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Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

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Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#341

Post by Dylan16807 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #332
BobaFloutist wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it as all the human essentials are covered without work (sufficiently nutritious food, safe, clean, shelter with sufficient heating and water for basic needs, basic healthcare, basic internet, and a small extra for discretionary spending) with the assumption that most people will happily do some work to upgrade their circumstances and get more fun and interesting food/entertainment/shelter. If quitting your jo…

The system breaks down when people get to democratically vote for their own UBI. Why work extra for a cool car or nice vacation when you can just vote for more benefits?

People could already vote for free cars to citizens, but they don't because the economics are terrible. I don't see UBI making that risk worse.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#342

Post by s1artibartfast »

ssl-3 wrote: post #296
BobaFloutist wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it as all the human essentials are covered without work (sufficiently nutritious food, safe, clean, shelter with sufficient heating and water for basic needs, basic healthcare, basic internet, and a small extra for discretionary spending) with the assumption that most people will happily do some work to upgrade their circumstances and get more fun and interesting food/entertainment/shelter. If quitting your jo…

There's a mindset that I often run into with IRL discussions that revolves around the premise that if a person has some minimal essentials met by doing nothing, then they will have no motivation to ever improve their situation at all. That if a person can afford to accomplish nothing but still have enough money to smoke weed and play video games, then all anyone will ever do is smoke weed and play video games. I don'…

I think it depends on your perspective and prior experience with people.

There are a lot of people that dont engage in the rat race even when food, health, the material conditions of their children depend on. It seems like most people want a base level of UBI to be better than the conditions they have from working now. It also seems like the expectation for UBI is often even above the average US income of $37K, and that would be if there was no additional salary left to be had from working

Based on this, I empathize with anyone of median income or higher who feels like they are struggling to get what they want, and UBI would be a huge dead weight, likely preventing them from getting all of the things on their lists.

I assume my list would go down the drain to support a UBI policy.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#343

Post by mandmandam »

renewiltord wrote: post #245
mandmandam wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take that as a 'yes' then. It's not that utopian to want a society where people aren't made homeless if they don't work. Finland did it - it worked great. It wasn't even that hard. Also in a society where just eight people own as much as 4 billion . Maybe making 'jokes' denying that we're in late stage capitalism is an odd choice? Like, yeah, we're headed for destruction.. It's funny the way Ralph Wiggum's "I'm…

Finland is a nightmare dystopia. I've been there and they have no nanobots.

If you're going to try this hard to be flippant on a serious topic, you could at least be funny. Otherwise you're just making noise.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#344

Post by s1artibartfast »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #341
s1artibartfast wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system breaks down when people get to democratically vote for their own UBI. Why work extra for a cool car or nice vacation when you can just vote for more benefits?

People could already vote for free cars to citizens, but they don't because the economics are terrible. I don't see UBI making that risk worse.

UBI is the risk in question, and the economics ARE terrible. The average US income is ~$37K and that includes workers. How does that stack up with expectations for UBI, given that it would take 100% socialization of income to reach that level of UBI.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#345

Post by kelseyfrog »

Kamq wrote: post #239
karmajunkie wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or for the ridiculously wealthy to be taxed at a very high rate. which is why they reject the notion of UBI so fervently.

The numbers don't line up for that. The sum total of the wealth of all the billionaires in the US in 2021 was ~$4.1 Trillion [0]. That's about the same as the government budget in a normal year pre-pandemic, or about 2/3 of the government budget post-pandemic. Assuming a $1000/month and a population of ~350 million, you're looking at $4.2 Trillion per year. You could almost fund it for the first year by taxing all of…

Where does all that money go after the first year? It sounds like it vanishes?

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#346

Post by Dylan16807 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #279
nehal3m wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, someone needs to do something, but due to automation we need less labor for the same value, even if it isn’t fully automated luxury space communism (yet?). That excess time could be spent on leisure, instead the insatiable hunger for more is driving us to drudgery.

how much productive work would you undo for more leisure time? Go back to the productivity of 2000? 1980? further? On one hand, I think this is an interesting question to put the value of work into context. On the other, I think most of society would fight tooth and nail against it. That said, I do know people who do live pretty simply, no electricity, healthcare, or fancy food. It kind of reminds me of an old miner…

> On the other, I think most of society would fight tooth and nail against it.

...why?

We'd still have modern computers and stuff. Dropping productivity wouldn't revert technology itself. So if you ask people "Do you want the same amount of housing and clothes and cars and services you could get back in 1994, but while working 4 days a week instead of 5?" what's the horrifying factor that makes them say no?

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#347

Post by ssl-3 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #342
ssl-3 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a mindset that I often run into with IRL discussions that revolves around the premise that if a person has some minimal essentials met by doing nothing, then they will have no motivation to ever improve their situation at all. That if a person can afford to accomplish nothing but still have enough money to smoke weed and play video games, then all anyone will ever do is smoke weed and play video games. I don'…

I think it depends on your perspective and prior experience with people. There are a lot of people that dont engage in the rat race even when food, health, the material conditions of their children depend on. It seems like most people want a base level of UBI to be better than the conditions they have from working now. It also seems like the expectation for UBI is often even above the average US income of $37K, and t…

There are indeed plenty of people who can't or won't work. These people exist today, with or without UBI. And they will exist tomorrow, with or without UBI.

And so what?

These people are still human beings. They still deserve life: If dogs deserve no-kill shelters[1] then humans also deserve a life. They deserve a chance to live out their days, and to tell stories to their (perhaps prolific) kids and grandkids (who also deserve a healthy life, and that includes having a healthy -- if piss-poor and inept -- family that includes their elders).

Right now, it often works like this: They live in squalor, and have broadly have nothing of merit. Their kids -- if they manage to thrive -- disown them. And the whole time this very real person is still alive (if they make it that far), their grandkids only know of them through photos.

That's no life. Not for the senior, the kid, or the grandkid.

We can do better than that. It will not be cheap, but we can afford it, and we'll have a healthier society as a result. People, and the families they create, are important to the healthy existence of everyone in a society.

[1]: We can certainly talk about assisted suicide for humans or just culling the herd as options that may be superior to leaving folks to die in the gutter, but isn't it easier to just avoid that topic and give all humans a stable and reliable chance to stay alive? How much does that cost, do you suppose?

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#348

Post by belzsch »

legitster wrote: post #86
joe_the_user wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it some shock-horror thing that people worked less? I think, for those who imagine AI taking a vast swath of jobs (like Altman), the aim for basic income is to get people working less but without this resulting social/work disengagement (whether AI will have that effect is a different matter).

This strikes me as such an out-of-touch idea right now. Maybe in the distant future we do not need people to work. But we are currently dealing with the largest retiree population our country has ever had, and more money chasing after fewer goods and services nearly crippled our economy with stagflation. It takes two weeks to get a plumber right now in our area. If you also hope to implement UBI nationwide, you need…

It would also be nice if people could stay longer in the work force. The way I read the results, recipients had more access to health care, abused substances less and had more time to recover after work.

Having an hour less in the work week should be balanced against being productive for longer.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#349

Post by roenxi »

karmajunkie wrote: post #257
Kamq wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers don't line up for that. The sum total of the wealth of all the billionaires in the US in 2021 was ~$4.1 Trillion [0]. That's about the same as the government budget in a normal year pre-pandemic, or about 2/3 of the government budget post-pandemic. Assuming a $1000/month and a population of ~350 million, you're looking at $4.2 Trillion per year. You could almost fund it for the first year by taxing all of…

just curious, but why is there always an implicit assumption in this debate that we only tax the wealth of billionaires? is the money of a half billionaire somehow less green than a full billionaire?

For new and expensive schemes it is often a challenge to figure out who will be paying for it. The proponents typically don't want to say for the obvious reason - the people paying for a universal service will probably be worse off than if they weren't so it isn't helpful to identify them (they'll just add to the resistance). But that means it is awkward to attack an idea on cost because detractors don't propose the scheme and are often dealing with people unwilling to suggest realistic costs or tax schemes. People with technically excellent arguments have to be a bit oblique in pointing out that someone has to pay and it'd speed the debate along for someone to figure out who. For a UBI, we might suspect it isn't going to be billionaires.

The fair way would be if sentences had to pattern match "I think [scheme] is a good idea and we will pay for it by [specific tax proposal].". Seems unlikely in practice though.

Re: Unconditional Cash Study: first findings available

#350

Post by physicsguy »

DemocracyFTW2 wrote: post #134
bko wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the goal to get people to quit their jobs and get a nice apartment? Isn't it supposed to be a minimum base level of support? Why do we keep moving the goal posts? And if everyone quits their job and lives in a nice apartment, where is this money going to come from? The problem with welfare today is that its a disincentive to work. Start working, you lose your transfer payments. A lot of people are stuck in thi…

> The problem with welfare today is that its a disincentive to work No. The reason you say that is because you're young and you believe what you've heard. You will soon cease to be the former and then presumably, likely, stop to do the latter. People want to work, they want to be useful. And yes, if I support you but threaten to stop supporting you as soon as you get to work for money—suddenly working for money looks…

People say it because they experience similar cliffs in the tax system even with higher incomes.

I live in the UK. Currently my marginal tax rate is something like 65% because for every £100 I earn, I pay 40% income tax, 12% national insurance, 9% student loan (which functions more like a tax here than a real loan), and I lose something called child benefit when I earn more.

So yeah, I want to earn more, but it's pretty marginal returns for the extra work, stress and responsibility until I've totally lost child benefit (lost totally at £80k) and then I start to keep more of the income again. And then at £100k you lose the government support for childcare, you start having to pay interest on all savings accounts, and so between £100k and £120k you can be worse off than before rather than better off, especially if you have multiple children.

That's not to say that the incentives are the same on the low end of the salary scale but you can see why people might think it.

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