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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

#311

Post by jimmywanger »

danenania wrote: post #159
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…

The "laziness" issue is such a distraction. If some percentage of UBI recipients sit on their couches all day, that's perfectly fine. 1 - These weren't the people who were going to move our economy and society forward in the first place. 2 - It's better if they sit on the couch and have their needs met than having them turn to violence or fueling the rise of the next Hitler. That's what will happen if we take away a…

Wow, going to Hitler already?

The people who were going to move our economy and society forward are not the motivated ones. A fire needs to be lit under their asses. What else are they entitled to for _no_ effort?

If they weren't going to benefit our society at all and might be a detriment, a round of ammunition costs far less than UBI.

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

#312

Post by drb91 »

stcredzero wrote: post #122
drb91 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You must be joking. Wealth people? Depart with wealth? Willingly? People who fund raise for non-profits convince the wealthy to part with their wealth all the time. If we changed society to make this the way to have a legacy as a rich person, then it would happen. Cultures around the world have convinced their wealthy and powerful to do far wackier things than endow an intentional community. History shows us that the…

Well there is some success in getting rich people to divorce with the majority of their money, but as a general rule you don’t make money by giving it away. I don’t see any tax scheme succeeding if it depends on the participation of the taxed—that will be abused by the rich, who have more resources to launder money.

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

#313

Post by nkoren »

olleromam91 wrote: post #255
nkoren wrote: post #127

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. 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.

That's not how UBI works, or how math works. The person who makes $120k would contribute $24k and receive $12k. So yes, they would be a net payee. But they're in the top 7% of income earners: they can afford it. Or, more pointedly: the compromises they'd need to make to afford it are NOTHING compared to the compromises made by the bottom 50% simply to survive.

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

#314

Post by nkoren »

sliverstorm wrote: post #270
nkoren wrote: post #127

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. 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…

Assuming no change in employment. Yet one of the first arguments for UBI is always that people can then quit their crummy jobs.

No, it's not. What gives you that idea?

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

#315

Post by akvadrako »

eanzenberg wrote: post #188
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…

No it's even more basic then that. There are two competing theories for humanity. One is, do you have faith in society and the peoples of that society? The other, do you not have faith in society and the peoples of it? Many of the human-made constructs in our world were defined as a stop-gap for the lowest depths of humanity. Certain people are extremely selfish, narcissistic, care only for themselves? We have some l…

> So you need to ask yourself, do you have faith that UBI will "free brains enough to produce innovation, progress, and further intellectual output", or lead to massive work reduction, increased prices, and increased complacency?

You don't need to know that yet. As long as you accept that work for the sake of work is not the purpose of life, you can study UBI to see how people behave.

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

#316

Post by akvadrako »

gutnor wrote: post #234
hyprCoin wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My answers, maybe not the same as yours. 1) Let people make their own decisions and don't try to be their caretakers. 2) UBI should be universal. Ideally the impetus would not be on the US government or any other local government to implement it. Let's not conflate their responsibilities further, they are a large enough centralized point of failure.

> Let people make their own decisions and don't try to be their caretakers. That's some harsh darwinism that seems to go against the principle of UBI. You are mentally unfit (young, ill, sick, depressed, ...) ? Here is some cash, good luck with the wolves.

> That's some harsh darwinism that seems to go against the principle of UBI.

The principle of UBI is exactly that; give people some money with no strings or instructions and let them make their own decisions. If it's conditional, it's not universal.

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

#317

Post by akvadrako »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #191
Suncho wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn't UBI reduce the economic productivity by both driving up the cost of labor through increased taxation No. First of all, there's no reason that basic income has to have any taxes associated with it. A common mistake people (including the government) make is to assume that government spending must be funded by taxation. It doesn't have to be. If the government spends and the economy responds productively to th…

> If the government spends and the economy responds productively to that spending, then you're fine. Taxing is a separate issue. You should only really tax when you want to remove money from a specific part of the economy. Or when you don't want your government to run a deficit. Or when you don't want to finance your government by printing money. That always ends badly, no matter how clever the mechanism is this time…

> Or when you don't want to finance your government by printing money.

The point is you can finance your government by just printing money. If the value of your expenditure raises the wealth of the nation by the same amount, there will be no inflation.

Though I would say it's just a hidden wealth tax.

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

#318

Post by akvadrako »

perilunar wrote: post #285

I don't think people should view UBI as "giving away free money". Instead we should look at it from a geologist[1]/geolibertarian[2] perspective: as compensation for appropriation of land and natural resources that rightfully belong to everyone. UBI should be funded by land and resource taxes, not from income, sales or corporate taxes. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibe…

HN has talked about funding UBI via a land value tax before:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15264024

It makes a fair amount of sense, and puts the incentives in the right place.

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

#319

Post by tom_mellior »

Danihan wrote: post #20
Suncho wrote: post #7

I largely agree with what's being said in this interview, except for a few comments: > "But in countless ways it’s much harder to convince lawmakers and politicians to give every person in the country cash gratis than it is to guide a start-up to a nine-figure valuation." You don't have to convince lawmakers to do it. It's possible to implement basic income without any direct government support. > "The question I’m i…

> It's possible to implement basic income without any direct government support. How's that? > The right question is "how do we unlock the economy's prosperity-maximizing capacity?" Asked and answered: free-market capitalism. Nothing has resulted in the sort of rapid prosperity we've seen recently with market capitalism spreading globally.

> free-market capitalism

Nothing about UBI is opposed to free markets, unless you think paying taxes is not compatible with free-market capitalism.

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

#320

Post by tom_mellior »

heynonynony wrote: post #241
nkoren wrote: post #127

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. 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…

sorry but $100K is not a lot of income these days, especially in places like CA and NY, so a 20% tax increase or a loss of $8K/year would be DEVESTATING! so, you just want to f' over all these perceived "wealthy" people (who are actually pretty f'ing middle class in CA or NY) for what? to let slackers play video games all day? F THAT!

> sorry but $100K is not a lot of income these days

Did you click the link in the post you're answering to? Among many other interesting things, it says: "Of those individuals with income who were older than 15 years of age, approximately 50% had incomes below $30,000 while the top 10% had incomes exceeding $95,000 a year in 2015." The source it gives is this, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf

You're right that there is regional variation, some of which you can explore at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_income and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_counties.... By no measure are you "pretty f'ing middle class" in CA or NY if you earn $100K a year.

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