21–30 of 268 posts
"As if there was something romantic and glamorous about hard work ... if there was something romantic about it, the Duke of Westminster would be digging his own fucking garden, wouldn't he?"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea of a basic income is still sci-fi. There just isn't that much money. Freeing people to work on things they desire will mean no one will ever wash dishes at a restaurant, no one will pick up trash, no one will spend time wiring your house for internet, or fix your computer, or do a large swath of jobs. The argument that with UBI people will still do that only for more money is crazy, since the taxes would hav…
The idea of a basic income is still sci-fi. That's untrue. Switzerland is having a national referendum on whether to offer one, and stipends from oil or casino money, while not enough to live on at this point, already exist in a few places. You may be correct that there's not enough money to give everyone enough to live on, but it's far from sci-fi. (There is plenty of money in the world, it's just tied up in things…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea of a basic income is still sci-fi. There just isn't that much money. Freeing people to work on things they desire will mean no one will ever wash dishes at a restaurant, no one will pick up trash, no one will spend time wiring your house for internet, or fix your computer, or do a large swath of jobs. The argument that with UBI people will still do that only for more money is crazy, since the taxes would hav…
The idea is that technology makes doing anything undesirable totally optional. We made horses obsolete for transport, and now nobody HAS TO ride a horse (99%). You can do it for fun. I would argue that today, most people who ride horses enjoy doing so, where the same could not be said for times before modern transportation.
Everybody in the USSR had job. But these jobs didn't produce any (usually) value to the society. Who wants to have a job like this? You want to do something valuable so you know that what you produce people are willing to pay for (vs. being forced to pay for it). It just seems much more healthy too.
I also believe job satisfaction is completely independent of a job's contribution or value to society. Cleaning toilets has a definite societal benefit, but it is still menial work that requires little actual skill and is a job most people look for ways out of.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you allow competition the market will do this. Compensation also takes into account the joy the job provides, some jobs are relatively pleasant and thus pay less than some that are much worse. As for automation, I completely disagree - we automate where we can get the biggest gain on output. So if something costs a lot or has high social benefit we should automate it as much as possible so that it can provide more…
Compensation also takes into account the joy the job provides, some jobs are relatively pleasant and thus pay less than some that are much worse. That's not generally my observation of the world. No-skill-required jobs pay less, skill-required jobs pay more. There's a slight bonus for dangerous jobs, but not a heap, relatively speaking. Pleasure derived or not only appears to have an effect on income levels outside o…
> A world in which a healthy adult has the reasonable expectation of earning a decent living while working full-time at a market wage is absolutely a world in which the dignity of work is a useful social value to cultivate. In a world in which that is not a reasonable expectation, the dignity of work can be a harmful concept. Interesting times ahead. It's going to be painful getting there, if we get there at all, but…
The idea of a basic income is still sci-fi. There just isn't that much money. Freeing people to work on things they desire will mean no one will ever wash dishes at a restaurant, no one will pick up trash, no one will spend time wiring your house for internet, or fix your computer, or do a large swath of jobs. The argument that with UBI people will still do that only for more money is crazy, since the taxes would hav…
> A world in which a healthy adult has the reasonable expectation of earning a decent living while working full-time at a market wage is absolutely a world in which the dignity of work is a useful social value to cultivate. In a world in which that is not a reasonable expectation, the dignity of work can be a harmful concept. Interesting times ahead. It's going to be painful getting there, if we get there at all, but…
The idea of a basic income is still sci-fi. There just isn't that much money. Freeing people to work on things they desire will mean no one will ever wash dishes at a restaurant, no one will pick up trash, no one will spend time wiring your house for internet, or fix your computer, or do a large swath of jobs. The argument that with UBI people will still do that only for more money is crazy, since the taxes would hav…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea of a basic income is still sci-fi. That's untrue. Switzerland is having a national referendum on whether to offer one, and stipends from oil or casino money, while not enough to live on at this point, already exist in a few places. You may be correct that there's not enough money to give everyone enough to live on, but it's far from sci-fi. (There is plenty of money in the world, it's just tied up in things…
In switzerland it was voted down because it doesn't make economic sense. Look at the numbers, they don't work.
> A world in which a healthy adult has the reasonable expectation of earning a decent living while working full-time at a market wage is absolutely a world in which the dignity of work is a useful social value to cultivate. In a world in which that is not a reasonable expectation, the dignity of work can be a harmful concept. Interesting times ahead. It's going to be painful getting there, if we get there at all, but…
The idea of a basic income is still sci-fi. There just isn't that much money. Freeing people to work on things they desire will mean no one will ever wash dishes at a restaurant, no one will pick up trash, no one will spend time wiring your house for internet, or fix your computer, or do a large swath of jobs. The argument that with UBI people will still do that only for more money is crazy, since the taxes would hav…
Sorry, but that last part is utterly dumb. There is enough of everything for everyone, money is just one of the abstractions we built for convenience's sake. Most of these abstractions for power have gone out of hand, but I assure you that there exists a theoretical parallel universe where basic income is implemented at a global scale.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea of a basic income is still sci-fi. That's untrue. Switzerland is having a national referendum on whether to offer one, and stipends from oil or casino money, while not enough to live on at this point, already exist in a few places. You may be correct that there's not enough money to give everyone enough to live on, but it's far from sci-fi. (There is plenty of money in the world, it's just tied up in things…
In switzerland it was voted down because it doesn't make economic sense. Look at the numbers, they don't work.
That gives ~$6500/person. That seems reasonable. Given if you distributed all money evenly worldwide the profit motive would disappear and things would be bought and sold at cost.
But yes, I've gone waaay into sci-fi.
But, back in the real world, Australia basically has one. So you're full of shit.[1]
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_world_product
[1] http://australia.gov.au/topics/benefits-payments-and-service...