6 ms·

There will surely never be a UBI that doesn't have government based eligibility testing. If you aren't a good citizen (that votes, is vaccinated, meets climate

There will surely never be a UBI that doesn't have government based eligibility testing. If you aren't a good citizen (that votes, is vaccinated, meets climate change goals, has a gov id, has a phone, etc) why would the government give you money? (Or more likely, govcoin?)

tokai 1y ago
Then its just welfare not UBI.
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago
  Who says UBI won't be welfare (as defined by you) in the end?
  - treyd 1y ago
    Because the U in UBI means "universal". Saying this as someone that isn't strongly in favor of UBI.
  - tokai 1y ago
    Look why don't you look up the concept historically and how it is used now? Its surface level stuff this. edit: To give you an answer Welfare is given to those that need it. A universal basic income is not given to those that need it, but by definition given to everyone as income.
    - aleph_minus_one 1y ago
      We can redefine the "universal" part to mean "universal to those who need it ('need' by some arbitrary regularly changing criterion)". :-)
      - Yokolos 1y ago
        Then by definition it's not universal and it's not UBI anymore ...
        aleph_minus_one 1y ago
        Politicians only care about definitions if they serve their agenda.
        Yokolos 1y ago
        ... people care about definitions. We all care about definitions. What are you even talking about? We're not politicians and we're arguing definitions. Dude, go out and touch grass.
- mytailorisrich 1y ago
  Yes, because UBI as in "giving an amount of money sufficient to live to everyone" is impossible.
  - nebulous1 1y ago
    How come?
    - mytailorisrich 1y ago
      Do the math. It'd cost huge, huge amounts of money that would need to come from somewhere, except there is no such "magic money tree". So in practical terms it is impossible. Or you print money to finance it and things balance themselves out in the end through inflation and you end up handing worthless money.
      - toomuchtodo 1y ago
        Central bank prints the money, puts it into bank accounts or hosts the bank accounts itself. Government taxes money to destroy it. I think its interesting if you can assign money different "classes" or make it programmable; give fiat away to stoke consumption but make it have an expiration or prevent it from being invested if sourced from a central bank allowance, but lots of hazards too (usual suspects of human governance failure modes). Money earned "human to human" could have a different, higher value or class than money printed for consumption of goods or services that can be produced by automation also comes to mind. Much better imho than the blunt instrument of target interest rates for adjusting the speed of an economy and blanket fiat value. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory
      - mothballed 1y ago
        It would depend a lot on just how much people value working or producing to get luxuries. I would guess people trying to do something like bag a wife/girlfriend would value them a lot if they were trying to impress a certain segment of most sought after mates and thus would man the machines to gain the prestige, but yeah there are plenty of people out there that are happy to just have necessities and then go skateboarding or smoking crack or whatever and presumably that would significantly lower production of necessities produced by those people.
paganel 1y ago
Don’t forget about giving the government almost all of your bio data, such as your fingerprints and eye-scans. All in the name of “keeping the system fair / keeping the s scammers away” or some other similar bs.
pjc50 1y ago
Nice conflation of a bunch of unrelated things. The only one of those that's justifiable for UBI is some sort of ID requirement to prevent double-claiming.
- rayiner 1y ago
  Nobody ever envisioned federal transit funds being used to coerce states into adopting particular social policies yet here we are.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    The national drinking age? Really that's just an outgrowth of how dysfunctional the US is, especially along the Federal split. Not really an issue in Ireland or the UK, neither of which is federated.
    - rayiner 1y ago
      The point is that money will always be used as a hook for coercion.
andy99 1y ago
I agree that a big flaw in the welfare state idea is that even if at first it’s really “universal”, eventually governments and people look at it like they are “giving you something” and start to attach conditions. It’s easy to find talk, for example from people who think universal healthcare should be applied differently to people who live an unhealthy lifestyle. There’s also all other consequences like vetting immigration that will crop up as well.
- schwartzworld 1y ago
  > It’s easy to find talk, for example from people who think universal healthcare should be applied differently to people who live an unhealthy lifestyle. Brought to you by the same people who oppose healthy free school lunches.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    If the lunch were actually free no one would probably oppose it. It's that they oppose throwing grandma to the street when she can't come up with the property tax to pay some lunch-co megacorp to give the kids lunches. If you literally go to the grocery store on your own dime, bag lunches, and donate them for poor kids to eat I don't see how anyone could rationally oppose that.
    - Retric 1y ago
      Schools aren’t going to accept lunches from some random person for hopefully obvious reasons. That said, the random person buying grocery is paying a corp here.
      - mothballed 1y ago
        My kid's school will let kids bring their own lunch, if you hand it to the parent they can accept it.
        Retric 1y ago

tokai 1y ago

Then its just welfare not UBI.

aleph_minus_one 1y ago
Who says UBI won't be welfare (as defined by you) in the end?
- treyd 1y ago
  Because the U in UBI means "universal". Saying this as someone that isn't strongly in favor of UBI.
- tokai 1y ago
  Look why don't you look up the concept historically and how it is used now? Its surface level stuff this. edit: To give you an answer Welfare is given to those that need it. A universal basic income is not given to those that need it, but by definition given to everyone as income.
  - aleph_minus_one 1y ago
    We can redefine the "universal" part to mean "universal to those who need it ('need' by some arbitrary regularly changing criterion)". :-)
    - Yokolos 1y ago
      Then by definition it's not universal and it's not UBI anymore ...
      - aleph_minus_one 1y ago
        Politicians only care about definitions if they serve their agenda.
        Yokolos 1y ago
        ... people care about definitions. We all care about definitions. What are you even talking about? We're not politicians and we're arguing definitions. Dude, go out and touch grass.
mytailorisrich 1y ago
Yes, because UBI as in "giving an amount of money sufficient to live to everyone" is impossible.
- nebulous1 1y ago
  How come?
  - mytailorisrich 1y ago
    Do the math. It'd cost huge, huge amounts of money that would need to come from somewhere, except there is no such "magic money tree". So in practical terms it is impossible. Or you print money to finance it and things balance themselves out in the end through inflation and you end up handing worthless money.
    - toomuchtodo 1y ago
      Central bank prints the money, puts it into bank accounts or hosts the bank accounts itself. Government taxes money to destroy it. I think its interesting if you can assign money different "classes" or make it programmable; give fiat away to stoke consumption but make it have an expiration or prevent it from being invested if sourced from a central bank allowance, but lots of hazards too (usual suspects of human governance failure modes). Money earned "human to human" could have a different, higher value or class than money printed for consumption of goods or services that can be produced by automation also comes to mind. Much better imho than the blunt instrument of target interest rates for adjusting the speed of an economy and blanket fiat value. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory
    - mothballed 1y ago
      It would depend a lot on just how much people value working or producing to get luxuries. I would guess people trying to do something like bag a wife/girlfriend would value them a lot if they were trying to impress a certain segment of most sought after mates and thus would man the machines to gain the prestige, but yeah there are plenty of people out there that are happy to just have necessities and then go skateboarding or smoking crack or whatever and presumably that would significantly lower production of necessities produced by those people.

paganel 1y ago

Don’t forget about giving the government almost all of your bio data, such as your fingerprints and eye-scans. All in the name of “keeping the system fair / keeping the s scammers away” or some other similar bs.

pjc50 1y ago

Nice conflation of a bunch of unrelated things. The only one of those that's justifiable for UBI is some sort of ID requirement to prevent double-claiming.

rayiner 1y ago
Nobody ever envisioned federal transit funds being used to coerce states into adopting particular social policies yet here we are.
- pjc50 1y ago
  The national drinking age? Really that's just an outgrowth of how dysfunctional the US is, especially along the Federal split. Not really an issue in Ireland or the UK, neither of which is federated.
  - rayiner 1y ago
    The point is that money will always be used as a hook for coercion.

andy99 1y ago

I agree that a big flaw in the welfare state idea is that even if at first it’s really “universal”, eventually governments and people look at it like they are “giving you something” and start to attach conditions. It’s easy to find talk, for example from people who think universal healthcare should be applied differently to people who live an unhealthy lifestyle. There’s also all other consequences like vetting immigration that will crop up as well.

schwartzworld 1y ago
> It’s easy to find talk, for example from people who think universal healthcare should be applied differently to people who live an unhealthy lifestyle. Brought to you by the same people who oppose healthy free school lunches.
- mothballed 1y ago
  If the lunch were actually free no one would probably oppose it. It's that they oppose throwing grandma to the street when she can't come up with the property tax to pay some lunch-co megacorp to give the kids lunches. If you literally go to the grocery store on your own dime, bag lunches, and donate them for poor kids to eat I don't see how anyone could rationally oppose that.
  - Retric 1y ago
    Schools aren’t going to accept lunches from some random person for hopefully obvious reasons. That said, the random person buying grocery is paying a corp here.
    - mothballed 1y ago
      My kid's school will let kids bring their own lunch, if you hand it to the parent they can accept it.
      - Retric 1y ago