Don’t Tell Your Friends They’re Lucky

It's certainly true that you need to be very lucky to become a billionaire - generating wealth at that level usually involves tremendous numbers of other people loving whatever business you have decided to create. But if you're reasonably intelligent, at least in the US, it's quite possible to become a millionaire without much luck, through decades of hard work and discipline.

Examples: software engineers at large companies that stick around for decades (usually through options), doctors (at least specialists, such as cardiologists and anesthesiologists), and lawyers that go to the best schools and are able to land jobs at top-flight firms. Even tradesmen that stick to their craft, such as master electricians or plumbers, can quite reasonably expect to achieve millionaire status over the course of their lifetime assuming that they manage their money well.

So yes, luck plays a huge role in the creation of enormous sums of wealth. But if you live in a country with abundant economic opportunity such as the US, there's no reason to be poor unless you have been extremely unlucky (health problems, accidents, etc have befallen you), you are unwilling to work, or you've made extremely poor life/financial decisions.

> lack of empty

I believe you mean "lack of empathy"

Government can certainly mitigate the effects of luck while simultaneously rewarding effort.

Veil of ignorance. There's a significant part of the upper end (wealth wise) of the population that like our classist society just the way it is, or maybe that it should be more classist. Everything should be a rent, there should be no public lands, everything is to be exploited, and if you're on the short end of the stick it's merely unfair, not a wrong or a failure of society. Or the more extreme versions of this, higher class folk have better money, better ideas, better genes, make and sell better things. They are better than others. Democracy and socialism are threats to these notions.

>but it's a somewhat limited solution to capping how far down someone can fall in society

That's welfare's job. UBI is to provide a living wage when its not possible or difficult to do so (depressed areas, automation taking jobs, etc).

As a social safety net UBI does nothing welfare doesn't, and in most cases does worse. Welfare can be controlled via food stamps that stop people from wasting their money on alcohol, cigarettes, lottery tickets, and casinos. UBI is just a cash handout which absolutely will go to those things as well as illegal drugs and other vices. Why shouldn't it? Forcing people to spend responsibly is not solved with UBI. As someone who has lived in Chicago's not so great neighborhoods, this is a common sight. Cash handouts do not suddenly make good people.

>including starting businesses which may change the world.

If the government guaranteed me $100k a year I wouldn't work. I mean I'd "work" but at being a rock musician or comic book artist or a non-practical technical pursuit. I think UBI would lead to leisure lifestyles, not nose-to-the-grindstone business stuff that we're used to in the startup world. Look at the wealthy who don't run their own businesses and who live off their investments or trust fund kids in general. Sure a few engage the business world and do interesting things, but its mostly do nothing lifestyles of learning to paint, kinda sorta finishing that phd, being an 'author' or 'photographer', etc. In fact, I know several people like this.

One of the things UBI advocates don't like to talk about is that the carrot approach isn't usually effective. The stick gets most of the results. In capitalist society the stick is failing economically and living a poor and unsatisfying lifestyle. People work to stay out of the ghetto, if not more so, than for nice things.

Middle-class life is pretty nice. If UBI lets me keep mine, I really see no incentive to work and I suspect many agree with me. A UBI society will be a lot of things, but it will not be productive or innovative like modern society is. I think that's just something you need to accept if you truly advocate for UBI.

Not to mention, how price gouging will match UBI. If the poor go from making $8,000 a year to $50,000 then their rent and cost of food, etc will go up to match. So you can't have an 'income floor' where everything 'just works.' Unless you want to move into a command economy with authoritarian control of all pricing and labor. At that point you've just re-invented authoritarian communism, which history has shown absolutely doesnt work.

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The system won't let me post (posting too much?), so here' my reply to novia:

>Why are you so opposed to allowing people to spend money on mood altering substances?

Because many are physically addictive and when money runs out the rational move is to rob/murder your neighbor for more. Addiction is that powerful. The idea that all drugs are perfectly fine and addiction doesn't happen is naive fairly naive. I don't think we can assume that a UBI society will be people just smoking pot and doing shrooms the same way modern drug use is not just those things.

>And maybe your artistic pursuits would help make others happier and motivated and inspired to work on their projects that would qualify as real "work" to you.

That's fine, I made that argument I believe, but productivity and innovation will absolutely not be the same. We'll make great strides in 3 chord rock and super hero storytelling, but not much else. In the off chance we do better in any realm, it will be the Arts, which is nice but not nice for the guy waiting on a parkinson's or alzheimer's treatment. The gal who would have cured it is instead a harp player and romance novelist. Or maybe she did try but where are the billion dollar investments for her startup going to come from when everyone lives in what is going to be like a retirement arts community because of UBI?

I don't think we can assume there are no tradeoffs with UBI. I think you need to accept a certain level of lack of innovation. The capitalist system works as-is because of many incentives and disincentives which will largely disappear with UBI. I'm not sure why we're assuming that innovation, investment, and progress will be exactly the same. It seems very unlikely. The culture and system UBI brings may not be to our liking at all, especially those of us who saw so much progress and innovation in our lifetimes.