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> Is there a better way? Yes, UBI. Then you can create what you want and your livelihood doesn't depend on it going viral.
by Timwi 8mo ago
> Is there a better way?
Yes, UBI. Then you can create what you want and your livelihood doesn't depend on it going viral.
- brainwad 8mo agoPeople already freak out about the sustainability of the welfare state supporting just the elderly with worker-dependent ratios of 3:1 or 2:1. Imagine if also all the working age population got welfare, it'd be completely unworkable.
- wavemode 8mo agoMost people want a lot more out of life than basic necessities.
- djeastm 8mo agoIndeed. Some of us want basic necessities provided to everyone.
- Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 8mo agoUBI does not mean you don't work, nor you can't earn a lot of money. It just means we don't let you starve if you don't work and we stop making you work out of fear of leaving you starve if you don't. I'm a psychiatry resident and developper. I have never been paid for my dev work but have produced quite a lot on my free time (site: w.olicorne.org ). I would do psychiatry pretty much no matter how much I'm paid for it. In my view the most productive people of every field are not incentivized by money and would do it anyway. UBI would free up time and cognitive load of the most productive people I believe. Following a 80/20 kinda rule. Hence UBI here would mean that the dev would not *have to* monetize.
- jonahx 8mo ago> In my view the most productive people of every field are not incentivized by money and would do it anyway. The idea that money is not an effective incentive to drive behavior is wishful thinking. Even just among devs, even just among devs who truly love programming, most would be doing very different work, and working for different organizations (or none at all) if money weren't the driver. > Hence UBI here would mean that the dev would not have to monetize. Ok, but the dev might still want to monetize, and we're back to the original question.
- laserlight 8mo ago> Ok, but the dev might still want to monetize, and we're back to the original question. It's alright. Those who would like to monetize can. There are others who wouldn't and UBI would utilize that surplus talent, which otherwise had to perform tasks they weren't skilled at to earn a living.
- Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 8mo ago> most would be doing very different work, and working for different organizations (or none at all) if money weren't the driver. With UBI I wouldn't be surprised if those would be even more productive doing something else they want. And others who couldn't do the CS curiculum even though they would have loved to because they had to find a job quickly would plausibly be at their place instead. I really view UBI as something that puts oil in the society: people have less friction to be at the spot they're better at. People who want to do nothing will not slow us down anymore. And jobs that nobody wants to do would finally be paid by how much they suck instead of how much money your parents had to educate you. > Ok, but the dev might still want to monetize, and we're back to the original question I don't really see the issue. We're far from having shortage of ways to make people pay: ads, paywall, soft paywall, begging, rate limits. What's the issue with those? I certainly don't like them as a user and as a member of society but am fine with people doing that. Especially with UBI in place: if the dev is putting a paywall, they have to compete with people that have plausibly much more freedom of time and mind to allocate to another free foss project. So in the end it becomes less profitable to be adversarial against end users.
- jonahx 8mo ago> And others who couldn't do the CS curiculum even though they would have loved to because they had to find a job quickly would plausibly be at their place instead. Unfortunately, also wishful thinking. A particular kind of wishful thinking endemic to naturally highly curious, academic achievers (not a dig, I am one). But -- and if you don't understand this, spending some time teaching at universities makes it abundantly clear -- most of the world is nothing like this. They aren't being held back from their natural passions and curiosities by the demands of living. They would not suddenly flourish under UBI. > With UBI I wouldn't be surprised if those would be even more productive doing something else they want. For the people that do naturally love creating and are good at it, they might "even more productive" in one sense -- creating more stuff that they, personally, value. And personally I'd love to do that, but it doesn't maximize value across society. That's one of the main things money is. It's a constraint forcing the production of consensus value. In a world of infinite resources that ceases to matter, but we're still very far from that. > People who want to do nothing will not slow us down anymore. Who do you think is supporting them? Until we have robots taking care of everyone for free, support is still a cost levied on other humans.
- TechSquidTV 8mo agoBut they want to was the point.
- aembleton 8mo ago> It just means we don't let you starve if you don't work and we stop making you work out of fear of leaving you starve if you don't. Seems inefficient to pay for everyone to have kitchens in their house and pay them cash to get ingredients to cook. Couldn't we just employ some of these people as cooks and have them make meals in a centralised kitchen in every neighbourhood? A bit like the British Restaurant idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Restaurant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Restaurant
- Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 8mo agoI don't see the connection with what we were talking about but: - soup kitchen are a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soup_kitchen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soup_kitchen - community fridges too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_fridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_fridge - and historically in france where I'm from, when we started having freezer technology it first appeared in shared houses for the whole village. People would go there once a day to fetch what they needed and would eat it. Can't find english sources but it seems very efficient. A least much more than every one having a fridge. https://france3-regions.franceinfo.fr/pays-de-la-loire/mayenne/un-surgelateur-collectif-au-service-des-habitants-depuis-trois-generations-2950043.html https://france3-regions.franceinfo.fr/pays-de-la-loire/mayen...
- y-curious 8mo agoBrother wait til you find out about inflation. Do you make price controls for groceries too?
- Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 8mo agoDon't you think that with UBI some people could flat out refuse to be squeezed by the supermarket owner and decide to make their own grocery association not motivated by greed and so less subject to inflation? I know of several projects like this where people give their own time for free to work in that low price supermarket. It's not even registered as a company but as a public benefit association. With UBI and inflation I have no doubt this kind of thing would pop up and limit inflation.
- BudgieInWA 8mo agoThat's why it works, lol. Those already driven by the bet paying off still have their incentives, and those who would love to try something ... can! Because they don't have overdue bills to pay with extra interest.
- fragmede 8mo agowhat does UBI have to do with getting paid for making cool shit?
- thunderfork 8mo agoYou can make cool shit without having to do the work of productizing and monetizing it
- airstrike 8mo agoYes, and a magic fairy creates the economic value that funds the UBI
- Nextgrid 8mo agoEvery company and their dog is saying that LLMs/"AI" is supposed to be that magic fairy anytime now.
- thunderfork 8mo agoThe economic value is still created even if it's not captured as currency. Look at open source software - would you say that ffmpeg hasn't created any economic value just because the developers aren't charging for it?
- OCASMv2 8mo agoNah, that just turns people into slaves of whoever is signing the checks.
- pfannkuchen 8mo agoHow do we ensure that we don’t enter the failure mode of “not enough necessities get made”? Like it seems like people are ideologically for or against UBI, but I’ve never seen anyone discuss how the mechanism would avoid this outcome. Like I’m not saying it’s 100% the outcome that would happen on whatever time frame, just that even e.g. a 10% chance of that happening would make it too risky to attempt at scale. And like I don’t accept “some people just love farming” or “a lot of stuff that isn’t needed gets made now”, I need an actual mechanism description.
- yetihehe 8mo ago> How do we ensure that we don’t enter the failure mode of “not enough necessities get made”? Pay higher when someone does things. UBI + income. If you want to live better, try doing something that will bring you money, but if you fail, you can still live and try something other next time. Current model: if you try something and fail, you are homeless and starving.
- SoftTalker 8mo agoI could maybe support UBI if you completely shut down Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, school lunches, subsidized housing, and every other assistance program. It must replace all of that to achieve the so-called operational efficiency of just giving people cash. Give them enough to buy those things on the open market, and if they choose to spend it on something else, that's on them. If you don't trust people enough to do that, then you don't trust them enough to do UBI.
- yetihehe 8mo agoI think most proponents of UBI want this and I think it's a good idea. UBI is meant as social security, just not dependent on what you do and doesn't disappear when you have cash. Just give minimum wage to everyone and remove minimum payment requirement from economy. If you use up your social security/UBI in wrong way, that's on you. But there should be probably some education. And if someone can't effectively use your allowance (mentally ill, non-functioning alcoholic), then maybe we should put such people in proper institutions, but they could be funded by UBI instead of specialised assistance program.
- wartywhoa23 8mo ago...and rather depends on the whims of the feeding hand instead. Like, haven't got your 22nd cocksuckie virus booster? Get lost and die from hunger.