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The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

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Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#251

Post by cepth »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #211
guelo wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Last I checked How did you check? Most research I've seen shows that welfare reduces poverty but does not drag down gdp. Anti-welfare people tend to ignore the positive benefits of entrepreneurs being able to take more risks when they know that a bankruptcy won't be catastrophic and that they could still send their children to school and get treatment when they're sick.

Successful entrepreneurs aren't usually on welfare, they come from great backgrounds (hi Sam, Mark, Bill, Donald...).

I think this is only true if you adopt a very narrow definition of "successful entrepreneur".

If you're looking at non-US, or non-technology entrepreneurs, I think you'll find that this conception of an entrepreneur doesn't fit. (E.g., see this article on global entrepreneurial activity https://grasshopper.com/blog/where-do-most-entrepreneurs-com...).

Even if you're talking about non-US, tech entrepreneurs, I also think this definition falls apart. The many, many new super-wealthy tech entrepreneurs coming out of China and India grew up in a time when neither country was particularly rich.

People engage in entrepreneurship for numerous reasons, but I think it's foolish to discount the sheer number of people who do so out of financial necessity, i.e. the need to earn enough money to put food on the table and support your family.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#252

Post by dahdum »

js8 wrote: post #63
Danihan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The math doesn't work and has never worked. UBI proponents will never talk math because it doesn't add up, even with the most casual analysis. $12k is the cited number that you see a lot in basic income discussions. That's just over the poverty level. That's not enough to live on and it's practically a bonus for some members of this site. It's not enough to do anything with. Even upon receiving that, many people woul…

Maybe it doesn't add up in the monetary sense, but economically it kinda does. If you look around, the actual resources are there. I was born in socialist country (Czechoslovakia) in the late 70s. It was inefficient system (the productivity of the most advanced economies today is about 3-4x times higher), and yet it was able to provide housing, food, health care, education and even decent culture for more than 90% of…

Czechoslovakia was a communist country, and while it did pretty well relative to others, I'm not sure it's a great model for UBI under capitalism.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#253

Post by bobthechef »

ericd wrote: post #248
minikites wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more likely that colonial-style abuses are to blame, here's what happens in a developed nation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome >Mincome was an experimental Canadian guaranteed annual income project that was held in Manitoba, during the 1970s. >University of Manitoba economists Derek Hum and Wayne Simpson analyzed labour supply or work disincentive issues in Mincome during the 1980s and published their res…

Could you please expand on how you think colonialism is to blame? I don't see any suggestion of that in the Wikipedia article.

Yes, I, too, would be curious. Seems fabricated.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#254

Post by dgudkov »

tobbyb wrote: post #128

The UBI debate is fundamental to how we perceive society and what kind of society we want to build into the future. If one's idea of human society is people working to earn money. Fullstop. And those who are better at it are the be all and end alls of human civilization and progress and the ultimate aspiration. Then words like lazy, people will not do anything, arguments that are generic enough to block any action, a…

>Now imagine if all these brains could be freed and god knows how much innovation, progress and intellectual output can be unlocked into a completely different kind of society.

This may sound cynical, but those who can actually deliver innovation, progress and intellectual output of a meaningful magnitude are already doing pretty well. To a big extent, because they can be determined and can work hard. Most people (myself included) are rather mediocre and have no capacity to advance the society beyond its current, rather advanced state.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#255

Post by olleromam91 »

nkoren wrote: post #127
Danihan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The math doesn't work and has never worked. UBI proponents will never talk math because it doesn't add up, even with the most casual analysis. $12k is the cited number that you see a lot in basic income discussions. That's just over the poverty level. That's not enough to live on and it's practically a bonus for some members of this site. It's not enough to do anything with. Even upon receiving that, many people woul…

> The math doesn't work and has never worked. UBI proponents will never talk math because it doesn't add up, even with the most casual analysis. Wrong, utterly wrong, on accounts. > It's not enough to do anything with. You have no idea what it's like to be poor. I grew up poor in America. $12k per year is an absolutely life-changing amount for many people. It means you will not go hungry. It means you will not die of…

You realize this is a self defeating argument right?

It's no longer a Universal Income when someone who makes $120k contributes $12k... and then receives 0. That's just wealth redistribution.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#256

Post by dahdum »

drb91 wrote: post #70
stcredzero wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The math has never been the problem; it's always been taxing the wealthy that causes the conversation to die. The problem with taxing the wealthy, is that they generally have an outsized share of the political power. I think that a better solution, from a political and psychological standpoint, would involve a voluntary system. If just rent could be covered, this would be the equivalent of $12k per year in many parts…

You must be joking. Wealth people? Depart with wealth? Willingly? They can pay their taxes now and don't; I wouldn't hold your breath waiting. No, to tax rich people you have to seize the damn money.

Vast majority of the wealthy pay every dime of their taxes, because one of the few things that wealth can't buy is protection from the IRS.

Now of course they do everything they can to avoid taxes, but very few evade them. I'm not so wealthy, but if I can legally avoid paying a tax, I will. That's more available for my retirement, charitable causes, and my family. I don't expect more from the wealthy than I do of myself.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#257

Post by minikites »

ericd wrote: post #248
minikites wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more likely that colonial-style abuses are to blame, here's what happens in a developed nation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome >Mincome was an experimental Canadian guaranteed annual income project that was held in Manitoba, during the 1970s. >University of Manitoba economists Derek Hum and Wayne Simpson analyzed labour supply or work disincentive issues in Mincome during the 1980s and published their res…

Could you please expand on how you think colonialism is to blame? I don't see any suggestion of that in the Wikipedia article.

Can you name an instance where colonialism is a positive force for indigenous peoples?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Nauru#Modern-day_Na...

>As its phosphate stores began to run out (by 2006, its reserves were exhausted), the island was reduced to an environmental wasteland. Nauru appealed to the International Court of Justice to compensate for the damage from almost a century of phosphate strip-mining by foreign companies. In 1993, Australia offered Nauru an out-of-court settlement of A$2.5 million annually for 20 years. New Zealand and the UK additionally agreed to pay a one-time settlement of $12 million each. Declining phosphate prices, the high cost of maintaining an international airline, and the government's financial mismanagement combined to make the economy collapse in the late 1990s. By the new millennium, Nauru was virtually bankrupt.

When an economy is optimized for resource extraction and export, all sorts of basic social and infrastructure needs are neglected because it's more profitable for the colonizing power. I'm not sure if you were looking for a direct "phosphate mining = obesity" connection but given every example of colonialism that comes to mind, it's not really that much of a stretch.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#258

Post by maxxxxx »

A nice experiment would be to start with universal health care. This probably needs to be part of UBI anyways. It would already free quite a few people of having to stay in a bad job and would allow people with families or who are older to be more entrepreneurial. Try this and see how the politics work out.

The trend seems to go the other way though: taxes for upper incomes are being lowered, no estate tax and Obamacare is pretty much neglected until it falls apart. I think instead of UBI he should worry more about near term issues.

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#259

Post by ridgeguy »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #157
danenania wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea of the YC money being insignificant comes from its roots as a program for college students. When you're still mostly supported by your parents, the money isn't as big of a deal since you have basically no expenses and endless runway anyway. But when you've got rent, bills, a family, etc., the money is a very big deal and can easily be the difference between having the runway to make it vs. needing to…

The idea of UBI is free money for life. Being given $12k or $20k in exchange for stock in your company is intended to let you focus on the business for a few months and thereby try to develop wealth to last a lifetime. It is very much time limited and tied to performance. If you promise everyone money for life, many people won't bother to create wealth. Wealth creation tends to involve rocking the boat. Have you hear…

>If you promise everyone money for life, many people won't bother to create wealth.

>A lot of people will do absolutely nothing if they have money for life.

Really? Citation needed.

These seem no more than unsupported assumptions based on your experience, i.e., anecdata.

My anecdata indicate the opposite. A supermajority of those I know would, but for fear of lacking minimal financial security, try to create value through entrepreneurship.

Further, my casual knowledge of basic income experimental results contradicts your assertions. For but one example, the Canadian experiment [1] [2] indicated strongly favorable effects.

Your view may depend on whether you regard people as assets or liabilities until proven otherwise. I favor the former.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome#Results [2] https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/2011/01/11/...

Re: The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

#260

Post by EGreg »

dragonwriter wrote: post #141
EGreg wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scale issue is a big one. The USA is at once too big and too small at the same time. The intercoin project was started with the aim of letting communities issue and control their own smart cryto currency, and seamlessly integrate it into apps. Same as Paypal, VISA network, Venmo, FB do. UBI becomes just an app on top of that. Then community membership becomes a question of the community members or government. Har…

> The USA is at once too big and too small at the same time. I haven't seen a convincing argument for either half of this, much less the mutually contradictory combination.

Too big because it is out of touch with its citizens, and a UBI would lead to a national ID. Look at China for what can happen from that. Also too large because the cost of living varies from place to place, so no one amount of UBI can fit every citizen.

At the same time it's too small because Americans are already far better off than most of the world, so if anyone really needs UBI it should be the poorer per capita countries, funded by the richest in the world. In other words UBI for Americans only misses the point.

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