Basic income

i disagree. first if basic income is going to work politically we're going to need to demolish the randian idea that communism makes ppl lazy and the only way to do that is disprove it.

that's what they're gonna study, smarty pants

yes correct.

(that post was a response to "this is still some extremely inhumane captain of industry ass thinking tho tbf")

something can be necessary politically and also be inhumane in fact they often go hand in hand

it's not inhumane to set out to disprove a toxic idea

well i guess depends on if youre looking at this from a human rights stand point or just a cool economic widget pov not that either of those is wrong per say but just that paragraph has some some certain assumptions baked in and i dont think its exactly asking does communism make people lazy anyway, also obvs people will work and "contribute to society" less under basic income which is part of the assumption of the machines are taking our jobs in the first place, which im not at all convinced is true anyway fwiw

i mean a lot of people work in order to play video games already def some of them will just play video games

i dont know if communism makes ppl lazy it def makes them toil futilely which is one reason i dont think we shd have communism

no one has ever really tried a low regulation high service economy but i think it cld be right for the USA! lets give it a shot folks

Do people, without the fear of not being able to eat, accomplish far more and benefit society far more? And do recipients, on the whole, create more economic value than they receive?

Imo a better question would be "Do people suffer less?"

but aside cost, how do supporters of UBI envision it becoming politically feasible given that 1) people get to vote 2) people don't like their taxes being given to other people unconditionally

also the OG basic income/negative income tax idea was proposed as a way to replace the entire welfare state, otherwise it's not affordable. is that what yall itt want?

there was a hilariously bad thing in jacobin about ubi written by some sociologist grad student this week that seriously said 'if we had a UBI, we could go on strike all the time' lol

My theory is that there's a large enough unemployment / low wage crisis from automation that a radical policy shift becomes feasible. I don't know how likely this is - seems like we can always find jobs for ppl.

i mean many of the jobs we find are stupid office work that produces little tangible value but still

yeah i don't buy that one. paradoxically automation tends to result in more jobs in medium-long run not less

i'm fascinated by how it's captured the political imagination lately, i don't know why a VC firm is studying it we already have lots of research on how labor supply reacts to welfare

personally i wish the low-skill labor policy that had a movement behind it was for a wage subsidy (embiggened EITC) rather than 15$ minimum wage, universal basic income and job guarantee

if it becomes politically feasible itll be because of extreme wealth inequality prob, ppl wondering if they cld put that money to better use than a handful of richy riches

the universal part is obvs also extremely important poltically welfare programs for the poor dont fare vary well in this country but welfare programs for everyone are sacrosanct

i'm fascinated by how it's captured the political imagination lately, i don't know why a VC firm is studying it we already have lots of research on how labor supply reacts to welfare

― flopson, Thursday, January 28, 2016 12:17 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah idk theres not a lot of information about just unconditionally giving everyone money it wld prob have pretty different outcomes than say our current system where only the extremely poor get money then if they start making money they dont get it anymore, obvs there are tons other way we give people money but theyre all contingent on certain somethings, data on just giving everyone money is pretty rare, tho not sure how y combinators going to address that

wasn't some south american country putting a basic income policy into practice? brazil maybe? can't we study the impact there?

anyway imo its p cool that an organization from an industry that generally thinks software and being smart can solve everything is very publicly saying this is something worth looking at, being mean to them on twitter is paying dividends

i've never heard of this org before but/so maybe it is p cool

theyre a very big deal in the startup scene

YC-backed cannabis tech company hiring front-end devs in Bay Area (angel.co)
14 hours ago

what abt instead of free money, free weed

yc runs a very well read and horrible message board if anyone wants to see what startup ppl are thinking abt this announcement heres the thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10982340

I think the traction of the UBI idea is coming from a combination of a lot of poorly-managed office and service industry work that feels unproductive, increasing usage of gig economy jobs to boost discretionary income "whenever I feel like working" and increasing income and wealth inequality.

Yep.

Surprised nobody has brought up West Berlin here.

u cn just start talking abt west berlin if u want

feel like some UBI researcher isn't gonna come to any amazing insights but the fact that this is an issue that's in vogue in silicon valley is still a very good thing esp since they'll be paying for it. the real hurdle isn't figuring out how the system could work, the real hurdle is getting the majority of americans to agree w/ the statement 'maybe some people just shouldn't work and that's okay'. that's not something that even the far left really believes today. kinda have to break some core american values before we can have a politician saying 'eh let's just let people be on welfare forever'. maybe kids who take a self-driving car to work won't see the world the same way.

feel like you have to lay the groundwork of institutions and activism decades before anything can happen and this is maybe a small piece of that

it feels intuitive to me that beyond some point, automation and AI will be replacing more jobs than can be created. how far off that is i have no idea though

yeah idk automation has been replacing jobs for ~150 years and hasnt caused mass unemployment yet, like pre industrial revolution ~90% of jobs in america were agrarian now its like one percent but there are other jobs

a lot of the dissatisfaction were seeing now with the job market has to do with a long term trend of replacing high paying stable jobs w low paying unstable ones which has mostly to do w the decline of labor unions imo

i say fine gut unions totally but replace them with just giving ppl money and lets call it even

i'll be honest, i'm one of the people who would sit and home and play video games under UBI

Isn't this the point of technology?

i wld play online poker

the next wave of american values we're gonna have to break will include 'shame people who sit home and play video games all day under ubi'

hard working video game players deserve our respect

we won't have an army anymore probably so it can be the new support the troops

yeah, eventually everyone will be grinding money in VR MMOs while robots do all their work irl

btw twitch streams look pretty great on my teevee

I get to watch other people get frustrated at ridiculous games like Destiny instead of hurling my own controller across the room

I'll take the twenty hour week, free education, free healthcare and good social welfare as a middle ground here but I'm p conservative so

pshh ya'll are so basic

Incoming

seriously though, I can't read a thread like this without thinking of that TNC reparations article, idk i think I typed some stuff above but that's all I have to add rn

I can read almost anything without thinking of tnc and its a very fine mode of existence indeed.

god i remember a few years before trump all of this (ubi, healthcare, etc) seemed within reach somehow. i don't see the train of inequality slowing down or even slowing its rate of acceleration in the u.s. or globally, even though some places offer more services to their people.

people need to break out of the absolute control that money has over their lives somehow. in very small or more substantial ways. maybe that's living with less, maybe that's stealing and violence and burning down warehouses. it's definitely got to be about breaking down at least some of the things that isolate us. at this point i really feel like direct action outside of the system is the only way out - not asking for more from the system, or for moderation and greater equality from the system. capitalism needs losers by its very nature. i find myself hoping that entire ski towns in the west just get fucking torched from wildfires. the earth's power to cleanse is ramping up in direct proportion to the actions of our population, and it doesn't give a shit how rich or poor anyone is.

I've been feeling the same way. I "joke" that my retirement plan is asceticism. I also think the best way people can protest this system right now is abstaining from it as much as possible. Read library books, buy hard copies of entertainment, borrow it from a library, or just steal it. Do something creative or crafty. I'm learning how to meditate, been thinking about getting more serious about yoga, taking long walks. I'm happier with these activities than when I was doom-scrolling and binge-watching. Those things are distractions anyway.

i'm feeling that post, beard papa

i go for a walk at my neighborhood park every sunday morning before i get groceries, and i always have at least one book checked out at any given time, both things i only started doing in the last year or so. its good shit!

Xp map - I think that ubi did get a bump in terms of sentiments toward possibility here in the US during Covid when so many people were getting unemployment and stimulus payments and not working. I know people whose Covid benefits were the most livable and stable financial situation they had ever experienced since becoming adults.