Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income

spectacle.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 389 posts

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

#271

Post by sriku »

I find it interesting to read up on UBI schemes and the discussion here as well as Altman's is fascinating too.

What particularly strikes me is how he points out that this already exists in cultures. Even in villages in India, you'd find people simply willing to do stuff for each other. If you have a wedding in your family, the village will come together to cook and serve meals, offer hospitality to your guests and generally work to make everyone happy on the occasion. If you happen to be mentally ill, someone would still feed and clothe you, include you at least in some small way in their social life, and so on. You won't be abandoned.

UBI looks like a quantified version of this social capital. If we resist and think "why should someone else do nothing and get the benefits of my work?", the society has lost the practical generosities of village life and UBI might be a way to resurrect that. I personally find it pretty ridiculous that there are homeless and hungry people at all in the wealthiest of countries, and am certainly curious about what potentials UBI could unlock for them given they haven't yet fallen into antisocial ways despite their condition. Something is wrong if you see an old man in rags rummaging through a trash can for food scraps in a high GDP country.

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

#272

Post by ryanx435 »

sriku wrote: post #271

I find it interesting to read up on UBI schemes and the discussion here as well as Altman's is fascinating too. What particularly strikes me is how he points out that this already exists in cultures. Even in villages in India, you'd find people simply willing to do stuff for each other. If you have a wedding in your family, the village will come together to cook and serve meals, offer hospitality to your guests and g…

It's ridiculous to extol the virtues of a society that values extended family, and then turn around and say it's a good sign for ubi in America, where our family unit has shrunk to minimal size.

Ridiculous.

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

#273

Post by pixelbill »

dgudkov wrote: post #254
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 (my…

This is the classic bad argument of "determination and hard work" are the only means of success, falsely insinuating that anyone not successful simply just didn't work hard enough.

Back here in reality, you have lots of rich people who haven't worked hard a day in their life, who are incredibly successful by the genetic lottery of being born into wealth. If you have money, you don't have to work hard.. your money works for you.

Those on the bottom are the hardest workers, because they have to. Their lives are wasted because they didn't win the lottery of wealth, and struggle simply to survive every day. Imagine the quality of life increase if we took away that feeling of your very survival being at risk every single day..

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

#274

Post by pdfernhout »

vonnik wrote: post #32

I support some form of UBI. My concern is that UBI is a classic redistributive strategy, and redistributive strategies have done poorly in America's long and ongoing class war. The most recent tax plan is a good example the haves winning another battle in that war. So the basic question for anyone who believes in UBI and economic justice is: How do you convince the wealthy and powerful to give up some of their wealth…

An essay I wrote on that in 2009: "Basic income from a millionaire's perspective?" http://www.pdfernhout.net/basic-income-from-a-millionaires-p...

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

#275

Post by BrainInAJar »

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

If you promise people they won't starve if they fail, they'll be more inclined to take wealth creating risks over safe career bets.

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

#276

Post by DougWebb »

gehwartzen wrote: post #264
mrob wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welfare discourages striving for greatness, because as soon as you show any sign of success it's taken away from you. The "universal" in UBI means it's paid to everybody, rich and poor. It lacks the weird breakpoints and perverse incentives of welfare. You are always better off working.

There is still at least one break point with a UBI since it is payed for by money gained through taxation. While in theory everyone 'gets' the UBI those that pay more than the UBI in taxes effectively just get taxed that amount less. There is a break point where the money you pay in taxes matches the UBI.

That's not a breakpoint, it's a smooth transition.

A breakpoint is when you earn $X, and that's low enough to get $Y in welfare. But if you work longer/harder the total amount you get is still $X+$Y because your welfare amount is reduced dollar-for-dollar with your earnings above $X. You don't start to increase your income unless you manage to earn more than $X+$Y entirely on your own. This creates a huge disincentive to earn more than $X, because for most people at that income level the jump to earning $X+$Y seems insurmountable.

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

#277

Post by enraged_camel »

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.

And? So what? Seriously, so what?

Most people agree today that not everyone is meant to go to college. So why should everyone be creating wealth? Why can't some people just be consumers?

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

#278

Post by prawn »

Suncho wrote: post #120
DoreenMichele wrote: post #109

The question I’m interested in: How do we unlock maximum human potential? Last I checked, welfare does the opposite of this. It helps people merely subsist, not strive for greatness. Then he goes on to compare YC to basic income. Seriously? They take a share in your company and help you develop it. That isn't money for nothing. If he weren't a millionaire and the current president of YC, would we keep seeing articles…

> The question I’m interested in: How do we unlock maximum human potential? > Last I checked, welfare does the opposite of this. It helps people merely subsist, not strive for greatness. It depends what you mean by "human potential." I agree with you that "human potential" is not the right way to frame what basic income unlocks. By giving people money to spend, it unlocks the economy's potential to produce wealth for…

I agree that it'd be on the front page regardless of the author. It's always a popular discussion topic on HN, and that's predated Altman's newest thrust.

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

#279

Post by bduerst »

stcredzero wrote: post #69
bduerst wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If just the rent was covered for everyone ~$12k/yr, then rents would inflate universally ~$12k/yr because housing pricing is a function of income elasticity. That German gated community you linked has housing that is owned by a trust. I don't think you can ask residents of the U.S. to voluntarily hand over all their housing property to a trust, or require them to be Catholic to reside in it.

I don't think you can ask residents of the U.S. to voluntarily hand over all their housing property to a trust, or require them to be Catholic to reside in it. However, I think it could be possible to have many, many such trusts which cater to specific interest groups. How about communities which cater to different kinds of artists, musicians, writers, philosophers, etc...? If something like 60% of the US population…

That's counterintuitive into itself. Everyone living in a trust that's also a meritocracy? Meritocracies reward meritorious individuals, which is difficult to do when forcing everyone to live in communal housing. This isn't very well thought out.

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

#280

Post by stcredzero »

bduerst wrote: post #279
stcredzero wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you can ask residents of the U.S. to voluntarily hand over all their housing property to a trust, or require them to be Catholic to reside in it. However, I think it could be possible to have many, many such trusts which cater to specific interest groups. How about communities which cater to different kinds of artists, musicians, writers, philosophers, etc...? If something like 60% of the US population…

That's counterintuitive into itself. Everyone living in a trust that's also a meritocracy? Meritocracies reward meritorious individuals, which is difficult to do when forcing everyone to live in communal housing. This isn't very well thought out.

Everyone living in a trust that's also a meritocracy?

Sure. An artist commune shouldn't be letting you in unless you actually have some skill and artistic talent.

Meritocracies reward meritorious individuals, which is difficult to do when forcing everyone to live in communal housing. This isn't very well thought out.

You didn't try and prove the null hypothesis very hard, did you? There already exist intentional communities and artist colonies, where some degree of skill (merit) is a requirement. This is analogous to the German trust cited above, except the Catholicism requirement is replaced by some sort of merit-based interest.

Post reply on HN