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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

#331

Post by wj »

stcredzero wrote: post #115
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 of the US: By voluntary system you mean the wealthy voluntarily turning over the wealth that they won't let…

By voluntary system you mean the wealthy voluntarily turning over the wealth that they won't let us tax them for? It doesn't make sense. Many other cultures have a gift economy, where the powerful voluntarily redistribute their wealth in exchange for status. Culture is very powerful, often overpowering pure economics. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have already pledged huge fractions of their wealth towards the common…

What cultures are those? Honest question.

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

#332

Post by tonyedgecombe »

danielvf wrote: post #183
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 country of Nauru has had universal income since the 1970’s funded by mining resources. Unfortunately, it has not resulted in human potential being unlocked. Outside the mining, run by foreigners and with foreign works, economic activity in the country has gone down. Nauru now has the highest obesity rate in the world. 94.5% of the population is overweight, 71% obese, and 31% diabetic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w…

I'm not sure you can learn much from the success or failure of a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific.

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

#333

Post by felideon »

chesimov wrote: post #326
dahdum wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The other way is thinking of the billions of brains wasted every generation just trying to survive, exactly what humans did 2000 years ago. 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. That's a vision." It's not so cut and dry. I don't believe that incentives under UBI will lead to great…

A friendly note: 'cut and dried'. As an aside are these kind of remarks welcomed or seen as pedantic?

I think appreciated if done tactfully, as you've done. The upvotes/downvotes would decide.

TIL. https://english.stackexchange.com/a/34794

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

#334

Post by hood_syntax »

apercu wrote: post #329
dahdum wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The other way is thinking of the billions of brains wasted every generation just trying to survive, exactly what humans did 2000 years ago. 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. That's a vision." It's not so cut and dry. I don't believe that incentives under UBI will lead to great…

This might sound radical, but I've always thought it would make sense to bring back some of the programs from the New Deal as part of UBI. In the US and Canada, infrastructure is crumbling. As part of your UBI (if you can't or choose not to work) maybe people should spend a week a month working for the good of their society. It's not perfect but if there is a job skills/training component of these things, and exposur…

I've been 100% on board with this kind of thing. Help people who lack a sense of purpose to contribute towards maintaining the things that make their lives better. Infrastructure is exactly the kind of area that needs bodies thrown at it (under skilled supervision, of course)

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

#335

Post by hood_syntax »

chesimov wrote: post #326
dahdum wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The other way is thinking of the billions of brains wasted every generation just trying to survive, exactly what humans did 2000 years ago. 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. That's a vision." It's not so cut and dry. I don't believe that incentives under UBI will lead to great…

A friendly note: 'cut and dried'. As an aside are these kind of remarks welcomed or seen as pedantic?

I'm generally on top of my idiom game, but I didn't know about this one. Thanks for pointing it out, if nothing else for satisfying a curiosity I didn't know I had.

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

#336

Post by DoreenMichele »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #290
contingencies wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW I have noticed your posts and your arguments are lucid. A well-worn path to higher income as a communications professional is corporate PR and media management. You could consider developing an offering here for startups, either a course or a book or (preferably) a business, since we now see so many PR hacks for startups type articles yet as an actual founder I can tell you I don't have time to manually research…

Great point. Or perhaps a PR firm. If you're near NYC, SF or Boston, my wife works at a firm she loves and I'd be glad to intro you (Doreen) to her.

I am in a small town in Southwest Coastal Washington.

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

#337

Post by chrishacken »

pdonis wrote: post #288
chrishacken wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sam makes an interesting analogy with Y Combinator as providing a form of "basic income" to people trying to start startups. " These two things aren't even close to the same thing. If Y Combinator accepted every single applicant, than yes, it would be equivalent to UBI. They obviously do not.

> These two things aren't even close to the same thing. Tell that to Sam, not me. He made the analogy.

I know, I was just agreeing with you.

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

#338

Post by skybrian »

pdonis wrote: post #289
skybrian wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that it would be handled the same as senior citizens who gamble or drink. Next month another check arrives, same as usual. But who worries about this, or would consider cutting social security due to drinking or gambling?

> who worries about this, or would consider cutting social security due to drinking or gambling? We don't consider that because we maintain the polite assumption that people get paid from social security after they retire because they paid into it while they were working. There are plenty of cases where that's not true, but we allow ourselves to treat them as outliers, and assume that the money people get from social…

Part of the point of UBI is to confront this "if you don't work, you can't eat" attitude head-on, and change it to one where all citizens deserve a certain amount of money (however small, to start) just for being people who stay out of trouble.

It's an uphill battle to be sure.

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

#339

Post by ucaetano »

romwell wrote: post #205
ucaetano wrote: post #56

After deriding UBI for a long time, and believing it won't work, I came up with a trial model that, IMHO, would allow it to be tested out with minimal damage to the economy (even though I still don't think it would work): Take a country, US for example. Let's say that society determines that a reasonable UBI is $1000/month (ignore the number, this is about the process, not the amount). When I say "everyone", I mean "…

I disagree with this model. A lot of positive externalities that UBI will bring simply won't kick in at low payout levels, whereas the negatives which will be brought in by diversion of funds will be apparent. The externalities I am talking about are of this form: -Increased benefits to public health as people are less stressed about losing jobs -Increased entrepreneurship and all the benefits that come from it -Incr…

> In other words, UBI is somewhat binary in nature: either you have it, or you don't. It doesn't scale down beyond a certain point.

Then we're better off without it. It would be completely naive to try to roll it out in full scale without knowing the potential impact. Not worth taking the risk.

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

#340

Post by jerkstate »

Suncho wrote: post #143
jerkstate wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the benefit requires other subsidies for recipients to survive, does it actually fit the definition of UBI?

> If the benefit requires other subsidies for recipients to survive, does it actually fit the definition of UBI? Different people used different definitions of basic income. As far as I know, the most commonly accepted definition says nothing about the amount. But I have heard people say that it's not a "true" basic income if it's not above a certain level.

I just looked up the "basic income" wikipedia page and you are right, "full" basic income is above subsistence/poverty level and "partial" basic income is below. So this would be a trial of partial, non-universal basic income.
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