6 ms·

It is also immoral. EDIT: As this is collecting downvotes quite quickly, would any of the downvoters care to explain their stance?

defrost 3y ago
'It' ? What exactly is immoral and why?
- kzrdude 3y ago
  That support comes with requirements and they will try to get you "reintegrated" and into a job so that you can support yourself. To use it as a salary with no intention to work is not according to the purpose of this service.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - pavlov 3y ago
    Another way to look at this would be in the context of subsidies aimed at less populated areas of the country. A lot of people are concerned about the countryside going empty, and there are various policies aimed at reversing or at least halting that. They are necessarily income-transfer programs where cities subsidize the countryside. An individual getting paid 500 euros to live in a remote area doesn’t seem like a bad deal in that context. It’s a much more measurable outcome than many of these other programs, at least. But somehow giving money to an individual is much more morally controversial than giving money to a larger collective like a province or state. For example, Republicans generally don’t have a problem with federal programs that transfer income from rich states like California and New York to poor states like Alabama and Mississippi. But they would absolutely oppose similar income transfer on a personal level.
    - danbruc 3y ago
      Would the aim of such programs not be to have a working society in those less populated areas instead of just filling it with non-working people completely dependent on others?
      - pavlov 3y ago
        People change. Especially for young people, I personally think it’s valuable to give them opportunities that are not immediately productive. If you could get a 21-year-old to move into the countryside, it might have significant long-term upside even if the person appears like a slacker right now. They could find a spouse and have kids. They could come up with an online business (which might still look like “slacking at a computer” to most of the world). They could eventually do local volunteer work that is important but can’t get done at market prices. There’s a lot of ways that a young person’s life can go. For older people the equation is a bit different for obvious reasons. But most government programs can’t discriminate by age, so you’d have to aim at a compromise.
        danbruc 3y ago
        Sure, but that is for the people that finance the basic subsidence to deside, they decide what they expect in return. If they want to give the money unconditionally, fine, then it would of course not be immoral to take them up on the offer. I do not know what the Norwegian rules say, so maybe it is like that. On the other if you structure it like that, you open yourself up for exploitation by people who could work but prefer not to. And this could very well make them reconsider the conditions or make the entire thing unsustainable.
    - marak830 3y ago
      It is something that is be interested to read about - using a basic stipend to redistrube wealth, to try and offset soloing (as in cities), which would (theoretically) help revitalise country towns (with more locals able to spend cash locally) An addition would be to create various centres to allow people to learn new skills and eventually reenter the workforce
    - caskstrength 3y ago
      > A lot of people are concerned about the countryside going empty, and there are various policies aimed at reversing or at least halting that. They are necessarily income-transfer programs where cities subsidize the countryside. I wonder why. I would love to empty and re-wild more countryside.
- danbruc 3y ago
  Taking money from the state for which others worked to finance your life without making an attempt to finance your life yourself.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - imtringued 3y ago
    The inverse perspective is that you have been forced to not be able to finance yourself and I have both theory and evidence that this is true for a non zero percentage of the population. In that sense, not spending "other people's money" was never an option to begin with. Instead of using a framing that sees other people as parasites, I prefer to see it as a bribe to people to get them away from me and leave me alone.
    - danbruc 3y ago
      What would those circumstances be that prevent people from working to support their life?
- mopenstein 3y ago
  It's the coercive nature by which wealth is redistributed to other people that brings upon the questions of morality. If I'm forced at the end of a barrel of a gun to give up any portion of the fruits of my labor to support others, it is immoral.
  - Podgajski 3y ago
    That’s what you have to do when peoples hearts are spiritually dead. Otherwise, the people who have nothing will rise up against you anyway.
  - danbruc 3y ago
    If the majority of people in your country agrees that wealth redistribution is bad, then just elect a government that will stop doing it.
    - caskstrength 3y ago
      > If the majority of people in your country agrees that wealth redistribution is bad, then just elect a government that will stop doing it. That is why they (the upper class) came up with progressive taxes - so middle class (the minority) would subsidize lower classes (the majority). Basically you suggest a pack of wolves and a ship to democratically decide who will be eaten for dinner.
    - mopenstein 3y ago
      Voting is immoral too. If I don't support the potential outcome, how could I justify participating? Here's a scenario for you: 11 people in a room. They decide to take a majority vote to murder one of the 11 at random. What's your vote? No? What happens in the case you're outvoted? You are now complicit in murder. Vote yes? You are now complicit in murder. Casting your vote is your acknowledgement that the you accept the results. The only moral action is to object, conscientiously and refuse to participate. Now stand in a room of 300,000,000 people where the end result of your participation is endless evil and murder. Congratulations.
  - kuschku 3y ago
- watwut 3y ago
  Not OP, but imo, these subsidies exists so that people who have issues can get by. And that is a good thing. Just making decision to live off that and spend time doing hobbies is abusing good thing and asocial. People who openly advocate for something like that are endangering existence of those programs for those who really need it because of mental health or physical issues. Moreover, those programs typically comes with social workers and requirements designed to make you change your life. You should cooperate with that goal so that you cease to be so dependent.
vjk800 3y ago
Only if you accept that the system itself is moral. If you think it's an oppressive power structure that violently conquered traditional, small scale communities and forced them to live under its thumb, I think there's nothing wrong with abusing the abuser.
dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago
> EDIT: As this is collecting downvotes quite quickly, would any of the downvoters care to explain their stance? No, it works the other way round: you should explain why you find it immoral, then we can explain why we disagree (or maybe agree) with you. Otherwise you will only get a downvote.
- danbruc 3y ago
  I did this in response to the first comment. [1] I did not elaborate on this in my first comment because I did not anticipate that this would be a contentious statement. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38139825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38139825
sokoloff 3y ago
Presenting a one sentence expression of a value judgment as if it were a fact will tend to attract downvotes, because that doesn’t add any interesting perspective or information for anyone to take away other than they know your opinion on an individual topic. (Or they would, if they knew exactly what you were referring to with the unanchored pronoun. Are you referring to the state support program, the use of the state program to live indefinitely, or something else?)
- danbruc 3y ago
  It never occurred to me that someone would disagree with that statement, I just wrote this as some kind of reminder and did not think that it was necessary to elaborate. You take money to finance your life instead of working for it, money for which other people worked and which they provide to help others through hard times.
caskstrength 3y ago
> EDIT: As this is collecting downvotes quite quickly, would any of the downvoters care to explain their stance? Any discussion of social and/or economic issues on HN always attracts hordes of Tesla-driving SV champagne socialists.
- unflxw 3y ago
  I see this sentiment expressed often, but I don't quite get it. Is the implication that if you personally enjoy a high standard of living through capitalism, it is therefore hypocritical to advocate for everyone to enjoy a high standard of living through socialism? How come? (I am asking this question in good faith. Note that at no point I am stating that socialism would or could actually achieve a high standard of living for everyone. I am neither interested in having that discussion or claiming that position. Please don't reply with a Wikipedia copy-paste about the great famine)
  - caskstrength 3y ago
    > I am asking this question in good faith. I appreciate and will honestly try express my point of view on this issue in good faith and without being too snarky. > I am neither interested in having that discussion or claiming that position. Please don't reply with a Wikipedia copy-paste about the great famine Actually I come from a Ukrainian family that was affected by Holodomor, so I don't need Wikipedia to reason about the subject but okay, let's drop it. > Is the implication that if you personally enjoy a high standard of living through capitalism, it is therefore hypocritical to advocate for everyone to enjoy a high standard of living through socialism? How come? I think champagne socialist brigade on HN is a wealthy people who already got theirs (house in SV that they bought long time ago and which appreciated to several million dollars price today, maxed Roth IRA for decade+ that they weren't even supposed to be eligible to but still got via shenanigans of their corporate employers, etc.), now they just pulling up the ladder and basically suggesting newcomers to consider paying their healthcare cost during their retirement or something (don't know why but those people always enamored with European-style single payer healthcare for no good reason). Now, try to suggest to those people to fund their leftist inclinations by heavily taxing actual wealth and inheritance and they quickly come up with all kinds of convoluted answers why that is a bad approach that would never work...

defrost 3y ago

'It' ? What exactly is immoral and why?

kzrdude 3y ago
That support comes with requirements and they will try to get you "reintegrated" and into a job so that you can support yourself. To use it as a salary with no intention to work is not according to the purpose of this service.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- pavlov 3y ago
  Another way to look at this would be in the context of subsidies aimed at less populated areas of the country. A lot of people are concerned about the countryside going empty, and there are various policies aimed at reversing or at least halting that. They are necessarily income-transfer programs where cities subsidize the countryside. An individual getting paid 500 euros to live in a remote area doesn’t seem like a bad deal in that context. It’s a much more measurable outcome than many of these other programs, at least. But somehow giving money to an individual is much more morally controversial than giving money to a larger collective like a province or state. For example, Republicans generally don’t have a problem with federal programs that transfer income from rich states like California and New York to poor states like Alabama and Mississippi. But they would absolutely oppose similar income transfer on a personal level.
  - danbruc 3y ago
    Would the aim of such programs not be to have a working society in those less populated areas instead of just filling it with non-working people completely dependent on others?
    - pavlov 3y ago
      People change. Especially for young people, I personally think it’s valuable to give them opportunities that are not immediately productive. If you could get a 21-year-old to move into the countryside, it might have significant long-term upside even if the person appears like a slacker right now. They could find a spouse and have kids. They could come up with an online business (which might still look like “slacking at a computer” to most of the world). They could eventually do local volunteer work that is important but can’t get done at market prices. There’s a lot of ways that a young person’s life can go. For older people the equation is a bit different for obvious reasons. But most government programs can’t discriminate by age, so you’d have to aim at a compromise.
      - danbruc 3y ago
        Sure, but that is for the people that finance the basic subsidence to deside, they decide what they expect in return. If they want to give the money unconditionally, fine, then it would of course not be immoral to take them up on the offer. I do not know what the Norwegian rules say, so maybe it is like that. On the other if you structure it like that, you open yourself up for exploitation by people who could work but prefer not to. And this could very well make them reconsider the conditions or make the entire thing unsustainable.
  - marak830 3y ago
    It is something that is be interested to read about - using a basic stipend to redistrube wealth, to try and offset soloing (as in cities), which would (theoretically) help revitalise country towns (with more locals able to spend cash locally) An addition would be to create various centres to allow people to learn new skills and eventually reenter the workforce
  - caskstrength 3y ago
    > A lot of people are concerned about the countryside going empty, and there are various policies aimed at reversing or at least halting that. They are necessarily income-transfer programs where cities subsidize the countryside. I wonder why. I would love to empty and re-wild more countryside.
danbruc 3y ago
Taking money from the state for which others worked to finance your life without making an attempt to finance your life yourself.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- imtringued 3y ago
  The inverse perspective is that you have been forced to not be able to finance yourself and I have both theory and evidence that this is true for a non zero percentage of the population. In that sense, not spending "other people's money" was never an option to begin with. Instead of using a framing that sees other people as parasites, I prefer to see it as a bribe to people to get them away from me and leave me alone.
  - danbruc 3y ago
    What would those circumstances be that prevent people from working to support their life?
mopenstein 3y ago
It's the coercive nature by which wealth is redistributed to other people that brings upon the questions of morality. If I'm forced at the end of a barrel of a gun to give up any portion of the fruits of my labor to support others, it is immoral.
- Podgajski 3y ago
  That’s what you have to do when peoples hearts are spiritually dead. Otherwise, the people who have nothing will rise up against you anyway.
- danbruc 3y ago
  If the majority of people in your country agrees that wealth redistribution is bad, then just elect a government that will stop doing it.
  - caskstrength 3y ago
    > If the majority of people in your country agrees that wealth redistribution is bad, then just elect a government that will stop doing it. That is why they (the upper class) came up with progressive taxes - so middle class (the minority) would subsidize lower classes (the majority). Basically you suggest a pack of wolves and a ship to democratically decide who will be eaten for dinner.
  - mopenstein 3y ago
    Voting is immoral too. If I don't support the potential outcome, how could I justify participating? Here's a scenario for you: 11 people in a room. They decide to take a majority vote to murder one of the 11 at random. What's your vote? No? What happens in the case you're outvoted? You are now complicit in murder. Vote yes? You are now complicit in murder. Casting your vote is your acknowledgement that the you accept the results. The only moral action is to object, conscientiously and refuse to participate. Now stand in a room of 300,000,000 people where the end result of your participation is endless evil and murder. Congratulations.
- kuschku 3y ago
watwut 3y ago
Not OP, but imo, these subsidies exists so that people who have issues can get by. And that is a good thing. Just making decision to live off that and spend time doing hobbies is abusing good thing and asocial. People who openly advocate for something like that are endangering existence of those programs for those who really need it because of mental health or physical issues. Moreover, those programs typically comes with social workers and requirements designed to make you change your life. You should cooperate with that goal so that you cease to be so dependent.

vjk800 3y ago

Only if you accept that the system itself is moral. If you think it's an oppressive power structure that violently conquered traditional, small scale communities and forced them to live under its thumb, I think there's nothing wrong with abusing the abuser.

dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago

> EDIT: As this is collecting downvotes quite quickly, would any of the downvoters care to explain their stance? No, it works the other way round: you should explain why you find it immoral, then we can explain why we disagree (or maybe agree) with you. Otherwise you will only get a downvote.

danbruc 3y ago
I did this in response to the first comment. [1] I did not elaborate on this in my first comment because I did not anticipate that this would be a contentious statement. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38139825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38139825

sokoloff 3y ago

Presenting a one sentence expression of a value judgment as if it were a fact will tend to attract downvotes, because that doesn’t add any interesting perspective or information for anyone to take away other than they know your opinion on an individual topic. (Or they would, if they knew exactly what you were referring to with the unanchored pronoun. Are you referring to the state support program, the use of the state program to live indefinitely, or something else?)

danbruc 3y ago
It never occurred to me that someone would disagree with that statement, I just wrote this as some kind of reminder and did not think that it was necessary to elaborate. You take money to finance your life instead of working for it, money for which other people worked and which they provide to help others through hard times.

caskstrength 3y ago

> EDIT: As this is collecting downvotes quite quickly, would any of the downvoters care to explain their stance? Any discussion of social and/or economic issues on HN always attracts hordes of Tesla-driving SV champagne socialists.

unflxw 3y ago
I see this sentiment expressed often, but I don't quite get it. Is the implication that if you personally enjoy a high standard of living through capitalism, it is therefore hypocritical to advocate for everyone to enjoy a high standard of living through socialism? How come? (I am asking this question in good faith. Note that at no point I am stating that socialism would or could actually achieve a high standard of living for everyone. I am neither interested in having that discussion or claiming that position. Please don't reply with a Wikipedia copy-paste about the great famine)
- caskstrength 3y ago
  > I am asking this question in good faith. I appreciate and will honestly try express my point of view on this issue in good faith and without being too snarky. > I am neither interested in having that discussion or claiming that position. Please don't reply with a Wikipedia copy-paste about the great famine Actually I come from a Ukrainian family that was affected by Holodomor, so I don't need Wikipedia to reason about the subject but okay, let's drop it. > Is the implication that if you personally enjoy a high standard of living through capitalism, it is therefore hypocritical to advocate for everyone to enjoy a high standard of living through socialism? How come? I think champagne socialist brigade on HN is a wealthy people who already got theirs (house in SV that they bought long time ago and which appreciated to several million dollars price today, maxed Roth IRA for decade+ that they weren't even supposed to be eligible to but still got via shenanigans of their corporate employers, etc.), now they just pulling up the ladder and basically suggesting newcomers to consider paying their healthcare cost during their retirement or something (don't know why but those people always enamored with European-style single payer healthcare for no good reason). Now, try to suggest to those people to fund their leftist inclinations by heavily taxing actual wealth and inheritance and they quickly come up with all kinds of convoluted answers why that is a bad approach that would never work...