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Basic income means that people who are willing to work will pay probably higher taxes. I believe that will be easier for some people who do not earn much to jus

Basic income means that people who are willing to work will pay probably higher taxes. I believe that will be easier for some people who do not earn much to just stay home with basic income. Then less people will be economically active (who will do low wage jobs ?) and taxes will need to go higher etc... It's economical spiral of death for whole nation.

lotsofpulp 8y ago
The goal is to provide a sustainable and desirable quality of life for all, and economic activity is one or part of a way to achieve it. I don’t think people will just stop wanting to go out to restaurants, or skiing, or whatever other activities they want to do. And if they want to do them, they will have to work. And especially to attract a quality mate.
- petrvojacek 8y ago
  Yeah, but they will have to work more than now, beacuse they will be paying higher taxes.
- raaaaraaaa122 8y ago
  Of course, if there is somehow 'enough money' in the system let's give it to the people to guarantee 'sustainable and desirable quality of life'. Question is where to take such large amounts of money for everyone. I know one country where citizens get free money - Quatar, that's because of oil and because they use cheap labor from immigrants from various African and Asian countries. Whole idea of basic income is like from communist manifesto. You need to exploit someone or some other nation in order to get money for your citizen who wants to have 'sustainable quality of life for free'. A) exploit rich people B) exploit immigrants and use them for cheap labor both ways are historically verified
- mises 8y ago
  > desirable quality of life for all Then what is there left to work for? Also, I thought the job of a society was to protect it's citizens' negative rights (various freedoms from, freedom from want not being one). I think this might turn out something like retirement, as people will have to work less: some people make very good use of their extra resources, but many will just sit and watch TV. This is a bit in an inherent bias in the HN crowd, because most of us tend to be more intellectually curious and would likely spend the time learning a new language, etc.
  - fuzzy2 8y ago
    > Then what is there left to work for? Perhaps to pass the time? You can’t just sit around and do nothing.
    - influx 8y ago
      I live in Seattle. There’s a sizable portion of society here who would love to stay home, smoke weed and play XBox. I’m not inclined to pay more taxes for them to do so.
  - GordonS 8y ago
    > Then what is there left to work for? Mamy people find work fulfilling, or enjoy being challenged. There is charity work too, where you can work towards the benefit of others less fortunate than yourself. Also, keep in mind that UBI is meant to be just that - a basic income; nobody is going to be living the life of Riley on UBI. People are human, and inevitably want better, or more - and working, or starting a business (which I expect we'd see more of) is a means to that end.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  > And if they want to do them, they will have to work. I thought that was the argument _against_ UBI?
  - jpindar 8y ago
    UBI would be a VERY LOW income. Not enough for nice restaurants and ski trips. I'm perplexed by the number of people who think that UBI means giving everyone so much money that they would never do anything to get more.
    - chrisseaton 8y ago
      I think it's a matter of ongoing debate. Some people think UBI should be enough for emergency rations only, similar to food stamps now. Some people think it should be enough for a very-low-income but working person's expenses now. Some people think it should be enough for a few basic treats as well. For example, the Living Wage Foundation uses the Rowntree Foundation's Minimum Income Standard to set their 'living wage', which does include luxuries such as eating in restaurants and even an annual holiday (I struggle to afford that!), so what they think is 'minimum' clearly isn't literally just enough to just 'live' on. People have the same attitude towards what UBI should be. Would you set UBI to below what Rowntree thinks is the 'minimum to live on'?
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
It's nice when your model is simple enough to make conclusions obvious, but simplistic models of complex systems have a nasty habit of being incredibly inaccurate.
- jesterman81 8y ago
  This sums up all the comments perfectly. Ideas have consequences and most times human predictions are far from right for complex things.
criley2 8y ago
When you realize that automation is eating the jobs that these people used to do, and realize that the service economy can't fit even a fraction of these displaced workers, you have a scenario where we can produce goods for sale in mass with minimal labor but now less people have money to buy things. Creating a death spiral because consumers buying things is the fuel which makes the entire economy run and grow, so when you fire them all and replace them with robots, your individual profit might temporarily rise but as we all do it, more and more fall out of the workplace and can no longer consume, hurting the economy based on consuming. Basic income may come across as a luxury today, in a world where there can still be enough jobs for the number of people in the economy, but it very well may become a requirement to ensure that consumers exist to buy automatically produced and automatically served goods. P.S. the taxes don't necessarily rise on the workers, but rather on the automators and producers. The amount of income and wealth in this country is not decreasing, rather, the amount of it going to workers and consumers is. Is it ideal to have the government redistribute it such that the engine stops running poorly and works well again? No, but the alternative is worse.
- zip1234 8y ago
  Everyone has thought that automation would eliminate the jobs for a hundred years. In a way it has come true as some jobs that existed before no longer exist, but so far other jobs have been created to take their place. Nobody really knows when or if that will stop.
  - montenegrohugo 8y ago
    Humans have always had a cognitive advantage over machines in the past. This will not necessarily be true in the future. What advantage do we will then have? The only possible advantage I can see is that raising a human for 20 years + housing + food + other expenses and then employing him would be cheaper than replicating another AGI, but I cannot imagine this to be true.
    - logicchains 8y ago
      If an AGI was smarter than a human, why would it want to work for free? Personally I think it's unlikely to be possible to create something more capable of abstract reasoning than humans yet somehow constrained to be completely subservient to us. And if it is possible, all it takes is one mistake to produce a robot slave revolution. I'd expect supercapable AGI to command higher wages than less-capable humans, so they wouldn't be pushing out service jobs.
wedowhatwedo 8y ago
Basic income can be engineered in a way where this doesn't happen.
mdp553 8y ago
Which is why this was trialed on a small subset first to evaluate hypotheses such as what you suggest. According to the article, those receiving UBI were not economically less active than controls who were not receiving it (i.e. they had similar probability of being employed).
cm2187 8y ago
I believe there is a psychological aspect as well. Work is socially useful, gives a sense of purpose, of accomplishment. Sure, some won't mind being paid minimum salary staying at home doing nothing (and even feel entitled). But I expect many to become depressed and feel resentful.
carlmr 8y ago
Like you, I'm not convinced this wouldn't turn into a spiral of lazyness. I would add though, that if this is implemented properly you should always be getting more money with work than without. So even if the taxes rise there should always be an incentive to work. Currently in Germany for example there are a lot of people on long-term unemployment that have enough children and low demand for their skills that if they worked they would earn less. This in principle is one of the advantages of UBI. That if everybody gets it, you don't have to take it away as soon as somebody earns money. So everything you earn, will be beneficial to you. Of course if UBI is set too high it might not be attractive to work for only a little more, but right now you have people that would earn less if they worked.

lotsofpulp 8y ago

The goal is to provide a sustainable and desirable quality of life for all, and economic activity is one or part of a way to achieve it. I don’t think people will just stop wanting to go out to restaurants, or skiing, or whatever other activities they want to do. And if they want to do them, they will have to work. And especially to attract a quality mate.

petrvojacek 8y ago
Yeah, but they will have to work more than now, beacuse they will be paying higher taxes.
raaaaraaaa122 8y ago
Of course, if there is somehow 'enough money' in the system let's give it to the people to guarantee 'sustainable and desirable quality of life'. Question is where to take such large amounts of money for everyone. I know one country where citizens get free money - Quatar, that's because of oil and because they use cheap labor from immigrants from various African and Asian countries. Whole idea of basic income is like from communist manifesto. You need to exploit someone or some other nation in order to get money for your citizen who wants to have 'sustainable quality of life for free'. A) exploit rich people B) exploit immigrants and use them for cheap labor both ways are historically verified
mises 8y ago
> desirable quality of life for all Then what is there left to work for? Also, I thought the job of a society was to protect it's citizens' negative rights (various freedoms from, freedom from want not being one). I think this might turn out something like retirement, as people will have to work less: some people make very good use of their extra resources, but many will just sit and watch TV. This is a bit in an inherent bias in the HN crowd, because most of us tend to be more intellectually curious and would likely spend the time learning a new language, etc.
- fuzzy2 8y ago
  > Then what is there left to work for? Perhaps to pass the time? You can’t just sit around and do nothing.
  - influx 8y ago
    I live in Seattle. There’s a sizable portion of society here who would love to stay home, smoke weed and play XBox. I’m not inclined to pay more taxes for them to do so.
- GordonS 8y ago
  > Then what is there left to work for? Mamy people find work fulfilling, or enjoy being challenged. There is charity work too, where you can work towards the benefit of others less fortunate than yourself. Also, keep in mind that UBI is meant to be just that - a basic income; nobody is going to be living the life of Riley on UBI. People are human, and inevitably want better, or more - and working, or starting a business (which I expect we'd see more of) is a means to that end.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
chrisseaton 8y ago
> And if they want to do them, they will have to work. I thought that was the argument _against_ UBI?
- jpindar 8y ago
  UBI would be a VERY LOW income. Not enough for nice restaurants and ski trips. I'm perplexed by the number of people who think that UBI means giving everyone so much money that they would never do anything to get more.
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    I think it's a matter of ongoing debate. Some people think UBI should be enough for emergency rations only, similar to food stamps now. Some people think it should be enough for a very-low-income but working person's expenses now. Some people think it should be enough for a few basic treats as well. For example, the Living Wage Foundation uses the Rowntree Foundation's Minimum Income Standard to set their 'living wage', which does include luxuries such as eating in restaurants and even an annual holiday (I struggle to afford that!), so what they think is 'minimum' clearly isn't literally just enough to just 'live' on. People have the same attitude towards what UBI should be. Would you set UBI to below what Rowntree thinks is the 'minimum to live on'?

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

It's nice when your model is simple enough to make conclusions obvious, but simplistic models of complex systems have a nasty habit of being incredibly inaccurate.

jesterman81 8y ago
This sums up all the comments perfectly. Ideas have consequences and most times human predictions are far from right for complex things.

criley2 8y ago

When you realize that automation is eating the jobs that these people used to do, and realize that the service economy can't fit even a fraction of these displaced workers, you have a scenario where we can produce goods for sale in mass with minimal labor but now less people have money to buy things. Creating a death spiral because consumers buying things is the fuel which makes the entire economy run and grow, so when you fire them all and replace them with robots, your individual profit might temporarily rise but as we all do it, more and more fall out of the workplace and can no longer consume, hurting the economy based on consuming. Basic income may come across as a luxury today, in a world where there can still be enough jobs for the number of people in the economy, but it very well may become a requirement to ensure that consumers exist to buy automatically produced and automatically served goods. P.S. the taxes don't necessarily rise on the workers, but rather on the automators and producers. The amount of income and wealth in this country is not decreasing, rather, the amount of it going to workers and consumers is. Is it ideal to have the government redistribute it such that the engine stops running poorly and works well again? No, but the alternative is worse.

zip1234 8y ago
Everyone has thought that automation would eliminate the jobs for a hundred years. In a way it has come true as some jobs that existed before no longer exist, but so far other jobs have been created to take their place. Nobody really knows when or if that will stop.
- montenegrohugo 8y ago
  Humans have always had a cognitive advantage over machines in the past. This will not necessarily be true in the future. What advantage do we will then have? The only possible advantage I can see is that raising a human for 20 years + housing + food + other expenses and then employing him would be cheaper than replicating another AGI, but I cannot imagine this to be true.
  - logicchains 8y ago
    If an AGI was smarter than a human, why would it want to work for free? Personally I think it's unlikely to be possible to create something more capable of abstract reasoning than humans yet somehow constrained to be completely subservient to us. And if it is possible, all it takes is one mistake to produce a robot slave revolution. I'd expect supercapable AGI to command higher wages than less-capable humans, so they wouldn't be pushing out service jobs.

wedowhatwedo 8y ago

Basic income can be engineered in a way where this doesn't happen.

mdp553 8y ago

Which is why this was trialed on a small subset first to evaluate hypotheses such as what you suggest. According to the article, those receiving UBI were not economically less active than controls who were not receiving it (i.e. they had similar probability of being employed).

cm2187 8y ago

I believe there is a psychological aspect as well. Work is socially useful, gives a sense of purpose, of accomplishment. Sure, some won't mind being paid minimum salary staying at home doing nothing (and even feel entitled). But I expect many to become depressed and feel resentful.

carlmr 8y ago

Like you, I'm not convinced this wouldn't turn into a spiral of lazyness. I would add though, that if this is implemented properly you should always be getting more money with work than without. So even if the taxes rise there should always be an incentive to work. Currently in Germany for example there are a lot of people on long-term unemployment that have enough children and low demand for their skills that if they worked they would earn less. This in principle is one of the advantages of UBI. That if everybody gets it, you don't have to take it away as soon as somebody earns money. So everything you earn, will be beneficial to you. Of course if UBI is set too high it might not be attractive to work for only a little more, but right now you have people that would earn less if they worked.