4 ms·

That's the best argument for UBI I've heard yet. It gives people an option to "exit" shitty societies. Unfortunately you'll find a good portion being spent on

That's the best argument for UBI I've heard yet. It gives people an option to "exit" shitty societies. Unfortunately you'll find a good portion being spent on 20th century drugs, which suck immensely. But if the people in power are willing to take that risk, then it might be a positive thing. One glaring flaw is that humans are a social species and calculate rank and favors and grudges almost autonomously. Receiving your "life" from a government stooge is something of an embarrassment to men who've survived cold winters and starvation and dehydration. We like to be "equal" or "respectful" to a gift giver by having the possibility of giving back an equivalent gift. So in a sense, you have to teach the homeless person abilities which, eventually, allow him/her to reciprocate a gift. Even if the gift was from the government.

noonespecial 10y ago
>Unfortunately you'll find a good portion being spent on 20th century drugs, which suck immensely. There's the hardest part about UBI. Its the same thing that makes our welfare systems so awful right now as well. The terrible fear that if we give people money... they might spend it on stuff we don't think they should.
- Jach 10y ago
  It's not even a fear: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/our-miserable-21st-century/ https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/our-miserable-21... (and https://www.bostonfed.org/-/media/Documents/economic/conf/great-recovery-2016/Alan-B-Krueger.pdf https://www.bostonfed.org/-/media/Documents/economic/conf/gr...) The overwhelming majority of prime-age men on welfare spend most of their time on consuming multimedia, doped up on pain medication like Oxycontin. As beautiful as I personally find the ideal of letting people be free from economic concern beyond their basics (if they want more they can get a job) and free to pursue inexpensive but time-consuming creative passions and work on bettering themselves (it's my own dream I aim to achieve by becoming effectively retired in my early 30s), it's not a realistic outcome for most and can't be used as the basis of argument for why the working class should thus support people whose first complaint against work is simply lack of desire.
  - ergothus 10y ago
    ...and yet when there was mandatory drug testing it showed a drug use rate lower than the general population. How do you reconcile those contrasting data points? (honest question, not a troll)
    - toast0 10y ago
      Devils advocate: If you're getting paid to do drugs and watch movies, don't you think you can find someone's clean pee?
      - ergothus 10y ago
        I used to work in Social Services. There are, without a doubt, people that abuse the system. But you have a lot more confidence in their ability to be sneaky than I do. The average person is not very good at lying without getting caught. The average person that lacks any initiative or follow through is worse.
    - Mz 10y ago
      Someone I was once friends with had been a drug addict while in the military, where they do random drug tests and throw you out if you fail, basically. I asked how to beat the drug test if I needed to, as I had been unwillingly exposed to secondhand marijuana smoke while job hunting. He assured me it would not matter, as secondhand smoke would not show up on the test, then gave me detailed instructions on how to beat the test "even if you are so high you have trouble peeing in the cup." So, maybe don't believe all test results.
ergothus 10y ago
> Unfortunately you'll find a good portion being spent on 20th century drugs, which suck immensely Leaving aside any evaluation of the quality of modern drugs... You raise my one concern about UBI. I'm fairly liberal, and particularly with the rise in automation, I see something like UBI becoming necessary. Unlike some conservatives, I have no real concern about people "mooching" or getting money they don't "deserve". Some WILL mooch, IMNSHO, but not most. And if it generates a society where people CAN succeed if they put forth the effort, I'm generally okay with those that are choosing to be lazy being lazy - just get them safely out of the way of everyone that isn't lazy and make sure they have every opportunity to improve their situation should they try to. BUT - two of the big arguments in favor of UBI are: * that it could be cheaper than the social programs of today * that giving people cash can be the most effective investment (I think it was here that I saw discussion that a program to give the poor of developing nations chickens was successful at a small scale, but couldn't grow because at some point too many people have chickens for the eggs to have much resale value). My concern is that some people - I expect few, but enough - will spend money and NOT cover their basic needs (food/shelter). If you shrug and let them suffer/die, you aren't who I want to be. If we run all the social programs in ADDITION to UBI you've made it cost more. If you try to regulate how people spend their UBI, you're hurting everyone's ability to innovate their way to greater wealth. If you try to only regulate those that are decided to not be able to spend wisely...that sounds dangerous, having those in power determine what is and who are "wise". So while I remain very interested in UBI, I'm watching the current and planned-for experiments with great interest to see what problems arise, which problems don't arise, and to see how any problems are handled.
- greedo 10y ago
  There's no realistic (as in adding up mathematically) way that UBI will be cheaper than the social programs of today.
  - ergothus 10y ago
    Oh? I won't claim to be an expert (or even close), but it seems to me that remove the vast majority of the overhead of the current web of social programs with a far more simple "Has this person gotten their $X" would free up a bunch of money, even if $X is given to vastly more people. (And I believe that most social programs are relatively efficiently run - those that disagree would consider the benefit of closing the programs to be greater) That said, theorycrafting isn't numbers. Today the US population is roughly 350 million, and we spend 927 billion on social programs between state and federal. That works out to $2800 and change spent per person. (assuming my numbers are correct) That's, as you say, not nearly enough. Okay, perhaps we can say some large portion of that population is children that would cost less. also families can benefit from shared housing. So let's switch to a theoretical family of four model. For ease of calculations, let's assume large families and small families balance out: $11,200 per (theoretical) family of 4...which isn't the individual poverty line. So....yeah, you seem to be totally correct. Which makes me wonder what numbers those libertarians in favor of UBI are using?

noonespecial 10y ago

>Unfortunately you'll find a good portion being spent on 20th century drugs, which suck immensely. There's the hardest part about UBI. Its the same thing that makes our welfare systems so awful right now as well. The terrible fear that if we give people money... they might spend it on stuff we don't think they should.

Jach 10y ago
It's not even a fear: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/our-miserable-21st-century/ https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/our-miserable-21... (and https://www.bostonfed.org/-/media/Documents/economic/conf/great-recovery-2016/Alan-B-Krueger.pdf https://www.bostonfed.org/-/media/Documents/economic/conf/gr...) The overwhelming majority of prime-age men on welfare spend most of their time on consuming multimedia, doped up on pain medication like Oxycontin. As beautiful as I personally find the ideal of letting people be free from economic concern beyond their basics (if they want more they can get a job) and free to pursue inexpensive but time-consuming creative passions and work on bettering themselves (it's my own dream I aim to achieve by becoming effectively retired in my early 30s), it's not a realistic outcome for most and can't be used as the basis of argument for why the working class should thus support people whose first complaint against work is simply lack of desire.
- ergothus 10y ago
  ...and yet when there was mandatory drug testing it showed a drug use rate lower than the general population. How do you reconcile those contrasting data points? (honest question, not a troll)
  - toast0 10y ago
    Devils advocate: If you're getting paid to do drugs and watch movies, don't you think you can find someone's clean pee?
    - ergothus 10y ago
      I used to work in Social Services. There are, without a doubt, people that abuse the system. But you have a lot more confidence in their ability to be sneaky than I do. The average person is not very good at lying without getting caught. The average person that lacks any initiative or follow through is worse.
  - Mz 10y ago
    Someone I was once friends with had been a drug addict while in the military, where they do random drug tests and throw you out if you fail, basically. I asked how to beat the drug test if I needed to, as I had been unwillingly exposed to secondhand marijuana smoke while job hunting. He assured me it would not matter, as secondhand smoke would not show up on the test, then gave me detailed instructions on how to beat the test "even if you are so high you have trouble peeing in the cup." So, maybe don't believe all test results.

ergothus 10y ago

> Unfortunately you'll find a good portion being spent on 20th century drugs, which suck immensely Leaving aside any evaluation of the quality of modern drugs... You raise my one concern about UBI. I'm fairly liberal, and particularly with the rise in automation, I see something like UBI becoming necessary. Unlike some conservatives, I have no real concern about people "mooching" or getting money they don't "deserve". Some WILL mooch, IMNSHO, but not most. And if it generates a society where people CAN succeed if they put forth the effort, I'm generally okay with those that are choosing to be lazy being lazy - just get them safely out of the way of everyone that isn't lazy and make sure they have every opportunity to improve their situation should they try to. BUT - two of the big arguments in favor of UBI are: * that it could be cheaper than the social programs of today * that giving people cash can be the most effective investment (I think it was here that I saw discussion that a program to give the poor of developing nations chickens was successful at a small scale, but couldn't grow because at some point too many people have chickens for the eggs to have much resale value). My concern is that some people - I expect few, but enough - will spend money and NOT cover their basic needs (food/shelter). If you shrug and let them suffer/die, you aren't who I want to be. If we run all the social programs in ADDITION to UBI you've made it cost more. If you try to regulate how people spend their UBI, you're hurting everyone's ability to innovate their way to greater wealth. If you try to only regulate those that are decided to not be able to spend wisely...that sounds dangerous, having those in power determine what is and who are "wise". So while I remain very interested in UBI, I'm watching the current and planned-for experiments with great interest to see what problems arise, which problems don't arise, and to see how any problems are handled.

greedo 10y ago
There's no realistic (as in adding up mathematically) way that UBI will be cheaper than the social programs of today.
- ergothus 10y ago
  Oh? I won't claim to be an expert (or even close), but it seems to me that remove the vast majority of the overhead of the current web of social programs with a far more simple "Has this person gotten their $X" would free up a bunch of money, even if $X is given to vastly more people. (And I believe that most social programs are relatively efficiently run - those that disagree would consider the benefit of closing the programs to be greater) That said, theorycrafting isn't numbers. Today the US population is roughly 350 million, and we spend 927 billion on social programs between state and federal. That works out to $2800 and change spent per person. (assuming my numbers are correct) That's, as you say, not nearly enough. Okay, perhaps we can say some large portion of that population is children that would cost less. also families can benefit from shared housing. So let's switch to a theoretical family of four model. For ease of calculations, let's assume large families and small families balance out: $11,200 per (theoretical) family of 4...which isn't the individual poverty line. So....yeah, you seem to be totally correct. Which makes me wonder what numbers those libertarians in favor of UBI are using?