A Dutch city is giving money away to test the basic income theory • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by DanBC » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 10:13 AM UTC

ptaipale wrote: post #120

dagw wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The huge 'problem' with most European benefit systems that I am aware of that as soon as you take the money, your time is no longer your own. You cannot go to to school or take courses, start a company, do odd freelance work, do certain types of charity work, travel freely or a whole host of other potentially self improving things, without losing your benefits. Living on benefits is also living in constant fear that…

> 'problem' with most European benefit systems that I am aware of that as soon as you take the money, your time is no longer your own. Getting a job has similar disadvantages.

GP post was specifically about those lazy benefits claimants who don't study or do voluntary work to improve their chance of getting back to work.

Parent post correctly points out that many of those claimants were prohibited - under threat of criminal prosecution - from doing those things while claiming some benefit.

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

#192

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 10:14 AM UTC

ed_blackburn wrote: post #187

Basic Income is sometimes dogmatically derided as 'socialist' thus evil. Proponents of Basic Income - or varieties thereof - can be found on the left and the right of the economic political compass. Even Milton Freedman was a proponent of some guise. Personally I think it is lazy to dismiss the thinking behind Basic Income as merely communism.

That's why I hate political labels. People say UBI is 'communist' because it's similar to one aspect of communism, and therefore must be bad because of all the other aspects of communism. It's a strong failure mode of human thinking.

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

#193

Post by goldfeld » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 10:14 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #161

onion2k wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. That isn't their personal project. That's all they have the choice of doing. Most people do those things because they're tired after working hard all day for a wage that doesn't give them enough money to do anything but sit in front of the television. If people had the opportunity to work a bit less in their job so they could do something worthwhile and fulfilling in their spare time, most people would t…

Exactly this. After 8h+ of work for little pay, 2h of commute, doing dishes, dinner and cleaning up, you'll have little energy to do anything creative and constructive. Grabbing a beer and turning on TV is a way to relax before turning in and beginning another day of work. I don't know of a person who doesn't have dreams, hobbies, things to do and create. Many just put it off until they can buy a house, until they ca…

I think it's even more than necessarily being tired: people who struggle to get by are in a constant state of alert and stress that precludes developing their creative dreams (they will have them, but can't advance on them). When you're stressed you'll turn to addictions to relieve yourself: chocolate, TV, MJ, and some will even become workaholics through some basal twisted work ethic.

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

#194

Post by dagw » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 10:14 AM UTC

anticon wrote: post #190

dagw wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put it further into context £240 billion is slightly less than what the UK government spends on pensions and welfare. Since basic income would replace much of the need for pensions and welfare, it might just end up more or less balancing out.

The UK government currently spends around £120b on welfare (Including pensions) a year. Please don't pluck false information out of thin air.

I got my numbers from here:

http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/

Perhaps I misread the data.

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

#195

Post by rorykoehler » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 10:17 AM UTC

wubwubwub wrote: post #84

anticon wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? Do you not think you're in a bubble of 1%ers? Most people aren't itching to start a company you know... Most want to watch American Idol and do nothing.

Why does everything have to be an extreme at each end of the spectrum? Either starting companies or doing nothing? I'd like to believe, possibly naively, that for a lot of people there would be a middle ground. Spending their time on personal growth, creative pursuits, general fitness and well being. In essence, living well. Just because you're not attempting to start the next social media, it doesn't automatically m…

Listen bra, if you're not crushing it you ain't worth .

Welcome to the hyper-individualist bro culture based around status and money. The self-worth crutches for people with low self-esteem/ huge uncontrollable egos.

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

#196

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 10:17 AM UTC

jackweirdy wrote: post #173

zimpenfish wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's another incentive to have more children and bigger families Should be easy to back that wild claim up with statistics. Can you?

My inner pessimist is expecting to see a "there was this Daily Mail article one time". Everywhere I look, I see the opposite. Families with a comfortable amount of disposable income have the 2.4 kids, but those in poverty (and particularly the working poor) have 3, or upwards. Anecdotal, but I'm yet to see evidence to the contrary

There's evidence on a national scale that birthrate is anticorrelated with wealth. The better off people are on average, the less kids they have.

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

#197

Post by anticon » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 10:18 AM UTC

merijnv wrote: post #123

anticon wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want to spend £240 billion pounds, twice the NHS budget in the UK, on helping struggling artists?

Struggling everyone. Why the hell is some bank CEO making several hundred million a year and we have people that can't even reliably be home in the evening to tuck their kids in because they're working 5 jobs. I'm all for taxing high-end income (coporate and private) even more to pay for this. Why would everyone need to work anyway? It's not tenable. A few more years/decades and we'll have automated so much it'll be…

The level of koolaid here is just too large a mountain to attempt to scale.

Automation will just move a few jobs around, like it always has done. And yes - we don't need jobs. But no - that doesn't mean the state should give everyone free money.

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

#198

Post by nathell » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 10:18 AM UTC

jwr wrote: post #59

Any discussion of basic income should at least mention the excellent novel by Janusz Zajdel, "Limes Inferior" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limes_inferior ). I think he very accurately portrays a system where everyone is guaranteed basic income (along with some other interesting and mostly terrifying concepts). It is true (and sad, I think) that many people, given basic income, will do nothing to improve themselves…

Limes inferior has not been translated to English (I was only able to find amateur translations of the first chapter [1]) and as such remains largely unknown outside Poland. Which is extremely unfortunate.

[1]: http://paczemoj.blogspot.com/2011/11/limes-inferior-chp-1.ht...

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

#199

Post by rorykoehler » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 10:19 AM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #81

anticon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People starting companies are driven, determined people who want to create things. The vast majority of people are not. You're vastly over-estimating the general population. The majority are lazy, and if given money, will sit watching reality TV and stuffing their face with ice cream. (Step outside the startup bubble for a while). Most people are also selfish. The idea that they'll all start doing things to benefit o…

Most successful North European countries can implement basic income in cost neutral way. For example, in Finland 560 EUR basic income would not increase overall taxation.

Didn't know this. Do you have any links to find out more about this please?

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

#200

Post by DanBC » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 10:21 AM UTC

anticon wrote: post #190

dagw wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put it further into context £240 billion is slightly less than what the UK government spends on pensions and welfare. Since basic income would replace much of the need for pensions and welfare, it might just end up more or less balancing out.

The UK government currently spends around £120b on welfare (Including pensions) a year. Please don't pluck false information out of thin air.

It would be useful if you cite your sources. People use different definitions for the various categories.