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What makes you think that basic income isn't "propaganda of the oligarchs"? Have you stopped to think what it would actually mean? To me is seems like an attem

What makes you think that basic income isn't "propaganda of the oligarchs"? Have you stopped to think what it would actually mean? To me is seems like an attempt to retain the current power structures and the current status of the contemporary elite, by trying to retain an outdated economic system past the point when the vast majority of people will end up completely cut of from it.

Balgair 9y ago
UBI is not a panacea, we know that. Every single thing invented by we-mortals has flaws and it's a matter of choosing alternatives and making do with 'less-bad' options. Will UBI be better? Tests like the OP are here to find out. But we know that the current demo-capitalistic system has flaws and UBI may be a way to get to 'less-bad', so a test is warranted. That said, I think a UBI-like scheme will have HUGE unintended consequences in the dating/marriage market. Many/all potential partners/mates will no longer have an 'easy' way to signal their potential marriage value outside of physical fitness and proven virility/fertility. For a lot of the population you'll have taken away a key factor in assessing potential marriage value. I think that'll tend towards polygamy/andry in a few decades' time.
- Domenic_S 9y ago
  Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but I don’t see how this makes sense. UBI is the lower limit, not the upper limit.
  - Balgair 9y ago
    Thereby raising the 'floor' of one aspect of the marriage market. Essentially, potential partners may 'discount' that parameter if the floor is high enough.
- drb91 9y ago
  Why should we modify capitalism when it has so obviously failed to provide for the general populace? This is true at both a national and a global level.
  - Domenic_S 9y ago
    What does this mean?
    - drb91 9y ago
      Meaning, capitalism hasn't actually meaningfully made good investments in humanity's future. Just the current generation's quality of life at the deep expense of future generations. I don't see that it's a rational answer to humanity's problems at all. Do you? If so, how do you convince a capitalist to invest in their children's world rather than their children's wealth? Humans don't work like that; capitalism is good for people who can exploit others, not for communities.
charlescearl 9y ago
Granted. I was a bit sensationalist, but from the politically charged landscape in which I exist, it seems as though the rich get to arbitrarily dictate transfers which directly benefit them without much in the way of taking on the empirical burden for justifying those transfer. Put another way, what if in the U.S. the recent tax bill would have been put forward as a trial in which some randomly selected number of large businesses were selected to have their tax rate reduced? We could then examine if those businesses were more inclined to increase hiring, extend additional benefits to their employees, or become in any way better "engines of growth". Why must it be the poor who must wait for their lottery ticket from the heavens?
- dang 9y ago
  > I was a bit sensationalist, but from the politically charged landscape in which I exist We all exist in that landscape, so we all need to have the discipline not to be sensationalist when commenting about it on HN, or we won't have much of an HN left to comment on. Could you please help us with that? The spirit of the site is described at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html.
- T2_t2 9y ago
  The problem is pragmatism. The tax cuts that were proposed in the USA could actually be a massive windfall, because currently a lot of companies (and individuals) keep profits offshore, so pay no tax at all. The USA is different to most countries in that it has almost all the world's biggest companies. The number one way to maximise US tax revenues is to reduce the incentives to offshore cash, and even a small change in the monetary strategy could have huge results. Contrast that with Iceland (~330K people) and their best way to maximise tax revenue is to sell their cheap geothermal power to aluminium smelters and have them pay virtually no company taxes, as taxing the wage earners the smelters generate is their best bet. Pragmatism is often extremely ugly.

Balgair 9y ago

UBI is not a panacea, we know that. Every single thing invented by we-mortals has flaws and it's a matter of choosing alternatives and making do with 'less-bad' options. Will UBI be better? Tests like the OP are here to find out. But we know that the current demo-capitalistic system has flaws and UBI may be a way to get to 'less-bad', so a test is warranted. That said, I think a UBI-like scheme will have HUGE unintended consequences in the dating/marriage market. Many/all potential partners/mates will no longer have an 'easy' way to signal their potential marriage value outside of physical fitness and proven virility/fertility. For a lot of the population you'll have taken away a key factor in assessing potential marriage value. I think that'll tend towards polygamy/andry in a few decades' time.

Domenic_S 9y ago
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but I don’t see how this makes sense. UBI is the lower limit, not the upper limit.
- Balgair 9y ago
  Thereby raising the 'floor' of one aspect of the marriage market. Essentially, potential partners may 'discount' that parameter if the floor is high enough.
drb91 9y ago
Why should we modify capitalism when it has so obviously failed to provide for the general populace? This is true at both a national and a global level.
- Domenic_S 9y ago
  What does this mean?
  - drb91 9y ago
    Meaning, capitalism hasn't actually meaningfully made good investments in humanity's future. Just the current generation's quality of life at the deep expense of future generations. I don't see that it's a rational answer to humanity's problems at all. Do you? If so, how do you convince a capitalist to invest in their children's world rather than their children's wealth? Humans don't work like that; capitalism is good for people who can exploit others, not for communities.

charlescearl 9y ago

Granted. I was a bit sensationalist, but from the politically charged landscape in which I exist, it seems as though the rich get to arbitrarily dictate transfers which directly benefit them without much in the way of taking on the empirical burden for justifying those transfer. Put another way, what if in the U.S. the recent tax bill would have been put forward as a trial in which some randomly selected number of large businesses were selected to have their tax rate reduced? We could then examine if those businesses were more inclined to increase hiring, extend additional benefits to their employees, or become in any way better "engines of growth". Why must it be the poor who must wait for their lottery ticket from the heavens?

dang 9y ago
> I was a bit sensationalist, but from the politically charged landscape in which I exist We all exist in that landscape, so we all need to have the discipline not to be sensationalist when commenting about it on HN, or we won't have much of an HN left to comment on. Could you please help us with that? The spirit of the site is described at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html.
T2_t2 9y ago
The problem is pragmatism. The tax cuts that were proposed in the USA could actually be a massive windfall, because currently a lot of companies (and individuals) keep profits offshore, so pay no tax at all. The USA is different to most countries in that it has almost all the world's biggest companies. The number one way to maximise US tax revenues is to reduce the incentives to offshore cash, and even a small change in the monetary strategy could have huge results. Contrast that with Iceland (~330K people) and their best way to maximise tax revenue is to sell their cheap geothermal power to aluminium smelters and have them pay virtually no company taxes, as taxing the wage earners the smelters generate is their best bet. Pragmatism is often extremely ugly.