6 ms·

According to the logic used in this, Alaska is an autocratic regime. But when I look at Alaska, I see a state with the lowest poverty, lowest inequality, and hi

by 2noame 9y ago

According to the logic used in this, Alaska is an autocratic regime. But when I look at Alaska, I see a state with the lowest poverty, lowest inequality, and highest well-being of almost all 50 states. I also see a population who comes out to vote, especially when anything dividend related is voted on. It's stuff like this that really annoys me, and I feel gives academics a bad name. It's coming up with what-ifs and not applying any applicable evidence to it. Take this for another example: > "Will the working minority agree to support non-workers with ten or twenty children per family? Will that be sustainable?" Are you fucking kidding me? Does anyone really honestly think that there's a high percentage of women out there wanting to give birth 10 to 20 times? Is that theoretically possible? Sure, but that doesn't make it in any way probable. In fact the evidence we have again points in the opposite direction. I really don't see any value in writing shit like this. Why not next write something about the concerns of universal health care, and how people might use it to drink so much they just replace liver after liver? Or maybe people will feel they could then rob banks because if they got shot, they'd have free health care. Are these things theoretically possible? Yes. But that doesn't make them not stupid to express. Look, in general, democracies all over the world, in addition to UBI, need to be strengthened through dropping ideas like first-past-the-post, and adopting ideas like single-transferable-vote that feature more proportional representation and lack spoiler effects. With that said, I only see those changes as more possible through UBI because people with their basic needs met have more time and mental space to engage in being more informed and more involved as citizens. Look at how involved seniors are and how much power they have. Government answers to them. It's not the other way around. They don't lose the right to vote because they are no longer part of the labor market. Instead they vote in even greater numbers. And guess what happens when that happens? You get represented. Articles like this are written by those who don't bother to look at the evidence around them and instead choose to use imaginary thinking in the hopes of influencing others. Basic income is freedom FROM tyranny, not the threat of it.

stretchwithme 9y ago
Alaska is a state, not country. The highest the Alaska oil royalty has ever been was $2,072 in 2015. I think they are now capping it at $1000. The median household income in 2015 was $73,355, the third highest in the country. Certainly the royalty was enough to move it from number 5 to number 3. I suspect the royalty does not have much to do with this high income. And this is EXTRA money, not money taken from the populace and then given back to them as UBI would be. Interestingly, "Alaska has more residents on welfare, per capita, than any other state in the nation" according to the Alaska Dispatch News. And, yes, not many rich people live in Alaska. Maybe the climate is a reason. Maybe it's the lack of big cities.
ashark 9y ago
> It's stuff like this that really annoys me, and I feel gives academics a bad name. TFA's author bio: "Shai Shapira is a computer programmer and writer." Poli-sci academics usually don't construct their premises so obviously poorly and proceed to build a castle on sand like this article does. Typically they're at least good enough that any, "wait, what?"s aren't apparent at first glance.
tu7001 9y ago
Calm down mate:) author done great job analysing dangerous cases. Prepare for the worst, that it never happen.
ng12 9y ago
> Does anyone really honestly think that there's a high percentage of women out there wanting to give birth 10 to 20 times? I think 10-20 is hyperbole but the inverse relationship between GDP and birth rates is well documented -- a chief argument being unemployed people have time to make babies. > With that said, I only see those changes as more possible through UBI because people with their basic needs met have more time and mental space to engage in being more informed and more involved as citizens. This is where UBI loses me. So many of it's advocates are convinced people freed from labor will become scholar poets. Proles will be proles whether you call it Marxism or UBI.
- matt4077 9y ago
  > a chief argument being unemployed people have time to make babies. That is an incredibly stupid argument, and I've never heard anybody make it, chief or not. It's easily proven by comparing across time: being a peasant in the middle ages didn't come with a lot of leisure time, yet they had plenty of children. Reproductive rates are driven by education, health care (esp child mortality), women's agency, and alternative methods of ensuring one's welfare in old age.
  - dnautics 9y ago
    over the long span of history (things may have changed) reproductive rates are chiefly driven by whether not having children is a economically a liability.
  - ng12 9y ago
    It's the reductionist view but certainly not wrong. You're saying the same thing: time is more valuable for educated women with agency. Women in poor countries have more time on their hands because it's undervalued, and that excess of time tends to translate into a larger family. http://www.econ.yale.edu/~pschultz/cdp925.pdf http://www.econ.yale.edu/~pschultz/cdp925.pdf
- jpindar 9y ago
  So what if they're not poets, or whatever you consider worthy? If we don't need their labor (we might now, but someday we probably won't), what difference does it make what they do with their time? The one exception to this is that children might not finish school if they think they won't need to get a job. To avoid this, we might limit UBI to those who have at least made an effort to get a high school education.
usrusr 9y ago
> Are you fucking kidding me? Does anyone really honestly think that there's a high percentage of women out there wanting to give birth 10 to 20 times? The numbers are overblown, but I see this as a real issue with utopian interpretations of UBI. I.e. those where, to quote the article, proponents expect "a majority of non-workers to live off the fruits of the labour of a small minority", as opposed to a more realistic UBI where the working poor use that free money to maybe cut one or two of their multiple jobs from their tight schedule. But in the "utopian" version, a huge group would be left without anything to strive for. If the payout would be too generous, adding an entry level work income would not make a noticeable difference. When people are depraved of all other kinds of achievement, they are likely to use breeding as a substitute. If you can't climb or defend any ranks, you can still move up one level by spawning "subordinates". Instant status. I feel bad just for thinking thoughts that cynical, but I can't help expecting that kind of outcome if it isn't openly addressed. A "nonutopian UBI" that just creates a smooth, regulation-free ramp (I almost want to say "interpolation") between welfare and full self-support would leave the cynic in me much more at ease. (Edited: my writing is terrible)
- aaroninsf 9y ago
  Humans will strive to rise to the top in any game we choose to play together. Competitiveness like this does not require that people are competing for basic needs. Free people from the Puritan conceit that the majority should struggle and suffer, and observe what happens. Independent of how you feel about it in other respects, Burning Man offers a fine large scale experimental environment into which observe the social organization that occurs in circumstances of plenty rather than scarcity. (Because it operates on a strictly enforced gift economy. Not barter. Not sale. Never mind people who don't play by the rules for now; as a 25 year attendee I have seen first hand the reality behind the cant.) Humans will "strive" plenty whether they are fed or not. There are more needs than the ones we can and should provide for all (housing, food, education). Humans will always find a way to self segregate and award status, whether it's in terms of karma or dollars. At a social level, dollars too are a consensual fiction and useful primarily as a crude proxy for status and success and desirability. (Not talking about utility, talking about social status.)
dnautics 9y ago
alaska is typically in the top 10 of most corrupt state indices. http://fortune.com/2014/06/10/most-corrupt-states-in-america/ http://fortune.com/2014/06/10/most-corrupt-states-in-america... > I also see a population who comes out to vote, especially when anything dividend related is voted on. that's exactly part of the point of the aricle.
md2be 9y ago
UBI is freedom ? Tell that to the the generational families of the projects of Chicago.
solatic 9y ago
> Are you fucking kidding me? Does anyone really honestly think that there's a high percentage of women out there wanting to give birth 10 to 20 times? Is that theoretically possible? Religious extremists. In the early days of the State of Israel, the largest secular party needed the support of the parties of religious extremists, in order to form a majority in parliament and create a government. Those parties set a price: they would support the government, but only if the government exempted their young men from military service, and pay them a living stipend, so that they could spend their days engrossed in religious studies. All told, about 400 men would be granted such an exemption and stipend. At the time, the secular party's leader thought that religiosity in Israel was going the way of the dodo anyway. He didn't have a problem with setting up a kind of living museum for religious study, so he accepted. The official birthrate for those religious-extremist families is around eight, but it is not uncommon to find families with a dozen or even more children. Because of how Israeli parliamentary politics works, the religious extremist parties often served as kingmakers for parties which sought to form governments, and they kept that price as the price for support. Today there are more than 10,000 such people receiving such exemptions and stipends, and more than 25% of all children in Israeli elementary schools come from ultra-religious families, in spite of such measures being almost universally unpopular outside that sector and continually struck down by the Israeli Supreme Court every few years. To finally answer your question: it's not just theoretically possible, it's a guarantee. And demography is one hell of a time bomb.
walterstucco 9y ago
I like to think you're right, but given the cheaty nature of men, most would trick the system by having a large number of children, even with different women, it doesn't matter. That's what they already do where children are subsidized by the state welfare, imagine what they would do if it would mean another salary in the house. It's only basic logic.

by 2noame 9y ago

stretchwithme 9y ago

Alaska is a state, not country. The highest the Alaska oil royalty has ever been was $2,072 in 2015. I think they are now capping it at $1000. The median household income in 2015 was $73,355, the third highest in the country. Certainly the royalty was enough to move it from number 5 to number 3. I suspect the royalty does not have much to do with this high income. And this is EXTRA money, not money taken from the populace and then given back to them as UBI would be. Interestingly, "Alaska has more residents on welfare, per capita, than any other state in the nation" according to the Alaska Dispatch News. And, yes, not many rich people live in Alaska. Maybe the climate is a reason. Maybe it's the lack of big cities.

ashark 9y ago

> It's stuff like this that really annoys me, and I feel gives academics a bad name. TFA's author bio: "Shai Shapira is a computer programmer and writer." Poli-sci academics usually don't construct their premises so obviously poorly and proceed to build a castle on sand like this article does. Typically they're at least good enough that any, "wait, what?"s aren't apparent at first glance.

tu7001 9y ago

Calm down mate:) author done great job analysing dangerous cases. Prepare for the worst, that it never happen.

ng12 9y ago

> Does anyone really honestly think that there's a high percentage of women out there wanting to give birth 10 to 20 times? I think 10-20 is hyperbole but the inverse relationship between GDP and birth rates is well documented -- a chief argument being unemployed people have time to make babies. > With that said, I only see those changes as more possible through UBI because people with their basic needs met have more time and mental space to engage in being more informed and more involved as citizens. This is where UBI loses me. So many of it's advocates are convinced people freed from labor will become scholar poets. Proles will be proles whether you call it Marxism or UBI.

matt4077 9y ago
> a chief argument being unemployed people have time to make babies. That is an incredibly stupid argument, and I've never heard anybody make it, chief or not. It's easily proven by comparing across time: being a peasant in the middle ages didn't come with a lot of leisure time, yet they had plenty of children. Reproductive rates are driven by education, health care (esp child mortality), women's agency, and alternative methods of ensuring one's welfare in old age.
- dnautics 9y ago
  over the long span of history (things may have changed) reproductive rates are chiefly driven by whether not having children is a economically a liability.
- ng12 9y ago
  It's the reductionist view but certainly not wrong. You're saying the same thing: time is more valuable for educated women with agency. Women in poor countries have more time on their hands because it's undervalued, and that excess of time tends to translate into a larger family. http://www.econ.yale.edu/~pschultz/cdp925.pdf http://www.econ.yale.edu/~pschultz/cdp925.pdf
jpindar 9y ago
So what if they're not poets, or whatever you consider worthy? If we don't need their labor (we might now, but someday we probably won't), what difference does it make what they do with their time? The one exception to this is that children might not finish school if they think they won't need to get a job. To avoid this, we might limit UBI to those who have at least made an effort to get a high school education.

usrusr 9y ago

> Are you fucking kidding me? Does anyone really honestly think that there's a high percentage of women out there wanting to give birth 10 to 20 times? The numbers are overblown, but I see this as a real issue with utopian interpretations of UBI. I.e. those where, to quote the article, proponents expect "a majority of non-workers to live off the fruits of the labour of a small minority", as opposed to a more realistic UBI where the working poor use that free money to maybe cut one or two of their multiple jobs from their tight schedule. But in the "utopian" version, a huge group would be left without anything to strive for. If the payout would be too generous, adding an entry level work income would not make a noticeable difference. When people are depraved of all other kinds of achievement, they are likely to use breeding as a substitute. If you can't climb or defend any ranks, you can still move up one level by spawning "subordinates". Instant status. I feel bad just for thinking thoughts that cynical, but I can't help expecting that kind of outcome if it isn't openly addressed. A "nonutopian UBI" that just creates a smooth, regulation-free ramp (I almost want to say "interpolation") between welfare and full self-support would leave the cynic in me much more at ease. (Edited: my writing is terrible)

aaroninsf 9y ago
Humans will strive to rise to the top in any game we choose to play together. Competitiveness like this does not require that people are competing for basic needs. Free people from the Puritan conceit that the majority should struggle and suffer, and observe what happens. Independent of how you feel about it in other respects, Burning Man offers a fine large scale experimental environment into which observe the social organization that occurs in circumstances of plenty rather than scarcity. (Because it operates on a strictly enforced gift economy. Not barter. Not sale. Never mind people who don't play by the rules for now; as a 25 year attendee I have seen first hand the reality behind the cant.) Humans will "strive" plenty whether they are fed or not. There are more needs than the ones we can and should provide for all (housing, food, education). Humans will always find a way to self segregate and award status, whether it's in terms of karma or dollars. At a social level, dollars too are a consensual fiction and useful primarily as a crude proxy for status and success and desirability. (Not talking about utility, talking about social status.)

dnautics 9y ago

alaska is typically in the top 10 of most corrupt state indices. http://fortune.com/2014/06/10/most-corrupt-states-in-america/ http://fortune.com/2014/06/10/most-corrupt-states-in-america... > I also see a population who comes out to vote, especially when anything dividend related is voted on. that's exactly part of the point of the aricle.

md2be 9y ago

UBI is freedom ? Tell that to the the generational families of the projects of Chicago.

solatic 9y ago

> Are you fucking kidding me? Does anyone really honestly think that there's a high percentage of women out there wanting to give birth 10 to 20 times? Is that theoretically possible? Religious extremists. In the early days of the State of Israel, the largest secular party needed the support of the parties of religious extremists, in order to form a majority in parliament and create a government. Those parties set a price: they would support the government, but only if the government exempted their young men from military service, and pay them a living stipend, so that they could spend their days engrossed in religious studies. All told, about 400 men would be granted such an exemption and stipend. At the time, the secular party's leader thought that religiosity in Israel was going the way of the dodo anyway. He didn't have a problem with setting up a kind of living museum for religious study, so he accepted. The official birthrate for those religious-extremist families is around eight, but it is not uncommon to find families with a dozen or even more children. Because of how Israeli parliamentary politics works, the religious extremist parties often served as kingmakers for parties which sought to form governments, and they kept that price as the price for support. Today there are more than 10,000 such people receiving such exemptions and stipends, and more than 25% of all children in Israeli elementary schools come from ultra-religious families, in spite of such measures being almost universally unpopular outside that sector and continually struck down by the Israeli Supreme Court every few years. To finally answer your question: it's not just theoretically possible, it's a guarantee. And demography is one hell of a time bomb.

walterstucco 9y ago

I like to think you're right, but given the cheaty nature of men, most would trick the system by having a large number of children, even with different women, it doesn't matter. That's what they already do where children are subsidized by the state welfare, imagine what they would do if it would mean another salary in the house. It's only basic logic.