3 ms·

Making it universally accessible is the expensive part.

bombcar 4y ago
I wonder how expensive it would be after awhile, if the food was very basic and boring. I suspect that most people who do have other options would get bored with it relatively quickly; McDonalds may exist but so do many other restaurants.
andrekandre 4y ago
not necessarily, since you can just tax it back from rich families later (no need for means-testing bureaucracy, which can be the real expensive part since it has to scale with usage)
- conductr 4y ago
  The food has to be near the hungry though.
  - andrekandre 4y ago
    good point
tomjen3 4y ago
You start with cities and towns of a certain size, but the only problem I can forse is allergies. You can work around that to some extend (no nuts, no fresh tomatoes), but you are right that for some people they will be SOL. The key is that you can help 99.9% and then existing services will be able to help the few remaining. The alternative is to help nobody.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Lots of things like this get shut down because of that 0.01%, and sometimes perhaps rightfully so. But it also can be harmful if you cancel some great good because some small fraction of the population can't avail themselves of it.
  - tomrod 4y ago
    Indeed. Something like this would need an accessibility plan to be available where needed. It would be a little more expensive at first but then workflows can be improved. The military and schools already provide food for large groups. As do private companies like Aramark (although to be fair Aramark reported often provides _spoiled_ food to prisons). The point is, these logistics are all well established with most of the hangups worked out in general principle.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Let's assume $1 per meal per person (perhaps low, perhaps high, I don't know) - that would be $330 million per day if everyone availed themselves of the free lunch. That is (let's round up a bit) $125 billion a year. Now if everyone did avail themselves of the free lunch slop each day, we'd clearly see a downturn in lunch business at many restaurants, so there would be other effects, but it does not seem entirely impossible. And certainly not impossible to start with the students at schools, then expand to all children, and then to the children and elderly, and then to all.
      - tomrod 4y ago
        Indeed. Also, at $X/day, 330M x $X/day is a high overestimate simply because you don't HAVE to eat at these places. So low quality places, like McDonalds (consistent, but low, quality -- I'll not concede this point) would be impacted. But better quality food providers would not. So you would have crowding out on the low end. Does that make society as a whole worse off? Maybe not completely first-order pareto improving (people would pay taxes), but imagine how much better society is if kids can get fed and then focus on their educations? I think the second order knock-on effects are huge. Now apply that world-wide. I am getting the Kurzgesagt warm fuzzies.
      - tomjen3 4y ago
        You can provide food that ticks whatever boxes these companies have to make, but I would like to provide high nutrition food. And frankly, I don't want to spend extra on your food because you have to have the Jewish option. Or the vegan option or the one without beef. On the other hand, in prison I would want there to be an option that satisfy each religions requirements, because I don't want the state to dictate peoples belief.

I wonder how expensive it would be after awhile, if the food was very basic and boring. I suspect that most people who do have other options would get bored with it relatively quickly; McDonalds may exist but so do many other restaurants.

andrekandre 4y ago

not necessarily, since you can just tax it back from rich families later (no need for means-testing bureaucracy, which can be the real expensive part since it has to scale with usage)

conductr 4y ago
The food has to be near the hungry though.
- andrekandre 4y ago
  good point

tomjen3 4y ago

You start with cities and towns of a certain size, but the only problem I can forse is allergies. You can work around that to some extend (no nuts, no fresh tomatoes), but you are right that for some people they will be SOL. The key is that you can help 99.9% and then existing services will be able to help the few remaining. The alternative is to help nobody.

bombcar 4y ago
Lots of things like this get shut down because of that 0.01%, and sometimes perhaps rightfully so. But it also can be harmful if you cancel some great good because some small fraction of the population can't avail themselves of it.
- tomrod 4y ago
  Indeed. Something like this would need an accessibility plan to be available where needed. It would be a little more expensive at first but then workflows can be improved. The military and schools already provide food for large groups. As do private companies like Aramark (although to be fair Aramark reported often provides _spoiled_ food to prisons). The point is, these logistics are all well established with most of the hangups worked out in general principle.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Let's assume $1 per meal per person (perhaps low, perhaps high, I don't know) - that would be $330 million per day if everyone availed themselves of the free lunch. That is (let's round up a bit) $125 billion a year. Now if everyone did avail themselves of the free lunch slop each day, we'd clearly see a downturn in lunch business at many restaurants, so there would be other effects, but it does not seem entirely impossible. And certainly not impossible to start with the students at schools, then expand to all children, and then to the children and elderly, and then to all.
    - tomrod 4y ago
      Indeed. Also, at $X/day, 330M x $X/day is a high overestimate simply because you don't HAVE to eat at these places. So low quality places, like McDonalds (consistent, but low, quality -- I'll not concede this point) would be impacted. But better quality food providers would not. So you would have crowding out on the low end. Does that make society as a whole worse off? Maybe not completely first-order pareto improving (people would pay taxes), but imagine how much better society is if kids can get fed and then focus on their educations? I think the second order knock-on effects are huge. Now apply that world-wide. I am getting the Kurzgesagt warm fuzzies.
    - tomjen3 4y ago
      You can provide food that ticks whatever boxes these companies have to make, but I would like to provide high nutrition food. And frankly, I don't want to spend extra on your food because you have to have the Jewish option. Or the vegan option or the one without beef. On the other hand, in prison I would want there to be an option that satisfy each religions requirements, because I don't want the state to dictate peoples belief.