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UBI is just to prevent poor people from starving while rewarding working your way up out of poverty I don’t think most people in poverty will work their way ou

UBI is just to prevent poor people from starving while rewarding working your way up out of poverty I don’t think most people in poverty will work their way out of it. It’s a mindset and a lifestyle, in addition to a reality. UBI probably won’t change that. It’s an interesting thought experiment: can you have a society without impoverished people? Not starving, though, is something that can be directly impacted with UBI.

bmitc 6y ago
> I don’t think most people in poverty will work their way out of it. It’s a mindset and a lifestyle, in addition to a reality. The way "it's a mindset and a lifestyle" reads is very harsh and diminishes the complexity of why poor people stay poor.
- sillysaurusx 6y ago
  But is it mistaken?
  - bmitc 6y ago
    Yes, in the same way that saying wealthy people are wealthy because of their mindset and lifestyle choices is mistaken.
    - sillysaurusx 6y ago
      It seems true to say that wealthy people stay wealthy because of their mindset and lifestyle choices.
- HPsquared 6y ago
  Surely that statement adds another layer of complexity - the aspect of lifestyle and mindset - to the basic definition of simply being low on capital.
  - bmitc 6y ago
    That statement makes an implication of blame on those that are poor while absolving those that are wealthy from being a participant in the situation.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      Surely you believe that some percentage of the poor are that way as an avoidable result of their choices? If you believe that, reasoning about whether UBI will have a general propensity to improve or degrade that outcome seems a sensible part of the conversation to me. (If you don’t believe that, that’s ok, but then we disagree.)
      - bmitc 6y ago
        You are ignoring how those choices come about. It is a complex issue. The relevant analogy is people telling those struggling with depression and anxiety to just stop being depressed and anxious. It doesn't work that way. There are other problems and barriers in the chemical imbalances in the brain that lead to these disorders. Yes, people with these conditions can have mindsets and make decisions, caused by both the disorders and potentially their natural psychology, that are not conducive to getting out or that got them in in the first place, but those are not the cause. The thinking and mindset is more of a multiplier or a catalyst to the underlying cause of chemical imbalances. The same thing goes for those in poverty and in the lower class. Yes, mindset and decisions can lead to worse off poverty or a situation where you can't climb out of it. But those are not the primary causes in the general case. (Of course there are always exceptions and edge cases.) What are the causes? In my opinion, it's rampant consumerism (buyers don't just make the choices independent of other influences, they are heavily influenced and emotionally hacked to make the choices they do), a poor educational system, a poor support structure such as the problems with health insurance, racism and many other -isms, general socioeconomic inequalities and segregation, monopolies, capitalism, the credit system, city infrastructure and the requirement to own cars, the movement of jobs into cities, etc. And all of these have secondary effects that all feed into each other. It isn't clear how UBI solves these and doesn't just shift things around. I get the idea of UBI, but it seems to place all the blame on poor people. So like I said, the situation is complex and can't be summarized by "poor people are poor because of their mindset and lifestyle choices".
marcus_holmes 6y ago
I've been poor. Even homeless. It definitely changes your mindset, but I'm not sure in the way you think it does. I'm less afraid of poverty now. More able to take risks. Less afraid of "losing what I worked so hard to get". I think what you're talking about is "the underclass" - people who have no experience of earning a wage and have lived off government benefits for multiple generations. They definitely have a different attitude to life.
- HPsquared 6y ago
  It's the difference between being 'poor' and merely 'broke'.
  - marcus_holmes 6y ago
    I think you're probably right.
- darkerside 6y ago
  How long were you poor for, and how did you get out? And what was your prior educational history? I think it's awesome that you were able to do so and that you have and had a resilient mindset about it. I don't think everyone in that boat necessarily fares so well. But I'm open to being educated.
  - marcus_holmes 6y ago
    True. I've had an expensive education, and always saw it as a temporary setback. I didn't use that education to work my way out of it (that was manual labouring on a construction site for cash in hand). But I also didn't immediately spend that cash in hand on beer and smokes like many of my contemporaries.
zentiggr 6y ago
Having been homeless and having made some drastic choices to get to where I am now, what a tremendously offensive thing to say. There absolutely are people who can't currently, or may never be able to, steer their life in a useful direction. But most people? I'd say instead that most people are stuck in a poverty cycle because society is constructed that way. When people are given enough money to be able to afford helpful choices, as opposed to scraping along at subsistence level, lots of people find their way to better, more stable, healthier, less stressed lives. It's only a mindset when you don't have the means to climb out of it.

bmitc 6y ago

> I don’t think most people in poverty will work their way out of it. It’s a mindset and a lifestyle, in addition to a reality. The way "it's a mindset and a lifestyle" reads is very harsh and diminishes the complexity of why poor people stay poor.

sillysaurusx 6y ago
But is it mistaken?
- bmitc 6y ago
  Yes, in the same way that saying wealthy people are wealthy because of their mindset and lifestyle choices is mistaken.
  - sillysaurusx 6y ago
    It seems true to say that wealthy people stay wealthy because of their mindset and lifestyle choices.
HPsquared 6y ago
Surely that statement adds another layer of complexity - the aspect of lifestyle and mindset - to the basic definition of simply being low on capital.
- bmitc 6y ago
  That statement makes an implication of blame on those that are poor while absolving those that are wealthy from being a participant in the situation.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Surely you believe that some percentage of the poor are that way as an avoidable result of their choices? If you believe that, reasoning about whether UBI will have a general propensity to improve or degrade that outcome seems a sensible part of the conversation to me. (If you don’t believe that, that’s ok, but then we disagree.)
    - bmitc 6y ago
      You are ignoring how those choices come about. It is a complex issue. The relevant analogy is people telling those struggling with depression and anxiety to just stop being depressed and anxious. It doesn't work that way. There are other problems and barriers in the chemical imbalances in the brain that lead to these disorders. Yes, people with these conditions can have mindsets and make decisions, caused by both the disorders and potentially their natural psychology, that are not conducive to getting out or that got them in in the first place, but those are not the cause. The thinking and mindset is more of a multiplier or a catalyst to the underlying cause of chemical imbalances. The same thing goes for those in poverty and in the lower class. Yes, mindset and decisions can lead to worse off poverty or a situation where you can't climb out of it. But those are not the primary causes in the general case. (Of course there are always exceptions and edge cases.) What are the causes? In my opinion, it's rampant consumerism (buyers don't just make the choices independent of other influences, they are heavily influenced and emotionally hacked to make the choices they do), a poor educational system, a poor support structure such as the problems with health insurance, racism and many other -isms, general socioeconomic inequalities and segregation, monopolies, capitalism, the credit system, city infrastructure and the requirement to own cars, the movement of jobs into cities, etc. And all of these have secondary effects that all feed into each other. It isn't clear how UBI solves these and doesn't just shift things around. I get the idea of UBI, but it seems to place all the blame on poor people. So like I said, the situation is complex and can't be summarized by "poor people are poor because of their mindset and lifestyle choices".

marcus_holmes 6y ago

I've been poor. Even homeless. It definitely changes your mindset, but I'm not sure in the way you think it does. I'm less afraid of poverty now. More able to take risks. Less afraid of "losing what I worked so hard to get". I think what you're talking about is "the underclass" - people who have no experience of earning a wage and have lived off government benefits for multiple generations. They definitely have a different attitude to life.

HPsquared 6y ago
It's the difference between being 'poor' and merely 'broke'.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  I think you're probably right.
darkerside 6y ago
How long were you poor for, and how did you get out? And what was your prior educational history? I think it's awesome that you were able to do so and that you have and had a resilient mindset about it. I don't think everyone in that boat necessarily fares so well. But I'm open to being educated.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  True. I've had an expensive education, and always saw it as a temporary setback. I didn't use that education to work my way out of it (that was manual labouring on a construction site for cash in hand). But I also didn't immediately spend that cash in hand on beer and smokes like many of my contemporaries.

zentiggr 6y ago

Having been homeless and having made some drastic choices to get to where I am now, what a tremendously offensive thing to say. There absolutely are people who can't currently, or may never be able to, steer their life in a useful direction. But most people? I'd say instead that most people are stuck in a poverty cycle because society is constructed that way. When people are given enough money to be able to afford helpful choices, as opposed to scraping along at subsistence level, lots of people find their way to better, more stable, healthier, less stressed lives. It's only a mindset when you don't have the means to climb out of it.