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Maybe? If we're talking about national-level UBI, that's a lot of people involved, and a lot of money for the taking by those who are high in enterprise but ra

by donw 6y ago

Maybe? If we're talking about national-level UBI, that's a lot of people involved, and a lot of money for the taking by those who are high in enterprise but rather deficient in moral fiber. There are likely a lot of options on the enforcement front, and that smart enforcement with appropriate penalties would keep bad behavior to a minimum. The goal of enforcement is not to stop every bad actor -- just to make the risk and hassle high enough to deter a significant portion of them. Consider how Taiwan cheaply enforces sales tax: when you get a receipt for anything, it has a lottery code on it. Winners turn their receipts in for prizes, and the government then goes and checks those specific transactions for tax compliance. Penalties for tax violations are severe, and compliance is high, at minimal cost to the state. Truly random checks (low probability of being caught) with severe penalties (massive pain if you are caught), and maybe even a reward for compliance, seems to be the way to go in this case.

vertex-four 6y ago
Honestly, as someone who blackrides (being defined here as using public transport without paying for it, which has a low probability of being caught + massive pain if I am caught, up to and including prosecution and a criminal record in some cases), this isn't really a deterrent. There's also studies on this subject - raising the penalty of being caught isn't what stops people from doing things, it's the certainty of being caught. Really, the main problem is that landlords will raise rent to match the new income levels of their tenants and everybody will be left in more-or-less the same place, except with a wider gap, not a narrower one.
- donw 6y ago
  > There's also studies on this subject - raising the penalty of being caught isn't what stops people from doing things, it's the certainty of being caught. Yes and no. There's a balance between "severity of punishment" and "certainty of punishment". And also proportional to the damage caused. Also, the goal is not to prevent all bad actors! Merely to keep enough people on the honest path to prevent systemic collapse. If you are certain of being caught, the punishment only needs to be high enough to be undesirable. Imagine that you had a 100% chance of being caught shoplifting, in which case, a reasonable punishment would be to have to compensate the store owner an additional 50% for the stolen goods. If you only have a 10% chance of being caught, then the punishment needs to be (financially) severe enough to make that dice-roll very, very unappealing. There's likely minimum and maximum thresholds for both; e.g., beyond some severity, punishment stops being meaningful, and below some certainty of capture, rolling the dice "feels" safe. Not sure what those numbers are. Also, regarding punishment, we really need more options, and I'm not a fan of criminal records -- debts to society should not be infinite. Proportional punishment is one tool -- a $200 fine means something very different to "a kid from the projects" than it does to "Jeff Bezos".
  - vertex-four 6y ago
    Of course, what's the cost of getting to, let's say, a 30% chance of catching anyone.

by donw 6y ago

vertex-four 6y ago

Honestly, as someone who blackrides (being defined here as using public transport without paying for it, which has a low probability of being caught + massive pain if I am caught, up to and including prosecution and a criminal record in some cases), this isn't really a deterrent. There's also studies on this subject - raising the penalty of being caught isn't what stops people from doing things, it's the certainty of being caught. Really, the main problem is that landlords will raise rent to match the new income levels of their tenants and everybody will be left in more-or-less the same place, except with a wider gap, not a narrower one.

donw 6y ago
> There's also studies on this subject - raising the penalty of being caught isn't what stops people from doing things, it's the certainty of being caught. Yes and no. There's a balance between "severity of punishment" and "certainty of punishment". And also proportional to the damage caused. Also, the goal is not to prevent all bad actors! Merely to keep enough people on the honest path to prevent systemic collapse. If you are certain of being caught, the punishment only needs to be high enough to be undesirable. Imagine that you had a 100% chance of being caught shoplifting, in which case, a reasonable punishment would be to have to compensate the store owner an additional 50% for the stolen goods. If you only have a 10% chance of being caught, then the punishment needs to be (financially) severe enough to make that dice-roll very, very unappealing. There's likely minimum and maximum thresholds for both; e.g., beyond some severity, punishment stops being meaningful, and below some certainty of capture, rolling the dice "feels" safe. Not sure what those numbers are. Also, regarding punishment, we really need more options, and I'm not a fan of criminal records -- debts to society should not be infinite. Proportional punishment is one tool -- a $200 fine means something very different to "a kid from the projects" than it does to "Jeff Bezos".
- vertex-four 6y ago
  Of course, what's the cost of getting to, let's say, a 30% chance of catching anyone.