Basic income

people who think we're living in a simulation are just indulging in a variant of believing in divine providence, but with less beneficence.

im p sure what Musk believes is that if such a simulation could ever be invented the possibility that we are in one is close to 1, because most universes would be simulations

altho I recently saw some headline about him wanting to break us out of it lol

don't do drugs

i mean, the logic is sound. the question is how you want to react to it. "breaking us out" is the actually demented part

ya exactly

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Moby_Dick_final_chase.jpg/220px-Moby_Dick_final_chase.jpg

http://www.vox.com/first-person/2016/11/14/13513066/universal-basic-income-crowdfund

The author makes a bunch of good points. One passage that spoke to me:

Another frequent question is if everyone will stop working once they have that ability. That is another question I’ve studied in-depth, where the answer is basically that very few people want to earn and spend only $1,000 per month, and that basic income is not giving people money to do nothing, but enabling people with money to do anything. Immigration is another big concern for people, usually because they’re assuming UBI will be given to everyone instead of only citizens, and therefore the potential for UBI to actually incentivize legal immigration is missed.

There are many other questions, and most all have likely answers for those willing to spend the necessary time to study the available evidence, but for me personally, these questions are translated in my brain at this point to sound more like, “What are the potential downsides of abolishing slavery? Will cotton get more expensive? Will former slaves just kind of sit around reading and dancing all day? Will the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free decide to walk in greater numbers through our lamp-lit golden door?” This is what I hear as someone who already has a basic income, so it’s not to say such questions aren’t valid, it’s that the very fact we’re asking them is itself something to question.

Why should only the lucky few have any choice but to do paid work? What is our infatuation with work, and why is it only paid work that seems to matter so much? What about unpaid work? Why is it considered valuable work worthy of pay when two people are paying each other to watch each other’s kids, but not valuable work when they’re each raising their own kids? If one concern is that people given basic incomes will work less, and another concern is that there will be half as many jobs due to automation, then everyone working half as much is exactly what we want so as to better share the available employment, isn’t it? Plus productivity tends to increase as hours worked decrease, so we’d accomplish more with less as well.

Perhaps most curious of all is the question of consumption without production – this fear that people given basic incomes will do nothing but consume. Why is making bread considered valuable but eating bread considered frivolous? Bertrand Russell once questioned why getting money is good and spending money is bad. He wrote, “Seeing that they are two sides of one transaction, this is absurd; one might as well maintain that keys are good, but keyholes are bad.” So if people decide to use their basic incomes to just buy what’s being produced (by lots of machines mind you) and we have a problem with that, what’s the point of producing it all?

Some of the linked supporting material for questions that he says he studied in-depth are a bit simplistic tbh:

Rising rent is a particularly worrisome fear for many when first introduced to the idea of basic income. However, two very important things in particular need to be understood when it comes to housing.

There are five times more vacant homes than homeless people in the United States today. This represents a large unused supply that need only be made available. The reason many people are not living in these homes is because they were at one time but couldn’t afford to keep them. Basic income rectifies this and puts people back in homes.

Technology represents a major factor in future housing prices, especially a future where everyone has a basic income. Everyone will receive a monthly check to afford rent, and will want to spend as little of it as possible on rent. Meanwhile, owners will want to compete for this money with other owners. Those offering the lowest rents will win. One example of this would be Google deciding to create Google Homes and leasing them out to people for a fraction of what people are paying now. Another example would be super affordable WikiHouses.

"WikiHouses?"

i dont need to live inside a wikipedia house i just want a government issue yurt with good enough internet to play league of legends

See "Exhibit C" at https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-income-just-cause-massive-inflation-fe71d69f15e7

He then has the cheek to say:

For these two reasons in particular, in combination with the ability of everyone to truly live anywhere for the first time in history, a nationwide market for ultra-affordable housing will be created, and smart businesses will step into this space in hopes of dominating it.

All of this represents theoretical evidence to counter any fear of inflation.

There are many other questions, and most all have likely answers for those willing to spend the necessary time to study the available evidence, but for me personally, these questions are translated in my brain at this point to sound more like, “What are the potential downsides of abolishing slavery? Will cotton get more expensive? Will former slaves just kind of sit around reading and dancing all day? Will the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free decide to walk in greater numbers through our lamp-lit golden door?” This is what I hear as someone who already has a basic income, so it’s not to say such questions aren’t valid, it’s that the very fact we’re asking them is itself something to question.

"Won't the jews get cold if we take them out of the oven?"

a UBI paid for by printing money would cause inflation, a UBI that was part of the tax and transfer system would not be. it's like asking "does social security cause inflation"?

http://www.vox.com/conversations/2016/10/17/13245808/andy-stern-work-universal-basic-income-technology-artificial-intelligence-unions

Martin Luther King speaking about the need for Universal Basic Income nearly 50 yrs ago

https://twitter.com/TheBpDShow/status/817791147548561410

This is a terrific write-up of a recent debate/event on UBI

epic entrenched nepotism at all upper reaches of american society, not least academia, are hard to overcome. if we survive, our descendants will regard us in a thousand years as they would any other feudal society, with trumps and so forth pissing all over the rest of us

happy easter!

I have a feeling that a thousand years from now our descendants will regard us with a mixture of awe at our technological feats and stark incredulity at our fecklessness.

if we make it out of this alive i would submit that most of modern western history will be thought of as a branch of "dynastic" humanity - where family, and the connections and wealth that family can provide, is the main prism through which success refracts

It’s not accurate to say the United States has the highest tax rates in the world. Americans for Tax Fairness pointed out that only one dollar for every nine dollars in tax revenue is currently coming from corporations because they have so many methods of dodging taxes, shifting them overseas. In addition to not having very many details, in addition to not having Donald Trump’s tax returns, we have two former bankers from Goldman Sachs announcing a plan that from the details that we do know will dramatically cut taxes for big banks like Goldman Sachs. I think this tax plan is a huge giveaway to corporate America. It’s not going to put more money in the pockets of American workers. What it’s going to do is it’s going to enable giant corporations to do more mergers, to get even bigger, to extend their concentration of power, and it’s going to enable them to pour more money back into their already-wealthy shareholders pockets.

an acceleration of the ghost-towning of america

it's crazy the number of small towns that are just disappearing, nothing there any more, no post office, no local businesses just fucking nothing

at least advantaged americans have superior aesthetic taste they can use to shield themselves from widespread agony

this is where my great-grandfather lived his entire life.

https://www.google.fr/maps/place/Martha,+OK+73556,+USA/@34.7259955,-99.3912028,16z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x87ab708c70784a9f:0x34dea63d069ec6d8!8m2!3d34.7253436!4d-99.3870318

there was a general store, a post office, a baptist church, a methodist church, a baseball team.

the general store was called "martha merc." which i always thought was kinda snazzy

i doubt it ever had more than like 300 people there but at least there was something THERE you know

Ontario is experimenting with this: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/what-is-basic-income-and-who-qualifies/article34795127/
We've been discussing it a little on the Canadian politics thread.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/letter-from-ray-supporting-universal-basic-income-as-step-in-world-progress

I like the idea but it seems like Republicraps woudl never allow this

I think I'm a good example of what people fear about basic income. I already dropped out of the workforce to make my pointless shit, and I have zero interest in working anywhere and helping others make money. I'll keep doing it until I can't anymore (should only be a few months I guess). If I got a free $5000 a year I'd just keep doing it the rest of my life and never be worth a damn to society

In other words we want UBI and we want it now

I think it could actually happen as long as it was in the form of vouchers for certain companies, like you could get free vouchers for Walmart stuff, as long as the powerful can keep the money cycling towards them in some way it could happen. Or "no more medicare but here is a voucher for MEDICARE INC. the new privately owned medical facility from blackwater"

Yeah, that sounds all too plausible.

But yeah, it'll never happen as long as there are people like my dad alive. He recently stated, in a eulogy for my grandfather, that welfare was worse than slavery.

https://thenewinquiry.com/universal-basic-bullshit/

summary: ubi is pie in the sky, also could be implemented tomorrow and millions of lives would be radically, gloriously improved.

That article would be readable if the author had cut back on the scathing adjectives and repetitive scorn to about 10% of its present amount. Contrary to the author's belief, seething with anger is not a persuasive argument in itself; it must be added sparingly, but strategically, to acheive maximum effect.

ledge's summary is excellent

There are some conceptions of UBI that sound great but the libertarian/tech bro types' version is generally horrifying

p hard to read that article through all the unearned cynicism and bad writing but i take it the point is that it's better to let people starve than risk agreeing w/ the tech bros about anything, also reforms are bad because everything is bad

also something something "the revolutionary potential of the working class"

new inquiry sucks so bad lol

interesting critical-left take on how basic income in ontario is working out. seems to confirm my instinctual fears that, under the current deregulatory, technocratic conditions, UBI might well be an excuse for cutting other basic social provisions and creating a permanent underclass who keeps head just above water. I suggest skipping to the "Ontario’s BI Test Run" section

http://rankandfile.ca/2017/06/29/ontarios-basic-income-bs/

I was thinking about UBI when one of the politics threads started discussing how 'welfare reform' turned into 'fuck it, throw everyone on disability'

https://joincircles.net/

https://github.com/CirclesUBI/docs/blob/master/Circles.md

Universal Basic Income is one of the most cross-culturaly appealing political movements of the modern era. It has attracted the support of thinkers from every background including Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Elon Musk, Martin Luther King Jr, Stephen Hawking, and Noam Chomsky.

uh

me not having the economic nous to critically assess UBI, plus it attracting people like that, is why i'm deeeeeeeply suspicious of it.

The only way UBI would be fair and equitable would be if there were an additional safety net for people who cannot meet their basic needs within the given basic income and cannot possibly supplement that basic income to cover their needs. Otherwise you could call it GED (Guaranteed Euthanasia for the Disabled).

And that is absolutely the future the tech-libertarians want.

The eugenics/T4 element that could easily be allied to UBI would explain why lots of appalling people rep for it. And I'm guessing the same people would say the Universality of it would need a bit of fine-tuning as well.

I'm not entirely on board with Andrew Yang, but he's raising the issues.

Mr. Yang, a former tech executive who started the nonprofit organization Venture for America, believes that automation and advanced artificial intelligence will soon make millions of jobs obsolete — yours, mine, those of our accountants and radiologists and grocery store cashiers. He says America needs to take radical steps to prevent Great Depression-level unemployment and a total societal meltdown, including handing out trillions of dollars in cash.

“All you need is self-driving cars to destabilize society,” Mr. Yang, 43, said over lunch at a Thai restaurant in Manhattan last month, in his first interview about his campaign. In just a few years, he said, “we’re going to have a million truck drivers out of work who are 94 percent male, with an average level of education of high school or one year of college.”

“That one innovation,” he continued, “will be enough to create riots in the street. And we’re about to do the same thing to retail workers, call center workers, fast-food workers, insurance companies, accounting firms.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/10/technology/his-2020-campaign-message-the-robots-are-coming.html

Seems obvious there needs to be a system by which the gains reaped by automation are distributed to all people on Earth (break it down to world=primitive small village. If we all rely on Joe to reap and harvest corn, but now robots can do that, Joe shouldn't be the only one to have his workload diminished or eliminated, while everyone else has to work same amount performing the other tasks that make society function). Also seems obvious that is very unlikely to occur.