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Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

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Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#651

Post by ihateloggingin »

JonFish85 wrote: post #116
crazygringo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. If you're only on the basic income, then to put it roughly, you don't "deserve" to live in San Francisco or Manhattan. People move to cheaper parts of the country all the time, to fit their budget. I don't know why this would be any different.

This would never work. You're telling me a grandmother who lives in Manhattan will be forced to leave her family and move to a small apartment in Kansas? That's political suicide to suggest anything like that.

It's political suicide to suggest that a grandmother who is currently receiving $0 in basic income should instead receive more? You haven't thought this through.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#652

Post by ihateloggingin »

jlgreco wrote: post #304
alexvr wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm suggesting that the government should offer only the bare minimum with very little freedom of choice if anything at all.

Why is that better? That sounds much worse in just about every way that I can conceive.

The point is to punish the undeserving poor.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#653

Post by ihateloggingin »

rayiner wrote: post #62
speeder wrote: post #6

And where the money to pay for that will come from? I suspect if you just tax the rich like crazy, they will just move out to somewhere else.

That's probably true, but its worth thinking through. If the rich leave and take their automation capital with them, then there will again be work for people to do, reducing the need for basic income. The question is: how much other capital can the rich take with them? They should be entitled to their property, of course, but how much of it is totally theirs to take over to say China? Google's IP is its capital. It i…

Google's capital is its social organization. If they "leave," the social organization collapses, and all of those engineers can reorganize. Thus, google leaving creates the conditions for its replacement. No worries.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#654

Post by ihateloggingin »

mahyarm wrote: post #238
enko wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really unhelpful comment. Why don't you think for a second next time before rushing out some snarky, superficial nonsense. Of course people would still work, for the same reason you don't still live with your parents - although judging by your response, maybe you do. Are you personally going to be perfectly content with a $10K/yr subsistence allowance? And closing all schools? What are you talking about? Th…

Among us highly motivated and educated people who read HN regularly, it seems somewhat foreign that large swaths of the population will revert to just drinking beer, smoking legal weed, playing video games, watching tv, eating McDonalds and living in their RV or subsided apartment and not use birth control. But large swaths of the population already do this.

How will forcing them to run in a hamster wheel prevent them from continuing to do so?

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#655

Post by ihateloggingin »

danbmil99 wrote: post #270
Nursie wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> large swaths of the population already do this. They do indeed. And why not let them? Most of what they could do with their time is being automated away, and the front-line service industries (restaurants, coffee houses) can only take on so many. Does there not ever come a point when we can say we're rich enough as a society to support those who can't meaningfully contribute? That even without their effort we have…

> Does there not ever come a point when we can say we're rich enough as a society to support those who can't meaningfully contribute? You are free to support those who can't meaningfully contribute, but where do you get the moral authority to demand that I do so as well, with my own money? Besides the moral argument, isn't there a good chance that a permanent underclass with a guaranteed welfare income will overpopul…

Silly goose, it's not your money if you owe it in taxes.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#656

Post by ihateloggingin »

FreakyT wrote: post #155
dgallagher wrote: post #150

Every single adult member receives a weekly payment from the state, which is enough to live comfortably on. The only condition is citizenship and/or residency. Sweet! None of us have to work anymore! Party at my place every night for life! You get the basic income whether or not you’re employed, any wages you earn are additional. Few, that's a relief. It'll be nice to close all of the school's down and tell kids they…

I agree with these concerns; I really can't see how a system like this would possibly work. Why would anyone do anything if they had no incentive to work?

The article is assuming that there's no need to create incentives to work. Indeed, that the market will not provide incentives to work, because it won't be needed.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#657

Post by ihateloggingin »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #299
mynewwork wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a waiter, cook, barista, janitor, retail floor worker, or cashier are all 'working for the man' that few people really enjoy. So restaurants, coffee shops and basically all stores disappear in your proposed only "do things they enjoy" world. Which is good, because no one would work construction, or do plumbing, or review building permits for safety in a basement office in city hall for fun either, so there woul…

This isn't true. Our usual concept of ownership and hiring might have to change. There are people out there who dream about running a coffee shop. There are people out there who are the restless type who have to be working on "something". Yes, you'd have a hard time finding baristas to work for 5 dollars an hour. You could probably find plenty of people who would join a "co-op" type ownership situation where everyone…

When people come over to my house, it's always a big chore to get someone to make the coffee.

Usually 5 or 6 of us gang up and threaten to throw the other one out of his house. Works every time.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#658

Post by ihateloggingin »

imgabe wrote: post #227
yaddayadda wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You don't ever do anything - not any one single thing - without a profit motive?" [Corrected] There are many non-profit motives, from simple hunger (i.e., when you're hungry you want food, not "profit") to curiosity (e.g., can I build a robot to beat Bill's bot?), from sex-drive (e.g., oh-la-la, she's hot, let me go chat her up and see if there's a "we" in our future) to helping friends and family (e.g., mom's yard…

Yes, that's why there's plenty of reasons you would still want to "do things" even if you didn't need to work.

There's a really odd logic involved here. If people did not have any motivation besides making money, they would not have any desire to _spend_ money.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#659

Post by ihateloggingin »

SapphireSun wrote: post #291
lettergram wrote: post #249

I disagree with this article almost entirely. Yes, labor jobs are on the decline, but service jobs are staying steady if not increasing. The "demand for unconditional basic income" is a joke, yes it's possible to attempt to initiate something where every person receives $10,000 a year, but the money has to come from somewhere. If the money for this basic income comes from taxation, then both the government loses net…

300,000,000 people in the US. You give them each 10,000 dollars. That's 3T dollars, or roughly the size of the existing federal budget (~3.5T). US GDP is ~16T. It's a lot, but that's not beyond the pale of possibility, and the poorest people will spend that money nearly instantly, reving the economy and making the world a little bit better for everyone. "If corporations essentially pay their customers (via the govern…

You can't really take this guy seriously. He wouldn't say the same thing about someone making $10k in investment income, for example.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#660

Post by ihateloggingin »

JonSkeptic wrote: post #115

The author of this is article is more than a little bit out of touch. To be honest, HN is the only place I have ever even heard people discuss the concept of an Unconditional Basic Income or call Bitcoin a "radical economic ideology". Most people in the US have never even heard of Bitcoin or an Unconditional Basic Income. The author is so far removed from reality that it's almost humorous. He cites an example where I…

I agree that this isn't a great article.

However, Bitcoin is a radical economic ideology, and UBI is certainly not limited to HN -- it's been discussed all over the world for decades. Most people might not have heard of it, but they have not heard of most political ideas in general.

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