UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift • Hacker News Board

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#81

Post by rho138 » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 2:08 PM UTC

blfr wrote: post #58

Jedd wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was, and remains, that the current de facto, whatever is considered 'normal' in whichever country you currently reside and work, was not piloted or effectively tested . You inherited your place in it, and it is therefore normal . I'll extend my argument to suggest that most HNers are familiar with changes that can not be tested in isolation, simply because they require significant changes to the whole platfo…

the current de facto, whatever is considered 'normal' in whichever country you currently reside and work, was not piloted or effectively tested I understand your point and directly disagree with its main part: the move from a family-run farm to a shift-based employment happened before I was born so I did inherit it but it was in fact piloted, tried on small scale, and organic at first.

Nah, they just threw bodies at the problem - shifts be damned. In the US people were working most if not all days of the week. We’re lucky we got where we are now with a 5 day work week brought about by union pressure.

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#82

Post by photonthug » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 2:08 PM UTC

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #16

I think people are beginning to see work as a sucker's game. The assets you hold are much more important. You can bust your ass and get a nice little startup exit -- and then look around at what real estate this massive windfall will buy you, only to realize that it's all gone up in price by the same amount. It would have been better to have bought a house, kept the easy job, and gone home at 4:30 each day. People se…

> It would have been better to have bought a house, kept the easy job, and gone home at 4:30 each day. People see this. They see that wealth is handed out, arbitrarily, to the people who are connected to the issuance of currency and the banking system. That homeowners make more in a year from asset appreciation than well paid engineers do.

This is an oversimplification naturally but the gist of it is spot on. Based on this dynamic, you should absolutely buy a 2nd home before the first is paid off, assume things continue as they have been so you can contribute to and benefit from rising prices everywhere. One thing leads to another, and that's how most wealth is created by robbing the future. But the future actually arrives some day, and we're seeing some of that now.

There's no exit strategy for this behaviour though. Since so many people did exactly what they were incentivized to do, they of course don't want the rules to change now. The current generation will always need to pay 10x whatever a house is worth, because otherwise all of the people in the last generation can't afford to settle debts / retire / pay unreasonable amounts for healthcare. This puts the current generation in debt, so that they have to rob the next, and so on until there's some collapse. Most millennials have had a rough time waiting for that collapse though, so lots have bought something on credit to build equity rather than continuing to throw away money on rent. Soon instead of cheering on any kind of collapse in the housing market, they also will want it postponed because they will need to rob the next generation. But each iteration of this same game isn't exactly the same, because every generation does a little worse while more wealth gets concentrated in the hands of the already-wealthy.

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#83

Post by _heimdall » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 2:09 PM UTC

jeltz wrote: post #59

_heimdall wrote: post #6

The author seems to effectively argue for UBI as a solution to bullshit jobs. People waste a lot of time today in jobs that produce no real value, instead the government should pay people a similar wage to not do those jobs. > There is no such thing as a UBI trial. There is no such thing as a UBI pilot program. Instead, there are cash transfer experiments being branded as UBI. More strange to me, the author includes…

UBI is not at all based in Marxism. The idea is older than Marxism and almost entirely unrelated to it. That's probably why you never see it mentioned.

My point isn't that Marx invented the idea of a UBI, I don't actually recall him specifically writing about the concept. My point is that the idea of a UBI is rooted in very much the same arguments as what Marx wrote so much about.

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#84

Post by Retric » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 2:11 PM UTC

_heimdall wrote: post #69

Retric wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you arguing that a UBI is wealth redistribution specifically? I’m saying social safety nets are already wealth redistribution. Changing the form of that safety net to UBI is an allocation of resources based on individual decisions and thus free markets where Food Stamps/Housing Subsidies/etc is allocating money based on bureaucratic decisions. Basically nothing says UBI needs to cost more than existing social s…

Social safety nets today are needed weslth distribution. A UBI needs to cover everyone. With the same funding a UBI would have to provide less benefit than the programs we have today. That said, my argument against a UBI isn't even that it's too expensive. Anyone claiming that a UBI will be too expensive is falling into the same trap those arguing for a UBI fall into. The impact when making such a massive change to o…

UBI requires changes to the tax code, but look at the comparison between SNAP and the 10% tax bracket for people making 0-11,600$ in the US: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41086690

At least for single people how SNAP sunsets with income is almost 1:1 with the discount for the lowest tax bracket.

Thus changing SNAP to a low UBI could have almost zero impact.

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#85

Post by _heimdall » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 2:14 PM UTC

One problem not called out in any UBI arguments I've read, including this one, is how we even consider this while also arguing about how poorly our borders are managed.

Borders only become a problem when there are incentives to simply being in a country, welfare programs. I'm not saying we should abandon all entitlement programs and open the borders, but it does seem shortsighted to create an even larger entitlement while our borders are such a mess.

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#86

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 2:22 PM UTC

Jedd wrote: post #54

blfr wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shift work with fixed time frames was absolutely piloted on tiny scales way back during industrial revolution and evolved from there. We supposedly even had podcasts to make menial work bearable back in... 1865: https://mashable.com/feature/cigar-factory-lectors

My point was, and remains, that the current de facto, whatever is considered 'normal' in whichever country you currently reside and work, was not piloted or effectively tested . You inherited your place in it, and it is therefore normal . I'll extend my argument to suggest that most HNers are familiar with changes that can not be tested in isolation, simply because they require significant changes to the whole platfo…

> I'll extend my argument to suggest that most HNers are familiar with changes that can not be tested in isolation, simply because they require significant changes to the whole platform. [0]

Flag days are still tested in a staging environment that represents production as closely as possible, and the overwhelming view of the kind of change you're talking about on a technical level is generally don't do that if you can ever help it.

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#87

Post by UweSchmidt » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 2:33 PM UTC

CharlieDigital wrote: post #38

UweSchmidt wrote: post #15

"The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed." There won't be the big UBI day, where we make the big switch globally. It's a creeping expansion of social benefits and transfer payments and an easing of work conditions. Some people will somehow stay in the unpleasant jobs, by inertia or the unfairness of a class system or, increasingly, by wages that compensate for the trouble. People will drop out o…

It's a creeping expansion of social benefits...society will adapt around it I think this will never happen (in the US). The modern political environment in the US won't allow it. If it appears that there will be an expansion of social benefits, the wealthy class will work to sabotage it (a la ACA; not that there weren't benefits, but net-net the shareholders and executives of insurance companies won). There's nothing…

Everything you say may be true, but is orthogonal.

I do think social benefits are expanding in the USA also, more and more people find it viable to be a NEET. The wealth gap will surely widen; this implicit UBI is certainly not communism in any way. Truth is, today western societies can afford to provide the basics for everyone, so ultimately withholding in order to keep the masses in the jobs is not tenable.

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#88

Post by _heimdall » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 2:39 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #79

HPsquared wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the current spending on safety nets is spread evenly over the whole society, won't the current recipients not have enough to live?

Only if you ignore the tax code. US example for single people: SNAP for a single person is $291/month - total income * 0.3 so they get nothing at 11,640 per year of annual income and 291$/month at 0$ annual income. 2024 income brackets for single people are: 10% $0 to $11,600, 12% $11,600 to $47,150, 22% $47,151 to $100,525, ... Maximum tax bracket is 37%. Hand everyone 260$ per month, but change things so the highes…

Not quite sure that I follow here. In your model, what are the proposed benefits given out as a UBI? Is it $260/mo reducing down to $0 when you make at least $12,000 per year?

If so, how is that universal? Or a basic income covering some of the basic resources UBI is argued to cover, like shelter or food?

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#89

Post by Retric » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 2:41 PM UTC

_heimdall wrote: post #88

Retric wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you ignore the tax code. US example for single people: SNAP for a single person is $291/month - total income * 0.3 so they get nothing at 11,640 per year of annual income and 291$/month at 0$ annual income. 2024 income brackets for single people are: 10% $0 to $11,600, 12% $11,600 to $47,150, 22% $47,151 to $100,525, ... Maximum tax bracket is 37%. Hand everyone 260$ per month, but change things so the highes…

Not quite sure that I follow here. In your model, what are the proposed benefits given out as a UBI? Is it $260/mo reducing down to $0 when you make at least $12,000 per year? If so, how is that universal? Or a basic income covering some of the basic resources UBI is argued to cover, like shelter or food?

My example was for a US UBI that only covered food and the math was limited to single people, but the points could be applied more broadly.

UBI means everyone has an income of at least x$/year. If you’re making more than x$/year in take home pay that’s an income > x$/year.

Behind the scenes the advantage of the government handing out money every month is redundancy. Even if that same amount is normally removed from a paycheck, people aren’t suddenly left with 0$ if their paycheck bounces etc. Thus a single deposit of $10,000 per month is slightly worse than a deposit of $10,000 - $x and an independent deposit of $x.

Re: UBI and the Anti-Work Vibe Shift

#90

Post by UweSchmidt » Sat, Jul 27, 2024, 2:44 PM UTC

Joeboy wrote: post #73

UweSchmidt wrote: post #15

"The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed." There won't be the big UBI day, where we make the big switch globally. It's a creeping expansion of social benefits and transfer payments and an easing of work conditions. Some people will somehow stay in the unpleasant jobs, by inertia or the unfairness of a class system or, increasingly, by wages that compensate for the trouble. People will drop out o…

> There won't be the big UBI day, where we make the big switch globally. It's a creeping expansion of social benefits and transfer payments and an easing of work conditions I agree, in the sense that I think UBI proponents would do better to lobby for that than a big, deus-ex-machina version of UBI. But I don't see it happening "naturally", without a lot of political effort.

I do see it happening naturally; the very idea that an UBI idea is floating around is a product of the wealth and automation we enjoy. It's a realization that sets in on a broad front, from bullshit jobs, to new generations of products that are not improving much or even regressing, environmental concerns that discourage producing more, massive government budgets squandered ("why not give it to the people who need it?"), and COVID giving people a pause in their respective hamster wheels.

Imagine a technological reset and/or war: Under those circumstances one could still argue for a socialist system of work, but not for people doing nothing getting UBI.