5 ms·

UBI frees people from economic coercion. poverty is like having a gun to your head. you do what you’ve gotta do. if salaries for essential, dirty jobs must go

UBI frees people from economic coercion. poverty is like having a gun to your head. you do what you’ve gotta do. if salaries for essential, dirty jobs must go up, i am all for it.

ahelwer 6y ago
No no you don't understand, people working of their own volition is distortion of the job market.
- cheez 6y ago
  That sounds a lot like forced work!!!
bena 6y ago
I kind of get that, but on the other hand, you could say "Existence is like having a gun to your head. You do what you've got to do." Because you need food and shelter to survive. There's been no point in time where we didn't have to acquire it. We're just now getting to the point where the production of it requires nominal effort. These are unprecedented times.
- perfmode 6y ago
  yes yes all of existence is suffering. we’ve known this for thousands of years. the escape from suffering is wisdom and compassion. in this new abundance, why not remove all the guns from all the heads?
  - dantheman 6y ago
    I'm totally for that - make it voluntary. Or are we only going to point the gun at others to take what they have?
    - krapp 6y ago
      If we made it voluntary, almost no one would volunteer, certainly not enough to be viable. Taxation and the rule of law aren't opt-in for the same reason.
    - Talanes 6y ago
      I wasn't given a vote when we decided to hand out all of the land and resources to them in the first place, so I hardly see how the system as it stands is in any way voluntary.
      - dantheman 6y ago
        Do you think most wealth is from land? Is that who the UBI taxes would come from? Would it be funded by a property tax?
  - daseiner1 6y ago
    in modernity, many of the guns’ hands & heads have the same owner
  - garmaine 6y ago
    Because we are not living in an era of such abundance that we have the liberty to do that. Do the math: 300M people, $2k/mo, 12mo/yr is 7.2 trillion dollars. Even to first order that is unaffordable, and that’s without factoring in that UBI would decimate the tax base that’s supposed to support it, or the consumer price inflation that would result in that $2k not going as far as you’d expect.
  - bena 6y ago
    You're inferring more than I'm implying. I'm not saying "existence is suffering". I'm saying existence requires maintenance and for all of human history, it's been up to one to do that maintenance on their own. We've never lived in a time where the majority could exist in the non-working class. Having the majority be in the non-working class raises certain issues. Like, who is going to be in the minority. I'm not worried about what happens at 100% automation. I'm more worried about what happens when there are too few jobs to reasonably distribute among the people. There's an icky issue of essentially slavery we're going to have to confront.
motorcycleman9 6y ago
To me, it seems like man's constant fight against the brutality of mother nature will never end. As long as we need food, need medicine, and entropy destroys what we create, we will need a lot of people working to solve problems. Any conception of basic income where we can freely give out $2000 a month to everyone has a net present value roughly equal to giving each person a lump sum payment of $500,000. There's not enough wealth in the world to sustain it.
- ianai 6y ago
  Sure, give someone 500k and they might try to buy some luxury goods and inflate prices of various things. Give someone enough to not be destitute on a monthly basis and you’ll have a huge boon to the economy - because they’ll buy the essentials. People will always want more than just the basics and thus work.
- darepublic 6y ago
  There is if we have robots
- perfmode 6y ago
  man isn’t fighting the brutality of nature. man is struggling to overcome the brutality of man. nature is what we are. life is a beautiful struggle of a dance when we exist within that flow.
- newen 6y ago
  American households own $98 trillion in net worth. Averages to about $340,000 per person. And this is just household wealth. So yes there is enough money out there.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    the only wealth that isn't "household wealth" is public assets. I guess there might technically be enough to give everyone $500k (or $2000/month), but do you want the government to provide any services?
chii 6y ago
> if salaries for essential, dirty jobs must go up, i am all for it so all goods and services that require said "dirty job" in the supply chain will go up in price. This eventually negates the UBI benefits, because the level of UBI no longer can sustain purchases of all the goods and services that it originally could due to the increases in prices. So do you increase UBI to counter this? Or do you let it be, and UBI no longer pays enough to maintain the same level of living standard. In which case, people are now once again, forced economically, to work "dirty jobs" despite not wanting it.
- chottocharaii 6y ago
  > This eventually negates the UBI benefits Perhaps partially. But you have no evidence to support your implicit assertion that it happens totally, or that your argument defeats UBI on the merits
- perfmode 6y ago
  a lot of assumptions made here. let me put it this way: if garbage person labor shortage is a blocker, i will personally sign up for 1 day per week garbage duty. if that’s the cost to pay for a more equitable society, why not leave the keyboard for a day and perform that noble and necessary duty. i’m sure i’m not the only person on HN who feels this way. the world isn’t all bad. it’s getting better. but it only gets better insofar as we ourselves become better. it is this striving towards higher harmony that propels us forward.
  - qudat 6y ago
    > if garbage person labor shortage is a blocker, i will personally sign up for 1 day per week garbage duty. No you won't
  - chii 6y ago
    so do you currently volunteer your time for social work (or any other work for which there is a shortage of people due to low pay and hard to perform)? Even if you _would_ do as you have proposed above, most people won't. A labour shortage is still likely the result, esp. if said labour is not high paying, but the doing of which is still relatively important to a functioning society. I'm not against UBI - i would want it, even if it means a higher tax! But i just don't see how it is implementable atm, and also whether there are any negative consequences. The unemployment benefits that have been paid out in the USA so far has many talking about how it is a disincentive to go back to work - because they are paid more than their original job. I can't see how this won't be the same under a UBI system - so the only way for a worker to _do_ work they wouldn't ordinarily do is to pay more!

UBI frees people from economic coercion. poverty is like having a gun to your head. you do what you’ve gotta do. if salaries for essential, dirty jobs must go up, i am all for it.

ahelwer 6y ago

No no you don't understand, people working of their own volition is distortion of the job market.

cheez 6y ago
That sounds a lot like forced work!!!

bena 6y ago

I kind of get that, but on the other hand, you could say "Existence is like having a gun to your head. You do what you've got to do." Because you need food and shelter to survive. There's been no point in time where we didn't have to acquire it. We're just now getting to the point where the production of it requires nominal effort. These are unprecedented times.

perfmode 6y ago
yes yes all of existence is suffering. we’ve known this for thousands of years. the escape from suffering is wisdom and compassion. in this new abundance, why not remove all the guns from all the heads?
- dantheman 6y ago
  I'm totally for that - make it voluntary. Or are we only going to point the gun at others to take what they have?
  - krapp 6y ago
    If we made it voluntary, almost no one would volunteer, certainly not enough to be viable. Taxation and the rule of law aren't opt-in for the same reason.
  - Talanes 6y ago
    I wasn't given a vote when we decided to hand out all of the land and resources to them in the first place, so I hardly see how the system as it stands is in any way voluntary.
    - dantheman 6y ago
      Do you think most wealth is from land? Is that who the UBI taxes would come from? Would it be funded by a property tax?
- daseiner1 6y ago
  in modernity, many of the guns’ hands & heads have the same owner
- garmaine 6y ago
  Because we are not living in an era of such abundance that we have the liberty to do that. Do the math: 300M people, $2k/mo, 12mo/yr is 7.2 trillion dollars. Even to first order that is unaffordable, and that’s without factoring in that UBI would decimate the tax base that’s supposed to support it, or the consumer price inflation that would result in that $2k not going as far as you’d expect.
- bena 6y ago
  You're inferring more than I'm implying. I'm not saying "existence is suffering". I'm saying existence requires maintenance and for all of human history, it's been up to one to do that maintenance on their own. We've never lived in a time where the majority could exist in the non-working class. Having the majority be in the non-working class raises certain issues. Like, who is going to be in the minority. I'm not worried about what happens at 100% automation. I'm more worried about what happens when there are too few jobs to reasonably distribute among the people. There's an icky issue of essentially slavery we're going to have to confront.

motorcycleman9 6y ago

To me, it seems like man's constant fight against the brutality of mother nature will never end. As long as we need food, need medicine, and entropy destroys what we create, we will need a lot of people working to solve problems. Any conception of basic income where we can freely give out $2000 a month to everyone has a net present value roughly equal to giving each person a lump sum payment of $500,000. There's not enough wealth in the world to sustain it.

ianai 6y ago
Sure, give someone 500k and they might try to buy some luxury goods and inflate prices of various things. Give someone enough to not be destitute on a monthly basis and you’ll have a huge boon to the economy - because they’ll buy the essentials. People will always want more than just the basics and thus work.
darepublic 6y ago
There is if we have robots
perfmode 6y ago
man isn’t fighting the brutality of nature. man is struggling to overcome the brutality of man. nature is what we are. life is a beautiful struggle of a dance when we exist within that flow.
newen 6y ago
American households own $98 trillion in net worth. Averages to about $340,000 per person. And this is just household wealth. So yes there is enough money out there.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  the only wealth that isn't "household wealth" is public assets. I guess there might technically be enough to give everyone $500k (or $2000/month), but do you want the government to provide any services?

chii 6y ago

> if salaries for essential, dirty jobs must go up, i am all for it so all goods and services that require said "dirty job" in the supply chain will go up in price. This eventually negates the UBI benefits, because the level of UBI no longer can sustain purchases of all the goods and services that it originally could due to the increases in prices. So do you increase UBI to counter this? Or do you let it be, and UBI no longer pays enough to maintain the same level of living standard. In which case, people are now once again, forced economically, to work "dirty jobs" despite not wanting it.

chottocharaii 6y ago
> This eventually negates the UBI benefits Perhaps partially. But you have no evidence to support your implicit assertion that it happens totally, or that your argument defeats UBI on the merits
perfmode 6y ago
a lot of assumptions made here. let me put it this way: if garbage person labor shortage is a blocker, i will personally sign up for 1 day per week garbage duty. if that’s the cost to pay for a more equitable society, why not leave the keyboard for a day and perform that noble and necessary duty. i’m sure i’m not the only person on HN who feels this way. the world isn’t all bad. it’s getting better. but it only gets better insofar as we ourselves become better. it is this striving towards higher harmony that propels us forward.
- qudat 6y ago
  > if garbage person labor shortage is a blocker, i will personally sign up for 1 day per week garbage duty. No you won't
- chii 6y ago
  so do you currently volunteer your time for social work (or any other work for which there is a shortage of people due to low pay and hard to perform)? Even if you _would_ do as you have proposed above, most people won't. A labour shortage is still likely the result, esp. if said labour is not high paying, but the doing of which is still relatively important to a functioning society. I'm not against UBI - i would want it, even if it means a higher tax! But i just don't see how it is implementable atm, and also whether there are any negative consequences. The unemployment benefits that have been paid out in the USA so far has many talking about how it is a disincentive to go back to work - because they are paid more than their original job. I can't see how this won't be the same under a UBI system - so the only way for a worker to _do_ work they wouldn't ordinarily do is to pay more!