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UBI only makes sense in the science fiction world that Andrew Yang and other non-technical journalists think is somehow imminent. We still need people to make t
by zelly 6y ago
UBI only makes sense in the science fiction world that Andrew Yang and other non-technical journalists think is somehow imminent. We still need people to make things. There are still guys hanging off the side of garbage trucks every day and people still pick fruits by hand. If no one does these things, you will starve and die. We cannot survive forever on financial engineering by bureaucrats and importing all our necessities from other countries that actually make things.
- xwdv 6y agoThis is anecdotal but I haven’t seen guys hanging off garbage trucks in a long time. Around here it’s just one guy with a hydraulic arm on the truck that picks up the cans and dumps out garbage, and he does it very very efficiently. Pretty soon it should be possible to even replace the driver with a self driving truck that goes around pre determined paths in the neighborhood.
- aintnoprophet 6y agoThat may be true in populated areas. But, what about areas that lag behind? Rural america that is too poor to afford robot trucks. I see people hanging off garbage trucks all the time in the midwestern low pop and rural areas.
- kerkeslager 6y ago> But, what about areas that lag behind? Rural america that is too poor to afford robot trucks. The robot trucks are cheaper than the humans that operate the non-robot trucks, so your argument doesn't make much sense here.
- z0r 6y agoNeed some evidence for that.
- kerkeslager 6y ago[1] https://www.commercialtrucktrader.com/Garbage/trucks-for-sale?category=Garbage%20Truck%7C2000623 https://www.commercialtrucktrader.com/Garbage/trucks-for-sal... [2] https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/garbage-collector/salary https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/garbage-collector... Keep in mind a truck lasts for years, while a truck driver has to be paid yearly. I'm not figuring in maintenance costs for the truck here--if you'd like to argue that yearly maintenance costs for the truck are the same as the cost of the truck, I can look that up too, but I'm hoping you are a reasonable person.
- nogabebop23 6y ago>> The robot trucks are cheaper than the humans that operate the non-robot trucks not if you understand accounting. I can hire a guy today at <$20/hr operating cost to do it manually. That robot truck is a much more significant capital investment that will amortize over 10+ years.
- kerkeslager 6y ago1. Loans: it seems you've forgotten these exist. 2. Private garbage collection companies: just because a municipality doesn't have money to buy a robot truck in cash, doesn't mean the private garbage collection company that serves most of the surrounding municipalities doesn't. 3. If you actually look up the prices, the numbers are so skewed in the favor of automation that even without loans or private companies, I very much doubt there are any cases where this would take 10+ years to amortize. Your $20/hour collector translates to $30K/year if they works 30 hours/week, or $300K in 10 years. Is it your claim that robot trucks cost $300K more than non-robot trucks?
- xwdv 6y agoRobot trucks are perfect for those areas; cheaper, faster, better.
- nogabebop23 6y agoYou're welcome to personally finance south pedoka county's multi-million dollar purchase of robo-garbage trucks. oh, and figure out how that garbage collector can now support themselves. I realize this runs against the reality of HN, but not all solutions are technology, and not all technology solutions are as simple as "just do X". It's like the "dropbox is just ..." meme turned up to 11
- luckylion 6y agoIt's the same here, but not where I lived a few years ago. It's just not practical in the densely populated inner city. Garbage containers can't be lined up at the street, are stored in back yards etc, and you still need people to pull them to the street and push them back. Where I live now, that job now is done by the home owners or by staff of the apartment buildings. The job didn't go away, it's just no longer done by the garbage collectors.
- karatestomp 6y agoMoved to a poor, small (~250k) "metro" area midwestern city around 2008. Robot arm garbage trucks! Moved back to a much richer one 10x larger a couple years later. No robot arm garbage trucks then, and still none now. Bags on the end of the driveway, guys hanging on trucks.
- badwolf 6y agoVolvo's been working on building self-driving garbage trucks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJSHXr8i-ZU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJSHXr8i-ZU
- zelly 6y ago"pretty soon" is when? garbage trucks are giant, quarter million dollar machines with giant forks on them that could demolish thousands of homes in an accident before someone shoots its tires. this seems like one of those things that will still be done manually for years after level 5. imagine a self-operated crane constructing a skyscraper. it's not that it's inherently more difficult than self-driving--the stakes are too high and one disaster could undo decades of savings from not hiring people.
- thysultan 6y agoIf you wanted to do away with garbage trucks you'd build a tunnel system for trash bins that discharge their contents when prompted.
- kerkeslager 6y ago> We still need people to make things. There are still guys hanging off the side of garbage trucks every day and people still pick fruits by hand. If no one does these things, you will starve and die. Sure. There are also millions of unemployed and disabled people who don't work, and we haven't suddenly starved and died. On the contrary, we just throw away billions of pounds of food each year[1]. So it seems that the problem isn't a shortage of workers. Meanwhile, though, people are starving and dying, in the US, at higher levels than any other industrialized nation, because our social safety net is inadequate. So if you are worried about people starving and dying, maybe look at what actually is causing people to starve and die. [1] https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs
- kuzimoto 6y ago> Meanwhile, though, people are starving and dying, in the US, at higher levels than any other industrialized nation, because our social safety net is inadequate. Yes the death rate is higher in US than a lot of other countries, but overall it is quite low. According to this page [0], it's .64 per 100,000. As of May 20th the population was 329,672,928 [1]. Comes to a total of about 2110 people or 0.0000064 of the population. While tragic nonetheless, is an extremely small number. [0] https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrition/by-country/ https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrit... [1] https://www.census.gov/popclock/ https://www.census.gov/popclock/
- JoshTriplett 6y ago1) The "U" in "UBI" means that working another job does not stop you from receiving UBI, which means it may still make sense to do so if you want more income. UBI is supposed to be enough to live on, not enough to have everything you might want; there are at least preliminary results that show UBI doesn't stop people from working. 2) UBI will tend to mean less people willing to work low-paying unpleasant jobs, which means employers will have to pay more for those jobs. People who would only take such jobs because they have to, but don't actually want those jobs, will no longer need to take them. 3) Because of (2), more research effort and investment will go into automating and otherwise reducing the number of humans required for unpleasant jobs. And with UBI, that becomes an unmitigated good, with no worry about putting people out of work.
- drak0n1c 6y agoIt's a gamble - either 2 will lead to 3, or 2 will lead to input and output prices of goods being raised. Probably some of both. Hopefully more of 3 than the alternative, because the alternative scenario of prices rising has negative consequences in the form of economic deadweight loss even if UBI pays for the price increases.
- hrktb 6y ago2) and 3) are very simplistic predictions and we don’t have any idea if it has a higher chance to go that way. For instance an effect of UBI would be disappearance of bullshit jobs. A lot of job won’t see wages increase and will just be automated/optimized away instead. OTOH it could mean getting rid of minimum salary, which would lower the cost for high demand/vocational low paying work for instance (dog walking, cafe staff, event staff etc.) All in all I’m not sure it’s as simple as saying “people have money without working = prices go up”
- zelly 6y ago> which means employers will have to pay more for those jobs Yeah no kidding so there will be hyperinflation. Making the net effect of UBI almost zilch. What use is $1000 bucks when toilet paper is $100 a roll. > 3) Because of (2), more research effort and investment will go into automating and otherwise reducing the number of humans required for unpleasant jobs. And with UBI, that becomes an unmitigated good, with no worry about putting people out of work. So there will be a giant underclass of people who live on nothing but UBI (UBIers) while a small minority of elite researchers in corporate labs come up with more ways to keep the UBIers from earning their own living. Great. And who buys all the stuff? Is the "stuff" just for the gilded class smart enough to work? Or do we just give the UBIers a raise every now and then to "stimulate" the economy? How is this not communism?
- Reedx 6y agoIt doesn't replace people making things, though. You'd still want to work and create value to improve your situation. It'd just function as a floor and provide some stability. Bearing in mind the increasing rate of job destruction and creation. We're no longer in a world where you can rely on being able to have the same profession your whole life. Having that floor would be useful to smooth those transitions out, and a boon to entrepreneurship if it's easier for people to take risks.
- klmadfejno 6y ago> It doesn't replace people making things, though. You'd still want to work and provide value to improve your situation. Doing shitty jobs usually doesn't improve one's situation though. If you earn minimum wage you're going to be better off just trying to gain a marketable skill and living off your income. You say 'easier for people to take risks'. Well, yeah. So who's gonna be dumb enough to keep scrubbing grime off the bathroom floor when its easy and safe to invest in yourself? There's a solution to that of course, which is "pay people more", which is great. Now people get paid enough to merit working a shit job even with UBI. But now we have a different problem, things cost more to produce, which means prices go up! How much do they go up? Well probably to around the point at which the guy scrubbing grime is at the same level of economic wealth as before, and the guy who stopped to work on self improvement suddenly can't survive on his not-longer-basic UBI. We need people to perform shitty jobs. Increasing real wages would be a good step to do that. Talk of people being able to take more risks in entrepreneurship is just techie dreams about how it could be better if their privileged economic condition were a little more privileged. It's not wrong, but it's hardly an important problem for society.
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- zelly 6y agoThere are countries with a permanent dole. See the UK and other Northern Euro nations. You just have to fake an autism diagnosis to get $3k euros a month in cash alone (not counting all the other programs). Why isn't that the entrepreneurship capital of the world? Why is Europe still so poor? Why is America--the only place where there isn't a safety net and you can literally die on the street if you make too many bad decisions--the entrepreneurship capital of the world? Lots of businesses have been founded by people desperate to make a buck. Necessity is the mother of all invention. People take risks out of desperation, not for "fun".
- chillacy 6y agoLook at it this way: 1. The US is already spending over a trillion a year on welfare 2. These programs have high administrative costs and create negative incentives to work (you can make more not working than working) 3. UBI has low administrative costs, does not have extra disincentive to work (because you won't lose it by working, and most UBI proposals are poverty subsistence anyways) There's plenty of conservative economists who support flavors of UBI. Charles Murray and Greg Mankiew to name a few. Yang's UBI was sort of centrist, it actually eliminated several existing social programs which would arguably be better replaced with the UBI, but did not go as far as Murray's which eliminates social security, medicare, etc.
- 3131s 6y agoThe point is to compensate these vital workers properly and give them some leverage in negotiations with their employer. That's what a UBI does, it makes the life of your fruit-picking wage slave a little more bearable.
- baby 6y agoThanks for your opinion. I for one fully support UBI. Maybe because the amount of homeless people in SF is insane.
- selimthegrim 6y agoThey already press ganged inmates into picking up trash in New Orleans when the sanitation workers went on strike, don’t give them any more ideas