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Maybe we shouldn't be presupposing that governments are better at resource allocation than their citizens. People will still work with UBI, but they are much be

Maybe we shouldn't be presupposing that governments are better at resource allocation than their citizens. People will still work with UBI, but they are much better positioned to choose the kind of work they personally do best.

keiferski 6y ago
How does this: > they are much better positioned to choose the kind of work they personally do best. ...lead to any sort of large-scale work getting done? Bridges and roads aren't open-source software and don't build themselves merely through the individual disparate actions of large numbers of people. I.e., thousands of people individually deciding that they want to improve their city's infrastructure doesn't result it in being improved; you still need an overarching leadership structure to organize it.
- rumanator 6y ago
  Speaking as a civil engineer, I don't understand what point you're trying to convey. I love what I do and it's very rewarding to look back and see the outcome of your work. It really doesn't matter if there are inspectors or clients or bosses telling you what to do. When that bridge is up, that's your work that will be there for future generations. Perhaps that's hard to understand to software people, but working on something can be and often is rewarding.
  - keiferski 6y ago
    I'm not really sure how you arrived at this interpretation of my comment, as it seems totally unrelated to what I wrote. My point is that large infrastructure projects require top-down organization, unlike open-source software, for example, which can be constructed through the individual, separate actions of large numbers of people. Ergo the disparate actions of individual people will not add up to a bridge.
    - rumanator 6y ago
      > My point is that large infrastructure projects require top-down organization, unlike open-source software, FLOSS still requires top-down organization, just like any engineering process. You may be used to work at projects where a single person can parachute into a code base and rewrite everything from scratch, but there are also contractors who can build an entire house single-handedly. Once you add enough complexity to a project, you start to require hierarchies. > for example, which can be constructed through the individual, separate actions of large numbers of people. It's the exact same thing in civil engineering. You get contracts that are entirely independent of other tasks. The guy putting up utility poles on a bridge deck doesn't care if the drainage has been finished yet.
      - keiferski 6y ago
        I really don't think you're understanding my point. It is not a complex idea. - Some things can be created in sum, by individual people acting according to their own individual desires. - Other things can only be created with larger amounts of resources and organization. No amount of individual action will get them made. To use a different example: the Manhattan Project would not have developed a nuclear bomb if it simply gave every physicist in the country a stipend to live and said "work on nuclear physics." Massive amounts of coordination and resources were necessary.
        rumanator 6y ago
        It seems you either are having a hard time understanding simple concepts or you're not able to see the forest for the trees. For starters, a basic income does not stop anyone from working in structured projects. I have no idea where you came up with that nonsense. You gave construction work as an example and I explained to you why your belief made no sense, and still you don't follow. Let's be perfectly clear: people do enjoy what they do for a living, and don't do it because they are paid to do it. Self-fulfillment is real. Secondly, people do enjoy working in structured environments, specially if they are working on a lofty goal. Academia is largely an example of that. You talk about the Manhattan project? How many physicists do you believe were working on that project because they wanted to get rich or were compelled to pay the bills? Once you satisfy your basic needs, you focus on other aspects of your life. See Maslow's pyramid. Thirdly, people do cooperate and collaborate for the greater good, regardless of income. See volunteer work. And finally, please refrain from trying to belittle fellow readers, specially if you do that while demonstrating some slowness grasping simple concepts or ideas.
  - EliRivers 6y ago
    Not everyone thinks or feels the same way you do. Now that really is hard for people to understand; no passive aggressive snark required.
    - rumanator 6y ago
      > Not everyone thinks or feels the same way you do. Well, it seems to me that those who don't just never had the opportunity or good fortune to hold a job they enjoy doing. Isn't that a problem worth fixing? I mean, I doubt that desiring a fulfilling life is a niche thing.
      - EliRivers 6y ago
        For some people, a job is what they do to pay the rent, and fulfilling activities are other things. For some people, the very fact of getting paid to do something effectively ruins it, given all the rest of the obligations that go with holding down a paid job; even artists with patrons find themselves having to create art that gets in the way of the art they really want to create. So unless this "fix" involves some kind of radical social engineering, it's just not going to be "fixable". You got lucky; you are the kind of person who find fulfillment in being paid to do your job. There are people who don't have that, and given the way our society and economy works, never will. Many of those people, myself included, are fine with that. It's OK. What many such people are less fine with is how much those other people like you want us to be like you.
- godelski 6y ago
  Which problem are you trying to solve? Fixing infrastructure or wages? Sure, they can complement one another, but it isn't a necessary condition. So your question appears, to me, rather confusing and off topic when we're talking about wage issues and you're asking "but what about the problem of bridges?"
- cecja 6y ago
  You mean slaves and a master? 90% of hackernews readers are as invested in social justice as gavin fucking belson.
supernova87a 6y ago
This opinion is pretty flawed. When will aggregations of individuals making $24k per year get together and build a hydroelectric dam or nuclear power plant, or assemble themselves to form a genomics research institute or space agency? There are things that individuals, left to their own preferences and entrepreneurial habits, will never create.
- itronitron 6y ago
  Basic income goes back into the local economy, most likely on housing, utilities, and food. So if an area needs a power generation station they won't have less money post UBI.
  - sfj 6y ago
    > So if an area needs a power generation station they won't have less money post UBI. Just less people willing to do the work. Once you get people on the dole, they will continually ask for more while still doing nothing. And because we live in a democracy, they'll vote in whoever will give them more and more money for free. How's that for a bombshell that will totally destroy our GDP, happiness, sense of self worth and ultimately our society?
    - devdas 6y ago
      So working people will get higher salaries, and that is a bad thing?
      - makomk 6y ago
        Which means that the things they're working to produce have to cost more in order to pay those higher salaries, and presumably the endpoint of this is that inflation reduces the value of universal basic income to something more commensurate with what the people on it are actually providing.
      - sfj 6y ago
        Why not pay everyone $1 million a year, why not $1 billion? The issue is that to have stuff, we need people to make it. If everyone is on the dole, who's going to be making the stuff? The other big problem here is that when people do get money for free, the incentive is to vote more money for yourself. When most of the population is working, this isn't a problem, but once you get over 50% of the population who is expecting the government to pay their way, the country will just be a big free for all, everyone trying to grab as much as they can. I could be wrong, but IMO the risk of it playing out this way and destroying the entire country is not insignificant.
aww_dang 6y ago
How is UBI not resource allocation by the government ?
- baddox 6y ago
  There’s very little the government does that isn’t resource allocation.
  - aww_dang 6y ago
    Agreed. >Maybe we shouldn't be presupposing that governments are better at resource allocation than their citizens A. allocate resources via new deal work programs B. allocate resources via UBI The choice between 1930's work programs and UBI is a false dichotomy. (C.) None of the above The great depression was exacerbated by gov. spending and the new deal. Rarely mentioned is the crisis of 1920 which was resolved relatively quickly by cutting spending.
- lmm 6y ago
  It's the most lightweight, nonintrusive form of it. It doesn't require any but the most trivial exercise of judgement on the government's part to administrate.
  - aww_dang 6y ago
    That's only if you ignore the unseen, i.e. the broken window fallacy. It becomes a tax on everyone else who is holding cash when we assume that the money supply will be inflated, which is the default scenario. Otherwise actual taxes will have to be levied to fund UBI. If we accept that society has witnessed massive increases in productivity over the last hundred years, what happened to the 5 cent hamburgers? How does this price inflation help the impoverished? When we create a monetary spigot and allocate resources via gov. intervention, those who specialize in currying favor with gov. will always benefit disproportionately. Ironically, proponents of further gov. intervention use this wealth inequality to rationalize further gov. allocation of resources.
    - 6y ago
jay_kyburz 6y ago
The government can just make heaps of jobs in a huge variety of areas. People can still choose what they want to do.
- Broken_Hippo 6y ago
  If you don't have UBI or a decent enough safety net - or even a good enough minimum wage - it isn't a real choice, though. It is always a coerced choice, especially at the bottom rungs.
  - jay_kyburz 6y ago
    Yes your right, I think we need a good safety net. UBI for those that don't want to, or can't work. Real jobs with real salaries for those that want them.
rumanator 6y ago
> Maybe we shouldn't be presupposing that governments are better at resource allocation than their citizens. UBI works no differently than unemployment benefits or pensions, with the notable exception that UBI is far simpler and straight-forward to implement. If people are ok with the way the state supervises unemployment benefits or pensions, I see no reason why a simpler and more straight-forward program would pose a problem.

keiferski 6y ago

How does this: > they are much better positioned to choose the kind of work they personally do best. ...lead to any sort of large-scale work getting done? Bridges and roads aren't open-source software and don't build themselves merely through the individual disparate actions of large numbers of people. I.e., thousands of people individually deciding that they want to improve their city's infrastructure doesn't result it in being improved; you still need an overarching leadership structure to organize it.

rumanator 6y ago
Speaking as a civil engineer, I don't understand what point you're trying to convey. I love what I do and it's very rewarding to look back and see the outcome of your work. It really doesn't matter if there are inspectors or clients or bosses telling you what to do. When that bridge is up, that's your work that will be there for future generations. Perhaps that's hard to understand to software people, but working on something can be and often is rewarding.
- keiferski 6y ago
  I'm not really sure how you arrived at this interpretation of my comment, as it seems totally unrelated to what I wrote. My point is that large infrastructure projects require top-down organization, unlike open-source software, for example, which can be constructed through the individual, separate actions of large numbers of people. Ergo the disparate actions of individual people will not add up to a bridge.
  - rumanator 6y ago
    > My point is that large infrastructure projects require top-down organization, unlike open-source software, FLOSS still requires top-down organization, just like any engineering process. You may be used to work at projects where a single person can parachute into a code base and rewrite everything from scratch, but there are also contractors who can build an entire house single-handedly. Once you add enough complexity to a project, you start to require hierarchies. > for example, which can be constructed through the individual, separate actions of large numbers of people. It's the exact same thing in civil engineering. You get contracts that are entirely independent of other tasks. The guy putting up utility poles on a bridge deck doesn't care if the drainage has been finished yet.
    - keiferski 6y ago
      I really don't think you're understanding my point. It is not a complex idea. - Some things can be created in sum, by individual people acting according to their own individual desires. - Other things can only be created with larger amounts of resources and organization. No amount of individual action will get them made. To use a different example: the Manhattan Project would not have developed a nuclear bomb if it simply gave every physicist in the country a stipend to live and said "work on nuclear physics." Massive amounts of coordination and resources were necessary.
      - rumanator 6y ago
        It seems you either are having a hard time understanding simple concepts or you're not able to see the forest for the trees. For starters, a basic income does not stop anyone from working in structured projects. I have no idea where you came up with that nonsense. You gave construction work as an example and I explained to you why your belief made no sense, and still you don't follow. Let's be perfectly clear: people do enjoy what they do for a living, and don't do it because they are paid to do it. Self-fulfillment is real. Secondly, people do enjoy working in structured environments, specially if they are working on a lofty goal. Academia is largely an example of that. You talk about the Manhattan project? How many physicists do you believe were working on that project because they wanted to get rich or were compelled to pay the bills? Once you satisfy your basic needs, you focus on other aspects of your life. See Maslow's pyramid. Thirdly, people do cooperate and collaborate for the greater good, regardless of income. See volunteer work. And finally, please refrain from trying to belittle fellow readers, specially if you do that while demonstrating some slowness grasping simple concepts or ideas.
- EliRivers 6y ago
  Not everyone thinks or feels the same way you do. Now that really is hard for people to understand; no passive aggressive snark required.
  - rumanator 6y ago
    > Not everyone thinks or feels the same way you do. Well, it seems to me that those who don't just never had the opportunity or good fortune to hold a job they enjoy doing. Isn't that a problem worth fixing? I mean, I doubt that desiring a fulfilling life is a niche thing.
    - EliRivers 6y ago
      For some people, a job is what they do to pay the rent, and fulfilling activities are other things. For some people, the very fact of getting paid to do something effectively ruins it, given all the rest of the obligations that go with holding down a paid job; even artists with patrons find themselves having to create art that gets in the way of the art they really want to create. So unless this "fix" involves some kind of radical social engineering, it's just not going to be "fixable". You got lucky; you are the kind of person who find fulfillment in being paid to do your job. There are people who don't have that, and given the way our society and economy works, never will. Many of those people, myself included, are fine with that. It's OK. What many such people are less fine with is how much those other people like you want us to be like you.
godelski 6y ago
Which problem are you trying to solve? Fixing infrastructure or wages? Sure, they can complement one another, but it isn't a necessary condition. So your question appears, to me, rather confusing and off topic when we're talking about wage issues and you're asking "but what about the problem of bridges?"
cecja 6y ago
You mean slaves and a master? 90% of hackernews readers are as invested in social justice as gavin fucking belson.

supernova87a 6y ago

This opinion is pretty flawed. When will aggregations of individuals making $24k per year get together and build a hydroelectric dam or nuclear power plant, or assemble themselves to form a genomics research institute or space agency? There are things that individuals, left to their own preferences and entrepreneurial habits, will never create.

itronitron 6y ago
Basic income goes back into the local economy, most likely on housing, utilities, and food. So if an area needs a power generation station they won't have less money post UBI.
- sfj 6y ago
  > So if an area needs a power generation station they won't have less money post UBI. Just less people willing to do the work. Once you get people on the dole, they will continually ask for more while still doing nothing. And because we live in a democracy, they'll vote in whoever will give them more and more money for free. How's that for a bombshell that will totally destroy our GDP, happiness, sense of self worth and ultimately our society?
  - devdas 6y ago
    So working people will get higher salaries, and that is a bad thing?
    - makomk 6y ago
      Which means that the things they're working to produce have to cost more in order to pay those higher salaries, and presumably the endpoint of this is that inflation reduces the value of universal basic income to something more commensurate with what the people on it are actually providing.
    - sfj 6y ago
      Why not pay everyone $1 million a year, why not $1 billion? The issue is that to have stuff, we need people to make it. If everyone is on the dole, who's going to be making the stuff? The other big problem here is that when people do get money for free, the incentive is to vote more money for yourself. When most of the population is working, this isn't a problem, but once you get over 50% of the population who is expecting the government to pay their way, the country will just be a big free for all, everyone trying to grab as much as they can. I could be wrong, but IMO the risk of it playing out this way and destroying the entire country is not insignificant.

aww_dang 6y ago

How is UBI not resource allocation by the government ?

baddox 6y ago
There’s very little the government does that isn’t resource allocation.
- aww_dang 6y ago
  Agreed. >Maybe we shouldn't be presupposing that governments are better at resource allocation than their citizens A. allocate resources via new deal work programs B. allocate resources via UBI The choice between 1930's work programs and UBI is a false dichotomy. (C.) None of the above The great depression was exacerbated by gov. spending and the new deal. Rarely mentioned is the crisis of 1920 which was resolved relatively quickly by cutting spending.
lmm 6y ago
It's the most lightweight, nonintrusive form of it. It doesn't require any but the most trivial exercise of judgement on the government's part to administrate.
- aww_dang 6y ago
  That's only if you ignore the unseen, i.e. the broken window fallacy. It becomes a tax on everyone else who is holding cash when we assume that the money supply will be inflated, which is the default scenario. Otherwise actual taxes will have to be levied to fund UBI. If we accept that society has witnessed massive increases in productivity over the last hundred years, what happened to the 5 cent hamburgers? How does this price inflation help the impoverished? When we create a monetary spigot and allocate resources via gov. intervention, those who specialize in currying favor with gov. will always benefit disproportionately. Ironically, proponents of further gov. intervention use this wealth inequality to rationalize further gov. allocation of resources.
  - 6y ago

jay_kyburz 6y ago

The government can just make heaps of jobs in a huge variety of areas. People can still choose what they want to do.

Broken_Hippo 6y ago
If you don't have UBI or a decent enough safety net - or even a good enough minimum wage - it isn't a real choice, though. It is always a coerced choice, especially at the bottom rungs.
- jay_kyburz 6y ago
  Yes your right, I think we need a good safety net. UBI for those that don't want to, or can't work. Real jobs with real salaries for those that want them.

rumanator 6y ago

> Maybe we shouldn't be presupposing that governments are better at resource allocation than their citizens. UBI works no differently than unemployment benefits or pensions, with the notable exception that UBI is far simpler and straight-forward to implement. If people are ok with the way the state supervises unemployment benefits or pensions, I see no reason why a simpler and more straight-forward program would pose a problem.