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Sorry, what does this have to do with UBI? With such a government, any future wouldn’t be desirable. Imagine such government in charge of unemployment benefits

Sorry, what does this have to do with UBI? With such a government, any future wouldn’t be desirable. Imagine such government in charge of unemployment benefits, health services, the military, anything really: it’s grim in any case. Moreover, universal basic income is universal, by definition. If a government denies it to some particular citizens according to some criteria, it is not universal anymore. It becomes an income provided to anyone who is in favor of the government, which is a very different thing. So, if universal basic income existed, even the Chinese government would have to give it to everyone... or otherwise give it another name.

iso1210 6y ago
Maybe they'll define some people as being 3/5ths of a person. It's been done before.
- dllthomas 6y ago
  God, I hate the rhetoric around the 3/5ths compromise. Not because I support it, but because in the circumstances in question the implication that they should have been treated as "full people" (in the only place 3/5 applied) is the pro slavery position. Of course the slaves should have had freedom. Of course they should have had the vote. But they had zero of either of those. Increasing the power of the society that enslaves by 3/5 the number of slaves isn't treating them as 3/5 of a person! Morally speaking the number should have been zero (or negative!) if it had to be a question at all.
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    Slaveholders were taxed, but slaves were not represented. The taxation compromise was intended by Feds to delay the same forces that led to the Civil War. It was not a pro slavery position, but it definitely kowtowed to pro slavery positions predominantly held by slaveholders. Unintended consequences of negotiating with slavers were that the compromise was interpreted by slaveholders as increasingly punitive and untenable as time went on. That’s why you don’t negotiate with terrorists. Sooner or later, they will leverage their position into a better deal at your table, or they will find a better deal at a different table, one which may render any leverage against them moot.
    - dllthomas 6y ago
      Oh, right! I focused on the representation (which remains tied to the computed number) bit and forgot about the impact on taxes (which are no longer). To the degree that increasing that fraction from 3/5 would raise the taxes paid by slave holders, it is not "pro slavery". Having said that, IIUC, the restriction only applied to "direct taxes" whereas the bulk of US Federal Government revenue at the time was from tariffs and excise, and in any case was a much smaller portion of GDP than today (although to some degree that extends to representation as well, as a limitation of the power being controlled). My general point stands that the great injustice was all the ways we were treating people as 0/5th of a person, not that we could have taxed some states a little more or given them a bit more power.
mc32 6y ago
What you are not allowing is that the “universality” will not be inalienable... which we already see in terms of, you have a right to free speech, but it’s not “consequence free” which was how the soviets treated free speech. Their constitution also enshrined free speech, but as the joke went, they could also say “Reagan is an idiot”, not only Americans. The likelihood of universal basic income being completely strings free is very low. You get convicted of some felony, you lose it, you are guilty of domestic violence you lose it, you say something very un-PC you lose it. And you may say, yeah, so what, those are bad people. But it would be like “hate speech”. Hate speech in the 90s was one thing, today it means someone disagrees with you on policy.
twblalock 6y ago
> Sorry, what does this have to do with UBI? UBI gives government a lever to control people by threatening to reduce or stop payments as a form of punishment.
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  We have the technology to not build that lever into the logistics design of UBI
  - jlokier 6y ago
    We do, and that's an insightful comment. I've never seen anyone point that out before.
  - twblalock 6y ago
    This isn't a technology problem. Congress could put whatever restrictions on UBI it wants to. The technology would be required to implement whatever kind of UBI system Congress made into law. Congress could also change the law any time in the future -- and every time party control over congress changes, you can bet they will push for tweaks to UBI that they promised to their base. The most likely outcome, which happens with many other kinds of government programs, would be for Congress to delegate significant authority over UBI to some regulatory bureaucracy in the executive branch. Similar to the way the IRS, EPA, and FDA work, there would be some department of UBI with broad discretion over how the law is interpreted, the ability create additional regulations and fine people who do not obey them, etc. You can't solve this problem with code. It's a political problem.
    - rorykoehler 6y ago
      If you had crypto that used biometrics to generate unique secret keys and automatically mined X amount of coins (based on a set of public economic inputs) to evenly distribute to all participants, and made it part of the constitution that the distribution mechanism can never be changed you'd be as close as you can to solving this issue. Any group trying to take it away once people have it will find out it won't go well.
gentleman11 6y ago
Imagine China’s social credit system, except add to it that the government is entirely responsible for giving or not giving you a living allowance You are perhaps imaging a scenario where UBi is provided by a NGO?

iso1210 6y ago

Maybe they'll define some people as being 3/5ths of a person. It's been done before.

dllthomas 6y ago
God, I hate the rhetoric around the 3/5ths compromise. Not because I support it, but because in the circumstances in question the implication that they should have been treated as "full people" (in the only place 3/5 applied) is the pro slavery position. Of course the slaves should have had freedom. Of course they should have had the vote. But they had zero of either of those. Increasing the power of the society that enslaves by 3/5 the number of slaves isn't treating them as 3/5 of a person! Morally speaking the number should have been zero (or negative!) if it had to be a question at all.
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  Slaveholders were taxed, but slaves were not represented. The taxation compromise was intended by Feds to delay the same forces that led to the Civil War. It was not a pro slavery position, but it definitely kowtowed to pro slavery positions predominantly held by slaveholders. Unintended consequences of negotiating with slavers were that the compromise was interpreted by slaveholders as increasingly punitive and untenable as time went on. That’s why you don’t negotiate with terrorists. Sooner or later, they will leverage their position into a better deal at your table, or they will find a better deal at a different table, one which may render any leverage against them moot.
  - dllthomas 6y ago
    Oh, right! I focused on the representation (which remains tied to the computed number) bit and forgot about the impact on taxes (which are no longer). To the degree that increasing that fraction from 3/5 would raise the taxes paid by slave holders, it is not "pro slavery". Having said that, IIUC, the restriction only applied to "direct taxes" whereas the bulk of US Federal Government revenue at the time was from tariffs and excise, and in any case was a much smaller portion of GDP than today (although to some degree that extends to representation as well, as a limitation of the power being controlled). My general point stands that the great injustice was all the ways we were treating people as 0/5th of a person, not that we could have taxed some states a little more or given them a bit more power.

mc32 6y ago

What you are not allowing is that the “universality” will not be inalienable... which we already see in terms of, you have a right to free speech, but it’s not “consequence free” which was how the soviets treated free speech. Their constitution also enshrined free speech, but as the joke went, they could also say “Reagan is an idiot”, not only Americans. The likelihood of universal basic income being completely strings free is very low. You get convicted of some felony, you lose it, you are guilty of domestic violence you lose it, you say something very un-PC you lose it. And you may say, yeah, so what, those are bad people. But it would be like “hate speech”. Hate speech in the 90s was one thing, today it means someone disagrees with you on policy.

twblalock 6y ago

> Sorry, what does this have to do with UBI? UBI gives government a lever to control people by threatening to reduce or stop payments as a form of punishment.

rorykoehler 6y ago
We have the technology to not build that lever into the logistics design of UBI
- jlokier 6y ago
  We do, and that's an insightful comment. I've never seen anyone point that out before.
- twblalock 6y ago
  This isn't a technology problem. Congress could put whatever restrictions on UBI it wants to. The technology would be required to implement whatever kind of UBI system Congress made into law. Congress could also change the law any time in the future -- and every time party control over congress changes, you can bet they will push for tweaks to UBI that they promised to their base. The most likely outcome, which happens with many other kinds of government programs, would be for Congress to delegate significant authority over UBI to some regulatory bureaucracy in the executive branch. Similar to the way the IRS, EPA, and FDA work, there would be some department of UBI with broad discretion over how the law is interpreted, the ability create additional regulations and fine people who do not obey them, etc. You can't solve this problem with code. It's a political problem.
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    If you had crypto that used biometrics to generate unique secret keys and automatically mined X amount of coins (based on a set of public economic inputs) to evenly distribute to all participants, and made it part of the constitution that the distribution mechanism can never be changed you'd be as close as you can to solving this issue. Any group trying to take it away once people have it will find out it won't go well.

gentleman11 6y ago

Imagine China’s social credit system, except add to it that the government is entirely responsible for giving or not giving you a living allowance You are perhaps imaging a scenario where UBi is provided by a NGO?