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> His take is that if you give peiple money, they won't work, which will be bad. There are a lot of people with money (high net-worth) that work (have some pos

> His take is that if you give peiple money, they won't work, which will be bad. There are a lot of people with money (high net-worth) that work (have some position in a company that they could get fired from), e.g. Jeff Bezos, many if not all CEOs, etc. So your father's take is either A) false, or B) what people with money are doing is not work, and is therefore bad.

gruez 3y ago
>There are a lot of people with money (high net-worth) that work (have some position in a company that they could get fired from), e.g. Jeff Bezos, many if not all CEOs, etc. The exception doesn't prove the rule. Just because some really driven people are willing to be a CEO when they have far more money than they could ever need, doesn't mean that the average burger flipper is going to continue working at mcdonalds if his living expenses were fully paid by the government.
- shuntress 3y ago
  > when they have far more money than they could ever need There is a kind of brain rot that can set in on wealthy people that makes them see their net worth as their score. It's not about need or comfort. All that matters is hitting a higher score.
  - gruez 3y ago
    >It's not about need or comfort. All that matters is hitting a higher score. so basically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs#Self-actualization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs#...?
    - shuntress 3y ago
      You linked to specifically to the Self-actualization section which, critically, includes this line: "To understand this level of need, a person must not only succeed in the previous needs but master them" I would say it is more like a twisted perversion of the hierarchy of needs where all levels are broken down to a single abstraction: Net worth = Score
      - gruez 3y ago
        What makes you think all Bezos thinks "Net worth = Score"? What if he simply wants to build the best e-commerence/cloud conglomerate there is, and that happens to coincide with amazon share prices going up? After all, the better job he does at running amazon, the more investors will value it.
        shuntress 3y ago
        Maybe he doesn't. I have no way to know how he actually thinks. My point is that once a person becomes that wealthy, the practical value of a dollar becomes essentially meaningless to them. Its the idea that more wealth is automatically better. If they just make Amazon more profitable it will be better.
mypastself 3y ago
Couldn’t it be the case that it’s much harder for poor people to find employment they enjoy as much as CEOs enjoy theirs? Or that ultra-rich CEOs are able to reach that status in part because their work ethics is an extreme outlier?
- hellojesus 3y ago
  Of course. The only reason people work is because the expected value of their work maximizes their utility curve when compared to the opportunity costs. I go to work because I need money to live. I find employment by maximizing the pay I'm able to get conditional om my skillset and preferred job functions. But I don't see why people with lower skillsets or utility curves that weigh leisure more highly than work activities should be allowed to leech off the productive capacities of others.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
    > But I don't see why people with lower skillsets or utility curves that weigh leisure more highly than work activities should be allowed to leech off the productive capacities of others. This is a good example of a "thought-terminating cliché"[0]. In this case, the statement assumes its own veracity, which makes it difficult to respond to in a discussion. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A...
    - gruez 3y ago
      Ironically by invoking "thought-terminating cliché", you are partaking in the very offense you accuse the parent of. Is it fair to redistribute wealth from people who are working, to give it to people who don't? There's plausible arguments for both sides, but rather than trying to argue for why we should, you drop a link to some fallacy on wikipedia and call it a day.
      - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
        > Is it fair to redistribute wealth from people who are working, to give it to people who don't? I kinda think you missed the point. This is actually just another one of those clichés. Surely you can see how this sort of communication doesn't promote a healthy discussion. Is there an argument that you want to make or are you just going to demand that someone argue against your cliché?
4death4 3y ago
The issue with this argument is that low wages are basically marginal. E.g. a low wage earner could get $100 dollars UBI or $200 dollars working a job. A CEO, on the other hand, could get $100 UBI or 11 million working a job. I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely getting out of bed for the extra $10,999,900. I might not get out of bed for the extra $100, however.
- shuntress 3y ago
  This is an indication that there is some kind of either: 1) artificial suppression of the value of the low wage job 2) artificial inflation of the value of the CEO's job or, more likely: 3) Both.
kulahan 3y ago
If I knew that I'd never be out on the streets no matter how bad things got, because I at least have the money to pay rent and buy food, there's no chance I'm working anything but BS jobs for random spending money. p=1, but still, I doubt I'm that unique. My job is difficult and takes a lot of work to get the skills necessary to do it. Who's going to take over my job? Probably nobody, but that's just my (extremely uneducated) guess.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > If I knew that I'd never be out on the streets no matter how bad things got, because I at least have the money to pay rent and buy food, there's no chance I'm working anything but BS jobs for random spending money. p=1, but still, I doubt I'm that unique. You can already do that. Are you claiming that the only reason you have your current job is to avoid the remote possibility of being out on the streets?
  - gruez 3y ago
    >Are you claiming that the only reason you have your current job is to avoid the remote possibility of being out on the streets? Being "out on the streets" because you don't have a job is hardly a "remote possibility". It's a virtual certainly unless you have a massive cash hoard built up.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      > Being "out on the streets" because you don't have a job is hardly a "remote possibility". It's a virtual certainly unless you have a massive cash hoard built up. It's not a virtual certainty. Not even close. The rate of homelessness in the US in 2022 was 0.18%. https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness/ https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homeless... Few people have a "massive cash hoard" built up, yet lots of people lose their jobs. And if you're willing to work "BS jobs for random spending money", as the OP said, then you probably won't remain unemployed for long.
      - 3y ago
mathgradthrow 3y ago
As a UBI proponent, I will offer this in rebuttal. If you give labor additional negotiating power over capital, (the two coarsely defined players in this game) you will see shortages, and capital will lose a lot of value. This includes the middle class, who saved up peanuts and now have to pay people real money to do work. Those people will genuinely get screwed. Hyperinflation is a real possibility, and UBI needs to be tuned pretty tightly to prevent it.

gruez 3y ago

>There are a lot of people with money (high net-worth) that work (have some position in a company that they could get fired from), e.g. Jeff Bezos, many if not all CEOs, etc. The exception doesn't prove the rule. Just because some really driven people are willing to be a CEO when they have far more money than they could ever need, doesn't mean that the average burger flipper is going to continue working at mcdonalds if his living expenses were fully paid by the government.

shuntress 3y ago
> when they have far more money than they could ever need There is a kind of brain rot that can set in on wealthy people that makes them see their net worth as their score. It's not about need or comfort. All that matters is hitting a higher score.
- gruez 3y ago
  >It's not about need or comfort. All that matters is hitting a higher score. so basically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs#Self-actualization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs#...?
  - shuntress 3y ago
    You linked to specifically to the Self-actualization section which, critically, includes this line: "To understand this level of need, a person must not only succeed in the previous needs but master them" I would say it is more like a twisted perversion of the hierarchy of needs where all levels are broken down to a single abstraction: Net worth = Score
    - gruez 3y ago
      What makes you think all Bezos thinks "Net worth = Score"? What if he simply wants to build the best e-commerence/cloud conglomerate there is, and that happens to coincide with amazon share prices going up? After all, the better job he does at running amazon, the more investors will value it.
      - shuntress 3y ago
        Maybe he doesn't. I have no way to know how he actually thinks. My point is that once a person becomes that wealthy, the practical value of a dollar becomes essentially meaningless to them. Its the idea that more wealth is automatically better. If they just make Amazon more profitable it will be better.

mypastself 3y ago

Couldn’t it be the case that it’s much harder for poor people to find employment they enjoy as much as CEOs enjoy theirs? Or that ultra-rich CEOs are able to reach that status in part because their work ethics is an extreme outlier?

hellojesus 3y ago
Of course. The only reason people work is because the expected value of their work maximizes their utility curve when compared to the opportunity costs. I go to work because I need money to live. I find employment by maximizing the pay I'm able to get conditional om my skillset and preferred job functions. But I don't see why people with lower skillsets or utility curves that weigh leisure more highly than work activities should be allowed to leech off the productive capacities of others.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
  > But I don't see why people with lower skillsets or utility curves that weigh leisure more highly than work activities should be allowed to leech off the productive capacities of others. This is a good example of a "thought-terminating cliché"[0]. In this case, the statement assumes its own veracity, which makes it difficult to respond to in a discussion. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A...
  - gruez 3y ago
    Ironically by invoking "thought-terminating cliché", you are partaking in the very offense you accuse the parent of. Is it fair to redistribute wealth from people who are working, to give it to people who don't? There's plausible arguments for both sides, but rather than trying to argue for why we should, you drop a link to some fallacy on wikipedia and call it a day.
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
      > Is it fair to redistribute wealth from people who are working, to give it to people who don't? I kinda think you missed the point. This is actually just another one of those clichés. Surely you can see how this sort of communication doesn't promote a healthy discussion. Is there an argument that you want to make or are you just going to demand that someone argue against your cliché?

4death4 3y ago

The issue with this argument is that low wages are basically marginal. E.g. a low wage earner could get $100 dollars UBI or $200 dollars working a job. A CEO, on the other hand, could get $100 UBI or 11 million working a job. I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely getting out of bed for the extra $10,999,900. I might not get out of bed for the extra $100, however.

shuntress 3y ago
This is an indication that there is some kind of either: 1) artificial suppression of the value of the low wage job 2) artificial inflation of the value of the CEO's job or, more likely: 3) Both.

kulahan 3y ago

If I knew that I'd never be out on the streets no matter how bad things got, because I at least have the money to pay rent and buy food, there's no chance I'm working anything but BS jobs for random spending money. p=1, but still, I doubt I'm that unique. My job is difficult and takes a lot of work to get the skills necessary to do it. Who's going to take over my job? Probably nobody, but that's just my (extremely uneducated) guess.

lapcat 3y ago
> If I knew that I'd never be out on the streets no matter how bad things got, because I at least have the money to pay rent and buy food, there's no chance I'm working anything but BS jobs for random spending money. p=1, but still, I doubt I'm that unique. You can already do that. Are you claiming that the only reason you have your current job is to avoid the remote possibility of being out on the streets?
- gruez 3y ago
  >Are you claiming that the only reason you have your current job is to avoid the remote possibility of being out on the streets? Being "out on the streets" because you don't have a job is hardly a "remote possibility". It's a virtual certainly unless you have a massive cash hoard built up.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > Being "out on the streets" because you don't have a job is hardly a "remote possibility". It's a virtual certainly unless you have a massive cash hoard built up. It's not a virtual certainty. Not even close. The rate of homelessness in the US in 2022 was 0.18%. https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness/ https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homeless... Few people have a "massive cash hoard" built up, yet lots of people lose their jobs. And if you're willing to work "BS jobs for random spending money", as the OP said, then you probably won't remain unemployed for long.
    - 3y ago

mathgradthrow 3y ago

As a UBI proponent, I will offer this in rebuttal. If you give labor additional negotiating power over capital, (the two coarsely defined players in this game) you will see shortages, and capital will lose a lot of value. This includes the middle class, who saved up peanuts and now have to pay people real money to do work. Those people will genuinely get screwed. Hyperinflation is a real possibility, and UBI needs to be tuned pretty tightly to prevent it.