5 ms·

Then its just welfare not UBI.

by tokai 1y ago

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.

Then its just welfare not UBI.

by 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.