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The answer: communal work. Academic research, science, your own projects! UBIs for nothing would only work for certain people. We should ask them to commit to,

The answer: communal work. Academic research, science, your own projects! UBIs for nothing would only work for certain people. We should ask them to commit to, and then supervise them in projects. That'll be the future, not fuck work, but love the work that you're doing, because you chose it after all! The author referred to some interesting concepts of lack of work that we can draw conclusions from: the Aristocrat era (on which there was a decay of this class, for excess of leisure IMO) We still need to have a purpose in life, we should help people find more about their purpose and help them achieve it. UBIs can and should be complemented with bonuses for achievements. This way we can take back the work hard and get good results kind of balance. Difference will be: you can choose whatever you do, it doesn't need to give money directly (just imagine what that could do for scientific research)

thenomad 10y ago
That's a really interesting proposal, and one of the few I've heard that actually could improve on a UBI in some ways. The obvious leak point - who would determine what was "worthy" work? If someone said "my project right now is to watch all of The Wire", would that be OK? Would it differ if it was "all of CSI Miami"? What about if it was "All of MIT's lectures on machine learning"?
- joantune 10y ago
  That's a tricky question, and an important one. What I meant with projects is something tangible. What you are talking about is education? should that count? if those people are being educated or want to learn something, shouldn't they be able to still have an UBI while doing it? My answer to that is: 20hours/week of communal work - they would do that work 20 hours/week and still have time to learn whatever they want.. Also, a centralized system could give more rewards to scientific advancements. The system that we have now seems to be: If other people want what you are creating, they'll pay for it, so that's how you define what it's worth to have. However, the system that we have is flawed in many ways, because the closer to the selling point and to the money that you are, the more reward you make. Which makes sense, but undermines by underpaying some very important jobs/tasks that are the backbone of a lot of things, to name a few: Scientific research Investigative journalism
  - thenomad 10y ago
    I was talking about self-improvement, which is similar. OK, further question - what if they want to watch The Wire and write a series critique for public consumption as their communal work? That's definitely something tangible. Does that answer change if they're: 1) A complete unknown with a blog 2) Have published work but aren't very well known 3) Are a famous media writer with thousands of fans asking for this critique? 4) A well-known academic in the field? If the answer to all of the above is "no", is that also true of other academic work? What about journalism? What about artistic work? Having worked in the arts for years, the issue with any sort of "we want to pay people to do Good Works" plan is that eventually you have to have someone define what Good Works are, and more importantly, aren't. I do not envy the many people on grants councils around the world trying to say "well, this thing is Art, but this other very similar thing is not."
    - joantune 10y ago
      Yes, it's very tricky to classify something as worth subsidizing and something else that doesn't, especially in regard to Art. I would say: To get an UBI, you would need to do 20hrs work/week. Every other activity would be as is today. i.e. if you have and are able to reach a good crowd, you'll make money with sponsorships and ad revenue.. but you need a big/good enough crowd for that to happen.. and that takes time and effort.. you would have more time for that.. In regards to science, I'm of the opinion that any scientific study, even the ones that only find dead ends, is worthwhile as it advances humanity's knowledge
      - thenomad 10y ago
        And what's the definition of "work" here? Sorry, we seem to have missed that.
        joantune 10y ago
        The process of achieving a goal. For the communal 20hrs/week I would say something that is helpful in different sectors. You could choose: Fix stuff; Clean; Social services; etc..
- witty_username 10y ago
  Hmm.. why not let people vote on worthiness with a point system (money)? That's the current world we live in.
  - joantune 10y ago
    That is a way to do it. However, if you look at it, something like scientific knowledge isn't easily 'bought' by people.. so the 'market' for scientific advancements is skewed, the incentives aren't there. It would have been impossible to have iPhones or the likes without scientific advancement. Yet, the scientific community reaped 0 benefits and got 0% of share from Apple's profit.. and even tax wise, which could be a way to subsidize scientific grants from the government, we both know that they dodge those and lobby with success for them to not pay them. So, there are problems with the way of our point system. Another case: Investigative journalism. The journalists or even the companies that pay the salaries to the journalists that make those hard strives reap almost 0 benefits, and other outlets just pickup the news and get all of the benefits.. yet these are crucial for change/improvement and progress in our institutions and way of life (think the catholic church scandal, the contras and crack scandal, etc)
    - witty_username 10y ago
      There are incentive for some scientific knowledge; that's why companies have R&D labs. One way to increase this incentive would be increase the scope of patents. Also you can pay for investigative journalism and scientific research. > tax wise, which could be a way to subsidize scientific grants from the government, we both know that they dodge those and lobby with success for them to not pay them. The case with EU and Apple hasn't been settled yet.

thenomad 10y ago

That's a really interesting proposal, and one of the few I've heard that actually could improve on a UBI in some ways. The obvious leak point - who would determine what was "worthy" work? If someone said "my project right now is to watch all of The Wire", would that be OK? Would it differ if it was "all of CSI Miami"? What about if it was "All of MIT's lectures on machine learning"?

joantune 10y ago
That's a tricky question, and an important one. What I meant with projects is something tangible. What you are talking about is education? should that count? if those people are being educated or want to learn something, shouldn't they be able to still have an UBI while doing it? My answer to that is: 20hours/week of communal work - they would do that work 20 hours/week and still have time to learn whatever they want.. Also, a centralized system could give more rewards to scientific advancements. The system that we have now seems to be: If other people want what you are creating, they'll pay for it, so that's how you define what it's worth to have. However, the system that we have is flawed in many ways, because the closer to the selling point and to the money that you are, the more reward you make. Which makes sense, but undermines by underpaying some very important jobs/tasks that are the backbone of a lot of things, to name a few: Scientific research Investigative journalism
- thenomad 10y ago
  I was talking about self-improvement, which is similar. OK, further question - what if they want to watch The Wire and write a series critique for public consumption as their communal work? That's definitely something tangible. Does that answer change if they're: 1) A complete unknown with a blog 2) Have published work but aren't very well known 3) Are a famous media writer with thousands of fans asking for this critique? 4) A well-known academic in the field? If the answer to all of the above is "no", is that also true of other academic work? What about journalism? What about artistic work? Having worked in the arts for years, the issue with any sort of "we want to pay people to do Good Works" plan is that eventually you have to have someone define what Good Works are, and more importantly, aren't. I do not envy the many people on grants councils around the world trying to say "well, this thing is Art, but this other very similar thing is not."
  - joantune 10y ago
    Yes, it's very tricky to classify something as worth subsidizing and something else that doesn't, especially in regard to Art. I would say: To get an UBI, you would need to do 20hrs work/week. Every other activity would be as is today. i.e. if you have and are able to reach a good crowd, you'll make money with sponsorships and ad revenue.. but you need a big/good enough crowd for that to happen.. and that takes time and effort.. you would have more time for that.. In regards to science, I'm of the opinion that any scientific study, even the ones that only find dead ends, is worthwhile as it advances humanity's knowledge
    - thenomad 10y ago
      And what's the definition of "work" here? Sorry, we seem to have missed that.
      - joantune 10y ago
        The process of achieving a goal. For the communal 20hrs/week I would say something that is helpful in different sectors. You could choose: Fix stuff; Clean; Social services; etc..
witty_username 10y ago
Hmm.. why not let people vote on worthiness with a point system (money)? That's the current world we live in.
- joantune 10y ago
  That is a way to do it. However, if you look at it, something like scientific knowledge isn't easily 'bought' by people.. so the 'market' for scientific advancements is skewed, the incentives aren't there. It would have been impossible to have iPhones or the likes without scientific advancement. Yet, the scientific community reaped 0 benefits and got 0% of share from Apple's profit.. and even tax wise, which could be a way to subsidize scientific grants from the government, we both know that they dodge those and lobby with success for them to not pay them. So, there are problems with the way of our point system. Another case: Investigative journalism. The journalists or even the companies that pay the salaries to the journalists that make those hard strives reap almost 0 benefits, and other outlets just pickup the news and get all of the benefits.. yet these are crucial for change/improvement and progress in our institutions and way of life (think the catholic church scandal, the contras and crack scandal, etc)
  - witty_username 10y ago
    There are incentive for some scientific knowledge; that's why companies have R&D labs. One way to increase this incentive would be increase the scope of patents. Also you can pay for investigative journalism and scientific research. > tax wise, which could be a way to subsidize scientific grants from the government, we both know that they dodge those and lobby with success for them to not pay them. The case with EU and Apple hasn't been settled yet.