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Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

geohot.github.io

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Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#181

Post by XorNot »

cpursley wrote: post #135
avaer wrote: post #40

It's easy to create value for others and not worry about returns when you have enough money to not worry. Unfortunately for most people, there's plenty of companies willing to take the returns and leave you paycheck to paycheck. That's literally what they are optimized to do. I don't even disagree with the ideal, but I think a prerequisite step to this philosophy is UBI.

I think there’s a strong bias towards hacking and cool side projects from the hackernews crowd. But I’m not so sure much of the general population would use their free time afforded by UBI for productive and useful endeavors. At least from my observations there’s a significant portion of the population that uses their free time to be idle and veg in front of the TV and/or get wasted. My concern with UBI, even if it w…

Wouldn't convincing the criminal part of the population to just stay home be a net win? Policing and prisons are both notably more expensive then welfare.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#182

Post by flammafex »

mike_hearn wrote: post #175
maybewhenthesun wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geohot is a smart dude. But here I think he misses the forest for the trees. He has a point, certainly. But while he is harping about the U part of ubi, he's completely ignoring the B part. UBI is meant to provide some basic income so people don't starve. It's just an optimization of welfare programs where you have a ton of bureaucracy and make people jump through endless hoops and cause them endless amounts of stres…

Someone needs to make a website explaining why UBI doesn't work conceptually because this comes up over and over again on HN. You cannot make UBI work from money saved by removing means testing. Even UBI is a welfare scheme and would require significant bureaucratic hoop jumping to check that a person claiming it isn't: • Dead • Non-citizen • Already claiming it under a different name/bank account/etc • In prison • M…

Guess we'll starve then. Good luck dealing with hundreds of millions of hungry angry people.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#183

Post by OtherShrezzing »

borski wrote: post #124
missingdays wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What others do is actually irrelevant to the argument. If I used to provide some value X in a day, and that was enough to cover my consumption for the day, but now others are providing the same value X in 5 minutes, it will not be enough to cover my consumption for the day anymore

Sure, but we are not talking about evaluating your contributions daily. Over a lifetime, people find new ways to provide more value. Life is long, and that is how adapting works. We don't all sit at typewriters anymore either, but former typists found other ways to provide value, I'm certain, and didn't just disappear and become homeless (the vast majority of them, anyway). Once upon a time, we had armies of secretar…

>Sure, but we are not talking about evaluating your contributions daily. Over a lifetime, people find new ways to provide more value. Life is long, and that is how adapting works.

I can't really take that sentiment to my bank when I default on my mortgage while I retrain though. So although you're correct, across a lifetime, this isn't much of an issue, you're minimising people's very real near-term anxieties here.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#184

Post by deaux »

mike_hearn wrote: post #175
maybewhenthesun wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geohot is a smart dude. But here I think he misses the forest for the trees. He has a point, certainly. But while he is harping about the U part of ubi, he's completely ignoring the B part. UBI is meant to provide some basic income so people don't starve. It's just an optimization of welfare programs where you have a ton of bureaucracy and make people jump through endless hoops and cause them endless amounts of stres…

Someone needs to make a website explaining why UBI doesn't work conceptually because this comes up over and over again on HN. You cannot make UBI work from money saved by removing means testing. Even UBI is a welfare scheme and would require significant bureaucratic hoop jumping to check that a person claiming it isn't: • Dead • Non-citizen • Already claiming it under a different name/bank account/etc • In prison • M…

This is a complete non-issue in basically every wealthy country bar potentially the US, all five things you named are already known to the government at all times. They also apply the exact same way to any other scheme, there's nothing new about it.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#186

Post by deaux »

mike_hearn wrote: post #180
zozbot234 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which of course ignores the obvious point that UBI is all about taking existing resource redistribution and making it less costly and more efficient. Practically all Western countries redistribute income on a massive scale (compared to the default outcomes of a completely free market capitalism) in order to ensure everyone can provide for their basic needs, and that could all be gradually replaced by UBI. This is bro…

Forget UBI and AI. They are distractions. Today it's very unclear that even just existing welfare schemes are sustainable. Political parties can buy votes with welfare and they do, so it's an unstable configuration. Europe is full of countries with this problem. A good example of a country in a downward spiral towards UBI hell is the UK. Around 25% of the working-age population now claim to be disabled, and around 10…

> The UK can't afford anything even close to this. It can't even afford the theoretically non-universal benefits schemes it has: it has massive government debt and deficits because its economy doesn't generate enough wealth,

I'm fairly certain its economy generates more wealth per capita than at any point in the past, and this is the general consensus. If you believe it doesn't, please explain how, as it goes against the commonly held belief.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#187

Post by mike_hearn »

flammafex wrote: post #182
mike_hearn wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone needs to make a website explaining why UBI doesn't work conceptually because this comes up over and over again on HN. You cannot make UBI work from money saved by removing means testing. Even UBI is a welfare scheme and would require significant bureaucratic hoop jumping to check that a person claiming it isn't: • Dead • Non-citizen • Already claiming it under a different name/bank account/etc • In prison • M…

Guess we'll starve then. Good luck dealing with hundreds of millions of hungry angry people.

The idea you're suggesting here is 19th century era Marxism, and isn't based on historical or economic realities. There has never been a famine caused by new technologies creating unemployment, and food security is much higher now than at any other time in the past.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#188

Post by fragmede »

wartywhoa23 wrote: post #185
xodn348 wrote: post #56

It's better to be a happy optimist than a smart pessimist.

Pessimists are still happier in the long run: they are either proved right, or pleasantly surprised.

At the cost of being negative and miserable the whole time? If you integrate over time, being proven right or pleasantly surprised at the end doesn't make up for having been in the red for the duration.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#189

Post by jrimbault »

mike_hearn wrote: post #175
maybewhenthesun wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geohot is a smart dude. But here I think he misses the forest for the trees. He has a point, certainly. But while he is harping about the U part of ubi, he's completely ignoring the B part. UBI is meant to provide some basic income so people don't starve. It's just an optimization of welfare programs where you have a ton of bureaucracy and make people jump through endless hoops and cause them endless amounts of stres…

Someone needs to make a website explaining why UBI doesn't work conceptually because this comes up over and over again on HN. You cannot make UBI work from money saved by removing means testing. Even UBI is a welfare scheme and would require significant bureaucratic hoop jumping to check that a person claiming it isn't: • Dead • Non-citizen • Already claiming it under a different name/bank account/etc • In prison • M…

Except a lot of actual, very smart, economists are for UBI or similar arrangements (it's not a settled matter). And geohot might be smart, but he's just a self described hacker.

If we're going to use authority arguments.

Re: Create value for others and don’t worry about the returns

#190

Post by mike_hearn »

deaux wrote: post #184
mike_hearn wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone needs to make a website explaining why UBI doesn't work conceptually because this comes up over and over again on HN. You cannot make UBI work from money saved by removing means testing. Even UBI is a welfare scheme and would require significant bureaucratic hoop jumping to check that a person claiming it isn't: • Dead • Non-citizen • Already claiming it under a different name/bank account/etc • In prison • M…

This is a complete non-issue in basically every wealthy country bar potentially the US, all five things you named are already known to the government at all times. They also apply the exact same way to any other scheme, there's nothing new about it.

Quite a few governments have trouble verifying identity reliably. But to the extent they can do it, it's because there are lots of people employed to do so. The UBI thesis outline above is that you can find the money to pay for it by eliminating all those job roles from the government, so you can't use their existence to justify UBI as affordable.
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