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A bureaucrat has never created a solution, so thinking UBI would solve anything is naive at best. Why not go for something simpler, like make basic life cheap a
by sfe22 4y ago
A bureaucrat has never created a solution, so thinking UBI would solve anything is naive at best. Why not go for something simpler, like make basic life cheap and efficient so people can live with very little work? Bonus point: no need to take (steal?) money from people to implement.
- Apocryphon 4y agoUBI might not be the solution but how is that in any way simpler to do or even to conceive
- sfe22 4y agoAll you have to do is have bureaucrats remove the hurdles they added. It will just take some time.
- nickforr 4y agoJust to pick one example, do you see something like state-imposed food standards as a 'hurdle' added by bureaucrats? What about housing construction standards? One person's hurdle can be another person's safety net?
- sfe22 4y agoYes monopolistic regulations are 100percent hurdles. Now free market standards that people can choose (if they want more safety net), or personal standards, well they don't affect everyone so those are fine.
- workingon 4y agoLol what a loaded statement. There are plenty of government programs that have produced better lives for people after being implemented. Imagine being this religious and blind about state-market interactions.
- sfe22 4y agoA bureaucrat decides whether to add a hurdle or not. Now once in a while they do things that end up positively affecting some of the population, but at what cost?
- workingon 4y agoLife is more nuanced than your bad faith one-sided takes. I think deep down you know this. You should stop spreading exaggerated propaganda.
- sfe22 4y agoI don’t think people that want UBI are bad-faith, they are more likely naive. Asking for life to be cheap and efficient so people can live with little work if they want is spreading propaganda, while asking for the biggest monopoly that had killed people for war experiments, to get a lot more power is somehow being good-faith and responsible person? I’ll let others decide this one.
- tomp 4y agoExactly. UBI is like printing money - the last stage before a country's hyper-inflationary collapse. Instead of inflation & printing money, we should instead be thinking of salt - once a valuable commodity, nowadays so cheap people are literally giving it away (restaurants don't charge for it). With enough technological development, almost every necessity of life can be as cheap (and cheaper) as salt. Except medicine, because people will always want to live longer, but even there technology helps - poor people in first-world countries have access to much better healthcare than even the riches human 100 years ago.
- sfe22 4y agoGreat elaboration. If the government kept small like the founding fathers envisioned, I am 99% sure an American would be able to live comfortably on one day of work per week today. They were able to raise a family with one salary way back, and with how much productivity has increased (and would have further increased if not for the government) today would be very different.
- cupofpython 4y ago>A bureaucrat has never created a solution >make basic life cheap and efficient I'm interested in your take on how we exercise total control over the cost of living without any sort of bureaucratic processes being implemented? If vendors are required to accept UBI credit for certain goods and services and must then collect payment from the government, the government is able to restrict inflation by refusing to pay inflated prices. A "UBI-like system" has such broad range and flexibility of design and implementation that to dismiss it entirely while suggesting (im not sure exactly what to call your suggestion) market manipulation? is ludicrous. There is a finite amount of work that needs to be done to sustain the necessities for everyone. basic life IS cheap and efficient, but we arent allowed to pay for what it is. I cant buy a simple small house for cheap, because someone who already has a house can afford to pay more and then rent it to me instead. There NEEDS to be a centralized power separating out basic needs purchasing from "extra" purchasing. All of the "extra" economic activity should be more expensive and the basic needs purchasing should be cheaper. You cannot accomplish that without government. you need centralized power to enforce it.
- collyw 4y agoI would suggest reading or listening to Thomas Sowelll's Basic Ecconomics. Even just listening to the first chapter should convince you that a centralized power is a bad idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrPxEmOV0YI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrPxEmOV0YI
- cupofpython 4y agoThomas Sowell seems very considerate of the opinions he forms, I'll check it out. I do already agree in general that centralized power is typically a bad idea. We cannot avoid it, however. For example, the Police force exists as a phenomenon. Without them, a group of people will naturally form privately and specialize in protection services under self-serving chaotic interests (a "mafia" for short). And since they are responsible for protection, they will be able to enforce their chaotic will upon anyone. This is because human-to-human interaction can be extremely volatile and we are capable of killing each other quickly. So it might not be ideal for economics, but we still exist as part of nature and need to account for that. We must rely on social contracts to stabilize human interaction enough for an economic system to even be possible. Buying and Selling is meaningless when Looting and Destruction are nonpunishable. A social contract is meaningless if we do not punish people for breaking them. A government is a collection of such contracts. The US government differentiates these contracts by various types and instills a separation of powers as a public framework for dealing with dangers of centralized power. Mafias have no such considerations Power still continues to consolidate among "mafia"s. They are less effective directly as a result of public centralized powers. I believe the next evolution in this war is the differentiation between what people need and what people want. They should not operate under the same economic model. If I WANT the food you NEED to eat, I should let you have it and pursue purchasing it from you instead. that should be a social contract. This should be common sense, but in the world we live in there is no visibility to what is needed vs what is wanted. People would be incentivized to claiming a NEED on as much as possible. "Bad" Public centralized power used to enforce reasonable claims to NEEDs is the only way forward given the nature of our reality. "Only way" sounds limiting, but of course there are a million+ different ways we can go about it.