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

#171

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:57 AM UTC

verinus wrote: post #107

Sir_Substance wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. I've always felt that this argument against basic minimum income said more about the arguer than society at large. In my experience, everyone has a personal project that gets sidelined for their work.

and my take on people arguing for basic minimum income have not understood the human nature. communism was doomed from the beginning as they were removing all incentives to do something useful in the long therm.

[deleted]

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

#172

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:57 AM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #160

jokoon wrote: post #155

I live in france (10% unemployment), and unless you're listed as seeking work, you're not given welfare. It's odd because they don't really check that you send resumes, nor do they really try to contact companies or just propose you a shitty jobs. The "get a job" mentality is really weird to me, because if you have freedom, and you can't find a job that suits you or that you're just too humiliated to beg all those em…

That money has to come from somewhere, it will either reduce the consumption from where it was taken or it will reduce capital stocks that can be used for investment.

[deleted]

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

#173

Post by jackweirdy » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:57 AM UTC

zimpenfish wrote: post #129

anticon wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'm sure you could find that missing £85bn down the back of a sofa in whitehall. Sorry, but the whole idea is laughable. Not to mention the fact that it's another incentive to have more children and bigger families because the state will give you more money.

> 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

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

#174

Post by fwn » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:58 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #35

gohrt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So what makes you think that's not the case? We're not observing a shortage in unskilled work right now.

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

#175

Post by DanBC » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 9:59 AM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #160

jokoon wrote: post #155

I live in france (10% unemployment), and unless you're listed as seeking work, you're not given welfare. It's odd because they don't really check that you send resumes, nor do they really try to contact companies or just propose you a shitty jobs. The "get a job" mentality is really weird to me, because if you have freedom, and you can't find a job that suits you or that you're just too humiliated to beg all those em…

That money has to come from somewhere, it will either reduce the consumption from where it was taken or it will reduce capital stocks that can be used for investment.

Look at, eg, the English "Working family tax credits" system.

People on low wages pay some tax on those wages, then apply to have some of that tax returned. There's a lot of bureaucracy involved. It's not great to be on those benefits because you can't budget your money.

Scrapping that system and then just reducing the amount of tax that everyone on low wages pays would probably be better.

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

#176

Post by goldfeld » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 10:00 AM UTC

Fuxy wrote: post #98

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…

> Communism (Which is what this is), has failed. Why this generation seems determined to try it again is beyond me. A bit of a stretch there and i should know i was born in a communist country. The reason Communism has failed is because of the lack of checks and balances on power compounded with corruption not because of concepts like this. > This is about stealing money from the successful, and giving it to everyone…

The real reason Communism couldn't succeed (not necessarily the reason it failed) is because none of the countries trying it were or are advanced capitalistic economies before the revolution. Imagine a transition into communism in a less-scarcity scenario, where robots generate so much material wealth as to provide it to everyone, and no one HAS to work, and technology married to political science in turn allows more distributed forms of governance by the people for the people. Once you have that, and of course less bigots running the roost, you have a shot, as a society, to completely do away with 'marginalization', since every city and every community will be self-contained and no one will have to do commutes to serve a master.

Communism, for all I know, is the alternative to Totalitarism (be it from American corporate overlords or from so called extreme "left") in a future where jobs are no longer to be found lying around. It probably won't be called communism, though. China or Germany (and other smaller european countries) may have a shot, but the US seems destined to be ruled by corporate emperors.

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

#177

Post by rorykoehler » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 10:00 AM UTC

anticon wrote: post #52

onion2k wrote: 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 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…

Communism is something else entirely (C & P from wiki: "is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production, absence of social classes, money, and the state."). Clearly we can see that UBI is not communism by I will take the bait anyways.

Every single person I know has a passion they would pursue outside of work. Some of them would be productive for society (startups or SME's) and some would be largely neutral (self-indulging in sports for example) but none would be destructive. Contrasting that to their work lives I have witnessed some of them taking part in activities that are largely destructive to society because it is the only thing that will put food on the table. Surviving at a minimum level of comfort should not be merit based. Living in opulence perhaps but not at bare minimum level.

Finally with your last point if society is stabilized through UBI and we leave behind our guilt based protestant work ethic and crime through desperation ridden society I can't see how I would be worse off. I would be able to pursue any project I deemed worthy (even some that are not profitable but would have a profoundly positive impact on society) and not fear financial ruin. The quality of society would improve and therefore the quality of life for everyone also.

Your post is heavily emotional but full of glaring factual inaccuracies that reflect on you more than they reflect on society itself.

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

#178

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 10:01 AM UTC

verinus wrote: post #107

Sir_Substance wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. I've always felt that this argument against basic minimum income said more about the arguer than society at large. In my experience, everyone has a personal project that gets sidelined for their work.

and my take on people arguing for basic minimum income have not understood the human nature. communism was doomed from the beginning as they were removing all incentives to do something useful in the long therm.

Human nature is people wanting to reap rewards for their work (that includes having private property). UBI doesn't take away that.

Speaking of "removing all incentives to do something useful in the long term", this is what capitalism does today. There aren't many businesses or even people caring about long-term in their lives, because you have to pay your rent next month, you have to be competitive today, you have to reach your company's quarterly goals, etc. Competition makes things inherently short-term. UBI is a way to remove some of the pressure from general population, so you'd have an option to say "fuck it, I'm gonna do something for long-term payoff" and not starve in the process.

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

#179

Post by afsina » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 10:01 AM UTC

andruby wrote: post #63

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…

This is not communism. Not at all. Don't confuse socialism with communism.

Socialism and Communism are "almost" the same thing.

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

#180

Post by notahacker » Thu, Jul 02, 2015, 10:01 AM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #135

onion2k wrote: 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…

"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." Looking at populations of people who have gone from being very poor to being very rich overnight does not support that statement. Most of the time the money is more of a curse than anythin…

The most galling implicit premise of all is that every proposal for basic income I've ever seen accepts that BI isn't practically feasible with open borders, and therefore nothing changes at all for the class of people who work the longest hours in the worst conditions (indeed their wage slavery becomes even more essential to ensuring future riders of the purple wage can still buy consumer goods)

An argument for implementing BI in the foreseeable future isn't really a "nobody should be forced to work" argument, as desirable as that might ultimately be. An argument for implementing BI in ones own developed country in the near term is a "nobody with the right passport should be forced to look for work" argument. I think social security - essentially insuring people from a risk of unemployment caused at least in part by policies enacted by an elected government - is a good idea, but I categorically don't agree that my fellow Brits should have an automatic right to receive more than the world average purchasing power adjusted income without even thinking about doing anything for it.