121–130 of 252 posts
In other developed countries, I think universal basic income makes sense, but not in the case of India. India has several systemic problems and a significant portion of the population has little to no education. Any income that can sustain a household without any pressure to grow as people will probably hinder their progress more so than help them. For a country with no lack of problems to solve, they are much better…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ubi should never be about owning anything. It should be about providing housing, food, healthcare, clothes, and nothing more. It should be for all citizens, including children. This way you can have a family. But if you want a tv, phone, car, you're going to have to work. Since people are living to their 70s plus, lounging around isn't a big deal. I think you'll find people become very creative too, or focus on high…
You can drive many TVs (~$250), phones (~$150), and sometimes even cars (~$3000) through the regional, situational, quality level, and market timing variations in the prices of housing and healthcare (I've lived in a $600/mo sublet and a $2500/mo 1-bedroom in the same 6-month window; I've gone for years without seeing a doctor, and then had emergency surgery). A direct, fixed cash transfer will never, ever have the p…
Forcibly redistributing income from low resource generators to high resource generators creates an incentive for people with fewer resources to have more children than they are capable of supporting. This dynamic will in the long run lead to more people that produce fewer resources. Currently government is redistributing income upward by economic prohibitions (regulatory barriers): http://cepr.net/publications/report…
> Currently government is redistributing income upward by economic prohibitions (regulatory barriers) Forgive me for the double post, but part of a sibling comment of mine is especially relevant here: > I'm regularly floored by people's ability to talk about network effects, economies of scale, information asymmetries, moats, winner-takes-all games, and mergers/acquisitions with one breath -- all of which are non-reg…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can drive many TVs (~$250), phones (~$150), and sometimes even cars (~$3000) through the regional, situational, quality level, and market timing variations in the prices of housing and healthcare (I've lived in a $600/mo sublet and a $2500/mo 1-bedroom in the same 6-month window; I've gone for years without seeing a doctor, and then had emergency surgery). A direct, fixed cash transfer will never, ever have the p…
The point isn't to demand people not buy tvs with ubi, its just to make sure you can have the bare necessities and little else. If you can also buy a tv, good job. If done right, it should be hard to do that. Basically exactly like how welfare is now, just do that, but without any of the weird requirements that differ state to state. As fir medical care. All insurance should be made redundant. Universal healthcare wo…
The weird requirements are there to satisfy impulses like yours: make sure that we only give welfare to the truly needy, and to make sure that their lives on welfare are not too good. The whole idea of UBI is to replace that with an unconditional transfer of a fixed amount of cash to every person.
If it's a fixed amount per person, people who choose less desirable housing will have more purchasing power for luxuries. I claim that any attempt to counter this effect will quickly devolve into another system of "weird rules," probably subvertible, and certainly with unintended consequences. For example, what if I am cohabiting and want to stop? Do I need to justify to the state that it must now house me and my partner separately at twice the expense? What if I'm faking the separation in order to rent out "my" apartment on the black market and keep living with my partner? What if I'm being abused? What if I'm sick of exurban Iowa and my "grandmother" "needs" me to take care of her in Haight-Ashbury?
The insight of UBI is that the government's attempt to untangle questions like this is doomed to fail, and attempting to do so is an unacceptable degree of interference in private life, so it should not try.
From what you're saying, I'm pretty sure you actually oppose UBI, and just want changes to the existing means-tested, strings-attached welfare system.
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The first neathenderals to figure out how to use tools didn't have property rights, but the tools still augmented them. We are not so different from them, and faced with an overwhelming opposing power, (tech + extreme wealth) we don't have much of a chance, either.
Neanderthals faced a different species of humans whose culture they were not capable of integrating into. Humanity right now forms one unified global culture through which ideas and technology freely flow. The rising tide of technology is lifting all boats (massive wage growth globally). Moreover, it's not clear that your premise is accurate. Neanderthals constitute 3 percent of Eurasian human genes, meaning that the…
Your second point is baffling to me. Why not include mice, they have 97.5% of our genes, as being successful? Why not all mammals? Oh, except horses, of course, because you said in a previous comment we are different from them. If you can call neathenderals successful, then I don't know what you are actually arguing for.
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Neanderthals faced a different species of humans whose culture they were not capable of integrating into. Humanity right now forms one unified global culture through which ideas and technology freely flow. The rising tide of technology is lifting all boats (massive wage growth globally). Moreover, it's not clear that your premise is accurate. Neanderthals constitute 3 percent of Eurasian human genes, meaning that the…
We are about to face a few individuals with technology will hold massive power over everyone else. Given human nature, I would guess they'd primarily will be concerned with fighting among each other, and would care very little about harming the masses, if we got in between them and something they wanted. How a "unified global culture" is going to fix that, I haven't any idea. (And you believe were in a unified global…
There are plenty of counterindications to that. For instance, many forms of technology are becoming increasingly widely adopted, at a rapid pace. I gave the adoption of smartphones as one example.
>Why not include mice, they have 97.5% of our genes, as being successful? Why not all mammals? Oh, except horses, of course, because you said in a previous comment we are different from them.
I would say the success of human beings is by some metrics a success for mice, mammals etc as well..
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We are about to face a few individuals with technology will hold massive power over everyone else. Given human nature, I would guess they'd primarily will be concerned with fighting among each other, and would care very little about harming the masses, if we got in between them and something they wanted. How a "unified global culture" is going to fix that, I haven't any idea. (And you believe were in a unified global…
>We are about to face a few individuals with technology will hold massive power over everyone else. There are plenty of counterindications to that. For instance, many forms of technology are becoming increasingly widely adopted, at a rapid pace. I gave the adoption of smartphones as one example. >Why not include mice, they have 97.5% of our genes, as being successful? Why not all mammals? Oh, except horses, of course…
>I would say the success of human beings is by some metrics a success for mice, mammals etc as well..
But, again, as you stated previously, not horses? Seriously, you are moving the goalposts all over the place.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>We are about to face a few individuals with technology will hold massive power over everyone else. There are plenty of counterindications to that. For instance, many forms of technology are becoming increasingly widely adopted, at a rapid pace. I gave the adoption of smartphones as one example. >Why not include mice, they have 97.5% of our genes, as being successful? Why not all mammals? Oh, except horses, of course…
Technology adoption != power. Everyone using a cell phone which tracks their position, communication, and behavior, and then feeds them propaganda from a central server is not increasing their ability to fight back. >I would say the success of human beings is by some metrics a success for mice, mammals etc as well.. But, again, as you stated previously, not horses? Seriously, you are moving the goalposts all over the…
I agree that the loss of privacy is a huge concern, but like I said, there are positive trends as well that you are simply hand-waving away.
>But, again, as you stated previously, not horses?
Horses as well!
> Seriously, you are moving the goalposts all over the place.
I directly addressed your argument and then I also made an additional argument that your premise is not necessarily true. That's not defined as moving the goalposts.