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> make you comfortable while you exist I don't think there are many proponents of that type of ubi. The way, at least I, see ubi is absolute subsistence - wit

> make you comfortable while you exist I don't think there are many proponents of that type of ubi. The way, at least I, see ubi is absolute subsistence - with a right to earn above that without affecting your subsistence. IMHO something along UBI is needed for a democratized market economy - and I think the Scandinavian countries are the support for this claim.

pydry 1y ago
During the depression this was done with a job guarantee. Instead of paying people to sit on their ass they paid people to build stuff like the Lincoln tunnel, which was preferable for them (and even for us, we still use that stuff). UBI is more like the grain dole which Roman Emperors used to temper mass unrest and "prove" their benevolence. It seems to be in vogue among tech moguls who cant distinguish between abject dependence on the Chinese industrial system/systematic underinvestment in infrastructure and all jobs being automated thanks to their glorious genius.
- tossandthrow 1y ago
  This would sound like a good solution. The main difference from then, however, is that it is difficult to give each man a showel to dig and each woman a kid to care for this time. People need qualifications to operate heavy machinery, know regulations, etc. - we are not in 1934 anymore. As such we also don't need 30% og the population in the farming sector.
  - pydry 1y ago
    In 1934 people were trained on the job. This was as true in the WPA as it was outside. What changed is not the newfound impossibility of doing that, just the reluctance of employers to pay for it and the willingness of the government to indulge their insatiable demand for cheap, pretrained labor.
    - tossandthrow 1y ago
      I find it difficult to believe that the price of training has not gone up. I am not as convinced as you. When training is 7 year degree to achieve some specialization it simply is not for everyone. Also, ubi is not anti work - it is merely the acknowledgement that not everyone have salary worthy things to do. The alternative it havy financialization as in you receive a tip when you bring down you neighbors garbage.
      - pydry 1y ago
        there are many reasons to be against a job guarantee but the presumption that every potential job nowadays requires a 7 year degree is a particularly bad one.
        tossandthrow 1y ago
        That is not the presumption - I trust that you are enough of a non-LLM to properly understand the message behind the words.
        pydry 1y ago
        This is what you wrote: >When training is 7 year degree to achieve some specialization >properly understand the message behind the words You should probably say what you mean if you want people to hear what you mean. I dont have the patience to listen to metaphors.
        tossandthrow 1y ago
        I also wrote > I find it difficult to believe that the price of training has not gone up.
hardwaresofton 1y ago
> I don't think there are many proponents of that type of ubi. Another good sign of a difficult policy to implement successfully/an idea that isn't ready for primetime. If everyone has different ideas of what the thing is, it's very hard to make good decisions, and easy for the "wrong" UBI to sneak in. Other commenters have already made this point, but there are other ways to guarantee "subsistence". I think the hard to answer question is why are the targeted methods currently available not good enough? If we want to ensure people have food, then food subsidies/support make sense. Also, if unemployment is the problem, fix that. If unemployment isn't the problem and people who are working aren't getting subsistence wages, fix that. I think part of the problem is that no one wants to stick up and define what we think every human deserves and what we want society to provide. Does every human deserve housing? Access to green space? etc. Trying to clearly define this will lead to really interesting discussions that lay bare the disagreements core to society. I think my early point still stands, UBI is not needed (we're making do without it now), and if it ever is needed, it's a sign of a lack of dynamism in the economy/ineffective wealth distribution mechanisms (basically, taxation).
- surgical_fire 1y ago
  > Another good sign of a difficult policy to implement successfully/an idea that isn't ready for primetime. It will never be ready for primetime because the system under which we live requires an underclass of people that are coerced into working jobs that no one really wants to do for abysmally low wages. Because the only other option left for them is homelessness and starvation. It is an inherently cruel system, but this cruelty is what keep things afloat. Any system that guarantees the basic subsistence of all would not do. > I think my early point still stands, UBI is not needed (we're making do without it now) It's important to qualify that "we" as "we that make six figures working in white collar jobs". Yes, "we" are making do without UBI just fine. This "we" does not include the vast majority of people. Hopefully plummeting birth rates will throw a wrench to this system by making labor a lot more expensive.
  - hardwaresofton 1y ago
    > It will never be ready for primetime because the system under which we live requires an underclass of people that are coerced into working jobs that no one really wants to do for abysmally low wages. Because the only other option left for them is homelessness and starvation. > > It is an inherently cruel system, but this cruelty is what keep things afloat. Any system that guarantees the basic subsistence of all would not do. We're talking about how it might be about to not require the this underclass, and how we might need a UBI to fix that right? Can it be both of these things at once? Also as a side note, I think that it's kind of arrogant to think we can create a society where no one does work they don't like, for wages that are always perfect. Nature is not that way, and creating those condition is basically asking for utopia. There is probably always a percentage of undesirable outcomes that every society must endure (and undesirable outcomes are a moving target). I get your stance on the cruelty of the current system, but I want to note that in the span of human time we've had MUCH crueler systems in place. For example in the US despite the perceived high cruelty of the system, soup kitchens exist, governmental help exists -- there are a lot of things that exist that wouldn't exist in a maximally cruel society/one you describe. There are places on the planet we live on now where these safety nets don't exist. The problem is the relative position of those with the most resources in society to those with the least. That, is fixable. > It's important to qualify that "we" as "we that make six figures working in white collar jobs". Yes, "we" are making do without UBI just fine. This "we" does not include the vast majority of people. I mean that we in the sense that no known society has collapsed because of a lack of UBI (would love to be corrected here). UBI is clearly, objectively not a need. There are other ways to create a society that works for those with and without, what is probably most needed is clarity on those steps/what we want to guarantee people who live in the given society. I would disagree that the "majority" of people in (for example) the US are against the current situation. The poverty rate (likely a reasonable proxy for an economic system that really isn't working) is not above 50%. People may It's hard to quantify -- one of the things about sentiment polling is that people often just don't have a good grasp on how well or how badly they're doing. See earlier this year, when sentiment polling basically was incredibly negative, yet the "economy" as a whole is still mostly chugging along and unemployment has not spiked dramatically across all industries. Tech is in dire straits but "regular" jobs like HVAC, Plumbing, etc are doing fantastic AFAIK. > Hopefully plummeting birth rates will throw a wrench to this system by making labor a lot more expensive. Yes, except that is happening at the same time that we've turned what could be a huge corner on automation of both white collar and maybe eventually blue collar work. I think the price of labor needs to go up, but this is only part of the equation. The more direct answer is simpler -- we need higher taxes on businesses or automation or both. If you want to profit from US citizens (US company or not!), enjoy infrastructure and stability provided by the US, then the price for that can rise. Charge businesses for the jobs they don't create. The classic refrain to the increased tax is that businesses will leave. I think that's absolute bullshit -- the US is where people want to be for many reasons, and it is incredibly unlikely that companies will unseat themselves to go run their headquarters out of malta or whatever. Also, incredibly unlikely that all the people who work at those companies will go redomicile. Also, INCREDIBLY unlikely that those companies will give up on the incredibly profitable American consumer they're targeting. What we lack is politicians who can/want to reign in corporate power.
al_borland 1y ago
If everyone gets an equal raise (whatever the UBI is), wouldn’t the entire market simply adjust to price that in, leaving everyone in the same relative position?
- bodge5000 1y ago
  Price/income increases don't happen in a vacuum, it takes a while for it to become normal. If you got a £50 bonus and decide to get yourself to a McDonalds, only to find they've raised the price of their burgers to £50, would you still buy the burger? Your situation would be the same as before so logically you would, but of course you wouldn't. That price increase has overall lost Mcdonalds money, since now you're not buying anything (assuming everything else they sell also went up a proportional amount). Obviously there are essentials that can effectively be at any price and you have to pay them if you can afford them, but everything else is fair game.
- Hasnep 1y ago
  I don't know about the long term economic effects, but there are people who currently earn less than the subsistence amount who will be better off with UBI than without it.
  - tossandthrow 1y ago
    I don't hope that this is a latent argument pro corporate slavery? Are you seriously proposing that we need people who are paid below subsistence? Or was this more an argument for ubi?
    - Hasnep 1y ago
      No, I'm saying that if everyone gets given $2000 each month and as a result everyone's wages are reduced by $2000 a month, most people will be unaffected. However, anyone who made less than $2000 a month before will get to quit their job and make more money than before UBI, so UBI wouldn't be useless in this scenario.
- Eisenstein 1y ago

pydry 1y ago

During the depression this was done with a job guarantee. Instead of paying people to sit on their ass they paid people to build stuff like the Lincoln tunnel, which was preferable for them (and even for us, we still use that stuff). UBI is more like the grain dole which Roman Emperors used to temper mass unrest and "prove" their benevolence. It seems to be in vogue among tech moguls who cant distinguish between abject dependence on the Chinese industrial system/systematic underinvestment in infrastructure and all jobs being automated thanks to their glorious genius.

tossandthrow 1y ago
This would sound like a good solution. The main difference from then, however, is that it is difficult to give each man a showel to dig and each woman a kid to care for this time. People need qualifications to operate heavy machinery, know regulations, etc. - we are not in 1934 anymore. As such we also don't need 30% og the population in the farming sector.
- pydry 1y ago
  In 1934 people were trained on the job. This was as true in the WPA as it was outside. What changed is not the newfound impossibility of doing that, just the reluctance of employers to pay for it and the willingness of the government to indulge their insatiable demand for cheap, pretrained labor.
  - tossandthrow 1y ago
    I find it difficult to believe that the price of training has not gone up. I am not as convinced as you. When training is 7 year degree to achieve some specialization it simply is not for everyone. Also, ubi is not anti work - it is merely the acknowledgement that not everyone have salary worthy things to do. The alternative it havy financialization as in you receive a tip when you bring down you neighbors garbage.
    - pydry 1y ago
      there are many reasons to be against a job guarantee but the presumption that every potential job nowadays requires a 7 year degree is a particularly bad one.
      - tossandthrow 1y ago
        That is not the presumption - I trust that you are enough of a non-LLM to properly understand the message behind the words.
        pydry 1y ago
        This is what you wrote: >When training is 7 year degree to achieve some specialization >properly understand the message behind the words You should probably say what you mean if you want people to hear what you mean. I dont have the patience to listen to metaphors.
        tossandthrow 1y ago
        I also wrote > I find it difficult to believe that the price of training has not gone up.

hardwaresofton 1y ago

> I don't think there are many proponents of that type of ubi. Another good sign of a difficult policy to implement successfully/an idea that isn't ready for primetime. If everyone has different ideas of what the thing is, it's very hard to make good decisions, and easy for the "wrong" UBI to sneak in. Other commenters have already made this point, but there are other ways to guarantee "subsistence". I think the hard to answer question is why are the targeted methods currently available not good enough? If we want to ensure people have food, then food subsidies/support make sense. Also, if unemployment is the problem, fix that. If unemployment isn't the problem and people who are working aren't getting subsistence wages, fix that. I think part of the problem is that no one wants to stick up and define what we think every human deserves and what we want society to provide. Does every human deserve housing? Access to green space? etc. Trying to clearly define this will lead to really interesting discussions that lay bare the disagreements core to society. I think my early point still stands, UBI is not needed (we're making do without it now), and if it ever is needed, it's a sign of a lack of dynamism in the economy/ineffective wealth distribution mechanisms (basically, taxation).

surgical_fire 1y ago
> Another good sign of a difficult policy to implement successfully/an idea that isn't ready for primetime. It will never be ready for primetime because the system under which we live requires an underclass of people that are coerced into working jobs that no one really wants to do for abysmally low wages. Because the only other option left for them is homelessness and starvation. It is an inherently cruel system, but this cruelty is what keep things afloat. Any system that guarantees the basic subsistence of all would not do. > I think my early point still stands, UBI is not needed (we're making do without it now) It's important to qualify that "we" as "we that make six figures working in white collar jobs". Yes, "we" are making do without UBI just fine. This "we" does not include the vast majority of people. Hopefully plummeting birth rates will throw a wrench to this system by making labor a lot more expensive.
- hardwaresofton 1y ago
  > It will never be ready for primetime because the system under which we live requires an underclass of people that are coerced into working jobs that no one really wants to do for abysmally low wages. Because the only other option left for them is homelessness and starvation. > > It is an inherently cruel system, but this cruelty is what keep things afloat. Any system that guarantees the basic subsistence of all would not do. We're talking about how it might be about to not require the this underclass, and how we might need a UBI to fix that right? Can it be both of these things at once? Also as a side note, I think that it's kind of arrogant to think we can create a society where no one does work they don't like, for wages that are always perfect. Nature is not that way, and creating those condition is basically asking for utopia. There is probably always a percentage of undesirable outcomes that every society must endure (and undesirable outcomes are a moving target). I get your stance on the cruelty of the current system, but I want to note that in the span of human time we've had MUCH crueler systems in place. For example in the US despite the perceived high cruelty of the system, soup kitchens exist, governmental help exists -- there are a lot of things that exist that wouldn't exist in a maximally cruel society/one you describe. There are places on the planet we live on now where these safety nets don't exist. The problem is the relative position of those with the most resources in society to those with the least. That, is fixable. > It's important to qualify that "we" as "we that make six figures working in white collar jobs". Yes, "we" are making do without UBI just fine. This "we" does not include the vast majority of people. I mean that we in the sense that no known society has collapsed because of a lack of UBI (would love to be corrected here). UBI is clearly, objectively not a need. There are other ways to create a society that works for those with and without, what is probably most needed is clarity on those steps/what we want to guarantee people who live in the given society. I would disagree that the "majority" of people in (for example) the US are against the current situation. The poverty rate (likely a reasonable proxy for an economic system that really isn't working) is not above 50%. People may It's hard to quantify -- one of the things about sentiment polling is that people often just don't have a good grasp on how well or how badly they're doing. See earlier this year, when sentiment polling basically was incredibly negative, yet the "economy" as a whole is still mostly chugging along and unemployment has not spiked dramatically across all industries. Tech is in dire straits but "regular" jobs like HVAC, Plumbing, etc are doing fantastic AFAIK. > Hopefully plummeting birth rates will throw a wrench to this system by making labor a lot more expensive. Yes, except that is happening at the same time that we've turned what could be a huge corner on automation of both white collar and maybe eventually blue collar work. I think the price of labor needs to go up, but this is only part of the equation. The more direct answer is simpler -- we need higher taxes on businesses or automation or both. If you want to profit from US citizens (US company or not!), enjoy infrastructure and stability provided by the US, then the price for that can rise. Charge businesses for the jobs they don't create. The classic refrain to the increased tax is that businesses will leave. I think that's absolute bullshit -- the US is where people want to be for many reasons, and it is incredibly unlikely that companies will unseat themselves to go run their headquarters out of malta or whatever. Also, incredibly unlikely that all the people who work at those companies will go redomicile. Also, INCREDIBLY unlikely that those companies will give up on the incredibly profitable American consumer they're targeting. What we lack is politicians who can/want to reign in corporate power.

al_borland 1y ago

If everyone gets an equal raise (whatever the UBI is), wouldn’t the entire market simply adjust to price that in, leaving everyone in the same relative position?

bodge5000 1y ago
Price/income increases don't happen in a vacuum, it takes a while for it to become normal. If you got a £50 bonus and decide to get yourself to a McDonalds, only to find they've raised the price of their burgers to £50, would you still buy the burger? Your situation would be the same as before so logically you would, but of course you wouldn't. That price increase has overall lost Mcdonalds money, since now you're not buying anything (assuming everything else they sell also went up a proportional amount). Obviously there are essentials that can effectively be at any price and you have to pay them if you can afford them, but everything else is fair game.
Hasnep 1y ago
I don't know about the long term economic effects, but there are people who currently earn less than the subsistence amount who will be better off with UBI than without it.
- tossandthrow 1y ago
  I don't hope that this is a latent argument pro corporate slavery? Are you seriously proposing that we need people who are paid below subsistence? Or was this more an argument for ubi?
  - Hasnep 1y ago
    No, I'm saying that if everyone gets given $2000 each month and as a result everyone's wages are reduced by $2000 a month, most people will be unaffected. However, anyone who made less than $2000 a month before will get to quit their job and make more money than before UBI, so UBI wouldn't be useless in this scenario.
Eisenstein 1y ago