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Poor people are among the most overweight because food is so cheap in the US. I don't see why implementing Basic Income would magically make food expensive or

Poor people are among the most overweight because food is so cheap in the US. I don't see why implementing Basic Income would magically make food expensive or make people have to "eat ramen or possibly Soylent." Anyway, the world you are so worried about is already here. A small number of people do continue to do important work that can't be automated. Most other work is unecessary busy work. Artists and musicians already live off of government largesse, either by taking "McJobs" that are artificially highly paid because of government minimum wage, or by actually being on welfare. Since people can't wrap their heads around the concept of Basic Income, we end up with hordes of people paid to do stupid shit that doesn't matter. The endgame is that we're all government employees in a Dilbertesque hell. Moving papers from one pile to another and back again. Digging holes and then filling them again, since letting people decide what to do during the workday would be too disruptive.

xg15 10y ago
Using the big number of overweight people as a sign that healthy food is available cheap is an amazing feat of backwards logic IMO. A significant cause of overweight is that your diet is too imbalanced and your body is missing certain important nutrients while getting too much of others. That is the exact opposite of healthy food. And in fact, the "cheap food" most people consume is exactly that - fast food and high-calorie snacks. That sounds a lot more like the concrete-bunker-and-ramen theory again...
- naveen99 10y ago
  If you supplement with protein powder which is cheap also, count calories, lift weights, fast food is just fine for not getting fat. Lots of people on /r/fitness have done McDonald's or chipotle.
majewsky 10y ago
> The endgame is that we're all government employees in a Dilbertesque hell. I once heard about the British Colonial Office. The time when it had the most employees was precisely the time when it was dissolved because Britain did not have colonies anymore. They were all just shuffling papers around all day. I sadly don't have a source for that. Does anyone have a link, by any chance?
- cannam 10y ago
  > Does anyone have a link, by any chance? C. Northcote Parkinson, 1955. http://www.economist.com/node/14116121 http://www.economist.com/node/14116121 "A glance at the figures shows that the staff totals represent automatic stages in an inevitable increase. And this increase, while related to that observed in other departments, has nothing to do with the size - or even the existence - of the Empire." What I don't know is where Parkinson got his own figures from. Some of them are cited in the article, but I think not this one.

xg15 10y ago

Using the big number of overweight people as a sign that healthy food is available cheap is an amazing feat of backwards logic IMO. A significant cause of overweight is that your diet is too imbalanced and your body is missing certain important nutrients while getting too much of others. That is the exact opposite of healthy food. And in fact, the "cheap food" most people consume is exactly that - fast food and high-calorie snacks. That sounds a lot more like the concrete-bunker-and-ramen theory again...

naveen99 10y ago
If you supplement with protein powder which is cheap also, count calories, lift weights, fast food is just fine for not getting fat. Lots of people on /r/fitness have done McDonald's or chipotle.

majewsky 10y ago

> The endgame is that we're all government employees in a Dilbertesque hell. I once heard about the British Colonial Office. The time when it had the most employees was precisely the time when it was dissolved because Britain did not have colonies anymore. They were all just shuffling papers around all day. I sadly don't have a source for that. Does anyone have a link, by any chance?

cannam 10y ago
> Does anyone have a link, by any chance? C. Northcote Parkinson, 1955. http://www.economist.com/node/14116121 http://www.economist.com/node/14116121 "A glance at the figures shows that the staff totals represent automatic stages in an inevitable increase. And this increase, while related to that observed in other departments, has nothing to do with the size - or even the existence - of the Empire." What I don't know is where Parkinson got his own figures from. Some of them are cited in the article, but I think not this one.