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> You pretend to work 8 (actually 10 to "look good") hours even if you finish all your work in 1. Maybe my experience isn't representative, but at my job there

> You pretend to work 8 (actually 10 to "look good") hours even if you finish all your work in 1. Maybe my experience isn't representative, but at my job there is actually work to do: you know, hard problems that take time to think through and solve. > The infantile mentality inculcated in people receiving conditional welfare is present in FTE Substitute "conditional welfare" with "earned compensation". How is it infantile to voluntarily negotiate compensation with someone for whom you will be providing value (ie. your employer) and yet not infantile to demand unconditional welfare from society as a whole?

EGreg 11y ago
Unconditional basic income is unconditional, so it doesn't have the downside of conditional welfare: people are afraid to earn too much money because they'll lose their welfare income, and then they're in danger of losing that new revenue and they can't get back on welfare right away so they're up the creek without a paddle. So they cling to the safety of welfare. And this + minimum wage laws keep them from developing themselves and creating monetizable value that builds on itself year after year. And this is similar to the threat of losing your steady paycheck if you don't behave, as is evidenced in part by the great grandparent comment. There is a lot of dysfunctional politics and dynamics that comes from being in that sort of situation and environment, which pg's essay "why nerds are unpopular" describes at length. Incidentally, pg is also very anti FTE personally, likening it to eating roadkill. Look at it like this -- can you work on your own awesome project that will change the world? Not if your employer wouldnt be pleased. Maybe you'll sneak around like a kid does. If you work for a bank, can you take a position as a CFO at a startup? I have heard people say they can't do this, or that, because their employer wouldnt like it. I've seen tons of people sitting around and pretending to work, because their employer was covering the risk, but they are afraid of losing their job. It's a conditional paycheck that by definition demands your full time for whatever odd job comes up once you're there. And they even try to make you work longer hours without valuing them as they would with a contractor. I don't mean to say that there are absolutely no fulfilling, productive fulltime jobs. Just that the vast majority of people experience many of the downsides of FTE including the infantile mentality. Plus many of those people believe their own jobs are not productive and can be eliminated: http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

EGreg 11y ago

Unconditional basic income is unconditional, so it doesn't have the downside of conditional welfare: people are afraid to earn too much money because they'll lose their welfare income, and then they're in danger of losing that new revenue and they can't get back on welfare right away so they're up the creek without a paddle. So they cling to the safety of welfare. And this + minimum wage laws keep them from developing themselves and creating monetizable value that builds on itself year after year. And this is similar to the threat of losing your steady paycheck if you don't behave, as is evidenced in part by the great grandparent comment. There is a lot of dysfunctional politics and dynamics that comes from being in that sort of situation and environment, which pg's essay "why nerds are unpopular" describes at length. Incidentally, pg is also very anti FTE personally, likening it to eating roadkill. Look at it like this -- can you work on your own awesome project that will change the world? Not if your employer wouldnt be pleased. Maybe you'll sneak around like a kid does. If you work for a bank, can you take a position as a CFO at a startup? I have heard people say they can't do this, or that, because their employer wouldnt like it. I've seen tons of people sitting around and pretending to work, because their employer was covering the risk, but they are afraid of losing their job. It's a conditional paycheck that by definition demands your full time for whatever odd job comes up once you're there. And they even try to make you work longer hours without valuing them as they would with a contractor. I don't mean to say that there are absolutely no fulfilling, productive fulltime jobs. Just that the vast majority of people experience many of the downsides of FTE including the infantile mentality. Plus many of those people believe their own jobs are not productive and can be eliminated: http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/