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Why do all discussions of basic income omit the best argument in favor of it? I would think, especially on a site like HN, that people would realize just how v
by curun1r 10y ago
Why do all discussions of basic income omit the best argument in favor of it?
I would think, especially on a site like HN, that people would realize just how valuable BI would be to entrepreneurs. Many people don't pursue business ideas for fear that they'll burn through savings or have problems paying for the necessities of life. With BI, that concern goes away. You may have to scale your lifestyle back a bit, but you basically start at ramen profitability.
And yet all discussions of BI tend to frame it as an extension of welfare given to people who can't earn enough to support themselves. I'm not against taking care of the poor, but when you frame the argument like that, you miss the benefits to society from all that extra entrepreneurship.
- twoodfin 10y agoYou have to counter-balance that benefit by the fraction of adults who otherwise would be working productive jobs but instead decide to spend their hours and BI rock climbing, playing video games, or writing bad poetry. Would extra entrepreneurship make up for their loss of production? Maybe, but I don't think entrepreneurship and employment levels in nations where welfare provides everyone with guaranteed "ramen profitability" are encouraging on that front.
- MacsHeadroom 10y agoSounds like there may be entrepreneurial opportunities for rock climbing gear, video game design, and poetry sharing.
- twoodfin 10y agoSure, but ultimately the money to pay for those things has to come from production. There's no free lunch.
- sooheon 10y agoIncreasingly, machines can and will be handing out "free lunches" of production. Under traditional assumptions, these free lunches belong solely to the factory/AI owners, and those made thusly obsolete can fuck off and starve or lobby their representative forms of government for crumbs of the pie. Or we can start recognizing that now more than ever the fruits of capital and the means of production must be redistributed. Think of it another way, we're getting the above mentioned losses of human production anyways, because vast swathes of human mass will be made completely obsolete. Except without redistribution they won't be playing video games, writing bad poetry, or going rock climbing, they'll simply be starving. The question is do we let them hang, while those lucky enough to inherit server clusters running AI and fleets of self driving cars sit back and solely claim unprecedented concentration of capital?
- paulddraper 10y ago> Many people don't pursue business ideas for fear A very appropriate fear, given that most business ideas are terrible. There is a balance between risk and reward. Good ideas are worth risk; bad ideas are not. Removing the fear of failure (or correspondingly, the rewards of success) damages the decision-making process.
- jhayward 10y agoThis is an unproven assumption. Individual perception of risk, and psychological risk orientation vary quite a bit. Decision-making is largely not rational, rather more based on pattern-matching, personal biases, etc. the idea that fear of failure is somehow useful in marking the likelihood of success is simply not supported by fact. Tnere is just as much reason to believe that randomly trying various entrepreneurial efforts would be just as fruitful.