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Immanuel Kant once formulated the categorical imperative … something is moral if it can work universally and be sustainable. How about economically? Is it sust

by EGreg 4y ago

Immanuel Kant once formulated the categorical imperative … something is moral if it can work universally and be sustainable. How about economically? Is it sustainable to have every artist supported by 100 true fans? Maybe. It means enough people have disposable income to spend $1000 a year on something, and that every artist finds a niche. Those artists who already got 100 fans would drop out of the marketplace, leaving the others until everyone found a dance partner (like with dating). Viewed more broadly, though, this would go heavily against the Pareto principle, where some artists simply achieve escape velocity and get to a different level because they never leave the market, while most artists do not produce anything that people would really pay to consume, even if they discovered it over and over. It is like polygamy starving many young men of mates, and polygamy goes hand in hand with war. I think a much more sustainable model is a UBI that isn’t truly “unconditional” but a gated community where successful artists and their patrons voluntarily agree to redistribute some wealth to new artists that keep showing progress in their craft. Crypto can be done to redistribute this wealth. But that would mean there would be quotas on who can join as a new struggling artist and get the UBI subsidy, since it’s free money for any scammer, especially globally it could pay for a lot more where cost of living is small. People would try to make 10 accounts. It is essentially voluntary socialism online. And one major problem with libertarian socialism and why it can’t solve poverty is that people don’t want to let in too many others into their subsidy program that pays non-market rates for what could be art no one wants. So yes the workers own the factory collectively and work 2 hour days but they do hazing for new people. That’s what countries do with immigration and fraternities do on college campuses.

m348e912 4y ago
>>I think a much more sustainable model is a UBI that isn’t truly “unconditional” but a gated community where successful artists and their patrons voluntarily agree to redistribute some wealth to new artists that keep showing progress in their craft. It seems like you're inferring that unconditional UBI is not sustainable and therefore immoral according to Kant's definition. While that position may ruffle some feathers, you may have a point. How do you ensure that under conditional UBI that recipients are adequately redistributing their productivity/wealth?
- EGreg 4y ago
  I am pragmatic, not a purist. Having more people (refugees, starving artists etc.) receiving money from benefactors is better than less. That means spreading the wealth redistribution as thinly as possible: one person one account (it is also good for voting). We can approach such a system by kicking out the artists who already got 100 donors, and forcing them “off the market” the same way someone should leave a dating site when they paired off. The problem is that various actors have incentives create fake accounts. It isn’t even so much about UBI for people being unsustainable, but that people can create fake accounts (sybil attacks). There HAS to be a gatekeeping mechanism. There has to be a condition, the U can’t stand for Unconditional. It can stand for Universal (to all members of a community). The hard part is ensuring there is no serious corruption in the mechanisms that whitelist accounts. WorldCoin scans eyeballs and Proof of Humanity does network analysis and tokenomics. I think that there should be a self-regulating organization (SRO like FINRA is for example) of KYC providers that stake a surety bond proportional to how many accounts they whitelist, and if some duplicates or fake accounts can be proven, in some sort of due process, they lose that stake. So they have some enforcement. But still it may not be enough, for example for a national election there are strong incentives to register fake voters, and if the whole thing is done without appearing in person then that’s even easier to do. So then you need really harsh penalties for corrupt bureaucrats and ways to revoke certifications. But by that time some amount of UBI / welfare / disability benefits will have been paid out, or an election to install a director or head fo state has already taken place. Far better not to concentrate the wealth and power to begin with, because then there would be less incentive to cheat and rally and grab the spoils of “war” whether that is marauders raiding a village, or a political party taking over an election, or Jeff Bezos now picking winners and losers in his investments / philanthropy Basically, it is not that UBI is unsustainable, but that free (or subsidized, by exceeding the value whatever contribution the recipient makes to the system) money requires some increasingly harsh mechanisms to vet people. At the end of the day though, we need such systems as there is a growing proportion of people whose labor just simply isn’t valuable enough to exceed their cost of living. And asking them to forego the modern conveniences of life, like safe potable running water and at least 500 square feet of space to live in, safe neighborhoods, access to lifesaving emergency medicine etc. is silly. If we subdidizs them anyway, why not standardize the system and remove corruption?

by EGreg 4y ago

m348e912 4y ago

>>I think a much more sustainable model is a UBI that isn’t truly “unconditional” but a gated community where successful artists and their patrons voluntarily agree to redistribute some wealth to new artists that keep showing progress in their craft. It seems like you're inferring that unconditional UBI is not sustainable and therefore immoral according to Kant's definition. While that position may ruffle some feathers, you may have a point. How do you ensure that under conditional UBI that recipients are adequately redistributing their productivity/wealth?

EGreg 4y ago
I am pragmatic, not a purist. Having more people (refugees, starving artists etc.) receiving money from benefactors is better than less. That means spreading the wealth redistribution as thinly as possible: one person one account (it is also good for voting). We can approach such a system by kicking out the artists who already got 100 donors, and forcing them “off the market” the same way someone should leave a dating site when they paired off. The problem is that various actors have incentives create fake accounts. It isn’t even so much about UBI for people being unsustainable, but that people can create fake accounts (sybil attacks). There HAS to be a gatekeeping mechanism. There has to be a condition, the U can’t stand for Unconditional. It can stand for Universal (to all members of a community). The hard part is ensuring there is no serious corruption in the mechanisms that whitelist accounts. WorldCoin scans eyeballs and Proof of Humanity does network analysis and tokenomics. I think that there should be a self-regulating organization (SRO like FINRA is for example) of KYC providers that stake a surety bond proportional to how many accounts they whitelist, and if some duplicates or fake accounts can be proven, in some sort of due process, they lose that stake. So they have some enforcement. But still it may not be enough, for example for a national election there are strong incentives to register fake voters, and if the whole thing is done without appearing in person then that’s even easier to do. So then you need really harsh penalties for corrupt bureaucrats and ways to revoke certifications. But by that time some amount of UBI / welfare / disability benefits will have been paid out, or an election to install a director or head fo state has already taken place. Far better not to concentrate the wealth and power to begin with, because then there would be less incentive to cheat and rally and grab the spoils of “war” whether that is marauders raiding a village, or a political party taking over an election, or Jeff Bezos now picking winners and losers in his investments / philanthropy Basically, it is not that UBI is unsustainable, but that free (or subsidized, by exceeding the value whatever contribution the recipient makes to the system) money requires some increasingly harsh mechanisms to vet people. At the end of the day though, we need such systems as there is a growing proportion of people whose labor just simply isn’t valuable enough to exceed their cost of living. And asking them to forego the modern conveniences of life, like safe potable running water and at least 500 square feet of space to live in, safe neighborhoods, access to lifesaving emergency medicine etc. is silly. If we subdidizs them anyway, why not standardize the system and remove corruption?