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Alright John Gault. If we're talking nation level, your startup is not a 'tentpole.' How does your market cap compare to GE, Google, Amazon, Lockheed? Those are

Alright John Gault. If we're talking nation level, your startup is not a 'tentpole.' How does your market cap compare to GE, Google, Amazon, Lockheed? Those are redwoods, and there are plenty of those. You're a maple sapling, there are plenty of those too. You're doing that thing where the middle class rebels against their own interests by positioning said interests as the interests of the working class, because they see themselves as soooo much more driven, and hardworking -- get real, plenty of people living in poverty with the same hustle as you, they just grew up on the other side of Toronto without access to the same resources. Basic income doesn't come off the backs of small business, and that is a silly reason to be so afraid of it.

psycr 10y ago
Opportunity is not evenly distributed, yes. But neither is skill. > Basic income doesn't come off the backs of small business, and that is a silly reason to be so afraid of it. What's the name of your business?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- snuxoll 10y ago
  > Opportunity is not evenly distributed, yes. But neither is skill. Skill can be learned with enough drive. Opportunity is required for success, there's plenty of smart, skilled people in the world who are stuck in the workforce because of lack of it. Malcom Gladwell's book "Outliers" is a good read on the effect opportunity (or the lack thereof) has on our lives. It can come off as pretty over simplified and anecdotal so don't take my praise of the book as me touting it as something it's not, but it's worth reading (and I rarely say that of required texts from courses I've taken).
- troncheadle 10y ago
  That's just willfully ignorant. For majority of people, differences in opportunity are SO much more influential in their lives than differences in skill or intelligence. Consider three kids -- one is rich, suburban white, IQ is 170. The other is rich, suburban white, IQ is 75. The third is poor, inner city black, IQ 170. In this situation, which lives do you think look most similar to one another? If you answered 'obviously the white kids', then great! You get it. If you answered 'the two kids with an IQ of 170' then you need to spend some time in the real world. Let's add kid #4 -- poor, black, inner city, IQ 75. If we want to compare across QoL, opportunity, really almost any metric, we're going to group across socio-economic lines, not IQ. If you find yourself thinking 'Well what if that young black kid catches a lucky break and gets out of poverty' you're almost there -- the need to catch a lucky break to escape is a defining aspect of poverty and it works against even the most naturally skilled people. The amount of skill needed to overcome that lack in opportunity makes it silly to bring skill into the equation when talking about opportunity. Really, come on. That kind of 'they can just pull themselves up by the bootstraps' is ignorant enough to sound like dog whistling.
  - psycr 10y ago
    > If we want to compare across QoL, opportunity, really almost any metric, we're going to group across socio-economic lines, not IQ. Do you have any academic literature to support your claim? The only evidence you offered was just an insistence that I should agree, which shouldn't convince any fair minded person. Here's something that I found within 15 seconds of journal searching, that contradicts it: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-1130.2011.00281.x/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-1130.2011.... > The results from a series of follow-up studies indicate that the IQ score at age 13 could be viewed as a relatively good indicator for future life outcomes, defined in terms of attained education, occupational status, and material well being Finally: > Really, come on. That kind of 'they can just pull themselves up by the bootstraps' is ignorant enough to sound like dog whistling. I don't think we can, and I don't think I said anything like that. Also, what's the name of your business?
err4nt 10y ago
The resources that I built my business on: - a chair - a table - electricity - any computer - internet - coffee (for food) - bathroom If you can bring your own laptop to a starbucks, they have plenty of the rest of those. A laptop can cost as little as 230$ USD, so thats really the only barrier and I beleive its an attainable goal for anybody in North America. If your life depending on having a laptop, thats something anybody could find. My point is that business will leave. Those with the most means (Google, etc) would be out of the coutry by the end of the week! It would take longer for the small guys to pack up and move, but the point is that knowing how I would respond surely must be an attitude others have too. Just had to get that out there while we're talking about mincome yet again.
- mordocai 10y ago
  $230 extra above living expenses is not attainable without title loans or something similar for many in America. Not to mention that if the laptop breaks you have to know how to fix it yourself or pay $100+ to fix it (or buy another new one for $230). If you don't know enough about computers to transfer data off a "dead" machine then you have to pay $100+ for someone to do that even with the new one.
  - err4nt 10y ago
    You must be joking, I know an awful lot of americans with laptops. Its not like mortgaging a house! And Im not talking about 'above living expenses'. When I bought mine I had no money for the electric bill. I leveraged the laptop purchase into paying that bill and many more after it!
    - mordocai 10y ago
      You weren't as poor as some people I know then. Many of the people I'm talking about already can't pay their utility bills. Some of them don't have electricity because it was shut off. Just because it works for you doesn't mean it will work for others.
      - 10y ago

psycr 10y ago

Opportunity is not evenly distributed, yes. But neither is skill. > Basic income doesn't come off the backs of small business, and that is a silly reason to be so afraid of it. What's the name of your business?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
snuxoll 10y ago
> Opportunity is not evenly distributed, yes. But neither is skill. Skill can be learned with enough drive. Opportunity is required for success, there's plenty of smart, skilled people in the world who are stuck in the workforce because of lack of it. Malcom Gladwell's book "Outliers" is a good read on the effect opportunity (or the lack thereof) has on our lives. It can come off as pretty over simplified and anecdotal so don't take my praise of the book as me touting it as something it's not, but it's worth reading (and I rarely say that of required texts from courses I've taken).
troncheadle 10y ago
That's just willfully ignorant. For majority of people, differences in opportunity are SO much more influential in their lives than differences in skill or intelligence. Consider three kids -- one is rich, suburban white, IQ is 170. The other is rich, suburban white, IQ is 75. The third is poor, inner city black, IQ 170. In this situation, which lives do you think look most similar to one another? If you answered 'obviously the white kids', then great! You get it. If you answered 'the two kids with an IQ of 170' then you need to spend some time in the real world. Let's add kid #4 -- poor, black, inner city, IQ 75. If we want to compare across QoL, opportunity, really almost any metric, we're going to group across socio-economic lines, not IQ. If you find yourself thinking 'Well what if that young black kid catches a lucky break and gets out of poverty' you're almost there -- the need to catch a lucky break to escape is a defining aspect of poverty and it works against even the most naturally skilled people. The amount of skill needed to overcome that lack in opportunity makes it silly to bring skill into the equation when talking about opportunity. Really, come on. That kind of 'they can just pull themselves up by the bootstraps' is ignorant enough to sound like dog whistling.
- psycr 10y ago
  > If we want to compare across QoL, opportunity, really almost any metric, we're going to group across socio-economic lines, not IQ. Do you have any academic literature to support your claim? The only evidence you offered was just an insistence that I should agree, which shouldn't convince any fair minded person. Here's something that I found within 15 seconds of journal searching, that contradicts it: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-1130.2011.00281.x/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-1130.2011.... > The results from a series of follow-up studies indicate that the IQ score at age 13 could be viewed as a relatively good indicator for future life outcomes, defined in terms of attained education, occupational status, and material well being Finally: > Really, come on. That kind of 'they can just pull themselves up by the bootstraps' is ignorant enough to sound like dog whistling. I don't think we can, and I don't think I said anything like that. Also, what's the name of your business?

err4nt 10y ago

The resources that I built my business on: - a chair - a table - electricity - any computer - internet - coffee (for food) - bathroom If you can bring your own laptop to a starbucks, they have plenty of the rest of those. A laptop can cost as little as 230$ USD, so thats really the only barrier and I beleive its an attainable goal for anybody in North America. If your life depending on having a laptop, thats something anybody could find. My point is that business will leave. Those with the most means (Google, etc) would be out of the coutry by the end of the week! It would take longer for the small guys to pack up and move, but the point is that knowing how I would respond surely must be an attitude others have too. Just had to get that out there while we're talking about mincome yet again.

mordocai 10y ago
$230 extra above living expenses is not attainable without title loans or something similar for many in America. Not to mention that if the laptop breaks you have to know how to fix it yourself or pay $100+ to fix it (or buy another new one for $230). If you don't know enough about computers to transfer data off a "dead" machine then you have to pay $100+ for someone to do that even with the new one.
- err4nt 10y ago
  You must be joking, I know an awful lot of americans with laptops. Its not like mortgaging a house! And Im not talking about 'above living expenses'. When I bought mine I had no money for the electric bill. I leveraged the laptop purchase into paying that bill and many more after it!
  - mordocai 10y ago
    You weren't as poor as some people I know then. Many of the people I'm talking about already can't pay their utility bills. Some of them don't have electricity because it was shut off. Just because it works for you doesn't mean it will work for others.
    - 10y ago