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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

#221

Post by Zarel »

mcguire wrote: post #205
blfr wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I dunno; I'm ok with that myself. The actual best argument against UBI is that if you used the total of US government Social Security, Other, and Nondefense spending (At least portions of them seem to be UBI-replacable) on it, divided by the population of the United States (326,000,000), you end up with about $7,000 per person, per year. If you take the entire budget ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_fede…

$1000/month is enough to live off in many parts of the United States. I lived off it pretty comfortably a few years ago when I was in college – although I had four roommates, we all had our own rooms.

Obviously, it's not affordable everywhere, but I think incentivizing people to live outside of expensive areas is a good thing (adjusting for cost of living would mostly just funnel the extra money towards landlords, i.e. rent-seekers).

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

#222

Post by vram22 »

Verdex wrote: post #193
leppr wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but 1), 2) and 3) are ridiculous. What are you basing those assumptions on ? I don't see how any of these points relate to UBI. Why would we be obligated to provide welfare to people who spend their allowance on things other than food and healthcare ? 4) is a very good point. We don't actually know what keeps our civilization running. UBI assumes that people have a natural drive to be productive, but we got…

With respect to 1,2,3. People make some pretty bad decisions. And people like to trick other people into making bad decision. I didn't think this was controversial. Why is this relevant to UBI? One of the benefits of UBI is that it allows us to get rid of the welfare system. However, if people are tricked into giving away their money OR if they spend all of their money on non-food items, we now have to decide if they…

None of those "tricking other people" problems you mention have anything to do with UBI, per se. They are all about human nature, both the trickers and the tricked. That is not going to change just because of UBI being enacted / implemented. The potential solutions lie deeper down the stack (of turtles).

"There's a sucker born every minute."

https://www.google.co.in/search?q=quote+there%27s+a+sucker+b...

Barnum may not have said it, but it holds true even today ... probably every millisecond, if you take the ratio of the world's population to the number of suckers/suckees/suckincidents ...

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

#223

Post by TeMPOraL »

wool_gather wrote: post #189
andy_adams wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I strongly second this. Most people tend to be pretty used up after a day at work, and after commute, errands and household chores, TV is pretty much all they have energy for.

Personally, I hang out with regular "normies" as much, if not more, as with technical people, and all the boring TV-watching "normies" I know do have dreams and hobbies, but it takes getting to know them better to discover that. And those dreams and hobbies are generally blocked by dayjobs and errands.

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

#224

Post by shdh »

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.

Who would be a garbage man or do construction with UBI?

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

#225

Post by danans »

linuxftw wrote: post #170
danans wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many cities have subsidized housing (and/or rent control). The net effect is these people can 'afford' to live in areas while making lower pay. Many wealthy people who live in rent-controlled or property-tax capped housing benefited handsomely from the huge tax break passed by the previous Congress. Some of them have normal income but large inherited wealthbheld in securities like stocks, which also appreciated due…

Anyone that is a net payer of taxes benefits from a tax cut. > You will always find people who you can argue unfairly benefit from a redistribution scheme. A redistribution scheme is inherently unfair. > At least with subsidized housing the program is government administered so it can be accounted for when considering UBI. Subsidized housing creates artificial housing demand, raising rents. Without subsidized housing…

> A redistribution scheme is inherently unfair.

All systems of tax, benefits, and even property rights are redistribution schemes, including the recent tax cut, which was a redistribution upwards in the income/wealth scale. Redistribution is always relative to the previous state of societal wealth and resource distribution. There is no set point of "fairness".

> Subsidized housing creates artificial housing demand

What exactly is "artificial housing demand"? The need for primary housing for poorer people (as fulfilled by subsidized housing) is anything but artificial. You can't fake needing a roof over your head. The only place you can see anything like "artificial" housing demand is at the high end in demand for second homes, investment real estate, and vacation properties.

> Solving the affordable housing problem cannot be achieved by subsidizing low wages and high rents.

Agreed. It can only be solved by building more housing. But the purpose of UBI isn't to solve the affordable housing problem. Society can walk and chew gum at the same time by also building more housing where people want to live, which seems like an equally high a political and economic hurdle as UBI.

UBI could in some cases, however, give some people the means to move away from high housing cost areas to areas where UBI goes a longer way towards providing housing for them. Many people are stuck in high-housing cost areas because that's the only place that job opportunities exist. This is not just true for professional workers, but also for blue collar and lower income workers who are even less able to afford housing in expensive metropolises.

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

#226

Post by rmdashrfstar »

zxcvvcxz wrote: post #199
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.

I used to think this too. Then I grew older, observed more of the world around me, and realized a fundamental truth. The vast majority of the population, 95%+, when given free resources, will choose to not work or do anything productive. In fact, their initial foray into leisure generally leads into negativity and moral ineptitude.

20% producers, 80% consumers; I think it’s unlikely that most people would choose to work if given the option not to along with being given a consistent, reliable amount of money to which they’d be able to use to settle into a repetitive lifestyle of creature comforts and pleasures.

Given with how normalized 1) consistent drug usage (ie alcohol) and 2) prioritizing pleasures like watching TV or playing video games for the majority of one’s free time have become in western society, I can’t see UBI being of any productive benefit to society. A major problem is who is going to pay for it? The productive, taxing paying folk, who will be receiving UBI as a paltry percentage of their existing, work-based income? It doesn’t seem fair to penalize the most productive, those who choose to work, in order to subsidize those who don’t wish to contribute to the game we called society.

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

#227

Post by slothtrop »

shdh wrote: post #224
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.

Who would be a garbage man or do construction with UBI?

It would have to pay a good deal, with a pension. Generally don't think it would be enticing enough right now, which is why the turnover after the next phase in automation is a better opportunity.

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

#229

Post by dragonwriter »

coldtea wrote: post #113
skrowl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point, the US population of people 18 years or old is ~252 million, so if you only gave people 18+ a UBI handout, you'd cut your costs to 7.862 Trillion dollars per year.

Also one could remove the UBI part already covered by pensions -- e.g. the millions of government employees getting X pension money, can get (X - UBI) + UBI (so the same as they already get).

That's not a UBI, then, because it's not unconditional.

Also, I suspect the formula you intend is X + max(UBI - X, 0)—or, more simply max(UBI, X). Consider what your formula does for pension < UBI.

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

#230

Post by hombre_fatal »

sridca wrote: post #135
blfr wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's sad in the same sense gigahours wasted in front of TVs are sad.

Have you ever stopped to think where this 'watching TV is wasting time' belief originates from?

From the lack of fulfillment it gives most people, and thus the regret as they spend more time on it.
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