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

UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

greshm.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 141 posts

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#31

Post by Retric »

_heimdall wrote: post #29
Retric wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the opposite. Currently governments subsidize housing, food, internet access, etc for the poor through various programs. There’s no free market interaction when government bureaucrats are deciding where to build affordable housing etc. UBI toss those programs away saying hand people money and let the free market allocate resources. Hypothetically you hand money to everyone, but as far as the middle class is conc…

If you don't like how the government subsidized certain markets today, I'm not quite sure why a good solution would be to subsidize the entire economy. Such a program is way too complex to model out and reliably predict what the impact will be. We simply don't know how much UBI is the "right" amount for specific outcomes, and we definitely don't know what the impact will be on any subset of the economy. According to…

Subsidizing the economy is a meaningless idea, it reallocates resources.

As to being impossible to model, there’s a great number of countries in the world eventually one will likely try the experiment on its entire economy without impacting 99.9% of the global population.

That said, you can turn individual safety nets into UBI lockstep with changing the tax code and see what happens. The fear is people would spend ‘food’ money on drugs, or people in subsidized housing would move, or all the things which created these programs instead of handing out cash. That’s a political question not an economic one, are we trying to act as a parent or do we want people to have freedom to make their own choices.

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#32

Post by _heimdall »

kolinko wrote: post #19
blfr wrote: post #7

The world is increasingly complex making it seem to many people that their work is unproductive (bullshit/make-work jobs). This and lack of agency in many jobs is what leads to massive frustration with work* but it's not actually an incisive observation about the economy as a whole. it’s not possible to pilot a UBI. Giving cash to a small subset of the population is not UBI. UBI goes to everyone. It changes the econo…

There are things that work and couldn’t be piloted - Postal System for example.

Courier services have existed for a very, very long time. Heck, Ben Franklin was running one to help connect the 13 colonies.

Presumably the government could have actuslly piloted the USPS if they wanted to, only supporting the northeast for example. They just didn't need to, the leap from private courier systems to a government run courier service didn't have many unknowns to test out first.

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#33

Post by blfr »

ttyprintk wrote: post #30
blfr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couriers have existed since the beginning of civilization. With many famous examples, like Pheidippides in keeping with the Olympic spirit. It was obviously valuable and workable from the smallest scale possible: a verbal message carried by a runner.

But the network effect of mass messaging —- is what the article means by unpilotable.

The network effect of mass messaging was tested at smaller scales many times. Victorian era pneumatic tubes come to mind or unlimited local calls later, but there must be countless other examples that did not require changing the economy as a whole.

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#34

Post by simoncion »

blfr wrote: post #22
Apreche wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We want to guarantee for every human on the planet the right to food, water, shelter, health care, and education. Giving everyone enough money to buy all those things themselves is one way to do it. Raising funds (taxes) and then providing those services for free is another way. It doesn’t really matter which way. What matters is that we agree on that goal and find some way to achieve it. Right now we have a system w…

We want to guarantee for every human on the planet the right to food, water, shelter, health care, and education. ... What matters is that we agree on that goal and find some way to achieve it. Honestly, I don't. First, perhaps it's small minded but I don't really feel responsible for every human on the planet, or even a significant percentage. Second, the value, even to the end recipient, of vast majority of educati…

> ...I don't really feel responsible for every human on the planet, or even a significant percentage.

That's fair and totally 1000% reasonable. However:

What if (whether through sudden injury or the accumulated injuries of aging) you become utterly unable to work, you've burned through your savings, all your family is dead, and you're an unlikable cunt [0] so those around you are supremely disinclined to provide assistance? Should you be cast out into the wilderness to starve?

What if you were born permanently unable to work and utterly unsympathetic? Should your fate be to die of exposure?

[0] I cannot stress hard enough that if you think I'm making comment about your character, please do remember that I absolutely am not. I don't know shit about you, so I cannot comment on your character. However, injury, illness, and prolonged bad periods can absolutely turn someone into an unlikable cunt... driving away a predicated-on-tolerability material-and-emotional support network just when one needs it most.

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#35

Post by wetpaws »

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #16

I think people are beginning to see work as a sucker's game. The assets you hold are much more important. You can bust your ass and get a nice little startup exit -- and then look around at what real estate this massive windfall will buy you, only to realize that it's all gone up in price by the same amount. It would have been better to have bought a house, kept the easy job, and gone home at 4:30 each day. People se…

[dead]

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#36

Post by bheadmaster »

blfr wrote: post #22
Apreche wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We want to guarantee for every human on the planet the right to food, water, shelter, health care, and education. Giving everyone enough money to buy all those things themselves is one way to do it. Raising funds (taxes) and then providing those services for free is another way. It doesn’t really matter which way. What matters is that we agree on that goal and find some way to achieve it. Right now we have a system w…

We want to guarantee for every human on the planet the right to food, water, shelter, health care, and education. ... What matters is that we agree on that goal and find some way to achieve it. Honestly, I don't. First, perhaps it's small minded but I don't really feel responsible for every human on the planet, or even a significant percentage. Second, the value, even to the end recipient, of vast majority of educati…

> Honestly, I don't. First, perhaps it's small minded but I don't really feel responsible for every human on the planet, or even a significant percentage.

A government that governs a nation is arguably responsible for every human in it.

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#37

Post by booleandilemma »

petermcneeley wrote: post #12

The article revolves around the responses of Noah Smith but it is my opinion that Noah is not really a genuine actor. Noah to me just represents the system (as opposed to non-system [0]). His role is not to make radical conclusions but simply to provide a counter reactionary voice for the neo liberal order. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-system_opposition

What would a non-system actor look like? Can you give some examples?

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#38

Post by CharlieDigital »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #15

"The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed." There won't be the big UBI day, where we make the big switch globally. It's a creeping expansion of social benefits and transfer payments and an easing of work conditions. Some people will somehow stay in the unpleasant jobs, by inertia or the unfairness of a class system or, increasingly, by wages that compensate for the trouble. People will drop out o…

    It's a creeping expansion of social benefits...society will adapt around it
I think this will never happen (in the US). The modern political environment in the US won't allow it.

If it appears that there will be an expansion of social benefits, the wealthy class will work to sabotage it (a la ACA; not that there weren't benefits, but net-net the shareholders and executives of insurance companies won). There's nothing stopping them.

What's more likely to happen, IMO, is that as the cost of existing increases, the birth rates will continue to decline. Rather than address this population crisis, the wealthy class will continue to advance automation. LLMs, AI, robots, autonomous driving, etc. With their left hand, they'll import cheap labor. With their right, they'll pit the rest of us against this cheap labor to distract from reality. The corporations want this cheap, imported labor -- they just don't want to pay the taxes to support social services for anyone.

The wealth gap will continue to widen without a voting base willing to increase taxation. And to suppress this, the wealthy will use a narrative that is driven by the media consolidated and owned by these mega-rich. There are increasingly few politicians on either side that feel like they are genuine about solving this issue. The flood of money in politics feels like it's broken the system.

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#39

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

blfr wrote: post #7

The world is increasingly complex making it seem to many people that their work is unproductive (bullshit/make-work jobs). This and lack of agency in many jobs is what leads to massive frustration with work* but it's not actually an incisive observation about the economy as a whole. it’s not possible to pilot a UBI. Giving cash to a small subset of the population is not UBI. UBI goes to everyone. It changes the econo…

https://www.firstpost.com/india/karnataka-congress-governmen...

heh. go away and take your UBI and 38 hour work week. they are implementing a law to enforce this. so you will work for twice a 38 hour work week and still be paid less because why not.

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#40

Post by _heimdall »

Retric wrote: post #31
_heimdall wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't like how the government subsidized certain markets today, I'm not quite sure why a good solution would be to subsidize the entire economy. Such a program is way too complex to model out and reliably predict what the impact will be. We simply don't know how much UBI is the "right" amount for specific outcomes, and we definitely don't know what the impact will be on any subset of the economy. According to…

Subsidizing the economy is a meaningless idea, it reallocates resources. As to being impossible to model, there’s a great number of countries in the world eventually one will likely try the experiment on its entire economy without impacting 99.9% of the global population. That said, you can turn individual safety nets into UBI lockstep with changing the tax code and see what happens. The fear is people would spend ‘f…

Literally any economic decision is reallocated resources, that term is much too broad to be meaningful. Are you arguing that a UBI is wealth redistribution specifically?

Someone will try it, totally agree there. I don't see any problem with that either, countries should be able to do what they want as long as it doesn't harm anyone else. I wouldn't tell France they shouldn't try it, but I am absolutely saying I don't want to try it here in the US.

Post reply on HN