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I do a lot of things as an amateur but at pretty high level: athletics, music, art and more. I also pay a huge portion of my income as a software developer in d

• mystified5016 1y ago
  First because generally in order to be a good person you have to care what happens to other people. Second because the second order effects of reverting American society to Victorian slums would be incredibly bad for the economy and your tax burden. Because somehow a plurality of Americans seem to have been convinced by the guy stealing all their money that it's someone else's fault and you should stone them to death instead. Because letting large portions of the population starve to death slowly is just a bad thing in general? Because it would be good for everyone including you. Because you'd wish that someone else wasn't a smug asshole with an "I got mine" attitude and gave you help when you need it.
• tossandthrow 1y ago
  Assuming you live in the US, it is relatively easy to convince you - but it heavily relieve on you opening your eyes. Start traveling, talking to other cultures, and stop being dismissive and defensive.
• metabagel 1y ago
  > Convince me I should fund people Are you in the top 1%? If so, you can afford it. If not, then I don't think your taxes should go up - I think Bezos' taxes should go up, and there should be a wealth tax for high net worth individuals.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • osigurdson 1y ago
    The top 1% globally is 60K USD for a single earner. Should taxes go up for anyone above this level?
    • NERD_ALERT 1y ago
      What? Why would US taxes have anything to do with people in poorer countries?
      • osigurdson 1y ago
        It seems that UBI arguments are all about "fairness". So it naturally should extend to other countries it seems. Otherwise you are just creating another greedy / protected group. Of course people usually try to draw the UBI Venn diagram such that they are a net receiver of funds.
        • wombatpm 1y ago
          As soon as those other countries join the US it should extend to them as well.
        • DangitBobby 1y ago
          It's sounds like you are trying to draw it to be as absurd as possible to reduce the proposition to something ridiculous.
          • Workaccount2 1y ago
            What would be absurd about a global UBI? It's amazing how fast people jump off the high horse of equality when you point out that on a global scale they are incredibly rich and privileged. Equality to them means them getting more material goods, not them giving up more material goods.
• candiddevmike 1y ago
  > Convince me I should fund people to focus full-time on things where they can't make a living, the same things I love to do but realize can't be your sole pursuit. You already are, it's just going to the ultra wealthy and pension fund kids, while you slave your life away making that stock go up because you believe there should be no other choice.
  • ajsnigrutin 1y ago
    So why not have the worker get/keep more of his money, instead of giving it to a different group of "others"?
    • MathMonkeyMan 1y ago
      Because the taxi driver could keep all of his money and still wouldn't make very much.
      • ajsnigrutin 1y ago
        Sure, but he'd make more if he wasn't taxed so much. In my country, from the customer to the persons net paycheck, a bit over half goes to the government (vat, 2x different benefits, income tax). Every time someone mentiones taxes, the rich and the poor over here, the average (ie. people earning around average income) get taxed more, the rich on paper earn nothing, and the poor get taxed the same (because there's nothing more to take). I'd much prefer a system where an average joe would pay a lower percantage of taxes (ie. a tax break), and people like bezos would actually get taxed at the same rate instead of paying zero throug loopholes).
        • xyzzyz 1y ago
          I understand that you don’t like the European taxation regime, where the bulk of the tax burden is carried by the middle class, but I find it strange that then you give Bezos as a negative example. It is strange, because in US, unlike in Europe, it is the wealthy who pay most of the taxes. Our middle class pays very little tax, unlike middle class in Europe.
• KittenInABox 1y ago
  If all the people who passionately pursue art decided to pursue only profitable full-time jobs, you bet that your software developer job would pay shit like an art and you'd be way worse off than if you just paid a few hundred bucks (at most, let's be real, unless you have serious assets in which why would we pity you) annually to allow to a civilized society that actually allows for cultural innovations.
• ahoy 1y ago
  Because you have to live in a society with those other people. Because that's going to be YOU in the future. Because it's going to be your kids, your cousins, your neighbors.
  • motorest 1y ago
    > Because you have to live in a society with those other people. Your reply was a strawman arguments, and fails to address OP's point. The point is quite simple and straight-forward: if your argument for UBI is that people could hypothetically pursue their interests, why should I have to be the one having to work to pay the taxes required to finance this income redistribution scheme only to have others, perhaps less talented and dedicated than me, pursue my interests at my expense?
    • wrs 1y ago
      You would have the option to do what they’re doing if you prefer. You just wouldn’t have as much disposable income. Why are you pay for other people to use the roads or have their fires put out or have health care? Because society is more pleasant overall if everyone can assume a baseline availability for those things.
      • motorest 1y ago
        > You would have the option to do what they’re doing if you prefer. You just wouldn’t have as much disposable income. That's fantastic. So let's build upon your personal belief, and as the system is universal then your recommendation is extended to everyone subscribing to the service. Now please explain how you expect to finance an income redistribution scheme where all participants do not contribute back and instead only expect to consume from it.
        • _DeadFred_ 1y ago
          VCs fund a lot of companies, even though they only get a return on a few. The government routinely gives out subsidies to industries they want to encourage, knowing that only a few that receive the subsidies will generate a return. This isn't a novel/unworkable concept, a lot of our economy is currently based off of it actual, you just don't like it. Some people think if you fund people's ability to live, so that they aren't killing themselves going to multiple jobs, not sleeping, not raising their kids, remove fears like 'insurance is tied to this job so I can't leave it', etc, you will encourage an economic renaissance, just like VC funding has created a renaissance for the pocketbooks of VC funders.
• pavlov 1y ago
  I love art and I also love making art, but I have to work so I don’t get to spend as much time on it as I’d like. Yet that doesn’t mean I want to see other people making less art. On the contrary: I wish other people could create more great stuff that makes me happy, and I’m also happy if my tax euros (and my private consumption) help pay for that. What I’m trying to say is that this idea of “I don’t get to do it, so nobody else should either” seems completely foreign to creativity. It’s not a zero-sum game.
  • orangecat 1y ago
    “I don’t get to do it, so nobody else should either” That's not it at all. There are already tons of people doing it, so many that the incremental value of one more person is small. The low pay reflects that; it's a signal that you should consider other jobs that are more in demand.
    • pxc 1y ago
      Art-as-job is an artifice we've instituted through the invention of copyright, whose purpose is to ensure that we live in a society rich with art. There is not and never has been any reason to believe that this system, though it may serve its purpose to some extent, actually captures or meaningfully quantifies the value of art to society. The "demand" for art is made-up in the first place, not an end in itself or a measure of an end itself. One invented means of propping up art isn't necessarily especially legitimate or natural compared to others.
  • Workaccount2 1y ago
    You don't have to pay tax, you can just go buy their work directly!
    • pavlov 1y ago
      I want artists I’ve never heard of to have the ability to grow. Taxes are a great way to fund culture, sort of like an index fund: I don’t have to try to pick winners now, I’ll get the accumulated benefit eventually.
• harmmonica 1y ago
  I feel like this is one of the fundamental issues with US taxation today and this overall issue of wealth inequality. People like you, high-income and likely not a lot of shelters for that income based on what you're saying, pay a lot of taxes percentage-wise and so the thought of paying another 1-2 percentage points is, for lack of a better word, sickening. I tend to think you're right about that because it feels really unfair when you're paying 40-50% tax, a lot of people pay zero, and then people who are much wealthier than you are paying 20%. It's when you start making fabulous amounts of money, and can park it in all sorts of shelters, whether that's straightforward things like real estate or, as HN commenters point out every time this comes up, by not ever even earning income or investment gains and so you can drive your tax towards zero (by doing things like taking out loans against your assets for money to live on). I'm not sure what the answer is, but a North Star, in my mind, would be that as you have more you pay more, a truly progressive scheme, because every additional dollar you earn (through income or investment gains, realized or unrealized), as you get richer, actually is less critical to your livelihood. Who am I to say that? I'm not talking about some nebulous concept. I'm saying that if you make $1 million dollars per year, in total, a dollar extra matters less to you than it does to someone making $100,000 so I'm purely speaking on a relative basis (cue someone saying "how do you know it matters less? That person could live in a HCOL location, or have 12 kids or..." Hopefully we can avoid that because it misses the point; those things are choices people make. How much you're taxed is not a choice for the most part though can be to some extent (move from a high-tax state to a low one, etc.).
  • mitthrowaway2 1y ago
    There's actually a mathematical proof that the more dollars you have, the lower the utility of the marginal dollar; utility has to fall at least logarithmically or else you fall victim to the St. Petersburg paradox.
    • harmmonica 1y ago
      I'm glad to hear you say there's mathematical proof. I guess the sad thing is that if someone disagreed with the sentiment and then you told them there's mathematical proof that same person may be inclined to disagree with the math as well. I'm going to look up St. Pete's paradox now because never heard of that before. These are exactly the types of things I like to learn about on HN to reinforce (in this case) or rebut my takes so thanks for replying.
• pineaux 1y ago
  Because if all these people are forced to do what you do, because nothing else pays their bills, your income will go down. Also, all the people who cant do what you do, should they just curl up and do fentanyl? What do you propose they should do?
• jayd16 1y ago
  Your argument begs the question. If we made it so it could be a sole pursuit then you'd be free to choose. Besides, why do you want to live in a world with less artists and full of people who hate their jobs?
  • s1artibartfast 1y ago
    I want to be able to choose what I want. If I want art, I will buy it and pay an artist. If I want to eat at a restaurant, I will pay for that instead. Why would I ever want to let others decide for me if I get art or food today?
    • jayd16 1y ago
      Huh? Inherent to the act of buying, you're relying on someone choosing to sell. I'm not really sure what you're asking.
      • s1artibartfast 1y ago
        yes, that is the system that I prefer: voluntary buying and selling. I do not like the proposed system where people chose what they produce, and I am compelled to pay for it whether I want it or not.
        • tossandthrow 1y ago
          The question is: how will there be developed a supply in a world where nobody are provided the means to practice the craft?
        • deleted 1y ago
          [deleted]
• mitthrowaway2 1y ago
  OK, I'll do my best: Economies of scale. Consider two toy economies: One in which purchasing power is fairly evenly distributed among the population, and one in which it's concentrated via a power-law distribution into the top 1%, and 0.1%, etc. In the first case, the quantities of mass-market products demanded will be much larger, because more people can afford to purchase them. This means demand for things like cameras, cell phones, breakfast cereals, movies, video games software, etc, go up. However most of these are also things where economies of scale makes production more efficient as order quantities increase. Factories can invest in jigs, automation, and high-throughput lines to make enough quantity for everyone. The jobs that produce these goods also become better-paid, and easier to secure investment for, because order quantities are higher and less volatile. And doubly so for intangible goods like software, ebooks, music, and video games: production can scale to infinite demand, so there can never be a production shortage, but people who work in these industries can be better rewarded for their efforts because a bigger audience can afford to pay more. So order quantities grow, and so do incomes, but inflation is relatively low because of the increasing efficiency of production. This means real GDP per capita increases greatly, and the population as a whole becomes materially more wealthy. Even though wealth is being distributed away from top earners, there are huge material rewards available to anyone able to supply goods and services to the masses, because the masses are able to pay for those goods and services. In the wealth-concentration economy, those mass-production industries have to fight for scraps, because the top 1% has as much purchasing power as the bottom 99%, and the top 0.1% has more purchasing power than the 1% below them. More purchasing power is directed towards luxury goods: golf courses, supercars, yachts, country club estates, Rolex watches, art, private jets, and real estate. Production quantities are low and inefficient, and in the case of land, production is effectively impossible. Prices go up for these assets, but there is little productive benefit to the economy. The excess wealth of the 0.1% is put towards buying political influence, buying news media, and so on, which becomes another negative for society as a whole. Meanwhile an entrepreneur might identify a pressing need among the bottom 25% of the populace, where very simple things (eg. vitamins or eyeglasses) could create an incredible increase in social welfare, but they will not be able to secure investment nor be rewarded for such efforts because there is no profit in it; the poor cannot afford to pay.
• worik 1y ago
  > Convince me I should fund people to focus full-time on things where they can't make a living I cannot do that. But given that we need the labour of about 10% (give or take) of people for society to function, we need to change our economic arrangements I think we should fund the basic meat hook realities for the common person. Accommodation, food, health care, shoes... That is a UBI - Universal Basic Income It will simplify so many aspects of modern life, increase our taxes, and open up many opportunities The current system has failed to deliver anything like economic justice and needs rethinking This will mean that people are able to "focus full-time on things where they can't make a living", rather than hustle for crusts. That is a side effect, not the purpose
• hnpolicestate 1y ago
  "Convince me I should fund people to focus full-time on things where they can't make a living" - because you wrote the programs that made their job (like everyone else's job) obsolete/automated?
  • astrange 1y ago
    Automation increases productivity which increases employment (ceteris paribus). The important quote you want here is: “If you want a simple model for predicting the unemployment rate in the United States over the next few years, here it is: It will be what [Alan] Greenspan wants it to be, plus or minus a random error reflecting the fact that he is not quite God.” Software developers are not Alan Greenspan.
• rrrrrrrrrrrryan 1y ago
  According to empirical laffer curve studies, median earners in America start taking their foot off the gas pedal when you tax more than 33% of their wages, but you can tax 73% of billionaires' income before they begin to dial back their contributions to the economy. We taxed our top earners 90% in living memory, which was naively high and absolutely caused distortions, but their current crazy low tax rates are a ridiculous policy failure. We could absolutely fund a small basic income by fixing this alone.