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Your attempt at a "gotcha!" is a pretty tone deaf. "Creating art" is a job. It is work. As is caring for the elderly or young children - a lot of this is curren

Your attempt at a "gotcha!" is a pretty tone deaf. "Creating art" is a job. It is work. As is caring for the elderly or young children - a lot of this is currently considered not working, which is laughable to anyone currently doing it. (It's also the only time I suggested people might not hold down a traditional job.) I don't think production and output would go down and I most certainly don't think it would lead to societal collapse, or I wouldn't be arguing for it. Obviously.

maxerickson 11y ago
Creating art is always work, but it's probably not a job unless you can regularly sell the product for sufficient funds to support yourself (short of that, it's more of a hobby).
ikeboy 11y ago
How do you expect less people to hold down "traditional jobs", yet expect traditional measures of production and output to not decrease? Redefining work doesn't answer any of the questions. Calling art work doesn't affect production, unless art suddenly becomes edible. "I don't think production and output would go down and I most certainly don't think it would lead to societal collapse, or I wouldn't be arguing for it. Obviously." You could say that about any position anyone takes. Nobody's accusing Bi advocates of trying to cause societal collapse. They say that BI might, in spite of the advocates best intentions, lead to problems. Your good intentions don't cause good outcomes, so just saying "I don't want society to collapse" is not a useful argument.
- dllthomas 11y ago
  'How do you expect less people to hold down "traditional jobs", yet expect traditional measures of production and output to not decrease?' This is interesting. I can't speak for the parent; I would weakly guess that their response would be that they never specified that they were talking about "traditional measures of production" but were specifically objecting to traditional measures. If that's the case, they should have done so more clearly at the outset. That said, I can see a couple ways that could happen that workers might opt out of traditional jobs without a decrease in "traditional measures of production and output". I make no particular claim that any of these is likely. One potential outcome is that increased options for workers leads to increased upwards pressure on wages, leading to increased pressure for automation. Improvements to automation could mean increases in production in the medium term, at the cost of some production in the short term. Another possibility appears if we consider the following model, which may or may not be related to reality: 1 Some workers are disgruntled. 2 Disgruntled workers, on average, have a negative marginal productivity. 3 Because of economic incentives, disgruntled workers must make themselves indistinguishable from regular workers along axes actually used when making hiring/termination decisions. 4 Given other opportunities, those most dissatisfied with their current situation will be most likely to leave. In this case it would seem that on providing a basic income, we would see those negative marginal productivity workers leave first, which could mean an immediate gain in productivity.
  - ikeboy 11y ago
    >increased pressure for automation I doubt this. There's plenty of pressure for automation now, and I don't see wages increasing as being the final straw to accelerate automation research. The argument I've seen elsewhere is the other way around: that once we develop better automation, the demand for labor will drop enough that BI will be feasible. But until we reach that stage, I'm not convinced that BI will be sustainable. >Another possibility appears if we consider the following model, which may or may not be related to reality: I expect the group of workers that have negative marginal productivity (or, less marginal productivity than their salary) is chiefly those people that are good at fooling the system into thinking they're productive, and not necessarily intersecting heavily with the group of people that would leave under BI. But this is very low confidence. > I can't speak for the parent; I would weakly guess that their response would be that they never specified that they were talking about "traditional measures of production" but were specifically objecting to traditional measures. If that's the case, they should have done so more clearly at the outset. If that's what they mean, then I'd ask specifically about food and other essentials. How would those be guaranteed production? How much would the cost of those go up in response to higher wages, and how do you protect against a vicious cycle of "inflation->BI increases-> higher wage demand->inflation"? And if they think that production of those won't go down, then which people are doing "art"? Who's doing their current job, etc?
    - dllthomas 11y ago
      > I doubt this. There's plenty of pressure for automation now, and I don't see wages increasing as being the final straw to accelerate automation research. It's not a question of final straws or dramatic thresholds, but of a constellation of smaller decisions. If I have to pay my workers $X, it's worth investing in automation that amortizes out to less than $X. If workers demand $2X, then two things follow: First, more existing solutions in the marketplace are likely to be worthwhile. There may be economies of scale, where this would help lower the cost of similar automation. At an extreme, there may be tools available that could cost <$X if they were being bought by the whole industry, but between $X and $2X in the case where no one is yet buying them. Second, if I'm considering building automation tools, there are more things I can expect to successfully bring to market if workers are being paid more. And so I am more able to raise funds to do research into that automation. These kinds of things should lead to an increase in automation as compared to the status quo. It may not be dramatic, but I'm not sure it needs to be dramatic. > I expect the group of workers that have negative marginal productivity (or, less marginal productivity than their salary) is chiefly those people that are good at fooling the system into thinking they're productive, and not necessarily intersecting heavily with the group of people that would leave under BI. I think that's plenty possible. But note that we don't require that most of the negative-marginal-product workers leave, just that a large enough portion of leaving workers be negative-marginal-product. > But this is very low confidence. Certainly, as was my example in the first place :) > how do you protect against a vicious cycle of "inflation->BI increases-> higher wage demand->inflation"? As I've said elsewhere, I think this is a concern. It's my understanding that the result of a BI that is too high for a society to support would precisely be rapid inflation. I propose protecting against the cycle you describe by refusing to raise the BI level in response to inflation, which lets the (real) BI fall to a sustainable level if we set it too high. Growing BI at (or slightly above) targeted inflation seems appropriate. Growing it with observed (or expected) inflation seems dangerous.

maxerickson 11y ago

Creating art is always work, but it's probably not a job unless you can regularly sell the product for sufficient funds to support yourself (short of that, it's more of a hobby).

ikeboy 11y ago

How do you expect less people to hold down "traditional jobs", yet expect traditional measures of production and output to not decrease? Redefining work doesn't answer any of the questions. Calling art work doesn't affect production, unless art suddenly becomes edible. "I don't think production and output would go down and I most certainly don't think it would lead to societal collapse, or I wouldn't be arguing for it. Obviously." You could say that about any position anyone takes. Nobody's accusing Bi advocates of trying to cause societal collapse. They say that BI might, in spite of the advocates best intentions, lead to problems. Your good intentions don't cause good outcomes, so just saying "I don't want society to collapse" is not a useful argument.

dllthomas 11y ago
'How do you expect less people to hold down "traditional jobs", yet expect traditional measures of production and output to not decrease?' This is interesting. I can't speak for the parent; I would weakly guess that their response would be that they never specified that they were talking about "traditional measures of production" but were specifically objecting to traditional measures. If that's the case, they should have done so more clearly at the outset. That said, I can see a couple ways that could happen that workers might opt out of traditional jobs without a decrease in "traditional measures of production and output". I make no particular claim that any of these is likely. One potential outcome is that increased options for workers leads to increased upwards pressure on wages, leading to increased pressure for automation. Improvements to automation could mean increases in production in the medium term, at the cost of some production in the short term. Another possibility appears if we consider the following model, which may or may not be related to reality: 1 Some workers are disgruntled. 2 Disgruntled workers, on average, have a negative marginal productivity. 3 Because of economic incentives, disgruntled workers must make themselves indistinguishable from regular workers along axes actually used when making hiring/termination decisions. 4 Given other opportunities, those most dissatisfied with their current situation will be most likely to leave. In this case it would seem that on providing a basic income, we would see those negative marginal productivity workers leave first, which could mean an immediate gain in productivity.
- ikeboy 11y ago
  >increased pressure for automation I doubt this. There's plenty of pressure for automation now, and I don't see wages increasing as being the final straw to accelerate automation research. The argument I've seen elsewhere is the other way around: that once we develop better automation, the demand for labor will drop enough that BI will be feasible. But until we reach that stage, I'm not convinced that BI will be sustainable. >Another possibility appears if we consider the following model, which may or may not be related to reality: I expect the group of workers that have negative marginal productivity (or, less marginal productivity than their salary) is chiefly those people that are good at fooling the system into thinking they're productive, and not necessarily intersecting heavily with the group of people that would leave under BI. But this is very low confidence. > I can't speak for the parent; I would weakly guess that their response would be that they never specified that they were talking about "traditional measures of production" but were specifically objecting to traditional measures. If that's the case, they should have done so more clearly at the outset. If that's what they mean, then I'd ask specifically about food and other essentials. How would those be guaranteed production? How much would the cost of those go up in response to higher wages, and how do you protect against a vicious cycle of "inflation->BI increases-> higher wage demand->inflation"? And if they think that production of those won't go down, then which people are doing "art"? Who's doing their current job, etc?
  - dllthomas 11y ago
    > I doubt this. There's plenty of pressure for automation now, and I don't see wages increasing as being the final straw to accelerate automation research. It's not a question of final straws or dramatic thresholds, but of a constellation of smaller decisions. If I have to pay my workers $X, it's worth investing in automation that amortizes out to less than $X. If workers demand $2X, then two things follow: First, more existing solutions in the marketplace are likely to be worthwhile. There may be economies of scale, where this would help lower the cost of similar automation. At an extreme, there may be tools available that could cost <$X if they were being bought by the whole industry, but between $X and $2X in the case where no one is yet buying them. Second, if I'm considering building automation tools, there are more things I can expect to successfully bring to market if workers are being paid more. And so I am more able to raise funds to do research into that automation. These kinds of things should lead to an increase in automation as compared to the status quo. It may not be dramatic, but I'm not sure it needs to be dramatic. > I expect the group of workers that have negative marginal productivity (or, less marginal productivity than their salary) is chiefly those people that are good at fooling the system into thinking they're productive, and not necessarily intersecting heavily with the group of people that would leave under BI. I think that's plenty possible. But note that we don't require that most of the negative-marginal-product workers leave, just that a large enough portion of leaving workers be negative-marginal-product. > But this is very low confidence. Certainly, as was my example in the first place :) > how do you protect against a vicious cycle of "inflation->BI increases-> higher wage demand->inflation"? As I've said elsewhere, I think this is a concern. It's my understanding that the result of a BI that is too high for a society to support would precisely be rapid inflation. I propose protecting against the cycle you describe by refusing to raise the BI level in response to inflation, which lets the (real) BI fall to a sustainable level if we set it too high. Growing BI at (or slightly above) targeted inflation seems appropriate. Growing it with observed (or expected) inflation seems dangerous.