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In China, they did this. They could do it for a while because they had a lot of infrastructure to build, but eventually they had people pretending to do work be

In China, they did this. They could do it for a while because they had a lot of infrastructure to build, but eventually they had people pretending to do work because there wasn't enough to do. En masse for the US, it is a bad solution because we don't have that much work to do. We could probably double or triple our funding for infrastructure projects, but 2-3 trillion into it per year would be way overkill. edit: (budget for department of transport is $70b. another $50b could be useful, but its not at the same scale as UBI)

keiferski 6y ago
Then plant trees, construct desalinization plants, build parks in inner cities, repair old water pipes, add more public transit, etc. I have a hard time believing that "things we can do to improve civilization" is a short list. Decide what these things are via a democratic process.
- godelski 6y ago
  And what do we do when those jobs are done? Do we need to constantly be upgrading everything? Do we build buildings to house no one, in cities that no one is moving to? Roads to nowhere?
  - keiferski 6y ago
    In order to finish all of these jobs, it would quite literally take centuries. Again, I have a hard time believing that "things we can pay people to do to improve civilization" is a short list. Green energy, affordable housing, or drinkable water, for example, aren't things that can be solved in five years.
    - godelski 6y ago
      > In order to finish all of these jobs, it would quite literally take centuries. Maybe in country, but not in a local area. That's a big part of this. If the issue is getting people jobs because there's not enough jobs, how are you going to move people around the country to do all these things?
  - Broken_Hippo 6y ago
    Repairs and maintenance will be there forever. Some of the things, like public transport, will probably need people to operate as well. But you can transition into things that help people more directly - mowing lawns for folks or helping with vegetable gardens. Offer meal delivery to folks, offer house cleaning, make sure there are enough qualified day cares. You could make sure nursing homes have enough staff so the staff is less stressed. Lots of folks can learn to be a CNA pretty easily, and it is a better job if the shifts are well-staffed and not overly long. We can rethink the 40-hour workweek and perhaps shave 10hours a week off of it. We could have maximum workweeks folks are allowed to work (even at top rungs). After all, if you need to work 60-hour weeks to complete things, you probably simply need another employee. And to a point, yes, we will need to constantly upgrade. In the last 20 years alone, we've needed to upgrade both the cell phone network and the internet infrastructure and have done a poor job at that. We can also look beyond one's own borders and help those in need without expecting anything in return. Famine is almost always man-made by not properly allocating resources: There are folks without clean water.
- spyckie2 6y ago
  You're making the assumption that deciding by democratic process is an efficient way of allocating resources. The oversight is thinking that democratic decision making is low cost, efficient, and high rate of effectiveness. Even if the metric weren't capital efficiency, but rather other things (like environmental impact, social efficiency, etc) democratic voting is not the way to get efficient results.

keiferski 6y ago

Then plant trees, construct desalinization plants, build parks in inner cities, repair old water pipes, add more public transit, etc. I have a hard time believing that "things we can do to improve civilization" is a short list. Decide what these things are via a democratic process.

godelski 6y ago
And what do we do when those jobs are done? Do we need to constantly be upgrading everything? Do we build buildings to house no one, in cities that no one is moving to? Roads to nowhere?
- keiferski 6y ago
  In order to finish all of these jobs, it would quite literally take centuries. Again, I have a hard time believing that "things we can pay people to do to improve civilization" is a short list. Green energy, affordable housing, or drinkable water, for example, aren't things that can be solved in five years.
  - godelski 6y ago
    > In order to finish all of these jobs, it would quite literally take centuries. Maybe in country, but not in a local area. That's a big part of this. If the issue is getting people jobs because there's not enough jobs, how are you going to move people around the country to do all these things?
- Broken_Hippo 6y ago
  Repairs and maintenance will be there forever. Some of the things, like public transport, will probably need people to operate as well. But you can transition into things that help people more directly - mowing lawns for folks or helping with vegetable gardens. Offer meal delivery to folks, offer house cleaning, make sure there are enough qualified day cares. You could make sure nursing homes have enough staff so the staff is less stressed. Lots of folks can learn to be a CNA pretty easily, and it is a better job if the shifts are well-staffed and not overly long. We can rethink the 40-hour workweek and perhaps shave 10hours a week off of it. We could have maximum workweeks folks are allowed to work (even at top rungs). After all, if you need to work 60-hour weeks to complete things, you probably simply need another employee. And to a point, yes, we will need to constantly upgrade. In the last 20 years alone, we've needed to upgrade both the cell phone network and the internet infrastructure and have done a poor job at that. We can also look beyond one's own borders and help those in need without expecting anything in return. Famine is almost always man-made by not properly allocating resources: There are folks without clean water.
spyckie2 6y ago
You're making the assumption that deciding by democratic process is an efficient way of allocating resources. The oversight is thinking that democratic decision making is low cost, efficient, and high rate of effectiveness. Even if the metric weren't capital efficiency, but rather other things (like environmental impact, social efficiency, etc) democratic voting is not the way to get efficient results.