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Sounds like slavery with extra steps. Surely some type of universal basic income would be more practical and less open to abuse.

newsclues 3y ago
Make people work to pay for living expenses plus taxes to support the people who call work slavery…
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  And I suppose it's just natural for the people administering such a scheme to make a very tidy profit from it too.
krapp 3y ago
Technically it would be indentured servitude. Which is far more likely (along with debtors' prisons) to come back in the US than any useful form of UBI. The ruthlessness of American capitalism intersecting with the callous self-righteousness of the Protestant work ethic has bred into American culture an ideology that would rather see the poor starve and die in the street like dogs than suffer the indignity of a system that takes so much as a penny from them to help another. Hell, the US will simply normalize and commoditize homelessness before taking UBI seriously. Some brilliant startup will disrupt cardboard boxes and sell them as hyper-economy "nomad chic" living units. They'll do great with SV nerds who want to feel like they're really grinding it hard-core.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  I thought that Christianity was a big part of the U.S. - isn't charity and helping others quite a big part of that religion?
  - krapp 3y ago
    It is, but there are plenty of parts of Christianity that Americans tend to forsake, like the part about forgiving debts (see the recent debates over student loan forgiveness) or turning swords into plowshares (see the entire history of the US.) Americans will give a thousand dollars to a charitable organization for the tax write-off but not a dime to the homeless vet on the streetcorner, because "he'll probably just use it for drugs." Americans took a religion whose prophet said "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven" and created the prosperity gospel, which claimed that wealth was instead a sign of God loving you more. If America were truly a Christian nation it would be far too "socialist" for many Americans to stomach.
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    The trouble with the charitable mission of Christian churches and ecclesial communities is that they've been largely supplanted by entitlement programs. Many people in these United States felt significant shame if they needed to rely on charity for their basic needs, and so the State deemed it expedient to pick up the slack by using taxpayer money to provide for them instead. As a result, fewer and fewer modern Americans see any need to donate or support faith-based charities. Why should we, when the government is doing all the heavy lifting? Christian charities are practically redundant now. Of course, we are seeing some things come full-circle, as the government supports faith-based charities with subsidies, in order to reduce the size and burden of actual government-run programs and put them back into the hands of entities which have capably run them for thousands of years. Also, you've got to differentiate between the goals and mission of a State-based entitlement vs. the goals and mission of a faith-based charity. They're worlds apart.
- buzzert 3y ago
  Serious question, do you think women should be in the workplace? Wouldn’t they be “better off” in your view as a wife of a man who works, rather than earn their own living? To me, this is just like hearing about the gender pay gap and responding by saying they should just get married and become a housewife instead.
lupusreal 3y ago
I think UBI will get a lot of people trapped in death spirals by preventing them from hitting rock bottom and then snapping out of their funk and turning their life around. UBI makes the government an enabler of people in self destructive loops. Instead, we need to streamline the process of getting people back to work in whatever capacity they can manage, so people can decide to go back to work on a whim in their moment of lucidity and immediately see real progress and improvement. Legitimizing day labor paid in cash at the end of the day, the same day you decide to show up. If you make people apply one day the say "you start next week" a lot of people won't make it to next week and will be back in their death spiral the next day.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  That hasn't been the case with the very limited trials of UBI in other countries, so what makes you think that? Surely the biggest trap that prevents people from seeking work is poverty. You can hardly even apply for most jobs if you have no fixed abode and no access to bathing facilities or clean clothes.
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    Poverty is a strong motivation to seek work. The forces working against this which prevent people from finding work are mostly depression and feelings of helplessness. When people hit their rock bottom (which is generally weeks to days before homelessness) they're faced with a choice to either bounce off it and turn their life around, or to die (e.g. the streets.) Many people choose death because the alternative seems too hard for them, they're scared of what it will take and think that trying to turn around will just prolong their suffering so they choose the "easy" way out and give up on life. UBI might keep people alive but I don't believe it's a path to recovery. It'll keep people suspended right above rock bottom, not working and on drugs and booze, permanently depressed with no future ahead of them. The longer somebody stays like this, the worse off they become mentally and physically. Enabling people like this is very cruel. More beneficial reform involves removing the friction and barriers to recovery. Make it easier for people to find work that they can cope with and grow with. Make it easier for people to get back into the cycle of fixing their own problems by removing all the bureaucratic roadblocks that make getting back to work seem like a daunting impossibility. Anything that makes it easier to work is good, anything that makes it easier to not work (including UBI) is bad. And its not all about removing bureaucracy; building out better public transit so people feel that it's easy to get themselves to a job is very important. Government initiatives that reduce the availability of used cars or raise the price of new cars (same thing) should also be eliminated. More bike lanes should be built between residential and industrial/commercial areas and ebikes should be permitted on these routes. The penalties of traffic violations should be made progressive so that rich people have to pay however much is enough to make them regret it. Across the board, the stress of transportation should be reduced to make it easier for people to turn their lives around. The stress of finding entry level jobs should be reduced, but not the importance of working because getting people back to work is how you get them on a path of recovery and growth.

newsclues 3y ago

Make people work to pay for living expenses plus taxes to support the people who call work slavery…

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
And I suppose it's just natural for the people administering such a scheme to make a very tidy profit from it too.

krapp 3y ago

Technically it would be indentured servitude. Which is far more likely (along with debtors' prisons) to come back in the US than any useful form of UBI. The ruthlessness of American capitalism intersecting with the callous self-righteousness of the Protestant work ethic has bred into American culture an ideology that would rather see the poor starve and die in the street like dogs than suffer the indignity of a system that takes so much as a penny from them to help another. Hell, the US will simply normalize and commoditize homelessness before taking UBI seriously. Some brilliant startup will disrupt cardboard boxes and sell them as hyper-economy "nomad chic" living units. They'll do great with SV nerds who want to feel like they're really grinding it hard-core.

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
I thought that Christianity was a big part of the U.S. - isn't charity and helping others quite a big part of that religion?
- krapp 3y ago
  It is, but there are plenty of parts of Christianity that Americans tend to forsake, like the part about forgiving debts (see the recent debates over student loan forgiveness) or turning swords into plowshares (see the entire history of the US.) Americans will give a thousand dollars to a charitable organization for the tax write-off but not a dime to the homeless vet on the streetcorner, because "he'll probably just use it for drugs." Americans took a religion whose prophet said "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven" and created the prosperity gospel, which claimed that wealth was instead a sign of God loving you more. If America were truly a Christian nation it would be far too "socialist" for many Americans to stomach.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  The trouble with the charitable mission of Christian churches and ecclesial communities is that they've been largely supplanted by entitlement programs. Many people in these United States felt significant shame if they needed to rely on charity for their basic needs, and so the State deemed it expedient to pick up the slack by using taxpayer money to provide for them instead. As a result, fewer and fewer modern Americans see any need to donate or support faith-based charities. Why should we, when the government is doing all the heavy lifting? Christian charities are practically redundant now. Of course, we are seeing some things come full-circle, as the government supports faith-based charities with subsidies, in order to reduce the size and burden of actual government-run programs and put them back into the hands of entities which have capably run them for thousands of years. Also, you've got to differentiate between the goals and mission of a State-based entitlement vs. the goals and mission of a faith-based charity. They're worlds apart.
buzzert 3y ago
Serious question, do you think women should be in the workplace? Wouldn’t they be “better off” in your view as a wife of a man who works, rather than earn their own living? To me, this is just like hearing about the gender pay gap and responding by saying they should just get married and become a housewife instead.

lupusreal 3y ago

I think UBI will get a lot of people trapped in death spirals by preventing them from hitting rock bottom and then snapping out of their funk and turning their life around. UBI makes the government an enabler of people in self destructive loops. Instead, we need to streamline the process of getting people back to work in whatever capacity they can manage, so people can decide to go back to work on a whim in their moment of lucidity and immediately see real progress and improvement. Legitimizing day labor paid in cash at the end of the day, the same day you decide to show up. If you make people apply one day the say "you start next week" a lot of people won't make it to next week and will be back in their death spiral the next day.

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
That hasn't been the case with the very limited trials of UBI in other countries, so what makes you think that? Surely the biggest trap that prevents people from seeking work is poverty. You can hardly even apply for most jobs if you have no fixed abode and no access to bathing facilities or clean clothes.
- lupusreal 3y ago
  Poverty is a strong motivation to seek work. The forces working against this which prevent people from finding work are mostly depression and feelings of helplessness. When people hit their rock bottom (which is generally weeks to days before homelessness) they're faced with a choice to either bounce off it and turn their life around, or to die (e.g. the streets.) Many people choose death because the alternative seems too hard for them, they're scared of what it will take and think that trying to turn around will just prolong their suffering so they choose the "easy" way out and give up on life. UBI might keep people alive but I don't believe it's a path to recovery. It'll keep people suspended right above rock bottom, not working and on drugs and booze, permanently depressed with no future ahead of them. The longer somebody stays like this, the worse off they become mentally and physically. Enabling people like this is very cruel. More beneficial reform involves removing the friction and barriers to recovery. Make it easier for people to find work that they can cope with and grow with. Make it easier for people to get back into the cycle of fixing their own problems by removing all the bureaucratic roadblocks that make getting back to work seem like a daunting impossibility. Anything that makes it easier to work is good, anything that makes it easier to not work (including UBI) is bad. And its not all about removing bureaucracy; building out better public transit so people feel that it's easy to get themselves to a job is very important. Government initiatives that reduce the availability of used cars or raise the price of new cars (same thing) should also be eliminated. More bike lanes should be built between residential and industrial/commercial areas and ebikes should be permitted on these routes. The penalties of traffic violations should be made progressive so that rich people have to pay however much is enough to make them regret it. Across the board, the stress of transportation should be reduced to make it easier for people to turn their lives around. The stress of finding entry level jobs should be reduced, but not the importance of working because getting people back to work is how you get them on a path of recovery and growth.