3 ms·

My personal viewpoint is that you should be guaranteed survival and some opportunity by society, but not guaranteed income. That is, you should get food, shelt

by chubot 11y ago

My personal viewpoint is that you should be guaranteed survival and some opportunity by society, but not guaranteed income. That is, you should get food, shelter, medical care, and education for free (this also implies free child care). But you don't get to buy a cell phone or an XBox or whatever -- you have to work for that. In other words, I think basic income is jumping the gun a bit. Who is going to PAY for this, if we're not even willing to pay for the necessities of life? People still die from untreated diseases, and I believe there is significant research to show that poor health CAUSES poverty (rather than poverty causing poor health). If people are healthy they will likely be more productive members of society.

bryanlarsen 11y ago
Basic Income is probably the most efficient way of giving everybody food & shelter. Giving everybody food and shelter through standard government processes would probably cost way more than $10K/year.
- bluedino 11y ago
  10k/year isn't going to get you far with food and shelter in all but the lowest cost of living areas.
  - bryanlarsen 11y ago
    Yes, it pretty much assumes shared housing.
dcre 11y ago
Seems like you're mixing up two arguments. Is the problem the cost, or the particular things provided? If the latter, who gets to decide what's essential and what's not? I'd be pretty useless without a cell phone and a laptop.
- chubot 11y ago
  The problem is the cost... If we can't pay for people's health care, I wonder why we think we can pay for everyone's living expenses. Suppose one person needs $100K to survive. Is it moral to let that person die, and instead give $10K to 10 people as basic income? That's a real resource allocation decision that has to be made. I will consider the argument that the government would be less efficient at providing food and shelter than giving people the money to do so... that could possibly be true on a large scale.
jimrandomh 11y ago
If you try to micromanage peoples' spending, you will spend more and you will hurt them. Believing that poor people will waste their money on cell phones and XBoxes is a common justification for trying to attack them, but this sentiment is evil disguising itself as morality. For example, poor people need cell phones because it's impossible to get a job without a stable phone number.
mosquito242 11y ago
My assumption about basic income was always that at it's core, it provides the money for food and shelter. This reduces bureaucratic overhead in terms of trying to provide people those goods, and gives them the freedom to make their own choices and not have to work to survive, and the government is no longer forced to create the infrastructure to try to find ways to provide food and shelter. This may, however, require work in terms of providing affordable housing options to everyone, but I don't think you have to solve one problem first to solve the other. Health Care and Education are a separate (but still related and important) set of problems. Both of those require greater infrastructure on the part of the government to provide effective solutions, so again this is a problem that also requires a lot of thought and effort, but providing basic income doesn't seem like it would preclude health care/education reform. Nor does it seem like solving health care and education reform would change the structure or overall effects of a basic income program; they're simply additional solutions that would certainly improve our quality of life and possibly the efficacy of the program.
- chubot 11y ago
  OK, well this is a good thing for YC to fund an experiment to test. If given basic income, do people spend money on food and shelter, and plan out a good life, or do they live day-to-day and remain a burden on society? This is why I think education, for example, comes before basic income. Without education, you can easily imagine people remaining homeless despite the income. Of course some people will succeed and some won't -- the question is the ratio. Some rich people are scrupulous; some rich people waste their money. I don't see any reason to believe that poor people are any different. I think we can still help those people with education, etc. without wasting taxpayer dollars. But how much would be "wasted" is of course an open question.

by chubot 11y ago

bryanlarsen 11y ago

Basic Income is probably the most efficient way of giving everybody food & shelter. Giving everybody food and shelter through standard government processes would probably cost way more than $10K/year.

bluedino 11y ago
10k/year isn't going to get you far with food and shelter in all but the lowest cost of living areas.
- bryanlarsen 11y ago
  Yes, it pretty much assumes shared housing.

dcre 11y ago

Seems like you're mixing up two arguments. Is the problem the cost, or the particular things provided? If the latter, who gets to decide what's essential and what's not? I'd be pretty useless without a cell phone and a laptop.

chubot 11y ago
The problem is the cost... If we can't pay for people's health care, I wonder why we think we can pay for everyone's living expenses. Suppose one person needs $100K to survive. Is it moral to let that person die, and instead give $10K to 10 people as basic income? That's a real resource allocation decision that has to be made. I will consider the argument that the government would be less efficient at providing food and shelter than giving people the money to do so... that could possibly be true on a large scale.

jimrandomh 11y ago

If you try to micromanage peoples' spending, you will spend more and you will hurt them. Believing that poor people will waste their money on cell phones and XBoxes is a common justification for trying to attack them, but this sentiment is evil disguising itself as morality. For example, poor people need cell phones because it's impossible to get a job without a stable phone number.

mosquito242 11y ago

My assumption about basic income was always that at it's core, it provides the money for food and shelter. This reduces bureaucratic overhead in terms of trying to provide people those goods, and gives them the freedom to make their own choices and not have to work to survive, and the government is no longer forced to create the infrastructure to try to find ways to provide food and shelter. This may, however, require work in terms of providing affordable housing options to everyone, but I don't think you have to solve one problem first to solve the other. Health Care and Education are a separate (but still related and important) set of problems. Both of those require greater infrastructure on the part of the government to provide effective solutions, so again this is a problem that also requires a lot of thought and effort, but providing basic income doesn't seem like it would preclude health care/education reform. Nor does it seem like solving health care and education reform would change the structure or overall effects of a basic income program; they're simply additional solutions that would certainly improve our quality of life and possibly the efficacy of the program.

chubot 11y ago
OK, well this is a good thing for YC to fund an experiment to test. If given basic income, do people spend money on food and shelter, and plan out a good life, or do they live day-to-day and remain a burden on society? This is why I think education, for example, comes before basic income. Without education, you can easily imagine people remaining homeless despite the income. Of course some people will succeed and some won't -- the question is the ratio. Some rich people are scrupulous; some rich people waste their money. I don't see any reason to believe that poor people are any different. I think we can still help those people with education, etc. without wasting taxpayer dollars. But how much would be "wasted" is of course an open question.