create incentive for you to stay with them if something goes wrong romantically?

Because there's a whole lot of room in between wanting to be in a romantic relationship with someone and wanting to see them homeless.

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#225

Post by CPLX »

solarmist wrote: post #208
CPLX wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a commodity in the same way as fashion is. Which is to say, it's not. That's the point. There's no fashion choices in West Texas Crude or Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil. Those are commodities. Each producer of the product produces an indistinguishable result from each other producer. You are producer indifferent. Most of the time you don't even have a way of knowing who produced the commodity you're consum…

I'm not asking what it's not. I'm asking what it is. If an option were removed, something (not a random substitution, but eventually a substitute would be found) else would take its place and fulfill the same function even though it isn't the same it's close enough to fulfill the purpose.

That’s called a substitute good. Every good has a substitute good.

That doesn’t make it a commodity, words have meanings.

The distinction is important.

The original thread here posited that music wasn’t a lucrative field because it’s an interchangeable commodity.

That’s just flat wrong. It’s the opposite. It’s not lucrative because it’s very highly differentiated and the popularity follows a power law distribution and you’re probably not in the top echelon.

But you could be. Which is why people try so hard.

That’s an entirely different analysis.

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#226

Post by npteljes »

nradov wrote: post #205
npteljes wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. "How so?" UBI doesn't mean you can't earn more, this is not communism. 2. "what would be the motivating factor" They don't, UBI is not communism. And what you say is already true at many places, and the world is still turning. The motivating factor, with UBI, is the same without it: to achieve more. UBI would just let you not fall into homelessness and / or under the poverty threshold.

How much would taxes have to increase in order to provide a UBI that would keep everyone above the poverty threshold? Have you actually done the math on this?

I don't think straight-up UBI would work, in the current systems. I think it would just make every affected good that much more expensive. A similar thing happened recently in Hungary with housing prices, when the government basically put subsidy into people's pockets. And the market just ate the subsidy.

I really do like the idea of a country keeping all of its citizens above the poverty line though. If UBI isn't the way, then some other way - maybe providing goods and meals instead of money? Taking a page from the Sikh's book.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langar_(Sikhism)

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#227

Post by golergka »

aidenn0 wrote: post #103
softfalcon wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, similar situation with: - My brother who is a writer while his wife works at an industrial job that pays exceedingly well - My friend who is an artist, whose husband owns an engineering firm with big medical device contracts - My other friend who is a nature photographer, whose husband works in tech - Yet another friend who is a musician, whose wife works in tech - Another friend who runs a dog shelter, whose h…

I'd like to see a list of jobs for which: 1. We generally value as a society 2. Two people both working the job and married to each other cannot afford to raise two children. There are some jobs which we romanticize as being this way (musicians and other artists being a big example), but are we okay with e.g. social workers all either starving, or from wealthy backgrounds?

There are jobs that we pay lip service to, like musicians and teachers. But ultimately, the jobs we actually value are people in finance who make sure that our savings don't disappear.

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#228

Post by boring_twenties »

e_i_pi_2 wrote: post #94
tomcam wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if most people paying taxes now opt for UBI instead?

The "U" part means everyone would get it, so you don't have to opt for it, and everyone would still pay taxes Another way to think of it is as a negative income tax - as a simple example the equation could be ((income * 0.2) - 20000), so if you make no money you get 20k, if you make 100k you pay no taxes and get nothing, if you make 200k you owe 20. This is using a flat tax rate for simplicity but then everyone get t…

The question is how many people making 200k will, given the option, take the free 20k and not work, therefore paying no taxes.

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#229

Post by lotsofpulp »

barbazoo wrote: post #179
lotsofpulp wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have yet to see a pilot test for UBI even begin. Which country’s people are all (universal) receiving an income? The whole thing makes no sense if everyone is not getting it.

> I have yet to see a pilot test for UBI even begin. Pilots have been done all over the place [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income_pilots

It cannot be piloted without an entire country being subject to it. The whole point is that ALL the lowest income workers (janitors/fruit pickers/nursing home workers/etc) can quit their job, causing a massive re-pricing of labor and re-allocation of labor.

It would cause lots of things to increase in price that are currently priced low simply because someone's parents happened to be from a poorer country that did not speak English, and so on and so forth.

Without that, the benefits of UBI can never be observed.

Re: Lifers, Dayjobbers, and the Independently Wealthy: A Letter to a Former Student

#230

Post by specproc »

softfalcon wrote: post #80
ipsi wrote: post #11

Reminds me of a couple of married friends of mine. The wife played a classical musical instrument (e.g., not an electric guitar) and had her sights set on being a professional. While working towards that she did a lot of teaching/practising/etc, and her students would often say something along the lines of "I'm so envious of all this time you have to practice music! How are you able to do it?!" and her reply was alwa…

Yeah, similar situation with: - My brother who is a writer while his wife works at an industrial job that pays exceedingly well - My friend who is an artist, whose husband owns an engineering firm with big medical device contracts - My other friend who is a nature photographer, whose husband works in tech - Yet another friend who is a musician, whose wife works in tech - Another friend who runs a dog shelter, whose h…

I worry there's a bit of HN bias here. I don't know anyone whose partner owns an investment management firm or similar.

I know a fair few day jobbing musicians and creatives of other stripes though, only one of which with parents of any real means.

One is a manager at a theatre, one does care work, one does WordPress and a bit of JS for small companies.

The most full-time musician I know did have the richest parents growing up, but he makes his cash teaching and doing session stuff in local theatres.

Given how income distributions work, I think day jobbing creatives are very much the majority.

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