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I'm going to work full-time on free software

drewdevault.com

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Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software

#181

Post by Verdex »

blfr wrote: post #83
peatmoss wrote: post #12

My best argument for UBI is, “I’d love to be able to work on F/OSS full time.” Kudos for making it a reality. It may be scratching a personal itch, but the positive externalities to society are real.

Yeah, it's the modern version of a minor landed gentleman who can pursue his interests. It's how we got science. Sadly, the best argument against UBI is that vast, vast majority of people will not be working full time on F/OSS or quite possible anything else.

If people don't work on anything once they get UBI this isn't really a problem. Currently, there are many many people who already don't do anything. They only do a little as possible to avoid getting fired OR they do periodically get fired from every job they ever hold once their employers realize they're always going to be a drain on productivity.

Having these people on UBI would actually allow productivity to rise.

However, I'm really concerned about UBI because:

1) One way to get more money on UBI is to convince others to give you their money. Many people on UBI will stop producing positive or neutral work and start finding ways to trick their fellow citizens into giving them their money. We will still need some sort of welfare to provide food to people who are tricked into giving away all their money for worthless services or items.

2) Some people have terrible planning skills and just want to be happy now. They'll spend all of their UBI on worthless items and go hungry until the start of the next month. Worse, they'll spend their children's UBI allocation on worthless items as well (or trick their children into doing it if it turns out parents don't get direct access to their children's allocation). We will still need welfare to feed the children of these people.

3) Some people will decide that their calling in life is now to cause problems for others. The food check comes once a month, so now their full time job is dressing up as a clown and terrorizing random people. Don't have to get up for work? Be really loud until 4am. The people who actually do have to get up for work will naturally get the option to live in a gated community because we need the few that actually do produce more than ever. This very well may cause society to schism into people who work and people who don't.

4) The potential long term effects are pretty scary. If you never have to work will you worry about education, socialization, or how to function in a society? How many people will decide to never learn any skills whatsoever? Sure, we could build up a lot of automation to take care of these people, but the result is going to be a massive schism where some people only know how to take their UBI money card to the food silo. And their children are probably going to be in the same bucket.

Ultimately, I think we as a society have a responsibility to use our plenty to help those who are going without. However, I'm not convinced that UBI is the right way to make this happen.

Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software

#182

Post by onetimeusename »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #166
onetimeusename wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, I am surprised this is overlooked. It may be that tech workers who like the idea of UBI imagine working on open source projects. I picture a large percentage of the population choosing to use drugs, drink, play video games, pick up a hobby that doesn't pay, watch TV, or even just do nothing. Then as a result of squandering their time, these people could become permanently unemployable or unskilled and would have…

Why would it be bad to pick up a hobby that doesn't pay? I'd love for an explosion of art and philosophy to occur out of UBI.

There is already more art and philosophy than there is a demand for and there is not even a UBI. Increasing the supply of art and philosophy won't change that (to say nothing of the other activities people can choose). I don't want to create an incentive for people to drop out of jobs to spend their time in a worthless activity. By worthless I mean, they have created nothing valuable. It will create a loss of productivity and a decline in skills. Of course, if you do this on your own time and money, have fun.

Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software

#183

Post by gpm »

jpindar wrote: post #175
gpm wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One proposal I've heard for this is spreading it over the year, have the government deposit money in a back account once per week (this requires a system where everyone has bank accounts to get UBI, but that shouldn't be too costly).

There are already benefit programs that distribute money by putting it on a debit card, eliminating the need for a bank account.

Doesn't a debit card require a bank account, at least behind the scenes?

Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software

#184

Post by idontpost »

nostrebored wrote: post #111
bryanlarsen wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you expect inflation to occur? As long as UBI is payed for via taxes and not deficit spending than the money supply isn't changing. And as economists say, inflation is a monetary phenomenon. Supply & demand aren't radically changing either. America's poor eat too much, not too little. And while there are homeless people in America, most sleep in shelters. If anything, you might expect the price of the cheap…

Money supply isn't the issue here. If everyone has another x+12,000 dollars, the amount of money available for low income housing has strictly increased. Landlords are then in a position to raise prices proportionally. The "America's poor eat too much" line is also not strong. You might argue that they eat the wrong things; this is the food desert/education argument that's commonly made. Regardless there is already a…

> Money supply isn't the issue here. > If everyone has another x+12,000 dollars, the amount of money available for low income housing has strictly increased. Landlords are then in a position to raise prices proportionally.

You're contradicting yourself through sloppy thinking. If everyone has another x+12,000 dollars, the money supply has increased. That's the definition of money supply.

It's also a total strawman and not what UBI proposes to do. For example, my wife and I make about $150,000 combined. UBI would basically do nothing for us because of the taxes we'd pay to support it. If anything we'd have less money, not $12,000 more.

The only people who'd have $12,000 more are the totally unemployed and homeless.

The point of UBI isn't that everyone gets more money, it's that everyone is guaranteed to have the means not to starve or be homeless at a minimum.

People who support UBI (including myself) do so not because they would have more money (as stated, I personally would almost certainly lose money), but because they would have less RISK. That's what UBI really does. It lowers the risk of life choices and gives people the freedom to make choices that otherwise they could not have made.

If I'm one of the lucky (which so far, I have been), UBI does nothing for me. But if tomorrow I'm crippled in a car accident and can no longer work, UBI guarantees a certain minimum standard of living.

Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software

#186

Post by roberto »

sudofail wrote: post #76
skrowl wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden also has a 25% VAT (sales) tax on just about everything you buy there. After they rake hard from your paycheck they rake hard again when you spend what's left.

Sure, but my point is that these sorts of comparisons are complicated, and the facts matter. Anyone can hand wave the figures and come up with favorable comparisons by including or omitting important figures. I don't think it's fair to make simplistic comparisons and say that Sweden pays 24k more in taxes on 60k income.

Also, you get more from the taxes than just healthcare. Free education, eg.

Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software

#187

Post by robohoe »

andy_adams wrote: post #131
smt88 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> vast, vast majority of people will not be working full time on F/OSS or quite possible anything else. I doubt this. Everyone has dreams or long-term things they enjoy working on. And UBI wouldn't be enough for most people, so they'd at least pursue some form of cash-generating work.

You must roll with some motivated crowds if everyone has long-term goals. > 60% of the folks I meet would be pretty content watching TV all day, every day. When you talk to them, they just talk about the shows they watched.

Or all the video games they played in their copious amounts of spare time.

Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software

#188

Post by jpindar »

gpm wrote: post #183
jpindar wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are already benefit programs that distribute money by putting it on a debit card, eliminating the need for a bank account.

Doesn't a debit card require a bank account, at least behind the scenes?

It doesn't require the person who gets the card to have, or be eligible for, a bank account. You don't need a bank account to use a pre-paid gift card either.

I suppose they would have an account number within the organization that is distributing the money, but that's not quite the same thing, and surely has less overhead.

Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software

#189

Post by wool_gather »

andy_adams wrote: post #131
smt88 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> vast, vast majority of people will not be working full time on F/OSS or quite possible anything else. I doubt this. Everyone has dreams or long-term things they enjoy working on. And UBI wouldn't be enough for most people, so they'd at least pursue some form of cash-generating work.

You must roll with some motivated crowds if everyone has long-term goals. > 60% of the folks I meet would be pretty content watching TV all day, every day. When you talk to them, they just talk about the shows they watched.

I'm just as cynical and misanthropic as the next HN poster, but I do wonder about this.

My hunch is that many people would indeed find something other than mindless TV if they weren't having their intellectual/emotional energy used up on a daily basis by a job. Not all people, maybe not even most, but many.

What they got up to instead is a whole nother question, but I do really think that the typical human would find something active to do, given no forced use of their time.

Re: I'm going to work full-time on free software

#190

Post by idontpost »

alligatorstraw wrote: post #144
astazangasta wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Seems pretty obvious - purchasing assets helps their friends in Goldman and Citibank. Handing out money helps the poors. If you were a fat cat banker, what would you do? This, despite the fact that the utility of money is greater for the poors and the stimulatory effect of giving it to them is greater. But if we do that, we are told, we create "moral hazard" because people will think they don't have to pay th…

I had vaguely thought that was the reason but I can't seem to find any articles that express that outrage so I thought maybe there was a better reason. Do you know of any? On the other hand, I've found plenty of articles expressing anger at bailing out banks.

There were a ton of editorials in the NYT and WaPo to that effect a decade ago. I'm sure they're still online, but you'd have to dig through all the editorials from 2008-2010 to find them.
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