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This is the argument for UBI. Robots will displace human workers. They already are. We can either capitalize on all of this human capital by offering basic inco

This is the argument for UBI. Robots will displace human workers. They already are. We can either capitalize on all of this human capital by offering basic income, or we can let income + wealth inequality slowly destroy society by rendering the bottom X% (where X is modeled by an exponentially increasing function) destitute.

germandiago 5y ago
wealth inequality is natural by definition, whether you like it or not. And imposing others share the fruit of their value, unethical.
- yifanl 5y ago
  What percentage of their value do you think the average worker currently makes (Pick any specific occupation you'd like, if this is too vague)? If its less than 100%, how would you propose they petition to increase it to be 100%, as ethics would dictate?
  - germandiago 5y ago
    You are telling me your employer must give you 100% of the profit? What about: - building the business - maintaining it healthy (this can incur additional expenses at unpredictable times) - the jobs it generates (that never mind, they are bad in your mind I suppose or they just do it to earn money! They do... but you also pick the job in the first place to make money!) - the expenses they have to pay in case of firing someone if it does not produce. - social security they pay and contribute for everyone (at least in the spanish system) Do you find ethical to just ask for more money go and leave them bankrupt, without any regard of how they coud survive, when you just went pick up a position when much of that business was built? Really? I find it unethical also. Get your best deal, with your employer, they will give you what they think they can or want, but by mutual contract. If you do not like it, go move to the next chance, it is not anyone's fault. Nothing bad into it. It is how you do in life: you choose what you drink (and what you do not!), who you join, where you go... nothing different here.
    - yifanl 5y ago
      The employer is absolutely a force multiplier, which is why I say value and not revenue generated.
      - germandiago 5y ago
        Ok, then I see we agree on something: you work for your employer because it is your best alternative. Otherwise, the logical consequence would be that we would not. I believe in win-win deals. The voluntary ones are by definition like that. You can take a bad decision, yes. But still, you get my point.
  - scatters 5y ago
    And what if it's greater than 100%? Should it then be decreased; what do your ethics say in that case?
    - yifanl 5y ago
      That feels like it'd be a small minority of cases, because the person who determines how much value an employee provides usually is incentivized to minimize how much to pay that employee.
      - germandiago 5y ago
        If you pay too little to an employee he will just go somewhere else. The magic of the market! That is why I am all for free market (real, free market) with minimum regulations. Because employers end up fighting for the workforce and it benefits the workers. This depends on more variables, but the goal is to avoid barriers and regulations so that the wealth increases, since these break monopolies or de-facto monopolies (via absurd regulations).
        petra 5y ago
        The market is no magic, it commoditizes most employees.
        germandiago 5y ago
        depends on the skill required for the job. It is a natural consequence of how things work. If you do not like it, you can always try to be the one who hires and fires. But yes, that has its own set of risks. Risks that are disregarded all the time making employers the bad part of the story and employees the good ones. This is not at all like that you can find good and bad on both sides... An employer is not bad for trying to pay you less. The reverse argument should be true also: the employee is bad because they want more (than they deserve or produce). No part is bad, it is natural to want to maximize our outcome. It is how things are. I see many people having a problem with this thing. But they only have the problem when it is the other who tries to do that. When they do it for their own benefit then everything is fair and alright.
- imtringued 5y ago
  > wealth inequality is natural by definition, whether you like it or not. Considering the huge variety in "natural by definition wealth inequality" across countries it feels like we have enough freedom to choose how much inequality we want. What we definitively know we is that we can make wealth inequality much worse than it has to be. Just take a look at South Africa. 30% unemployment by nature. Thank god we chose a different "natural by definition wealth inequality". What your argument also fails to consider is that wealth inequality is getting worse over time implying there must have been a natural shift rather than a political one. >And imposing others share the fruit of their value, unethical. If you refuse to share work, then you must share income by definition. Consider a society that only needs a 4 hour work week. One person decides to work 8 hours because they like their job and talk about how amazing work is and people should work more. One person no longer has to work. The hard working person will then look at the unemployed person and then tell everyone how lazy he is. Before you invoke the lump of labor fallacy, you have to realize that the argument relies on Say's law which assumes that the hard working person worked because he wasn't satisfied with the products and services one can obtain in a 4 hour work week, essentially that all the money that person earns will be spent and therefore generate demand for the person that is unemployed. The truth is far more pessimistic. The hard working person will insist that he should keep his money even though he has no intention to spend it, essentially denying that say's law even exists (empirical evidence shows it's being broken all the time). This insistence is what keeps the lazy person unemployed. That unemployed person still needs 1 hour of services and goods (housing and food). The bandaid answer is to tax the hard working person and transfer the bare minimum to the unemployed person and it works because making everyone spend all their money is never going to happen, there are too many morally inclined people on this planet that insist on a oddly specific and harmful form of saving.
  - germandiago 5y ago
    It is natural that if it takes you half a life make incomings you are careful how you spend them... I do not find the problem there. There are plenty of people that take bad decisions or take jobs with lower income or no jobs at all and they try to blame the rest. I do not feel responsible for the bad decisions of others. I am not morally forced to help them. You can be sure that if they are people I know and I know their stories I could help. But that is very, I mean, VERY different from being morally responsible for the failures of others. Saving harmful? First, it is good in that it will lower the inflation lolol. But leaving that apart... so it is bad to not spend the money so we must force them? Seriously, I do not understand anything. In order to make money u mist provide services or goods. If u have money is bc ur service is serving others, at least in a free market... so tell me why those people that took yhe trouble to serve others and take risks should be penalized. Do not tell me they do it for money not for serving others... that is not important. The important thing is that the side-effects is satisfying a demandand that u bought either bc it is better than the competition or cheaper. In my view it should be much more penalized a person that does not want to work bc they say those jobs are all shit and expects the welfare to rescue them. Sorry to be so harsh with the topic, because I know that there are people who are not like that. But the problem is not helping itself, it is systematizing it. At that point people abuse it.

germandiago 5y ago

wealth inequality is natural by definition, whether you like it or not. And imposing others share the fruit of their value, unethical.

yifanl 5y ago
What percentage of their value do you think the average worker currently makes (Pick any specific occupation you'd like, if this is too vague)? If its less than 100%, how would you propose they petition to increase it to be 100%, as ethics would dictate?
- germandiago 5y ago
  You are telling me your employer must give you 100% of the profit? What about: - building the business - maintaining it healthy (this can incur additional expenses at unpredictable times) - the jobs it generates (that never mind, they are bad in your mind I suppose or they just do it to earn money! They do... but you also pick the job in the first place to make money!) - the expenses they have to pay in case of firing someone if it does not produce. - social security they pay and contribute for everyone (at least in the spanish system) Do you find ethical to just ask for more money go and leave them bankrupt, without any regard of how they coud survive, when you just went pick up a position when much of that business was built? Really? I find it unethical also. Get your best deal, with your employer, they will give you what they think they can or want, but by mutual contract. If you do not like it, go move to the next chance, it is not anyone's fault. Nothing bad into it. It is how you do in life: you choose what you drink (and what you do not!), who you join, where you go... nothing different here.
  - yifanl 5y ago
    The employer is absolutely a force multiplier, which is why I say value and not revenue generated.
    - germandiago 5y ago
      Ok, then I see we agree on something: you work for your employer because it is your best alternative. Otherwise, the logical consequence would be that we would not. I believe in win-win deals. The voluntary ones are by definition like that. You can take a bad decision, yes. But still, you get my point.
- scatters 5y ago
  And what if it's greater than 100%? Should it then be decreased; what do your ethics say in that case?
  - yifanl 5y ago
    That feels like it'd be a small minority of cases, because the person who determines how much value an employee provides usually is incentivized to minimize how much to pay that employee.
    - germandiago 5y ago
      If you pay too little to an employee he will just go somewhere else. The magic of the market! That is why I am all for free market (real, free market) with minimum regulations. Because employers end up fighting for the workforce and it benefits the workers. This depends on more variables, but the goal is to avoid barriers and regulations so that the wealth increases, since these break monopolies or de-facto monopolies (via absurd regulations).
      - petra 5y ago
        The market is no magic, it commoditizes most employees.
        germandiago 5y ago
        depends on the skill required for the job. It is a natural consequence of how things work. If you do not like it, you can always try to be the one who hires and fires. But yes, that has its own set of risks. Risks that are disregarded all the time making employers the bad part of the story and employees the good ones. This is not at all like that you can find good and bad on both sides... An employer is not bad for trying to pay you less. The reverse argument should be true also: the employee is bad because they want more (than they deserve or produce). No part is bad, it is natural to want to maximize our outcome. It is how things are. I see many people having a problem with this thing. But they only have the problem when it is the other who tries to do that. When they do it for their own benefit then everything is fair and alright.
imtringued 5y ago
> wealth inequality is natural by definition, whether you like it or not. Considering the huge variety in "natural by definition wealth inequality" across countries it feels like we have enough freedom to choose how much inequality we want. What we definitively know we is that we can make wealth inequality much worse than it has to be. Just take a look at South Africa. 30% unemployment by nature. Thank god we chose a different "natural by definition wealth inequality". What your argument also fails to consider is that wealth inequality is getting worse over time implying there must have been a natural shift rather than a political one. >And imposing others share the fruit of their value, unethical. If you refuse to share work, then you must share income by definition. Consider a society that only needs a 4 hour work week. One person decides to work 8 hours because they like their job and talk about how amazing work is and people should work more. One person no longer has to work. The hard working person will then look at the unemployed person and then tell everyone how lazy he is. Before you invoke the lump of labor fallacy, you have to realize that the argument relies on Say's law which assumes that the hard working person worked because he wasn't satisfied with the products and services one can obtain in a 4 hour work week, essentially that all the money that person earns will be spent and therefore generate demand for the person that is unemployed. The truth is far more pessimistic. The hard working person will insist that he should keep his money even though he has no intention to spend it, essentially denying that say's law even exists (empirical evidence shows it's being broken all the time). This insistence is what keeps the lazy person unemployed. That unemployed person still needs 1 hour of services and goods (housing and food). The bandaid answer is to tax the hard working person and transfer the bare minimum to the unemployed person and it works because making everyone spend all their money is never going to happen, there are too many morally inclined people on this planet that insist on a oddly specific and harmful form of saving.
- germandiago 5y ago
  It is natural that if it takes you half a life make incomings you are careful how you spend them... I do not find the problem there. There are plenty of people that take bad decisions or take jobs with lower income or no jobs at all and they try to blame the rest. I do not feel responsible for the bad decisions of others. I am not morally forced to help them. You can be sure that if they are people I know and I know their stories I could help. But that is very, I mean, VERY different from being morally responsible for the failures of others. Saving harmful? First, it is good in that it will lower the inflation lolol. But leaving that apart... so it is bad to not spend the money so we must force them? Seriously, I do not understand anything. In order to make money u mist provide services or goods. If u have money is bc ur service is serving others, at least in a free market... so tell me why those people that took yhe trouble to serve others and take risks should be penalized. Do not tell me they do it for money not for serving others... that is not important. The important thing is that the side-effects is satisfying a demandand that u bought either bc it is better than the competition or cheaper. In my view it should be much more penalized a person that does not want to work bc they say those jobs are all shit and expects the welfare to rescue them. Sorry to be so harsh with the topic, because I know that there are people who are not like that. But the problem is not helping itself, it is systematizing it. At that point people abuse it.