171–180 of 238 posts
Lots of comments and everyone is debating based on their intuition. Basic income is a fascinating idea, but it seems like advocates would love to see a huge place like the USA commit and pile in, when a small trial run would be much more sensible. Finland would be a fantastic place to trial basic income. It's a rich sovereign nation with a population of under 6 million, a GDP of less than a quarter of a $trillion, an…
I'm cautiously enthusiastic about basic income. I want to believe that it really can change everything, until that nagging doubt of "but human nature just doesn't work that way!" inevitably kills the buzz. The idea behind basic income is to remove day-to-day struggle from people's lives. If only they didn't have to worry where their next rent check is coming from, then potentially a huge groundswell of human capital…
But that's no surprise -- the reason they're receiving the money in the first place is because they are unable to work in some capacity. It's need-based (old age, disability, etc.). The basic income system would give it to everyone, widening the demographic considerably.
>Just about everything that we consider a real advance comes from people working the system that exists using their own ingenuity, not from people allowed to escape the system by providing them an inalienable source of income.
It's not at all clear that lack of guaranteed income plays a roll in the 'ingenuity' of the working population. In fact, if we look at the extreme examples, founders of highly successful businesses often had significant family income that allowed them to accomplish what they have.
Why wouldn't inflation swell up to soak up the UBI? If I'm a landlord in a poor(er) area of town, charging $500/mo for an apartment, and UBI is $1000/mo, then why shouldn't I raise my rent to, say $1000/mo because my tenants now have extra money? (Ignore rent-control for now).
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It's different for me. I know a bunch of people who are deeply creative, artists and musicians and such, who spend enormous amounts of time volunteering their productivity - or what's left of it, after "earning a living". I'd love to see them with the opportunity to not have to worry about eating, so they could make things instead. The conflation of value and money is one of the worst things about our society. Money…
> I know a bunch of people who are deeply creative, artists and musicians and such, who spend enormous amounts of time volunteering their productivity - or what's left of it, after "earning a living". I'd love to see them with the opportunity to not have to worry about eating, so they could make things instead Well, I'd love more time for my hobbies too, however it's not realistic to think more time spent doing pleas…
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Basic income is a hot topic because forward thinking people who see what's going on in the world right now already see it. You say lets cross that bridge when we get there; that's the point, we're there, you just aren't looking very hard.
It's a hot topic on HN and in a few policy circles. In the grand scheme of things, it's a really small issue, far behind, say, gun control or national security.
It's even more common if you count people who hate their jobs.
Whether we've found a solution to that problem, is up to debate. But the problem of allowing everyone to have basic security is real.
I'm cautiously enthusiastic about basic income. I want to believe that it really can change everything, until that nagging doubt of "but human nature just doesn't work that way!" inevitably kills the buzz. The idea behind basic income is to remove day-to-day struggle from people's lives. If only they didn't have to worry where their next rent check is coming from, then potentially a huge groundswell of human capital…
There is no "welfare". There's SNAP(food stamps) with a princely average payment of $125, which has time limits on eligibility and mostly goes to working households. There's TANF which only goes to households with children and has both time limits on eligibility and work requirements.
What there absolutely is not is some sort of program where millions of people are paid to sit around think of ways to build a better mousetrap. The idea that there is remains one of those pernicious myths that just won't seem to die.
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I fail to see how that could possibly fly, politically. Everybody who works has to pay for everybody who doesn't want to work to just fuck around.
It's not qualitatively different than what we have now.
I'm cautiously enthusiastic about basic income. I want to believe that it really can change everything, until that nagging doubt of "but human nature just doesn't work that way!" inevitably kills the buzz. The idea behind basic income is to remove day-to-day struggle from people's lives. If only they didn't have to worry where their next rent check is coming from, then potentially a huge groundswell of human capital…
In a wider perspective, life has become easier for humans over the last 15,000 years. Does this mean we are less motivated; or have more energy available for non-immediate needs?
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> he idea behind basic income is to remove day-to-day struggle from people's lives. If only they didn't have to worry where their next rent check is coming from, then potentially a huge groundswell of human capital could rise out of nowhere and carry us all into a new age. That is not at all what basic income is about. The point of basic income is not as a means to enable anything; it's a natural byproduct of and sol…
> The point of basic income is not as a means to enable anything; it's a natural byproduct of and solution to a problem, the problem of ever increasing automation removing the need for human labor. I disagree. Humans tend to create new market segments in response to this problem. Service jobs, creative jobs, people are remarkably effective at finding ways to be productive. Basic income almost seems like a measure foc…
That's not because human nature loves busy work. It's because today's economy requires you to be "productive", or starve.
I'm cautiously enthusiastic about basic income. I want to believe that it really can change everything, until that nagging doubt of "but human nature just doesn't work that way!" inevitably kills the buzz. The idea behind basic income is to remove day-to-day struggle from people's lives. If only they didn't have to worry where their next rent check is coming from, then potentially a huge groundswell of human capital…
I'm always a little mystified by those who believe there is some vast pool of people receiving something called "welfare" that pays them munificent sums to sit around all day not working. There is no "welfare". There's SNAP(food stamps) with a princely average payment of $125, which has time limits on eligibility and mostly goes to working households. There's TANF which only goes to households with children and has b…
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