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For a counterexample imagine you are born on a space station where it costs $1,000,000 per year to provide air for you. Should you have to a work a job to breat

by Sevii 4y ago

For a counterexample imagine you are born on a space station where it costs $1,000,000 per year to provide air for you. Should you have to a work a job to breath air? The problem of universal basic income strategies is that they only work when the earth is far below its human population carrying capacity for the current technology level. If we were at carrying capacity the idea would be ludicrous because you not working would result in one of us starving to death. Pre-civilization there was a very strict limit on human populations based on the natural resources they could extract via labor. Anybody who didn't work starved in short order. Universal basic income is basically inventing a new right to tax other people for your sustenance (much like feudal aristocrats) in times when we have food surpluses.

Dylan16807 4y ago
> If we were at carrying capacity the idea would be ludicrous because you not working would result in one of us starving to death. That doesn't make sense to me. You seem to think that if we hit carrying capacity, that means everyone is working full time to sustain that? Why? Let's say all the farms in the world could sustain 100 billion people. Can't we run those farms with only 1 billion people? Why would non-workers cause starvation?
- HideousKojima 4y ago
  >Let's say all the farms in the world could sustain 100 billion people. Can't we run those farms with only 1 billion people? Why would non-workers cause starvation? Why should the non-workers steal the surplus value created by those who work via taxation? Or is it only theft when filthy business owners do it via contractual agreements to trade labor for wages?
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    Why are you replying to me? That has nothing to do with what I was saying. But I don't think either one of those is theft. I don't think the article was calling anything like that that theft either. It was complaining about how land ownership works.
- Sevii 4y ago
  If 1% of the population taking a day off would cause billions of people to starve why do you think you would have the option of not working? You would starve because at carrying capacity nearly all of your income would go to food. There wouldn't be any slack. Admittedly, you'd have to be one of the 'farmers' to have a non-marginal effect on food production. Why would 1% of the population that creates all the food allow you to have 'free' stuff if them working 1% less meant millions of people would die? They could make you do anything.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    This scenario is insane. A reasonable operation would have enough workers to cover sick days and the fact that people don't put in 100% every day. If they start running low on labor, they will hire more people. And those nightmares of food supply shrinking by 1% are going to be there whether or not you have UBI. Like, I agree that we shouldn't get close to the planet's carrying capacity! That's not the subject at hand.
acchow 4y ago
> The problem of universal basic income strategies is that they only work when the earth is far below its human population carrying capacity for the current technology level. You are saying we can't have UBI because UBI is unsustainable. But our current system isn't sustainable either, and actually is putting us deeper into destruction year after year as we come up with new ways to extract more from the planet (and faster) and further pollute the planet. If our current economic system was gradually pushing our technological level towards sustainability, then push on! But all evidence points to the opposite.
- Sevii 4y ago
  How does UBI make things more sustainable? UBI doesn't do anything to reduce the human population or create more underground oil reserves. All UBI does is replace bullshit jobs with welfare payments.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - acchow 4y ago
    I don't think UBI is more sustainable. I'm saying UBI and our current capitalistic system are both unsustainable, and it seems to appear that capitalism is even more unsustainable as it continually invents new ways to extract more from the planet and faster. People want to consume more (ad infinitum), and capitalism aligns those desires with profit making creating a mechanism to achieve infinitely-growing consumption
jvm___ 4y ago
Pre WW1 the strict limit of humanity was how we could fertilize our crops. The haber process made ammonium from the atmospheric and made fertilizer, and allowed WW1 to have all it's explosives and shells.
- nradov 4y ago
  Fertilizer supply has been seriously reduced in the last couple years due to supply chain failures and armed conflict. This is causing food security problems in much of the developing world. https://phys.org/news/2022-12-soaring-fertilizer-prices-millions-undernourished.html https://phys.org/news/2022-12-soaring-fertilizer-prices-mill...
ncallaway 4y ago
> If we were at carrying capacity the idea would be ludicrous because you not working would result in one of us starving to death. This is where it feels like your argument falls apart to me. Suppose in 200 years the Earth is able to support a population of 10B humans, and has 10B humans occupying the earth. Suppose the labor to support those 10B humans is nearly entirely automated, such that we only need 100M people to work to reach the carrying capacity of earth. You have an underlying assumption that each person's labor increases the carrying capacity of the overall population. That we're limited by the total production capacity of the human race, rather than the carrying capacity of the earth. And that was true in the past, but is less true in the present, and may become wildly disconnected in the future.
- anonymouskimmer 4y ago
  Inactive people require fewer calories (and other resources in general) than actively working people. If we were at carrying capacity then each person working would actually result in people starving to death.
Imnimo 4y ago
If it costs $1,000,000 per year to provide air, and my full-time labor doesn't produce $1,000,000 worth of value, where does that leave me in your view?
- Sevii 4y ago
  I suspect if in this hypothetical you were really on a space station you would have to get really good at begging.
jltsiren 4y ago
> Pre-civilization there was a very strict limit on human populations based on the natural resources they could extract via labor. Anybody who didn't work starved in short order. Labor is a product of civilization. Hunter-gatherer lifestyle was much less labor intensive than the agrarian lifestyle that followed. Instead of doing the hard work of making the land produce more than it naturally did, hunter-gatherers harvested whatever was naturally available. In a sense, a hunter-gatherer tribe was like a pre-industrial army. Its size was primarily limited by the amount of food it could steal from the surrounding lands.
isleyaardvark 4y ago
Thank goodness that counterexample isn't representative of reality.
jedberg 4y ago
> Should you have to a work a job to breath air? No, you shouldn't. The space station should have a plan to provide air to all its residents even if some portion of the people can't/won't work. Just like how our society should work even if some portion of the people can't/won't work. You'll never be able to have everyone working. Some people just aren't capable. Our systems need to be designed with that in mind. And that's exactly what a UBI does. Redistributes a portion of the wealth that all of society creates back to everyone so that those who can't work won't die.

by Sevii 4y ago

Dylan16807 4y ago

> If we were at carrying capacity the idea would be ludicrous because you not working would result in one of us starving to death. That doesn't make sense to me. You seem to think that if we hit carrying capacity, that means everyone is working full time to sustain that? Why? Let's say all the farms in the world could sustain 100 billion people. Can't we run those farms with only 1 billion people? Why would non-workers cause starvation?

HideousKojima 4y ago
>Let's say all the farms in the world could sustain 100 billion people. Can't we run those farms with only 1 billion people? Why would non-workers cause starvation? Why should the non-workers steal the surplus value created by those who work via taxation? Or is it only theft when filthy business owners do it via contractual agreements to trade labor for wages?
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  Why are you replying to me? That has nothing to do with what I was saying. But I don't think either one of those is theft. I don't think the article was calling anything like that that theft either. It was complaining about how land ownership works.
Sevii 4y ago
If 1% of the population taking a day off would cause billions of people to starve why do you think you would have the option of not working? You would starve because at carrying capacity nearly all of your income would go to food. There wouldn't be any slack. Admittedly, you'd have to be one of the 'farmers' to have a non-marginal effect on food production. Why would 1% of the population that creates all the food allow you to have 'free' stuff if them working 1% less meant millions of people would die? They could make you do anything.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  This scenario is insane. A reasonable operation would have enough workers to cover sick days and the fact that people don't put in 100% every day. If they start running low on labor, they will hire more people. And those nightmares of food supply shrinking by 1% are going to be there whether or not you have UBI. Like, I agree that we shouldn't get close to the planet's carrying capacity! That's not the subject at hand.

acchow 4y ago

> The problem of universal basic income strategies is that they only work when the earth is far below its human population carrying capacity for the current technology level. You are saying we can't have UBI because UBI is unsustainable. But our current system isn't sustainable either, and actually is putting us deeper into destruction year after year as we come up with new ways to extract more from the planet (and faster) and further pollute the planet. If our current economic system was gradually pushing our technological level towards sustainability, then push on! But all evidence points to the opposite.

Sevii 4y ago
How does UBI make things more sustainable? UBI doesn't do anything to reduce the human population or create more underground oil reserves. All UBI does is replace bullshit jobs with welfare payments.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- acchow 4y ago
  I don't think UBI is more sustainable. I'm saying UBI and our current capitalistic system are both unsustainable, and it seems to appear that capitalism is even more unsustainable as it continually invents new ways to extract more from the planet and faster. People want to consume more (ad infinitum), and capitalism aligns those desires with profit making creating a mechanism to achieve infinitely-growing consumption

jvm___ 4y ago

Pre WW1 the strict limit of humanity was how we could fertilize our crops. The haber process made ammonium from the atmospheric and made fertilizer, and allowed WW1 to have all it's explosives and shells.

nradov 4y ago
Fertilizer supply has been seriously reduced in the last couple years due to supply chain failures and armed conflict. This is causing food security problems in much of the developing world. https://phys.org/news/2022-12-soaring-fertilizer-prices-millions-undernourished.html https://phys.org/news/2022-12-soaring-fertilizer-prices-mill...

ncallaway 4y ago

> If we were at carrying capacity the idea would be ludicrous because you not working would result in one of us starving to death. This is where it feels like your argument falls apart to me. Suppose in 200 years the Earth is able to support a population of 10B humans, and has 10B humans occupying the earth. Suppose the labor to support those 10B humans is nearly entirely automated, such that we only need 100M people to work to reach the carrying capacity of earth. You have an underlying assumption that each person's labor increases the carrying capacity of the overall population. That we're limited by the total production capacity of the human race, rather than the carrying capacity of the earth. And that was true in the past, but is less true in the present, and may become wildly disconnected in the future.

anonymouskimmer 4y ago
Inactive people require fewer calories (and other resources in general) than actively working people. If we were at carrying capacity then each person working would actually result in people starving to death.

Imnimo 4y ago

If it costs $1,000,000 per year to provide air, and my full-time labor doesn't produce $1,000,000 worth of value, where does that leave me in your view?

Sevii 4y ago
I suspect if in this hypothetical you were really on a space station you would have to get really good at begging.

jltsiren 4y ago

> Pre-civilization there was a very strict limit on human populations based on the natural resources they could extract via labor. Anybody who didn't work starved in short order. Labor is a product of civilization. Hunter-gatherer lifestyle was much less labor intensive than the agrarian lifestyle that followed. Instead of doing the hard work of making the land produce more than it naturally did, hunter-gatherers harvested whatever was naturally available. In a sense, a hunter-gatherer tribe was like a pre-industrial army. Its size was primarily limited by the amount of food it could steal from the surrounding lands.

isleyaardvark 4y ago

Thank goodness that counterexample isn't representative of reality.

jedberg 4y ago

> Should you have to a work a job to breath air? No, you shouldn't. The space station should have a plan to provide air to all its residents even if some portion of the people can't/won't work. Just like how our society should work even if some portion of the people can't/won't work. You'll never be able to have everyone working. Some people just aren't capable. Our systems need to be designed with that in mind. And that's exactly what a UBI does. Redistributes a portion of the wealth that all of society creates back to everyone so that those who can't work won't die.