12 ms·

Exciting to see that this is the top comment (at least for now) because I think this is the sort of attitude and vision for the future that will solve many of t

• jackcosgrove 10y ago
  It would seem to me that UBI would increase consumption, and reinforce our perceptions of success.
  • HammadB 10y ago
    Agreed, something has to be done at a cultural level as well and I think this starts with parenting and schools.
  • mason55 10y ago
    The idea is that with UBI people don't need to work 40 hours per week at a miserable job if they don't want to. This in theory causes prices for stuff like McDonalds to go up which should reduce consumption. In addition, people are free to pursue things like further education and the arts that are much harder when you're working two jobs to put food on the table.
    • RyanZAG 10y ago
      UBI comes from tax money though. If the idea behind UBI is that people don't need to go work, and won't go buy McDonalds anymore, then tax income is going to plummet. If tax income plummets, what pays for UBI ? UBI can only succeed if people continue to consume, preferably at higher levels than currently, which would allow others who want to live a life at a higher standard to sell things to UBI recipients, who can then be taxed and support everyone else on UBI. If UBI encouraged too large a portion of the population to pursue non-taxable income (say, making art and games and giving them away for free because they don't need money), then UBI would collapse from lack of income. Especially so if that art is given away freely to other countries over the internet. So it's a fine line that is probably a lot more complex than people give it credit. There's certainly no guarantee as to what the results of UBI would be, and no guarantee that the medicine won't be far worse than the symptoms. EDIT: Even if you assume that a UBI could survive if it decreased with a fall in taxable income from a policy and livability perspective, if a person on UBI received $100 one week, and then had it drop to $75 the next, he would get a major shock and public opinion of a UBI would fall apart. You could print money to make sure UBI never falls, but if UBI is going out to the entire population, the amount of money needed would be enormous. That much money added to a system without an increase in real demand (people on UBI would still buy the same stuff), could easily cause hyperinflation. So another constraint that UBI has and I've never heard anybody mention - UBI can never decrease, even if tax income decreases. Plus there's no way anybody could trust politicians to manage something that complex. UBI practically demands a complete restructure of government, society and the economy. Instead of being a 'patch' as many have described, UBI is closer to 'The World 2.0'. It would be the most incredible Second System Syndrome ever seen.
      • zackmorris 10y ago
        While this is true mathematically, I prefer to think about the opportunity cost of not having a UBI. I (like perhaps many people on HN) basically wasted my 20s trying to make rent while I worked on my shareware game company. I basically failed at that and all of that code went obsolete before it earned me income. Had I had a relatively small UBI of perhaps $12,000 per year, I could have met expenses long enough to get ahead of the curve. I wouldn't have spent that time burned out and getting sucked into dead end $20,000 per year jobs that took all of my time and energy. So for me, not having a UBI and throwing away a rather prolific 20 something probably cost the US GDP growth whatever my business might have contributed for a decade, say whatever a typical game developer salary might be (perhaps $60k/yr), call it $600,000. That could easily be 2, 4, 10 times that much if we grew enough to hire other employees. By not investing in the workforce like the country did with public works before the information age started in 1980, my generation (gen x) lost out on at least a 5x rate of return. My struggles happened just before Prosper and Kickstarter got big, so I ran up staggering credit card debt. Had we chosen a more progressive route, even at a 20% tax rate I would have paid the government back what it paid me, with the bonus of life sucking a whole lot less. I think a UBI might be one of the few things that can raise the 10% startup success rate because it attacks burn rate directly. It would also allow startups to focus on things more meaningful than video games and social media apps because it wouldn’t just be about trying to get enough F.U. money to get left alone anymore. I had always planned to save enough to be able to work on AI and alternative energy, and now with consistent hard work I have a chance of doing it, but with a middle aged realism that is just not helping my motivation. To be 20 again and told “go do all the things” is one of my deepest wishes and I hope it happens for future generations.
        • superuser2 10y ago
          That $600k of production is based on the idea that you would have worked at some point, and people would have consumed your work. That is very different from "let's all stop producing and consuming."
          • ido 10y ago
    • rch 10y ago
      I'm not sure you mean it to be, but your comment reads like an anti-UBI argument. My hope is that UBI will help grow the labor share of GDP by providing mobility to a segment of the workforce that currently lives paycheck to paycheck.
      • hx87 10y ago
        Isn't the point of UBI to get everyone access to the capital share of GDP?
    • yummyfajitas 10y ago
      In short, a UBI will make us all poorer because people will refuse to provide the things that others actually want, and instead will engage in hobbies that provide little value to the world? Your phrasing suggests you favor a UBI, yet your actual claims echo mine (and I'm a UBI opponent). I'm intrigued.
      • justratsinacoat 10y ago
        >In short, a UBI will make us all poorer because people will refuse to provide the things that others actually want, and instead will engage in hobbies that provide little value to the world? >Your phrasing suggests you favor a UBI, yet your actual claims echo mine (and I'm a UBI opponent). I'm intrigued Your phrasing, with respect to the GP, suggests that you consider "things like further education and the arts" to be "hobbies that provide little value to the world", and "the things that others actually want" to be "stuff like McDonalds". As a consequence, I'd encourage supporters of UBI to avoid engaging you on the topic. Your revealed worldview speaks more eloquently than any argument you could come up with. Unless, of course, that's not your position in re higher education/McDonalds, and you're just mocking him. Either way!
        • hueving 10y ago
          Your comment implies you have a critique of the poster's argument, but you fail to provide one. Provide an argument supporting the notion that people shouldn't be incentivized to produce things that the market values. Hinting that someone's argument is absurd adds no value to the discussion unless you illustrate why.
          • ssalazar 10y ago
            > Provide an argument supporting the notion that people shouldn't be incentivized to produce things that the market values. Most people should agree that things that "market value" is a means to obtain things people intrinsically value, such as comfort, security, happiness, meaning, procreation, etc. If, on a macro level, there is a more efficient means to achieve these end goals other than creating things the market values, theres no reason to incentivize that by itself. In some cases creating things the market values can actively work against these goals, such as many types of advertising and consumer product marketing.
    • coldtea 10y ago
      Reduced consumption for BS + increased higher education, arts etc. What's not to like?
    • WalterBright 10y ago
      Does anyone really enjoy picking up the garbage and other dirty jobs?
      • BillyParadise 10y ago
        Whether they do or they don't, I guarantee they make significantly more than the proposed UBI amount. Given the choice between making $12k with UBI and sitting on one's ass, or making $50k (guessing here) + 12k UBI to work as a garbage man, do you really think people would just up and quit?
        • WalterBright 10y ago
          Janitors tend to make minimum wage. The average garbageman salary is around $33K.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  • Ericson2314 10y ago
    Hierarchy of needs; cross fingers