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"Most just piss their life away." This is totally not snark: how is this different from people without ambition who have a low-end service industry job and no
by Frondo 9y ago
"Most just piss their life away."
This is totally not snark: how is this different from people without ambition who have a low-end service industry job and no ambition to do more than wash dishes or pump gas?
Why would there be anything more dignified in an old man washing dishes in a restaurant over an old man just drinking his days away? Neither is what I aspire to, but the latter feels more honest to me.
In other words, what I try to wrap my head around is: who cares how someone else wastes their life, if that's ultimately the big-picture goal they choose?
- the-dude 9y agoI care because I am made to pay for it. Even with UBI.
- rspeer 9y agoOh. That's a dumb reason. Until this it was sounding like you had an argument against UBI from society's point of view, not just based on your own financial interest.
- the-dude 9y agoSo it a-ok for me to work more so we can get UBI for them to work less ( pardon me, slave away! ) and will get magically creative? Dude.
- rspeer 9y agoI'm sorry, I thought you were trying to convince people who support UBI. The context is that people want to redistribute wealth. "But it redistributes my wealth!" is the least compelling possible argument against that.
- ameister14 9y agoThat is an argument from society's point of view. When people don't work or contribute to the general welfare of society in any way (and they are able to, not talking about people unable to do things,) and they take from the general pool provided by the rest of the social group, they are taking away resources that could be used for other things, things that may further benefit the individuals providing resources for society. There are arguments to be made about decreasing crime, but most of the most convincing moral imperative arguments are related to religion. The more convincing Keynesian argument is about money going into the economy and driving growth because none of the people dependent on UBI will save anything at all. So from a purely utilitarian point of view, individual financial interest does come into play.
- WorldMaker 9y agoI want people to have an option not to work, because I want an option not to work. Maybe I'd like to use that time to drink myself into a stupor and write a terrible novella and pretend I'm Ernest Hemingway in a house full of alley cats. Maybe I'd like to use that time to consider a startup idea that wouldn't be big enough to pay for everything I need like healthcare and retirement, but would be otherwise an interesting project if it didn't have to meet those financial goals out of the gate in its business plan. Maybe I would like to use that time to teach young kids how to program, not as a trade, but as a means to entertainment. You want to ascribe morality to those options, but I find the freedom to choose more interesting. It's not my job to judge which is more "productive". Maybe that novella in the end turns out to comment deeply on the human spirit, maybe those kids never use those skills "productively", maybe that startup goes bust and I return to the next plan. The moral imperative is that I should have the freedom to choose outside of the strictures of what the current job market finds productive or what government can legislate to be considered productive. If that means there are a lot more people following the first idea and drinking themselves to a stupor, then that is a market failure. Surely the labor market can stretch to entice people to such "productive" labor if it actually has to compete for their time and energy? We use a "productive morality" to prop up a market that has never had to truly compete in the entirety of its existence. (Which is to say that labor has never been a free market.) I find it funny, too, that you bring up religion as providing the most convincing moral imperative arguments for UBI, when in my mind it also religion, the Puritanical Zeal, that so colors the debate against UBI. The Puritans believed that men must work to appease God, that Productivity was an end to itself, a way to measure yourself before God. Why does everyone need to work so? You claim it is "society" that demands productivity and wishes to keep score, but many societies have never kept score, and have no need to keep score. It seems to me that the scars of Puritanical Zeal have simply replaced "God" with an uncaring "society" in a lot of the arguments. (From a purely utilitarian point of view, the more people with an option not to labor under someone else's mandate, and truly choose their own path in life, presumably the greater the well being of those individuals and the overall more well being across the spectrum of that society. Individual financial self-interest is never utilitarian, you can't maximize others' happiness thinking only of your own.)
- PeterisP 9y agoIf you're talking about an opt-in system (like the one described in this article) then the opinion of those who'll be net contributors matters a lot - if they choose not to join, the whole system has no value; for someone to get UBI, someone else has to create and provide this value.
- Frondo 9y agoSomething I've come to realize: I don't care what greedy people want for society. I think their ideas are seldom any good, because personal greed is sort of the polar opposite of what society is all about, in a fundamental way. The discussion of society is all about, "how do we work together?" and this guy's just thinking about his pocketbook. Wrong priorities. Figure out what we want everything to look like, and figure out how to pay for it as the last stage. Looking at your wallet now is, to use the parlance of this site, premature optimization.
- jnbiche 9y ago> Why would there be anything more dignified in an old man washing dishes in a restaurant over an old man just drinking his days away? I don't know if you've ever seen anyone die of alcoholism, but sadly it's very painful and undignified. It seems to me that an abstemious old dishwasher would have a much more enjoyable and dignified old age, regardless of any moral judgement about the two.
- Frondo 9y agoMost of the old people in my family are dead or dying of alcohol-related things, and I still don't give a shit if people want to do that over working as a dishwasher well into old age. Forced labor isn't dignified because we're calling it capitalism.
- wastedhours 9y agoAt what point do you start judging people though? I absolutely do not use 100% of my potential or ambition, and I can be fairly certain most don't. I piss away countless hours watching Netflix, drinking wine and just being. But. With a job, or even the desire for a job, even if it's just man-made theatrics, I'm engaging in society. There's an expectation (either knowingly or unknowingly) that you contribute more value than you take when you have a job - whereas if you literally did nothing, you are just extracting value. Don't misunderstand me, I don't argue we should be optimising solely for "value" (and it becomes tricky with different groups who can't engage with society), but I don't equate "wasting themselves in what they do" with "doing nothing". Personally though, I do believe in the dream of UBI, for me, I think if I was unshackled by the theatrics of the workforce I'd be more creative.
- stillhere 9y agoI, too, think that I'd be more creative if I was unshackled from the workforce but I'm hesitant to change an entire economic system just to fund my startup. There are various options available including loans and savings/investments.
- gurkendoktor 9y agoTo play devil's advocate, people who go to work are very likely to interact with other people, which might help keep our society a little closer together. They might become bitter (since nobody respects low-end service workers), but at least they remember what people are like, and don't turn insane/radical through isolation. I am not sure if there's data to support this claim, though.
- lazerpants 9y agoLikewise, people who spend lots of time in bars also interact with people.
- kkotak 9y agoYeah, but they don't remember it the day after.
- gurkendoktor 9y agoGood point. I was thinking of drinking alone, because it is usually cheaper, but not necessarily so.
- vorotato 9y agoThis amusingly would be solved by having more money.