4 ms·

You don't have to. How many people have you met who were happy doing nothing, living with nothing, AND who made good employees doing anything at all? I've met

You don't have to. How many people have you met who were happy doing nothing, living with nothing, AND who made good employees doing anything at all? I've met exactly zero. The ambitious won't want to stay there; the unambitious may "unfairly" get their basic needs met, but they're hardly living the high life, and the lost -useful- labor to society is negligible. Almost certainly more than offset by the ambitious who can now take risks they otherwise couldn't, knowing that if they fail they at least aren't going to end up hungry and homeless.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
arcticbull 6y ago
This is in line with the results of Canada's early UBI experiments; substantially nobody left the workforce except to pursue liberal arts or stay-at-home parenting, both of which have intrinsic value. People are motivated by a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, including their social group at work, finding meaning in their lives through their work, and so on. UBI and unemployment isn't provide enough for a lavish lifestyle, you can achieve that through work. > The ambitious won't want to stay there; the unambitious may "unfairly" get their basic needs met, but they're hardly living the high life, and the lost -useful- labor to society is negligible. Certainly true, and of course, automation will replace the missing labor in the pool, and the continued march of development will lead to even lower birth rates (already well below replacement rate of 2.1 is almost every developed nation), and there will be fewer and fewer of these folks in time. Canada's most recent UBI experiment, cancelled recently (2020) by Ford & co, was showing excellent results [1], and so did the earlier one in 1974 [2]. [1] https://newatlas.com/good-thinking/canada-basic-income-experiment-ontario-report-results https://newatlas.com/good-thinking/canada-basic-income-exper... [2] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200624-canadas-forgotten-universal-basic-income-experiment https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200624-canadas-forgot...
- bumby 6y ago
  I think the major fault with these studies is there participants know the benefits will end. I think this biases them towards continued working because they view it as a short term windfall that won’t sustain them rather than a long term solution. It would be incredibly hard to design an experiment to control for this. Conversely, I think the hard part about implementing UBI is that it would be incredibly hard to roll back once people become accustomed to it
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Indeed, I think the challenge is around committing to a 50 year study that they won't cancel later in a discretionary way. > Conversely, I think the hard part about implementing UBI is that it would be incredibly hard to roll back once people become accustomed to it So we are left with something people like and don't want to give up, and that's bad because... :)
    - bumby 6y ago
      >So we are left with something people like and don't want to give up, and that's bad because... :) Sorry, I should have taken the time to elaborate. There’s certainly a conceivable scenario when the situation is either unsustainable or not providing a net benefit. For the first case, consider a petrostate whose population is heavily subsidized by its oil sales. If oil price drops, whether by lack of demand or over supply, they may not have the funds to continue these benefits without debt, regardless if the populace “likes” them. In the second scenario, it’s possible that it creates unintended consequences (like spikes in drug use, drop in life expectancy, reduced productivity) that become a larger social ill than what it was trying to prevent. Despite society being worse off, it becomes hard to scale it back because of the psychological endowment effect. I’m not saying its likely, just as a counter point that just because people like a benefit it means it should continue. I think it’s important to do a “pre-mortem“ on these kinds of policies to make sure we have the guardrails in place before implementing them.
    - malandrew 6y ago
      > So we are left with something people like and don't want to give up, and that's bad because... :) ... other people are burdened with providing it against their will. A Southern plantation owner in the pre Civil War southeast US had something they liked and didn't want to give up and it was most certainly very very bad.
throwawayboise 6y ago
What do you do about unambitious people who live beyond their UBI means and end up being unable to pay the rent?
- lostcolony 6y ago
  What do you do -now- about the ambitious people who live beyond their salaried means and end up being unable to pay the rent?
  - throwawayboise 6y ago
    So what problem does UBI solve, then?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - lostcolony 6y ago
      It guarantees a certain level of means. Obviously. It's not intending to address people who live outside their means; there are other controls for that. It's to ensure that a person's means is sufficient to cover their basic needs. A person who is responsible with $10 a month may not be a credit risk, but clearly can't cover their needs; a person spending $10k a month when their job pays them only $8k is clearly a credit risk, living outside their means, despite earning enough to cover far more than their basic needs. You're strawmanning.
- cycomanic 6y ago
  It's funny how these sort of questions are always being used to counter a safety net for the poor, but at the same time nobody does anything about rampant tax evasion and avoidance, which is much much more money.
  - closeparen 6y ago
    It's an implementation question. It's one of the reasons we give people services instead of cash.
malandrew 6y ago
> How many people have you met who were happy doing nothing, living with nothing, AND who made good employees doing anything at all? Several members of my partner's family meet this description. They fit the welfare queen stereotype to a T. That's just immediate family. I've met plenty. Maybe you just don't have contact with people who would? > Almost certainly more than offset by the ambitious who can now take risks they otherwise couldn't, knowing that if they fail they at least aren't going to end up hungry and homeless. This is a completely unsubstantiated claim. How are you measuring this and where's the evidence? Yeah, it sounds great and is something people want to believe is true, but where's the hard evidence?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

arcticbull 6y ago

This is in line with the results of Canada's early UBI experiments; substantially nobody left the workforce except to pursue liberal arts or stay-at-home parenting, both of which have intrinsic value. People are motivated by a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, including their social group at work, finding meaning in their lives through their work, and so on. UBI and unemployment isn't provide enough for a lavish lifestyle, you can achieve that through work. > The ambitious won't want to stay there; the unambitious may "unfairly" get their basic needs met, but they're hardly living the high life, and the lost -useful- labor to society is negligible. Certainly true, and of course, automation will replace the missing labor in the pool, and the continued march of development will lead to even lower birth rates (already well below replacement rate of 2.1 is almost every developed nation), and there will be fewer and fewer of these folks in time. Canada's most recent UBI experiment, cancelled recently (2020) by Ford & co, was showing excellent results [1], and so did the earlier one in 1974 [2]. [1] https://newatlas.com/good-thinking/canada-basic-income-experiment-ontario-report-results https://newatlas.com/good-thinking/canada-basic-income-exper... [2] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200624-canadas-forgotten-universal-basic-income-experiment https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200624-canadas-forgot...

bumby 6y ago
I think the major fault with these studies is there participants know the benefits will end. I think this biases them towards continued working because they view it as a short term windfall that won’t sustain them rather than a long term solution. It would be incredibly hard to design an experiment to control for this. Conversely, I think the hard part about implementing UBI is that it would be incredibly hard to roll back once people become accustomed to it
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Indeed, I think the challenge is around committing to a 50 year study that they won't cancel later in a discretionary way. > Conversely, I think the hard part about implementing UBI is that it would be incredibly hard to roll back once people become accustomed to it So we are left with something people like and don't want to give up, and that's bad because... :)
  - bumby 6y ago
    >So we are left with something people like and don't want to give up, and that's bad because... :) Sorry, I should have taken the time to elaborate. There’s certainly a conceivable scenario when the situation is either unsustainable or not providing a net benefit. For the first case, consider a petrostate whose population is heavily subsidized by its oil sales. If oil price drops, whether by lack of demand or over supply, they may not have the funds to continue these benefits without debt, regardless if the populace “likes” them. In the second scenario, it’s possible that it creates unintended consequences (like spikes in drug use, drop in life expectancy, reduced productivity) that become a larger social ill than what it was trying to prevent. Despite society being worse off, it becomes hard to scale it back because of the psychological endowment effect. I’m not saying its likely, just as a counter point that just because people like a benefit it means it should continue. I think it’s important to do a “pre-mortem“ on these kinds of policies to make sure we have the guardrails in place before implementing them.
  - malandrew 6y ago
    > So we are left with something people like and don't want to give up, and that's bad because... :) ... other people are burdened with providing it against their will. A Southern plantation owner in the pre Civil War southeast US had something they liked and didn't want to give up and it was most certainly very very bad.

throwawayboise 6y ago

What do you do about unambitious people who live beyond their UBI means and end up being unable to pay the rent?

lostcolony 6y ago
What do you do -now- about the ambitious people who live beyond their salaried means and end up being unable to pay the rent?
- throwawayboise 6y ago
  So what problem does UBI solve, then?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - lostcolony 6y ago
    It guarantees a certain level of means. Obviously. It's not intending to address people who live outside their means; there are other controls for that. It's to ensure that a person's means is sufficient to cover their basic needs. A person who is responsible with $10 a month may not be a credit risk, but clearly can't cover their needs; a person spending $10k a month when their job pays them only $8k is clearly a credit risk, living outside their means, despite earning enough to cover far more than their basic needs. You're strawmanning.
cycomanic 6y ago
It's funny how these sort of questions are always being used to counter a safety net for the poor, but at the same time nobody does anything about rampant tax evasion and avoidance, which is much much more money.
- closeparen 6y ago
  It's an implementation question. It's one of the reasons we give people services instead of cash.

malandrew 6y ago

> How many people have you met who were happy doing nothing, living with nothing, AND who made good employees doing anything at all? Several members of my partner's family meet this description. They fit the welfare queen stereotype to a T. That's just immediate family. I've met plenty. Maybe you just don't have contact with people who would? > Almost certainly more than offset by the ambitious who can now take risks they otherwise couldn't, knowing that if they fail they at least aren't going to end up hungry and homeless. This is a completely unsubstantiated claim. How are you measuring this and where's the evidence? Yeah, it sounds great and is something people want to believe is true, but where's the hard evidence?