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A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

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Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#31
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem there is that you have a cushy programming job. The bigger question is what about the gas station clerks? Or cleaning people? Or wait staff? Or any of the people working the millions of other jobs that just totally suck. Having done it in the past, I'm 100% sure nobody wakes up totally stoked to go bus tables or wash dishes. So, maybe people who have awesome jobs will just keep doing what they're doing, b…

If nobody is required to do the "shitty jobs", I wonder if those jobs would increase in value as less people do them? Maybe having a waiter at a restaurant would become a luxury. Perhaps all the jobs would continue to exist but there'd be some very interesting rebalancing.

Very likely. Think of how uncommon household servants are today compared to before the industrial revolution. Now only the super-rich have them, as a rule. The rest of us get by with automation (washing machines, vacuum cleaners), with the occasional hiring of a temporary "servant" when neccessary (e.g., calling a cab compared to having a dedicated chauffeur, or having a landscaper or cleaning service come in once in a while).

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#32

I wonder how much you'd need to save and to own in order to conduct this experiment on yourself? I've wondered about what I would do day to day if I didn't 'have to work to live'. I honestly think I'd be doing very similar things. I'd still be programming, and I'd be wanting to make things that'd help people do their jobs better, but I wouldn't feel like I 'had to'. That alone would improve my sanity immensely (I thi…

I am kind of in this situation so I'll chime in: I quit my full time job nearly two years ago and since then have been freelancing and contracting remotely. I'm now taking a 'sabbatical' for a couple of months over the summer to recharge and hopefully start my own business. I've had a lot of people asking me when I'm getting a job again, as I assume they aren't in a financial position to be able to do this so wonder…

I am afraid a couple of months doesn't really count as a sabbatical. In any case wish you all the best with your experiment.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#33
One of the first pieces of advice I had when my company landed its investment was to pay ourselves a decent (not extravagant) wage so that my time went on worrying about the company rather than how I was going to afford to do things in my personal life. The same is true for employees - if they're paid a good living they will spend more time on thinking about problems in their job instead.

If a government were to do that for everyone it seems pretty obvious that society will be better off - people will spend their time working on things to improve everyone's life rather than worrying about how to afford their rent.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#34

I wonder how much you'd need to save and to own in order to conduct this experiment on yourself? I've wondered about what I would do day to day if I didn't 'have to work to live'. I honestly think I'd be doing very similar things. I'd still be programming, and I'd be wanting to make things that'd help people do their jobs better, but I wouldn't feel like I 'had to'. That alone would improve my sanity immensely (I thi…

I sort of ran this experiment on myself this year. The answer is that I have actually probably learned more about coding than I had in the 3-4 previous years when I was working a lot, since I had more time to delve in to topics in depth, rather than rush to ship. It feels great, and I've come out the other side much more productive in the projects I have kept working on.

That sounds like the case in favour of basic income

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#35
post #14
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem there is that you have a cushy programming job. The bigger question is what about the gas station clerks? Or cleaning people? Or wait staff? Or any of the people working the millions of other jobs that just totally suck. Having done it in the past, I'm 100% sure nobody wakes up totally stoked to go bus tables or wash dishes. So, maybe people who have awesome jobs will just keep doing what they're doing, b…

people with shitty jobs will be willing to do less-shitty jobs that pay less.

Which means the shitty jobs will have to pay more in order to attract people to do them. People should be paid well for taking on a job no one else wants. That's how the free market is supposed to work.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#36
post #33

One of the first pieces of advice I had when my company landed its investment was to pay ourselves a decent (not extravagant) wage so that my time went on worrying about the company rather than how I was going to afford to do things in my personal life. The same is true for employees - if they're paid a good living they will spend more time on thinking about problems in their job instead. If a government were to do t…

>people will spend their time working on things to improve everyone's life

Some people will. I have met many plenty of people though that don't care about other people regardless of their income.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#37
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem there is that you have a cushy programming job. The bigger question is what about the gas station clerks? Or cleaning people? Or wait staff? Or any of the people working the millions of other jobs that just totally suck. Having done it in the past, I'm 100% sure nobody wakes up totally stoked to go bus tables or wash dishes. So, maybe people who have awesome jobs will just keep doing what they're doing, b…

If nobody is required to do the "shitty jobs", I wonder if those jobs would increase in value as less people do them? Maybe having a waiter at a restaurant would become a luxury. Perhaps all the jobs would continue to exist but there'd be some very interesting rebalancing.

> I wonder if those jobs would increase in value as less people do them?

Sure. Although technically it's not that the value of the job changes (to the employer, the value of the job is basically the same), it's that wages go up due to the decrease in the labour supply.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#38
post #16

Can this really work when applied just partially? This experiment is about ~250 people with basic income in a large city. (The text mentions 300 people, but some of them form a control group that doesn't receive basic income.) So if any of these selected people will try to find a job, they will probably voluntarily "lose" it to somebody to really needs that job. Even without that moral issue, this makes still sense f…

It is damn near impossible for the homeless to find work.

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#39

I wonder how much you'd need to save and to own in order to conduct this experiment on yourself? I've wondered about what I would do day to day if I didn't 'have to work to live'. I honestly think I'd be doing very similar things. I'd still be programming, and I'd be wanting to make things that'd help people do their jobs better, but I wouldn't feel like I 'had to'. That alone would improve my sanity immensely (I thi…

Sounds more-or-less like grad school to me :)

Re: A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory

#40

I wonder how much you'd need to save and to own in order to conduct this experiment on yourself? I've wondered about what I would do day to day if I didn't 'have to work to live'. I honestly think I'd be doing very similar things. I'd still be programming, and I'd be wanting to make things that'd help people do their jobs better, but I wouldn't feel like I 'had to'. That alone would improve my sanity immensely (I thi…

I am kind of in this situation so I'll chime in: I quit my full time job nearly two years ago and since then have been freelancing and contracting remotely. I'm now taking a 'sabbatical' for a couple of months over the summer to recharge and hopefully start my own business. I've had a lot of people asking me when I'm getting a job again, as I assume they aren't in a financial position to be able to do this so wonder…

> Although I have been lucky to have some jobs that reimburse me well, I also don't have a car, house, wife (that's happening next month!) or go out drinking.

I find amusing that you include "wife" with all the other expenses. You'll become DINKYs ("Dual Income, No Kids Yet") and thus you will have even more financial independence :-). By the way, congratulations!

> [..] but I've been following the bootstrapped community for a good few years)

Could you please share the name of the community?

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