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Nice try with the commie scare. The Soviet Union was the opposite of UBI. They maximized employment, even if it meant multiple people doing one boring job (imag

Nice try with the commie scare. The Soviet Union was the opposite of UBI. They maximized employment, even if it meant multiple people doing one boring job (imagine 5 convenience store clerks in one store, forced to the there all day). And most people couldn't actually choose what they would do in life. This is the opposite of what UBI would do for people.

MichaelMoser123 11y ago
commie scare? labeling away you opponents is a very nice method of arguing, it also is not without historic precedence. Now concerning choice - you better ask some long term unemployed about the degree of choice that they are experiencing. I guess that this UBI thing is only a catchword to turn long term unemployment into the socially accepted norm. Still in my book: UBI creates a situation that is very similar to the hidden unemployment of socialism - indifference and apathy is the result when your salary and living conditions have absolutely no connection to the effort that you have to put into it all.
- afterburner 11y ago
  Many put it tons of effort and live in near-poverty conditions. How do you think that feels as a disconnect between effort and result? They are trapped, with no options. The indifference and apathy of bureaucratic communism comes from lack of choice, starting with who to vote for. And as for long-term-unemployment... that's kind of the reason UBI is being proposed, because automation will eliminate so many jobs there simply won't be enough work to go around. Would you prefer the new norm to be the owners of that automation forcing those locked out of work opportunities from birth into worse and worse living conditions, because in the automated future their labour has no value?
  - MichaelMoser123 11y ago
    >Would you prefer the new norm to be the owners of that automation forcing those locked out of work opportunities from birth into worse and worse living conditions, because in the automated future their labour has no value? i don't think that is inevitable; there is a lot you can do - shorter working days come to mind. Also mind me but technology is also creating jobs, a hundred years ago there were no programmers, that's a profession created by technology. A hundred years ago there were more jobs in assembly, nowadays work is more varied - employment is more specialized and there are professions that nobody thought of back then. The worst you can do is to label off a large percentage of your population and to refuse to educate them. You end up in a situation where many shops need to import H1B workers. >The indifference and apathy of bureaucratic communism comes from lack of choice, starting with who to vote for. I think that in the soviet block most people were working on the construction of Egyptian pyramids - projects that were not productive in any sense, everything was subordinate to the the military industrial complex, etc. There are many non democratic countries in the world, but here you had it that the bureaucracy was totally out of touch with reality, that's a quite unique situation. i think that this would be the real danger - a ruling elite that is disregarding any feedback and which is totally out of touch with reality. One can argue that this can't happen in an enlightened democracy, i am not so sure about that.
- dllthomas 11y ago
  "indifference and apathy is the result when your salary and living conditions have absolutely no connection to the effort that you have to put into it all." I generally agree, but that doesn't resemble the situation with (realistic) basic income.

MichaelMoser123 11y ago

commie scare? labeling away you opponents is a very nice method of arguing, it also is not without historic precedence. Now concerning choice - you better ask some long term unemployed about the degree of choice that they are experiencing. I guess that this UBI thing is only a catchword to turn long term unemployment into the socially accepted norm. Still in my book: UBI creates a situation that is very similar to the hidden unemployment of socialism - indifference and apathy is the result when your salary and living conditions have absolutely no connection to the effort that you have to put into it all.

afterburner 11y ago
Many put it tons of effort and live in near-poverty conditions. How do you think that feels as a disconnect between effort and result? They are trapped, with no options. The indifference and apathy of bureaucratic communism comes from lack of choice, starting with who to vote for. And as for long-term-unemployment... that's kind of the reason UBI is being proposed, because automation will eliminate so many jobs there simply won't be enough work to go around. Would you prefer the new norm to be the owners of that automation forcing those locked out of work opportunities from birth into worse and worse living conditions, because in the automated future their labour has no value?
- MichaelMoser123 11y ago
  >Would you prefer the new norm to be the owners of that automation forcing those locked out of work opportunities from birth into worse and worse living conditions, because in the automated future their labour has no value? i don't think that is inevitable; there is a lot you can do - shorter working days come to mind. Also mind me but technology is also creating jobs, a hundred years ago there were no programmers, that's a profession created by technology. A hundred years ago there were more jobs in assembly, nowadays work is more varied - employment is more specialized and there are professions that nobody thought of back then. The worst you can do is to label off a large percentage of your population and to refuse to educate them. You end up in a situation where many shops need to import H1B workers. >The indifference and apathy of bureaucratic communism comes from lack of choice, starting with who to vote for. I think that in the soviet block most people were working on the construction of Egyptian pyramids - projects that were not productive in any sense, everything was subordinate to the the military industrial complex, etc. There are many non democratic countries in the world, but here you had it that the bureaucracy was totally out of touch with reality, that's a quite unique situation. i think that this would be the real danger - a ruling elite that is disregarding any feedback and which is totally out of touch with reality. One can argue that this can't happen in an enlightened democracy, i am not so sure about that.
dllthomas 11y ago
"indifference and apathy is the result when your salary and living conditions have absolutely no connection to the effort that you have to put into it all." I generally agree, but that doesn't resemble the situation with (realistic) basic income.