Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

simulacrum.cc

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 681 posts

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#61

Post by BWStearns »

militiaman21 wrote: post #54
khill wrote: post #39

Wouldn't the basic income value need to vary across regions? For example, the notion that: "Every single adult member receives a weekly payment from the state, which is enough to live comfortably on" would mean a different value in San Francisco than in Grover, NC. If the government adjusted the basic income to account for regional cost-of-living, I imagine it would be popular to maintain a fake residency in an expen…

I'm fairly sure the government knows where we all truly live.

Given how often I've had the government send things to the wrong address for me, I am fairly sure that they don't know where I truly live (most of the time), even when I gave them the address.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#62

Post by rayiner »

speeder wrote: post #6

And where the money to pay for that will come from? I suspect if you just tax the rich like crazy, they will just move out to somewhere else.

That's probably true, but its worth thinking through. If the rich leave and take their automation capital with them, then there will again be work for people to do, reducing the need for basic income. The question is: how much other capital can the rich take with them? They should be entitled to their property, of course, but how much of it is totally theirs to take over to say China? Google's IP is its capital. It is the result of the efforts of Google's founders and investors, of course, but was also massively subsidized. It was created by Berkeley and Stanford educated engineers, institutions that receive major federal support. It was a use of the internet, a system that was created by the DOD. They of course benefited from roads, etc, and all the other public utilities. How much of an equity share in the company would Google have given out to replace these services and inputs from scratch? That's a difficult and nebulous question but I don't think the answer is zero. I think that amount, whatever it is, would be a reasonable expatriation tax.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#63

Post by cpursley »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #48
cpursley wrote: post #17

Please keep the do-gooder central planning away from my bank account. Thanks.

Says the founder who has a business based off of a major component of US central planning (housing).

What? The two are mutually exclusive.

I know it's hard to fathom, but people purchased real estate, and will continue to do so with, or without, central planning.

Central planning (expanding the monetary supply and forcing banks to lend) has little effect on my business.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#64

Post by ExpiredLink »

speeder wrote: post #6

And where the money to pay for that will come from? I suspect if you just tax the rich like crazy, they will just move out to somewhere else.

> And where the money to pay for that will come from? I suspect if you just tax the rich like crazy

Quite the contrary! The "Basic Income" idea stems from the rich. They would simply cut all welfare expenses, including medical.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#65

Post by smothers »

An interesting repercussion of such a system is the potential for unrestrained creative endeavour. Fear of meeting basic needs will no longer be the primary motivator for most workers. Free to think of and most importantly act on new ideas, our massive population will be able to attempt to function like a distributed network. There will be those who choose to only consume, but that is no different today, many people are simply required to perform a meaningless job in order to do so. I would imagine that the benefit of freeing millions of willing inventors outweighs the drain imposed by all those who only consume. Then again, this only makes sense assuming that most repetitive and "busy" work can be automated.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#66

Post by jpwagner »

btilly wrote: post #5

I've got a twist on this basic idea. Fund basic income with a large tax on various CO2 producing activities. With the idea that - on average - people can pay this tax out of the basic income received from it. And people will have direct incentives to find ways to reduce CO2 consumption. Then get rid of silly specific legislation that tries to achieve the same goal in less successful ways. Thus fuel efficiency, Califo…

Neat idea! but I'd prefer we change one systemic variable at a time so we can account for the results...

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#67

Post by dllthomas »

effn wrote: post #57
derefr wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can, however, say that going forward, people will pay into basic income instead of social security; and that no one born after [policy-change date] will receive social security in the future (since they never paid into it.)

Possible in theory. But then you have to explain to people why they are paying the same amount of tax as people one year older than them, but will still receive a lot less when they retire.

It needn't be a sharp cutoff.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#68

Post by diydsp »

Ok, yes to: "towards" and "trends." However, not "forces" the bring us "all the way to."

OP misses the point that even though I am listening to free electronica on youtube right now...

1. It was once sold for money by its creators 2. Its creators tolerate it being given away for free in order to develop their reputations and bring in an income through performance and sales. This an example of symbiotic capitalism, not volunteer work. 3. My listening is driving ad revenue for google.

So it's not really free out of the goodness of the creator's heart. It's free +to me right now+, b/c atm I'm not currently in its "for-pay whirlpool." Advertisers, clubs and music afficiandos are in its for-pay whirlpool.

Finally. OP claims "we are motivated by autonomy, mastery, and purpose, but not money." This is only true for a small cluster of artisans.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#69

Post by jeffasinger »

One worry I have with Basic Income discussion is that what most people think the minimum required just to live is very high, which frames the discussion wrong.

Basic Income probably shouldn't cover much beyond rent in cheap, shared accommodation, heat and some electric, and groceries, and healthcare, if that is provided separately.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#70

Post by milesskorpen »

effn wrote: post #23
btilly wrote: post #5

I've got a twist on this basic idea. Fund basic income with a large tax on various CO2 producing activities. With the idea that - on average - people can pay this tax out of the basic income received from it. And people will have direct incentives to find ways to reduce CO2 consumption. Then get rid of silly specific legislation that tries to achieve the same goal in less successful ways. Thus fuel efficiency, Califo…

Your suggestion has the same problems as most basic income proposals. 1) The numbers don't work out. Even a very steep CO2 tax will produce too little revenue for any form of meaningful BI. 2) The money collected on the CO2 tax could also be used for a general tax cut. So you still have the political problem of explaining to working middle class why their money is being handed out to lazy bums.

1) There are increasingly few people in the middle class

2) Very few poor people are lazy bums, in my experience. There "lazy bums" are also sometimes the people creating amazing music, Wikipedia, or other valuable (and un-monetized) cultural products

3) The author didn't specify a time period, simply that given the capital > labor trend, a BI will be necessary if we don't want absolute and complete inequality

Post reply on HN