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I agree that finances affect health outcomes and that government and policy is primarily the domain of upper classes, but you leave "human nature" undefined whi

I agree that finances affect health outcomes and that government and policy is primarily the domain of upper classes, but you leave "human nature" undefined while it does pretty much all the work of holding up your point. Care to define or otherwise elaborate on that bit? I don't think it's "hard" per se to change the tax structure to be less advantageous to the wealthy, but it does take organization, imagination, and some money. For every $1,000 a representative received from corporations supporting net neutrality, like Google or Netflix, they were 24 percent more likely to vote for it. For every $1,000 from companies opposing it, they were 2.6 percent more likely to vote against. [1] So (under this study), regardless of which side you assign to wealthy interests, politician attention is pretty cheap. Furthermore, votes are leverage here (if not a multiplier) and it's a simple fact that there are magnitudes fewer wealthy voters than non wealthy. This can help make up for a lack of press attention. Long story short, I don't agree that UBI is unworkable any more than I believe that today's robber barons are untaxable. 1. https://theintercept.com/2017/05/04/how-much-does-a-politician-cost-a-groundbreaking-study-reveals-the-influence-of-money-in-politics/ https://theintercept.com/2017/05/04/how-much-does-a-politici...

stcredzero 8y ago
you leave "human nature" undefined while it does pretty much all the work of holding up your point. Care to define or otherwise elaborate on that bit? I'm referring to the the body of research around the GINI coefficient. It's not absolute poverty which causes crime and social unrest. It's perception of relative status, particularly its effect on people's calculation of their viability in the mating market. If people are so far down on the hierarchy, they have no chance, that's when they upend the game board. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3XYHPAwBzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3XYHPAwBzE Long story short, I don't agree that UBI is unworkable any more than I believe that today's robber barons are untaxable. I never said that UBI is unworkable and I never said that the wealthy are untaxable. We know historically the 2nd isn't the case for the US. My point is that 1) it's not directly addressing the underlying problem and that 2) it will be hard to tax away the wealth of the wealthy. We appear to disagree on 2) but not really. Historically, the wealthy either donate their wealth voluntarily (in the case of Scandinavian countries, the culture is such that the entire society volunteers through voting for policies) or they're killed and imprisoned. (In the historical case of the US, it takes an outside existential threat.) So basically, you have to have some sort of change across the entire culture, either bloody or not.
- rhizome 8y ago
  Jordan Peterson? OK, guy.

stcredzero 8y ago

you leave "human nature" undefined while it does pretty much all the work of holding up your point. Care to define or otherwise elaborate on that bit? I'm referring to the the body of research around the GINI coefficient. It's not absolute poverty which causes crime and social unrest. It's perception of relative status, particularly its effect on people's calculation of their viability in the mating market. If people are so far down on the hierarchy, they have no chance, that's when they upend the game board. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3XYHPAwBzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3XYHPAwBzE Long story short, I don't agree that UBI is unworkable any more than I believe that today's robber barons are untaxable. I never said that UBI is unworkable and I never said that the wealthy are untaxable. We know historically the 2nd isn't the case for the US. My point is that 1) it's not directly addressing the underlying problem and that 2) it will be hard to tax away the wealth of the wealthy. We appear to disagree on 2) but not really. Historically, the wealthy either donate their wealth voluntarily (in the case of Scandinavian countries, the culture is such that the entire society volunteers through voting for policies) or they're killed and imprisoned. (In the historical case of the US, it takes an outside existential threat.) So basically, you have to have some sort of change across the entire culture, either bloody or not.

rhizome 8y ago
Jordan Peterson? OK, guy.