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Some people don’t want to work. They’ve told me so. I think UBI would destroy these people, like easy wealth does to the newly rich. A better solution is to fo

Some people don’t want to work. They’ve told me so. I think UBI would destroy these people, like easy wealth does to the newly rich. A better solution is to focus on worker’s rights and labor regulations. Of course that opens the internationalism question, but so too would ubi.

oneplane 3y ago
What leads you to believe that people who do not want to work are desirable to have in the workplace? UBI also doesn't give you wealth, it gives you basics, and overal that's much cheaper than dragging down an entire team or department. At the same time, we currently have plenty of people who do not want to work and do indeed not work, that will not change regardless of what you implement. I also think that happy and healthy non-working people are worth more to humanity than unhappy or unhealthy working people.
- mantas 3y ago
  They ain't desirable. But who wants to pay them do nothing? Many people ain't happy to cover existing welfare. Increase welfare and even more people would feel it's unfair.
  - wizofaus 3y ago
    You can accuse UBI of many things but unfair it is clearly not, hence the "universal". Everyone gets the same amount - but the assumption is most will then choose to work and earn extra income on top of that.
    - vihren 3y ago
      How is it fair? You do give the same amount to everyone, but you do not take the same from everyone - you have to take more from those who chose to work. Hence the unfair part.
      - wizofaus 3y ago
        Taxation is quite separate though - we all have the same access to government provided services and infrastructure regardless of how much income tax we pay, I don't see anybody arguing that's unfair.
        eropple 3y ago
        Those with the most to lose benefit the most from having a just and civil society, but that realization never seems to percolate through.
        tomcam 3y ago
        A just and civil society being one where the harder I work, the more taxes I pay? Where stores are closing right and left because theft isn’t prosecuted but I have to pay $7,000 to get a bathroom permitted while an RV on the street outside my house is considered a home and gets to dump shit on the street with no repercussions?
        virgildotcodes 3y ago
        Sucks that some people have no better choice than to live in an RV and dump their shit on the street. Sorry about the cost of your bathroom addition though.
        tomcam 3y ago
        If you ask around here in Seattle, many of them will tell you they came here for the free stuff. They do have a choice.
        godelski 3y ago
        > A just and civil society being one where the harder I work, the more taxes I pay? How about: a just and civil economic system is one where the more utility I produce the higher quality of life I can achieve? This is very different from what you implied (being punished for creating value). Taxes and UBI aren't in opposition to this. It still rewards production and those that create value. It also recognizes that hard work isn't always valuable (digging a tunnel with a spoon is harder than with heavy machinery. But the latter provides more value). Maybe we should frame things this way instead. Progressive taxes do not result in situations where a raise in pay causes a decrease in take-home money. It does instead address the issue that money is sticky and the mere existence of capital passively generates capital (which actually means you generate wealth without doing work). Fine at certain levels but clearly can get out of control (generate wealth for retirement vs generational/perpetual wealth where your children end up wealthier than you passively).
    - moooo99 3y ago
      > but the assumption is most will then choose to work and earn extra income on top of that. Also important to stress that most (limited) experiments suggest this assumption to bee true. UBI is not as radical as many people pretend it is. It is essentially a one size fits all solution replacing all existing welfare programs with, in many cases, better outcomes.
      - geraldwhen 3y ago
        You can’t quit when you’re in an experiment that will end. Unless payments are for life, the experiments of UBI are invalid.
        account42 3y ago
        So what's your argument? That we shouldn't try UBI because we can't for sure how it will work out until we do? Guess what: That's true for pretty much everything. That doesn't mean discounting the evidence we do have because it's just that, evidence, is a reasonable thing to do.
    - Aunche 3y ago
      >it is clearly not, hence the "universal" Yet nobody has ever proposed a version of UBI that is truly universal. It's always limited to a certain in-group. This incentivizes the in-group to stretch the most out of their UBI: that is outsource all menial work to a permanent underclass of immigrants who don't receive free government money, which is exactly what happens in Saudi Arabia.
    - lelanthran 3y ago
      > You can accuse UBI of many things but unfair it is clearly not, hence the "universal". Everyone gets the same amount - I pointed out upthread that the so-called "universal" aspect of UBI is a dealbreaker. Special groups will complain, and have mass support for their complaints, if ever UBI is rolled out. In your world, it's "fair" if 20yo gamers get the same monthly stipend as a 40yo cripple. In reality you'd have complaints from special groups that will be supported in their grievance by the clear majority of the population.
      - wizofaus 3y ago
        Yes, it's fair because I wouldn't expect that stipend to be required to pay for whatever extra medical costs said cripple had. Further a "fair" system is never going to abolish all unfairness inherent in human existence - at a minimum it just needs to provide sufficient support that those who are struck with particularly bad luck don't suffer unnecessarily for it.
  - guy98238710 3y ago
    You know, it's not just labor that contributes to economic output. Natural resources and accumulated knowledge and technology contribute too. Both belong to everyone with equal share. Giving people what their share of resources and technology has produced is only fair.
    - somsak2 3y ago
      How does anyone have any claim to 'their share' of resources without any input? Just by being in existence, they deserve to consume natural resources / technology? I don't see how that makes sense.
      - pierat 3y ago
        > How does anyone have any claim to 'their share' of resources without any input? Counterpoint: not a single person born was asked to be put here. None. Every one of us was put here because 2 people chose to have sex (with or without consent) and left us as a result. To that original sin of non-consent, the least those already here owe us is the minimum to live, without any "input". > Just by being in existence, they deserve to consume natural resources / technology? I don't see how that makes sense. The sun provides nearly limitless energy. Natural resources can be used to make things. The 'free' resources are already there. To say that every human gets a 'share' of resources upon birth isn't exactly a foreign thought, either. The richie's with trust funds get this... But somehow daddy dearest having others work hard for him means he benefits.
      - godelski 3y ago
        > Just by being in existence, they deserve to consume natural resources / technology? Yes. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We also must acknowledge the tragedy of the commons, and that just by existing both utility is being extracted from them (in the modern era) and natural resources that there is no question that they have a right to (air, water, etc) are being utilized and modified by others. E.g. a coal processing plant provides a lot of utility (electricity) but the economic model does not account for the costs that this has on both a global (carbon) and local (pollution) consequences on shared goods (that are innate rights).
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    UBI in the ideal world replaces welfare, food stamps, and rental assistance. It's supposed to be enough for a person to live a basic, decent but pretty no-frills life. I personally don't think it would work, as it ignores economics and human nature. But that is how I understand it.
    - selestify 3y ago
      Which parts of it ignore economics and human nature?
      - ElFitz 3y ago
        The first thing that comes to mind is that rents would quickly adjust to extract as much money as possible from someone on UBI. And any increase on UBI would just lead to an increase in rent prices. People working while on UBI would squeeze those not working, or not earning enough, out of the housing market. Meaning people will probably need to work to afford living. So back to square one. Now you need to figure out rent-control. But that could screw up the construction market, reducing the incentive to build, and thus the supply. And quite possibly the quality of said supply. And that’s just housing.
        mantas 3y ago
        In reality, it's more likely that UBI-happy people would move to cheap backcountry while working people would move to more productive areas. Resulting in ghettos with little interaction between both groups. I wouldn't be surprised if over time one group decided it's about time to stop paying to strangers far away. Democratical process would be awesome too. With both groups split along UBI size.
    - lelanthran 3y ago
      > UBI in the ideal world replaces welfare, food stamps, and rental assistance. That's never going to happen. UBI will not replace existing welfare payouts, it will augment them. Until society is ready to let people and children die in the street because they (or their parents, in the case of children) gambled or boozed all of the UBI away, or it got stolen from them, or they simply burned it due to mental health problems, we still have to have safety nets for people who don't have money. Which is the whole point of the current welfare assistance system. UBI is also a no-go in terms of "universal". It's just too unfair. Why should a healthy 20yo get paid (to play video games) the same as a crippled 40yo? The latter literally needs more money just to survive, and doesn't have the same employment options as the healthy 20yo gamer. If ever UBI is rolled out, you'll see on day two the complaints come rolling in from special groups.
  - godelski 3y ago
    > They ain't desirable. But who wants to pay them do nothing? I do. Because these sentences are in opposition, not support. If they are undesirable in the workforce (reduce productivity or whatever) then why would you want them working? If they drain x dollars from the system, UBI costs y dollars, and if y < x, then it is profitable to pay them to do nothing. Incentive structures are complex and so this is going to be more difficult than the simple equation I wrote, but it serves as a guideline. But I don't think most people want to live the basic life, the minimum. Here's how I see it: if the measure of a man is how he treats someone who can give him nothing, then the measure of a country is how they treat those that do nothing for them. In other words: the floor. I don't believe countries should have ceilings on wealth or how quality of life, but they should have floors (they all do fwiw). That's what we should focus on more: the floor, not the ceiling.
    - mantas 3y ago
      Humans are not rational economic units. There's much more at play. My issue with UBI (and too lax welfare in general) is cultural issues. Once you get multiple generations of people who never worked.. It's not good. Personally I think USSR was somewhat close to UBI. Working was mandatory and pay was crap. But everybody looked the other way when somebody slacked or was drunk at work all the time. It was next to impossible to get fired for poor performance or drink at work and so on. The result was that good chunk of population abused this by drinking their days away and doing least possible amount of work. While other portion of population was fed up with the former and didn't give a fuck either. Productivity was very low. Aside from shadow economy where the later group worked their asses off. Doing their best to build a good life for themselves and not support slackers too much.
      - hef19898 3y ago
        We are, slowly but surely, approaching a point where worl is no longer a feasible way to distrubute wealth of a society to everyone. Reasons are automation, efficiency improvements, limited growth and, yes as much as I hate it, AI. Once we reach that point, as a society we have to answer the question of what happens to those people who find themselvesbout ofbwork. And those left with dull and dangerous jobs, usually the underpaid ones as well. As long as you are a proponent of unlimited capitalism and still have a job, not varing is one answer. Caring about more than oneself, or taking a more long term view, aiming for some kind of social net, and UBI is an option, is only prudent. Too much social unrest is recipe for disaster, and ultimately revolution (history has examples for that as recent as the Arab Spring). Smart ruling classes want to avoid that, e.g. Bismarck who invented the Prussian / German to combat a raise of socialist ideologies. Not smart elites, and wannabe elites, optimize for their own short term benefit. As did French nobility once.
  - ElFitz 3y ago
    Do they prefer covering for shareholder value? Who wants to pay people simply for having, or being able to borrow, the money to buy shares? Or put money in a VC fund? Do they perhaps prefer covering for execs bonuses? It’s really weird how many people will wail and rage against welfare for both their peers and poorer people, but have no issue whatsoever making a someone else richer. Just to be clear, I personally have no issue with either, as long as it feels reasonable.
- swader999 3y ago
  It's hard to infer someone's particular motivations. I'd rather work with code that was carefully crafted than something that was nervously hammered away at while looking over their shoulder just to catch a breath.
- josefx 3y ago
  > What leads you to believe that people who do not want to work are desirable to have in the workplace? Many of them are still better than having nobody and if they have to work to get money they are also somewhat incentivized to at least do the bare minimum. Counterpoint: Some management handbooks consider both unmotivated and motivated workers problematic. Would you rather deal with a highly motivated moron or a substantially less motivated Einstein?
photonbucket 3y ago
Giving people what they desire in terms of like quality is destroying them? Pushing them to keep doing what they don't want to do is helping them?
lannisterstark 3y ago
>Some people don’t want to work. They’ve told me so ...and? That's fine. there will always be some people who do not want to work. a UBI guarantees somewhat basic level of living conditions at least.
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  [deleted] I failed to consider the audience.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - cornercasechase 3y ago
    > Perhaps we could make paying for such people voluntary? I’d like to opt out of paying for war but sadly I can’t. My tax dollars going to help people instead of kill and oppress them seems like a huge upgrade.
  - bombolo 3y ago
    What is your actual contribution to society? I'm going to assume you work at some useless startup (like most of us) that will be gone in a few years, having left nothing useful to society. Is your work really helping society?
    - itsboring 3y ago
      What, you’re not “Making the World a Better Place through Paxos algorithms for consensus protocols”? In seriousness, I wish there was more self-awareness like this in our field.
      - bombolo 3y ago
        Remember when every startup was claiming to make the world a better place?
tigrezno 3y ago
So if you have the opportunity to stop working and keep being paid, wouldn't you take it? I'm sure the mayority of people don't want to work. It's not a natural thing to do.
- charlie0 3y ago
  I'm sure those people don't want to give up their iPhones and AC either (which also are not "natural").
  - eropple 3y ago
    And so they would...continue...to work...for things that cost more than food and shelter do?
    - cornercasechase 3y ago
      Very often, yes. But if their boss harassed them (or say tried to force RTO), they could quit and not worry about ending up on the street.
      - eropple 3y ago
        That was what I was getting at, yeah. ;)
      - itsboring 3y ago
        This is the real reason I like the idea of UBI. It’s not because I want to do nothing all day, it’s because I want to shift the power dynamic. For example, imagine a worker living paycheck-to-paycheck who needs their employer-provided health insurance, with an asshole boss who refuses to let them take a day off to attend a family member’s funeral: the UBI improves their ability to tell that boss to get fucked without ending up broke and homeless. Basically I’m for any system that allows people to tell bad bosses to get fucked. Also a good argument for universal health care.
    - ElFitz 3y ago
Randomizer42 3y ago
Easy wealth? I am not sure how to respond to this.
callmeal 3y ago
>Some people don’t want to work. Good. It's preferable that people who don't want to work stay home and do other things, rather than coming into the office and not working.
guy98238710 3y ago
Huh, UBI has its own moral panic. Never thought I would see that, but it seems obvious in retrospect. Both capitalism and communism worship work like some insane religion. If you work, you are a good person. If you don't, you are scum.
- flir 3y ago
  Protestant work ethic, innit. Both Capitalism and Communism are economic systems born of Northern Europe.
- Shaanie 3y ago
  People who don't work are usually economic parasites for those who do, so it makes sense to encourage working regardless of which economic system is used.
  - EatingWithForks 3y ago
    Wow, I never thought to consider my mother an economic parasite.
  - guy98238710 3y ago
    Once you have certain degree of automation, the hard-working people just drag everyone into pointless rat race.
adhesive_wombat 3y ago
The "basic" in basic income isn't there for decoration: just taking UBI and not working would probably be about as comfortable as living on something like Universal Credit in the UK, minus the adversarial means-testing, which is to say, "not very". Certainly I wouldn't characterise it as "easy wealth", more like "easy bare minimum so you don't have to worry about starvation". Besides, if it was that much gloriously easy wealth, you'd get it too!
- tomcam 3y ago
  How is means testing adversarial?
  - adhesive_wombat 3y ago
    Adversarial as well as means-tested, I should have said. The Universal Credit system is famously cruel in how it is designed. Not least it is paid in arrears and is designed to take 6 weeks to get the first (backdated) payment, by which time anyone who actually needs it is already likely to be overdrawn to the tune of a month's rent and utilities. https://www.newstatesman.com/quickfire/2022/10/universal-credit-cruel-inefficient-counterproductive https://www.newstatesman.com/quickfire/2022/10/universal-cre... https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/universal-credit-chaos-fear-and-preventable-deaths/ https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/universal-credit-chaos... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/universal-credit-system-whistleblower-benefits-poverty-suffering-vulnerable-claimants-hunger-chaos-theresa-may-a7998731.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/universal-cr... https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/government-benefit-sanctions-mp-report_uk_5be069b9e4b09d43e3215b7a https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/government-benefit-sa...
  - jclulow 3y ago
    The purest idealistic version of means testing may well be fine in theory, but in practice means testing is universally co-opted by conservative governments to make it difficult or impossible for the people with the least resources (and thus most in need of the benefits) to actually get them. The Australian Centrelink programme is a pretty good example of what happens: one government introduces a system of unemployment benefits and then later a different conservative government (whose members and voting base don't like poor people) are able to pervert the system through means testing provisions and other bureaucratic hurdles to effectively prevent a large subset of eligible persons from actually collecting the benefits to which they are entitled, but without having to deal with the political fallout of actually ending or reducing benefits on paper.
whitemary 3y ago
>Some people don’t want to work All we can be certain of is that they don't want to spend most of their lives under a dictatorship, and that's fair imo.
II2II 3y ago
I used to be employed in a community where the vast majority of people collected welfare and did not work. Except that most of the people who did not work actually did work. They would hunt for food, chop fire wood, haul their garbage to the dump, cook their own food, raise their own children, and do the many other things that are necessary to live. I'm not saying that they type of person you describe does not exist. They do. Some of them lived in the very community I described. I am saying that because we tend to have a very specific, and peculiar, idea of what work means. We almost universally mean working for another. It doesn't much matter whether we are an employer or an employee, the product of that work is typically meant for someone outside of our family, social circles, and community. At the same time we dismiss any form of labour that isn't based upon some sort of transaction, the type of labour that is central to the health of both families and communities. Our culture has these notions so entrenched that the lack of a "proper job" does destroy people, psychologically. Not only is one's sense of value lost, but the value of other types of relationships is greatly diminished. I don't really see worker rights or labour regulations as a complete solution since we are dealing with a problem that is stitched into the fabric of our society. Likewise, UBI is not a complete solution. If we were to dive into UBI today, which is about providing for people's basic needs from our surpluses (it is not about providing easy wealth), some people would be destroyed because we have never put much thought into what it means to live without there being some sort of transaction. We have never put much thought into what a non-authoritarian workplace would look like. We have never put much thought into what we need and our relationship with society as a whole. The question that I have trouble answering is how can we build the foundation of a society where we aren't simply asking whether we work to live or live to work? A society where people's needs are met without coercion. A world where people want to contribute to a more egalitarian society.
- godelski 3y ago
  This is a very important part of the equation and I think many miss. "Work" is not well defined. I often ask what people would do if money wasn't an issue and they didn't have to have a job[0]. Most people end up answering that they'd pursue passions like art, volunteering, doing research, or other things that many call "work" but might not pay (after they say they'd travel and do other things like that, of course (follow-up is always required)). A lot of work is not quantified by traditional economic transactions (i.e. pay for work). People don't want to sit around and do nothing their entire lives. The other thing is people also seem to forget that this is exactly the situation those from generational wealth are in, and that the vast majority of them do some form of work. Yes, there are those that don't (especially while younger) but the majority do. I have a very hard time buying the narrative that were people to not work to make a living that they'd be a net drain on society. I see little evidence. I also see this as claiming that a post-scarce society is impossible. This is also critical as we live in a time where the potential for a post-scarce world exists (robotic workers liberate humanity from labor). It is even critical if we live in a semi or limited post scarce world, which is the transitional period to a post scarcity society (we're possibly in this). [0] I say I'd like to read math books, research, and publish openly. Not far from what I do now (academia). People counter me saying that that's work.
codegeek 3y ago
Free money is never going to solve anything. I don't mind helping people in need but just handing out money to people especially the ones that are already lazy wouldn't solve a thing. Instead, we should focus on getting people to work. Whatever that takes. We should reward those who want to work and penalize those who don't. If you can't work due to a real disability, you should be helped.
- bombolo 3y ago
  > Whatever that takes. Ah, the old whip, yes… -_-'
- machinawhite 3y ago
  I used to think HN is full of brilliant people but then there's emotionaly stunted priviliged yuppies like you spewing the most retarded shit I've ever seen. Please fuck off and work yourself to death so there's less of you. Fuck you.
- Jochim 3y ago
  I'd rather require employers to make themselves a place someone would freely choose to work. If a person's basic needs are taken care of and they don't want to work for you, that's your problem. Even with our current systems, we have a situation where people live in such precarity that employers are able to treat them abusively/illegally. An egregious example would be "companies hiring children to clean slaughterhouses on a nightshift". More generally, we shouldn't put people in a position where they have to accept abuse because the alternative is massive upheaval at best, homelessness at worst.
93po 3y ago
There are millions of stay-at-home parents or childless spouses that don't work traditional jobs and their lives are not destroyed.
PeterisP 3y ago
UBI is a solution to the problem of structural unemployment when due to advances in automation we don't have enough reasonable jobs for people who are capable of working, when we don't really want everyone to work as much. If we need everyone who can work to actually work, if we want to force people to work with a threat that if they don't contribute to society then they'll be (for example) homeless - well, then we don't (yet) need UBI and should not implement UBI until(if) we get the problem which UBI would fix.
pierat 3y ago
Work and labor are 2 different things. And I would never 'work' either, if it weren't for hanging starvation and destitution over my head. Labor - I build a fence for my home, or fix plumbing, or make miniatures, or do cool stuff. I and those around me benefit from my labor. I may help a friend move. Or help to do light construction, or networking. Again, we benefit. Work is labor where someone else takes the lion's share of the labor and keeps the surplus, where you nearly never see the result and keep scraps of your worth. You'll never see your 'worth', and all attempts will be made to hide it. The 'who' whom gets this massive surplus is the company you work for. Lots of hand-wavey reasons will be made why your share is low. I have no problem with labor. I and those around me benefit. Work is exploitative and serves to make someone else richer at my, my family's, and my friends expense.
abwizz 3y ago
> Some people don’t want to work. They’ve told me so. I think UBI would destroy these people most ppl dont want to work some unrelateable, bullshit under time constraints for richer ppl they dont even know or like. so mostly we chug along and put in the required performances. imo this is unesessary and counterproductive since we have gained access to automation of most physical and a lot of office work.

oneplane 3y ago

What leads you to believe that people who do not want to work are desirable to have in the workplace? UBI also doesn't give you wealth, it gives you basics, and overal that's much cheaper than dragging down an entire team or department. At the same time, we currently have plenty of people who do not want to work and do indeed not work, that will not change regardless of what you implement. I also think that happy and healthy non-working people are worth more to humanity than unhappy or unhealthy working people.

mantas 3y ago
They ain't desirable. But who wants to pay them do nothing? Many people ain't happy to cover existing welfare. Increase welfare and even more people would feel it's unfair.
- wizofaus 3y ago
  You can accuse UBI of many things but unfair it is clearly not, hence the "universal". Everyone gets the same amount - but the assumption is most will then choose to work and earn extra income on top of that.
  - vihren 3y ago
    How is it fair? You do give the same amount to everyone, but you do not take the same from everyone - you have to take more from those who chose to work. Hence the unfair part.
    - wizofaus 3y ago
      Taxation is quite separate though - we all have the same access to government provided services and infrastructure regardless of how much income tax we pay, I don't see anybody arguing that's unfair.
      - eropple 3y ago
        Those with the most to lose benefit the most from having a just and civil society, but that realization never seems to percolate through.
        tomcam 3y ago
        A just and civil society being one where the harder I work, the more taxes I pay? Where stores are closing right and left because theft isn’t prosecuted but I have to pay $7,000 to get a bathroom permitted while an RV on the street outside my house is considered a home and gets to dump shit on the street with no repercussions?
        virgildotcodes 3y ago
        Sucks that some people have no better choice than to live in an RV and dump their shit on the street. Sorry about the cost of your bathroom addition though.
        tomcam 3y ago
        If you ask around here in Seattle, many of them will tell you they came here for the free stuff. They do have a choice.
        godelski 3y ago
        > A just and civil society being one where the harder I work, the more taxes I pay? How about: a just and civil economic system is one where the more utility I produce the higher quality of life I can achieve? This is very different from what you implied (being punished for creating value). Taxes and UBI aren't in opposition to this. It still rewards production and those that create value. It also recognizes that hard work isn't always valuable (digging a tunnel with a spoon is harder than with heavy machinery. But the latter provides more value). Maybe we should frame things this way instead. Progressive taxes do not result in situations where a raise in pay causes a decrease in take-home money. It does instead address the issue that money is sticky and the mere existence of capital passively generates capital (which actually means you generate wealth without doing work). Fine at certain levels but clearly can get out of control (generate wealth for retirement vs generational/perpetual wealth where your children end up wealthier than you passively).
  - moooo99 3y ago
    > but the assumption is most will then choose to work and earn extra income on top of that. Also important to stress that most (limited) experiments suggest this assumption to bee true. UBI is not as radical as many people pretend it is. It is essentially a one size fits all solution replacing all existing welfare programs with, in many cases, better outcomes.
    - geraldwhen 3y ago
      You can’t quit when you’re in an experiment that will end. Unless payments are for life, the experiments of UBI are invalid.
      - account42 3y ago
        So what's your argument? That we shouldn't try UBI because we can't for sure how it will work out until we do? Guess what: That's true for pretty much everything. That doesn't mean discounting the evidence we do have because it's just that, evidence, is a reasonable thing to do.
  - Aunche 3y ago
    >it is clearly not, hence the "universal" Yet nobody has ever proposed a version of UBI that is truly universal. It's always limited to a certain in-group. This incentivizes the in-group to stretch the most out of their UBI: that is outsource all menial work to a permanent underclass of immigrants who don't receive free government money, which is exactly what happens in Saudi Arabia.
  - lelanthran 3y ago
    > You can accuse UBI of many things but unfair it is clearly not, hence the "universal". Everyone gets the same amount - I pointed out upthread that the so-called "universal" aspect of UBI is a dealbreaker. Special groups will complain, and have mass support for their complaints, if ever UBI is rolled out. In your world, it's "fair" if 20yo gamers get the same monthly stipend as a 40yo cripple. In reality you'd have complaints from special groups that will be supported in their grievance by the clear majority of the population.
    - wizofaus 3y ago
      Yes, it's fair because I wouldn't expect that stipend to be required to pay for whatever extra medical costs said cripple had. Further a "fair" system is never going to abolish all unfairness inherent in human existence - at a minimum it just needs to provide sufficient support that those who are struck with particularly bad luck don't suffer unnecessarily for it.
- guy98238710 3y ago
  You know, it's not just labor that contributes to economic output. Natural resources and accumulated knowledge and technology contribute too. Both belong to everyone with equal share. Giving people what their share of resources and technology has produced is only fair.
  - somsak2 3y ago
    How does anyone have any claim to 'their share' of resources without any input? Just by being in existence, they deserve to consume natural resources / technology? I don't see how that makes sense.
    - pierat 3y ago
      > How does anyone have any claim to 'their share' of resources without any input? Counterpoint: not a single person born was asked to be put here. None. Every one of us was put here because 2 people chose to have sex (with or without consent) and left us as a result. To that original sin of non-consent, the least those already here owe us is the minimum to live, without any "input". > Just by being in existence, they deserve to consume natural resources / technology? I don't see how that makes sense. The sun provides nearly limitless energy. Natural resources can be used to make things. The 'free' resources are already there. To say that every human gets a 'share' of resources upon birth isn't exactly a foreign thought, either. The richie's with trust funds get this... But somehow daddy dearest having others work hard for him means he benefits.
    - godelski 3y ago
      > Just by being in existence, they deserve to consume natural resources / technology? Yes. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We also must acknowledge the tragedy of the commons, and that just by existing both utility is being extracted from them (in the modern era) and natural resources that there is no question that they have a right to (air, water, etc) are being utilized and modified by others. E.g. a coal processing plant provides a lot of utility (electricity) but the economic model does not account for the costs that this has on both a global (carbon) and local (pollution) consequences on shared goods (that are innate rights).
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  UBI in the ideal world replaces welfare, food stamps, and rental assistance. It's supposed to be enough for a person to live a basic, decent but pretty no-frills life. I personally don't think it would work, as it ignores economics and human nature. But that is how I understand it.
  - selestify 3y ago
    Which parts of it ignore economics and human nature?
    - ElFitz 3y ago
      The first thing that comes to mind is that rents would quickly adjust to extract as much money as possible from someone on UBI. And any increase on UBI would just lead to an increase in rent prices. People working while on UBI would squeeze those not working, or not earning enough, out of the housing market. Meaning people will probably need to work to afford living. So back to square one. Now you need to figure out rent-control. But that could screw up the construction market, reducing the incentive to build, and thus the supply. And quite possibly the quality of said supply. And that’s just housing.
      - mantas 3y ago
        In reality, it's more likely that UBI-happy people would move to cheap backcountry while working people would move to more productive areas. Resulting in ghettos with little interaction between both groups. I wouldn't be surprised if over time one group decided it's about time to stop paying to strangers far away. Democratical process would be awesome too. With both groups split along UBI size.
  - lelanthran 3y ago
    > UBI in the ideal world replaces welfare, food stamps, and rental assistance. That's never going to happen. UBI will not replace existing welfare payouts, it will augment them. Until society is ready to let people and children die in the street because they (or their parents, in the case of children) gambled or boozed all of the UBI away, or it got stolen from them, or they simply burned it due to mental health problems, we still have to have safety nets for people who don't have money. Which is the whole point of the current welfare assistance system. UBI is also a no-go in terms of "universal". It's just too unfair. Why should a healthy 20yo get paid (to play video games) the same as a crippled 40yo? The latter literally needs more money just to survive, and doesn't have the same employment options as the healthy 20yo gamer. If ever UBI is rolled out, you'll see on day two the complaints come rolling in from special groups.
- godelski 3y ago
  > They ain't desirable. But who wants to pay them do nothing? I do. Because these sentences are in opposition, not support. If they are undesirable in the workforce (reduce productivity or whatever) then why would you want them working? If they drain x dollars from the system, UBI costs y dollars, and if y < x, then it is profitable to pay them to do nothing. Incentive structures are complex and so this is going to be more difficult than the simple equation I wrote, but it serves as a guideline. But I don't think most people want to live the basic life, the minimum. Here's how I see it: if the measure of a man is how he treats someone who can give him nothing, then the measure of a country is how they treat those that do nothing for them. In other words: the floor. I don't believe countries should have ceilings on wealth or how quality of life, but they should have floors (they all do fwiw). That's what we should focus on more: the floor, not the ceiling.
  - mantas 3y ago
    Humans are not rational economic units. There's much more at play. My issue with UBI (and too lax welfare in general) is cultural issues. Once you get multiple generations of people who never worked.. It's not good. Personally I think USSR was somewhat close to UBI. Working was mandatory and pay was crap. But everybody looked the other way when somebody slacked or was drunk at work all the time. It was next to impossible to get fired for poor performance or drink at work and so on. The result was that good chunk of population abused this by drinking their days away and doing least possible amount of work. While other portion of population was fed up with the former and didn't give a fuck either. Productivity was very low. Aside from shadow economy where the later group worked their asses off. Doing their best to build a good life for themselves and not support slackers too much.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      We are, slowly but surely, approaching a point where worl is no longer a feasible way to distrubute wealth of a society to everyone. Reasons are automation, efficiency improvements, limited growth and, yes as much as I hate it, AI. Once we reach that point, as a society we have to answer the question of what happens to those people who find themselvesbout ofbwork. And those left with dull and dangerous jobs, usually the underpaid ones as well. As long as you are a proponent of unlimited capitalism and still have a job, not varing is one answer. Caring about more than oneself, or taking a more long term view, aiming for some kind of social net, and UBI is an option, is only prudent. Too much social unrest is recipe for disaster, and ultimately revolution (history has examples for that as recent as the Arab Spring). Smart ruling classes want to avoid that, e.g. Bismarck who invented the Prussian / German to combat a raise of socialist ideologies. Not smart elites, and wannabe elites, optimize for their own short term benefit. As did French nobility once.
- ElFitz 3y ago
  Do they prefer covering for shareholder value? Who wants to pay people simply for having, or being able to borrow, the money to buy shares? Or put money in a VC fund? Do they perhaps prefer covering for execs bonuses? It’s really weird how many people will wail and rage against welfare for both their peers and poorer people, but have no issue whatsoever making a someone else richer. Just to be clear, I personally have no issue with either, as long as it feels reasonable.
swader999 3y ago
It's hard to infer someone's particular motivations. I'd rather work with code that was carefully crafted than something that was nervously hammered away at while looking over their shoulder just to catch a breath.
josefx 3y ago
> What leads you to believe that people who do not want to work are desirable to have in the workplace? Many of them are still better than having nobody and if they have to work to get money they are also somewhat incentivized to at least do the bare minimum. Counterpoint: Some management handbooks consider both unmotivated and motivated workers problematic. Would you rather deal with a highly motivated moron or a substantially less motivated Einstein?

photonbucket 3y ago

Giving people what they desire in terms of like quality is destroying them? Pushing them to keep doing what they don't want to do is helping them?

lannisterstark 3y ago

>Some people don’t want to work. They’ve told me so ...and? That's fine. there will always be some people who do not want to work. a UBI guarantees somewhat basic level of living conditions at least.

CoastalCoder 3y ago
[deleted] I failed to consider the audience.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- cornercasechase 3y ago
  > Perhaps we could make paying for such people voluntary? I’d like to opt out of paying for war but sadly I can’t. My tax dollars going to help people instead of kill and oppress them seems like a huge upgrade.
- bombolo 3y ago
  What is your actual contribution to society? I'm going to assume you work at some useless startup (like most of us) that will be gone in a few years, having left nothing useful to society. Is your work really helping society?
  - itsboring 3y ago
    What, you’re not “Making the World a Better Place through Paxos algorithms for consensus protocols”? In seriousness, I wish there was more self-awareness like this in our field.
    - bombolo 3y ago
      Remember when every startup was claiming to make the world a better place?

tigrezno 3y ago

So if you have the opportunity to stop working and keep being paid, wouldn't you take it? I'm sure the mayority of people don't want to work. It's not a natural thing to do.

charlie0 3y ago
I'm sure those people don't want to give up their iPhones and AC either (which also are not "natural").
- eropple 3y ago
  And so they would...continue...to work...for things that cost more than food and shelter do?
  - cornercasechase 3y ago
    Very often, yes. But if their boss harassed them (or say tried to force RTO), they could quit and not worry about ending up on the street.
    - eropple 3y ago
      That was what I was getting at, yeah. ;)
    - itsboring 3y ago
      This is the real reason I like the idea of UBI. It’s not because I want to do nothing all day, it’s because I want to shift the power dynamic. For example, imagine a worker living paycheck-to-paycheck who needs their employer-provided health insurance, with an asshole boss who refuses to let them take a day off to attend a family member’s funeral: the UBI improves their ability to tell that boss to get fucked without ending up broke and homeless. Basically I’m for any system that allows people to tell bad bosses to get fucked. Also a good argument for universal health care.
  - ElFitz 3y ago

Randomizer42 3y ago

Easy wealth? I am not sure how to respond to this.

callmeal 3y ago

>Some people don’t want to work. Good. It's preferable that people who don't want to work stay home and do other things, rather than coming into the office and not working.

guy98238710 3y ago

Huh, UBI has its own moral panic. Never thought I would see that, but it seems obvious in retrospect. Both capitalism and communism worship work like some insane religion. If you work, you are a good person. If you don't, you are scum.

flir 3y ago
Protestant work ethic, innit. Both Capitalism and Communism are economic systems born of Northern Europe.
Shaanie 3y ago
People who don't work are usually economic parasites for those who do, so it makes sense to encourage working regardless of which economic system is used.
- EatingWithForks 3y ago
  Wow, I never thought to consider my mother an economic parasite.
- guy98238710 3y ago
  Once you have certain degree of automation, the hard-working people just drag everyone into pointless rat race.

adhesive_wombat 3y ago

The "basic" in basic income isn't there for decoration: just taking UBI and not working would probably be about as comfortable as living on something like Universal Credit in the UK, minus the adversarial means-testing, which is to say, "not very". Certainly I wouldn't characterise it as "easy wealth", more like "easy bare minimum so you don't have to worry about starvation". Besides, if it was that much gloriously easy wealth, you'd get it too!

tomcam 3y ago
How is means testing adversarial?
- adhesive_wombat 3y ago
  Adversarial as well as means-tested, I should have said. The Universal Credit system is famously cruel in how it is designed. Not least it is paid in arrears and is designed to take 6 weeks to get the first (backdated) payment, by which time anyone who actually needs it is already likely to be overdrawn to the tune of a month's rent and utilities. https://www.newstatesman.com/quickfire/2022/10/universal-credit-cruel-inefficient-counterproductive https://www.newstatesman.com/quickfire/2022/10/universal-cre... https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/universal-credit-chaos-fear-and-preventable-deaths/ https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/universal-credit-chaos... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/universal-credit-system-whistleblower-benefits-poverty-suffering-vulnerable-claimants-hunger-chaos-theresa-may-a7998731.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/universal-cr... https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/government-benefit-sanctions-mp-report_uk_5be069b9e4b09d43e3215b7a https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/government-benefit-sa...
- jclulow 3y ago
  The purest idealistic version of means testing may well be fine in theory, but in practice means testing is universally co-opted by conservative governments to make it difficult or impossible for the people with the least resources (and thus most in need of the benefits) to actually get them. The Australian Centrelink programme is a pretty good example of what happens: one government introduces a system of unemployment benefits and then later a different conservative government (whose members and voting base don't like poor people) are able to pervert the system through means testing provisions and other bureaucratic hurdles to effectively prevent a large subset of eligible persons from actually collecting the benefits to which they are entitled, but without having to deal with the political fallout of actually ending or reducing benefits on paper.

whitemary 3y ago

>Some people don’t want to work All we can be certain of is that they don't want to spend most of their lives under a dictatorship, and that's fair imo.

II2II 3y ago

I used to be employed in a community where the vast majority of people collected welfare and did not work. Except that most of the people who did not work actually did work. They would hunt for food, chop fire wood, haul their garbage to the dump, cook their own food, raise their own children, and do the many other things that are necessary to live. I'm not saying that they type of person you describe does not exist. They do. Some of them lived in the very community I described. I am saying that because we tend to have a very specific, and peculiar, idea of what work means. We almost universally mean working for another. It doesn't much matter whether we are an employer or an employee, the product of that work is typically meant for someone outside of our family, social circles, and community. At the same time we dismiss any form of labour that isn't based upon some sort of transaction, the type of labour that is central to the health of both families and communities. Our culture has these notions so entrenched that the lack of a "proper job" does destroy people, psychologically. Not only is one's sense of value lost, but the value of other types of relationships is greatly diminished. I don't really see worker rights or labour regulations as a complete solution since we are dealing with a problem that is stitched into the fabric of our society. Likewise, UBI is not a complete solution. If we were to dive into UBI today, which is about providing for people's basic needs from our surpluses (it is not about providing easy wealth), some people would be destroyed because we have never put much thought into what it means to live without there being some sort of transaction. We have never put much thought into what a non-authoritarian workplace would look like. We have never put much thought into what we need and our relationship with society as a whole. The question that I have trouble answering is how can we build the foundation of a society where we aren't simply asking whether we work to live or live to work? A society where people's needs are met without coercion. A world where people want to contribute to a more egalitarian society.

godelski 3y ago
This is a very important part of the equation and I think many miss. "Work" is not well defined. I often ask what people would do if money wasn't an issue and they didn't have to have a job[0]. Most people end up answering that they'd pursue passions like art, volunteering, doing research, or other things that many call "work" but might not pay (after they say they'd travel and do other things like that, of course (follow-up is always required)). A lot of work is not quantified by traditional economic transactions (i.e. pay for work). People don't want to sit around and do nothing their entire lives. The other thing is people also seem to forget that this is exactly the situation those from generational wealth are in, and that the vast majority of them do some form of work. Yes, there are those that don't (especially while younger) but the majority do. I have a very hard time buying the narrative that were people to not work to make a living that they'd be a net drain on society. I see little evidence. I also see this as claiming that a post-scarce society is impossible. This is also critical as we live in a time where the potential for a post-scarce world exists (robotic workers liberate humanity from labor). It is even critical if we live in a semi or limited post scarce world, which is the transitional period to a post scarcity society (we're possibly in this). [0] I say I'd like to read math books, research, and publish openly. Not far from what I do now (academia). People counter me saying that that's work.

codegeek 3y ago

Free money is never going to solve anything. I don't mind helping people in need but just handing out money to people especially the ones that are already lazy wouldn't solve a thing. Instead, we should focus on getting people to work. Whatever that takes. We should reward those who want to work and penalize those who don't. If you can't work due to a real disability, you should be helped.

bombolo 3y ago
> Whatever that takes. Ah, the old whip, yes… -_-'
machinawhite 3y ago
I used to think HN is full of brilliant people but then there's emotionaly stunted priviliged yuppies like you spewing the most retarded shit I've ever seen. Please fuck off and work yourself to death so there's less of you. Fuck you.
Jochim 3y ago
I'd rather require employers to make themselves a place someone would freely choose to work. If a person's basic needs are taken care of and they don't want to work for you, that's your problem. Even with our current systems, we have a situation where people live in such precarity that employers are able to treat them abusively/illegally. An egregious example would be "companies hiring children to clean slaughterhouses on a nightshift". More generally, we shouldn't put people in a position where they have to accept abuse because the alternative is massive upheaval at best, homelessness at worst.

93po 3y ago

There are millions of stay-at-home parents or childless spouses that don't work traditional jobs and their lives are not destroyed.

PeterisP 3y ago

UBI is a solution to the problem of structural unemployment when due to advances in automation we don't have enough reasonable jobs for people who are capable of working, when we don't really want everyone to work as much. If we need everyone who can work to actually work, if we want to force people to work with a threat that if they don't contribute to society then they'll be (for example) homeless - well, then we don't (yet) need UBI and should not implement UBI until(if) we get the problem which UBI would fix.

pierat 3y ago

Work and labor are 2 different things. And I would never 'work' either, if it weren't for hanging starvation and destitution over my head. Labor - I build a fence for my home, or fix plumbing, or make miniatures, or do cool stuff. I and those around me benefit from my labor. I may help a friend move. Or help to do light construction, or networking. Again, we benefit. Work is labor where someone else takes the lion's share of the labor and keeps the surplus, where you nearly never see the result and keep scraps of your worth. You'll never see your 'worth', and all attempts will be made to hide it. The 'who' whom gets this massive surplus is the company you work for. Lots of hand-wavey reasons will be made why your share is low. I have no problem with labor. I and those around me benefit. Work is exploitative and serves to make someone else richer at my, my family's, and my friends expense.

abwizz 3y ago

> Some people don’t want to work. They’ve told me so. I think UBI would destroy these people most ppl dont want to work some unrelateable, bullshit under time constraints for richer ppl they dont even know or like. so mostly we chug along and put in the required performances. imo this is unesessary and counterproductive since we have gained access to automation of most physical and a lot of office work.