5 ms·

I'm with Alex generally, but disagree with this sentence: "We could make the choice to pay for universal health care, higher education, and a basic income tomor

I'm with Alex generally, but disagree with this sentence: "We could make the choice to pay for universal health care, higher education, and a basic income tomorrow" In the last sixty years, a tremendous amount of money has been poured into education. Much money has been allocated to increase college enrollment. But, IMO, for the vast majority of people, college education is a luxury social club. Spending more money on college is just a wealth transfer from tax payers to upper middle class teachers and administrators. I do not agree with Peter Thiel when he says that kids should start businesses instead of going to college. But I think there is lots of room for designing some sort of adult-life on-boarding process that was far more cost efficient than having the government write a check to subsidize teenagers getting black out drunk every weekend. I'm not sure what this system would be, but there are lots of options - could be some sort of apprenticeship, or a co-op mixed with classes, or a light-weight, low cost online education combined with assigned mentors. The real issue is that any form of labor that is a commodity, and that does not have union or legal protection, has been screwed over by the trifecta of globalization, immigration, and automation. But, I disagree with both the neoliberals and progressives in that I do not think it is possible to educate the great masses and enable them to find non-commodity career paths. There are only so many content marketers, enterprise salesmen, management consultants, and product managers that the world needs. Those jobs are going to go to the genetically and socially privileged. Therefore, the only solution for the normal person, who will be at a commodity job in customer service or doing sales at a Verizon store, is collective bargaining. One form of collective bargaining can take is democratic politics. My policy preference would be a law that creating a universal wage subsidy of $7.75 an hour, thus guarantees every worker a total wage of at least $15 an hour. I would couple that with a "job of last resort" program that would replace long term unemployment and disability insurance - everyone who wants to work can get a job, no matter how blighted their city, no matter what kind of disability they have. Even if they are a quadriplegic they can be assigned to monitor security cameras or something else.

jseliger 12y ago
In the last sixty years, a tremendous amount of money has been poured into education I wrote about adjacent issues in "Why can’t we solve poverty, or solve it through schools?", which got started in emails and Hacker News comments on the issue (http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/why-cant-we-solve-poverty-or-solve-it-through-schools/ http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/why-cant-we-solve-p...). In addition, and as I discuss in the post, right now we can't "solve" poverty because poverty is a moving metric, usually defined as a percentage of income, rather than as an absolute value. Thanks for your comment.
- bokonist 12y ago
  In addition, and as I discuss in the post, right now we can't "solve" poverty because poverty is a moving metric, usually defined as a percentage of income, rather than as an absolute value. Yes, and this reminds me a point I left out. We also need to look for ways to reduce the cost of living for the basic stuffs of life. In many ways a poor person now is wealthier than 40 years ago. However, the cost of living needed to simply live in society as a semi-normal person has also gone up dramatically. Most people cannot to work, or take a cheap moped to work, because the entire transportation structure was designed for cars. If everyone else is driving a three ton steel machine, you need to drive one too, and better get one with airbags and a four-star crash rating. Similarly, zoning laws have made even small homes in locations near healthy job markers quite expensive. Healthcare is much better now, but there is no option to pay Costa Rican healthcare prices for Costa Rican health quality. It's all or nothing. The economy is also missing old-school solutions like boarding houses or dorm living for adults, that provide a very cost effective way for single adults to save money while working entry level jobs. Such accommodations now violate zoning laws. Right now economic policy is geared around GDP and per capita GDP. I would prefer for the key metric we judge economic progress by to be the ratio between the most basic cost of living for a normal person (a two bedroom home near jobs, a food basket with protein and vitamins, transportation costs of getting to work, healthcare coverage that will cover major health problems, amortized costs of education needed to land that median wage job, etc. etc.) divided by the median income for a full time worker. We both need to focus on keeping the basic cost of living down as much as we focus on keeping wages up.
  - avn2109 12y ago
    >> "... because the entire transportation structure was designed for cars. If everyone else is driving a three ton steel machine, you need to drive one too, and better get one with airbags and a four-star crash rating." It's almost like the man designed it this way so as to incentivize you to borrow money from him to buy cars. The only thing stopping something like that would be the fact that the auto industry didn't historically have vast domestic political power and close ties to high finance... wait a second...
chongli 12y ago
Spending more money on college is just a wealth transfer from tax payers to upper middle class teachers and administrators. This is the case in the United States. In several places in Europe, however, it is a different story. Higher education is cheap or even free and schools are not bloated with a glut of unnecessary bureaucrats and administrators.
- briantakita 12y ago
  > not bloated with a glut of unnecessary bureaucrats and administrators In America, Education is about standardizing thought & systematically removing novelty from the students. That requires bureaucrats & administrators to ensure that the novelty is systematically removed on schedule.
- burntsushi 12y ago
  Higher education in the US is also plenty cheap if you look at state schools and community colleges. I took the path of going to a state school and escaped with a very small amount of debt. But that isn't popular to talk about. Instead, we blindly assume every school is $40K+ a year. (And indeed, some people are brazen enough to pay such costs.)
gbog 12y ago
Ok, but those who just do not want to be assigned a productive task, what would you do with them?
- bokonist 12y ago
  Then they go hungry. When they are ready to work and to eat, their local employment office will be ready with a job and a paycheck. But in the meantime, they need to stay off my lawn. I am a believer in anti-vagrancy laws, so I think with the "jobs for everyone" comes enforcement against sleeping on street benches and panhandling.
  - sanswork 12y ago
    Your plan depends on everyone being able to work. There are a lot of illnesses and disabilities(physical and mental) that make that assertion not true. Would you have these people starve?
    - bokonist 12y ago
      No, I said very clearly in my original comment that everyone gets a job, even schizophrenics and quadriplegics. There is something that everyone can do. If you are physically disabled you can monitor security cameras or transcribe city council recordings or something. If you are mentally disabled you can still probably pick up trash in city parks. There is some make work job available for almost anybody. The only exception would be the extreme mentally ill, who would need to be treated and provided supportive housing as they are now. But if you are mentally able, but just unwilling, then you go hungry. Or maybe you get a soup kitchen and a bed in a shelter. But in someway it will be unpleasant and hard, so as to disincentivize sloth.
      - briantakita 12y ago
        Is sweeping streets a way of fulfilling your highest purpose in life? We live in an age of abundance. Why not allow people to create what they want to create? Art, music, love, good feelings in the community, etc. Here's a good story on a dystopia & utopia in an age with automated machinery, less jobs, & more overall abundance. http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
eqdw 12y ago
> My policy preference would be a law that creating a universal wage subsidy of $7.75 an hour, thus guarantees every worker a total wage of at least $15 an hour. I really like this idea. Lately I've been thinking about minimum wage laws (SF, $15/hr min wage, etc) and something about it rubs me the wrong way. It feels like minimum wage laws are a convenient way for governments to take all the credit for improving the lot of the poor, while making others (companies) pay for it. It also feels like it disproportionately impacts small business owners, who are already stretched pretty thin. Implementing a minimum wage like that, where part of the burden is on the government, and comes out of tax revenues (which can be collected in a more progressive fashion) really appeals to me
- bokonist 12y ago
  Yes, exactly. The economic right wing has a valid point, that many small business owners cannot bear the burden of a higher minimum wage. Asking a factory owner who is barely making payroll due to competition from China to boost his wages could be a death knell. The money for wage increases needs to come from those who are the big winners in the winner-takes-all-games that are technology and globalization.
  - 001sky 12y ago
    Also, the value of min wage needs to be mapped on some topography of need. A $15/hr in SF or NYC is paltry due to the geographic localization of other prices--higher cost of living. Meanwhile, hiring 16 year in some middle-america towns probably shouldn't be dictated by "rich people's problems" imported from New York or California. All that being said, I also like the top-posters idea about adding a subsidy to basic negotiated/market wages. Because ultimately everything is simply a negotiation. And the non-work-related subsidy is something people can use to "walk"--so it's effective leverage as a tool of last resort.
    - bokonist 12y ago
      If SF or NYC wants a higher wage, the city could augment the subsidy out of its own tax coffers. I am however, very much against the idea of taxing a machinist in Alabama to subsidize wages in NYC. I am also amenable to the idea of having the subsidy only be for those over 18, or people who are supporting families. But I do think it is reasonable to provide $15 jobs in middle America. Right now, young people feel a compulsion to head to NYC/SF/DC to gain access to these job markets, which feed off the money surplus from winner-take-all-industries. I would rather that the money get spread around more, and that once again a decent middle class life would be easy to obtain in what is now known as the rust belt.
TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
>In the last sixty years, a tremendous amount of money has been poured into education. That wouldn't be the last sixty years of explosive innovation and social growth, would it? You mean the most inventive and creative sixty years in all of human history? The problem now is that universities have become degree mills and social networking clubs. The subscription fees are insane, and because education has become commoditised, and too much of the process exists to exploit students instead of educating them, the results are becoming ever-more mediocre. But it would surely be possible to make useful adult education a part-time thing, with the rest of the time spent on useful work. It's not as if there aren't enough jobs that need to be done in healthcare, infrastructure maintenance, childcare, teaching, and all the other work that counts towards social, not investor, dividends. Unfortunately these jobs are deemed 'too expensive' and 'a drain on resources' - which is code for 'we're not going to make money from them in the next six months, so fuck everyone.'
- bokonist 12y ago
  That wouldn't be the last sixty years of explosive innovation and social growth, would it? You mean the most inventive and creative sixty years in all of human history? The sixty years prior were pretty explosive too - we got the car, airplane, nitrogen fixation, radios, etc. In my observation, you maximize returns to education when a) 90+% of people are literate in terms of both words and math b) ~20% of your population has a good trade education and/or apprenticeship c) 5-10% of your population has a good technical education (engineering, accounting, medicine, etc.). Beyond that, there are diminishing returns. The benefit of giving 50% of your population a "business and communications" "education" at State U is pretty low. Especially when that "education" is really just a four year party. The U.S. was probably at maximal educational efficiency in the 1950's. And we are getting a lot of benefit from the small percentage of education that is actually technical. But the marginal, additional, dollars spent since then, IMO, have had little impact.
rokhayakebe 12y ago
1) If we moved from theoretical/general teachings in college and focused on apprenticeship, the benefits of universal education would be clearly noticeable. 2) My policy preference ... of at least $15 an hour. Why does everybody need to work? Just look around your own company, (arbitrarily) less than 50% of your workforce creates (arbitrarily) 95% of the value. We would save money by paying the rest to stay home. 3) The way productivity is being enhanced by technology means that sooner or later, only a small part of the population will make the workforce, and they will create more value than all of us are creating now. The only question at that point will be how will this value/profit be shared and benefit the "unproductive" population.
- bokonist 12y ago
  Just look around your own company, (arbitrarily) less than 50% of your workforce creates (arbitrarily) 95% of the value. That was not the case at my last company, as we were quite cutthroat about cutting away deadwood. But the company was in the marketing space, so arguably the entire company could just stay home and society would be no worse off. But to answer your question - why does everybody need to work? Because most people are not natural aristocrats. They are not going to be tinkering in their home laboratories, crafting programming languages or writing ebooks. I fear that most people will degenerate in every manner if not subjected to the discipline of work. They will end up drinking and playing video games all day long. Furthermore, I think most people want to work, it provides purpose and fulfillment. If we needed to create work on a massive scale (as opposed to just a stop gap for particular disadvantaged people) I would prefer that the government create some sort of massive, purposeful project. For instance, I'd love to see the U.S. president throw down the gauntlet and challenge China and the EU to race to Mars. (Although I'm not actually sure how many jobs such an endeavor would actually create).
gvr 12y ago
I went to the best physics program in Sweden. It was pretty amazing and at something like $50 per year essentially free. In addition, the government provided ~$300 per month in assistance plus a low interest ~$900 loan. Any good policy or form of governance (including socialism) will look bad if executed poorly.
lukasm 12y ago
Sure, a lot of stuff will get cheaper, but how are you gonna pay for that without any income? I speculate that countries in Europe will choose some form of Minimal Activity available for everybody. The transition faze will hurt. A lot.
glesica 12y ago
..."job of last resort" program... But why? Why is it so necessary that everyone spend their days working? Why not just allow the structurally unemployed to pursue whatever it is that they want to do? I'm not saying we have to give them all mansions and butlers, but why do we have to make up fake, worthless jobs for them to do? It seems as though overall human happiness would be better optimized by allowing them to stay home or perhaps contribute to society in other ways than clocking in for a 9-to-5. The goal shouldn't be for all of humanity to be employed, the goal should be for all of humanity to have happy lives.
- bokonist 12y ago
  I answered that same question here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7907937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7907937 I think most people are not natural aristocrats. They are not going to be tinkering in their home laboratories, crafting programming languages or writing ebooks. I fear that most people will degenerate in every manner if not subjected to the discipline of work. They will end up drinking and playing video games all day long. Furthermore, I think most people want to work, it provides purpose and fulfillment. That said, as long as I'm social engineering a solution to the nation's problems, why not try an A/B test? Try giving the money away with no strings attached in one city or state (far away from me please) and see what happens. I am just more pessimistic about human nature than you are, so I do not think it will end well. I think there is a lot of evidence about the problems of idleness from the history of welfare and housing projects. A compromise would be to make one of the "make work" options be an artistic or technological fellowship. So if you went to your employment office for your make work, and said you were working on an art project or new programming language, they would pay you to do that, you would just have to show some progress along the way.
  - eqdw 12y ago
    > Try giving the money away with no strings attached in one city or state (far away from me please) and see what happens. My Alma Mater did that in the 70s. The results were unequivocably positive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome
Kaizyn 12y ago
As an adult-life on-boarding process, why not compulsory service? At least then, every person is guaranteed to have contributed at least something to society.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
bandushrew 12y ago
Money has beenb poured into education, but not spent on actually teching people. check out the budgets for the universities, and tell me where the money has gone.

jseliger 12y ago

In the last sixty years, a tremendous amount of money has been poured into education I wrote about adjacent issues in "Why can’t we solve poverty, or solve it through schools?", which got started in emails and Hacker News comments on the issue (http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/why-cant-we-solve-poverty-or-solve-it-through-schools/ http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/why-cant-we-solve-p...). In addition, and as I discuss in the post, right now we can't "solve" poverty because poverty is a moving metric, usually defined as a percentage of income, rather than as an absolute value. Thanks for your comment.

bokonist 12y ago
In addition, and as I discuss in the post, right now we can't "solve" poverty because poverty is a moving metric, usually defined as a percentage of income, rather than as an absolute value. Yes, and this reminds me a point I left out. We also need to look for ways to reduce the cost of living for the basic stuffs of life. In many ways a poor person now is wealthier than 40 years ago. However, the cost of living needed to simply live in society as a semi-normal person has also gone up dramatically. Most people cannot to work, or take a cheap moped to work, because the entire transportation structure was designed for cars. If everyone else is driving a three ton steel machine, you need to drive one too, and better get one with airbags and a four-star crash rating. Similarly, zoning laws have made even small homes in locations near healthy job markers quite expensive. Healthcare is much better now, but there is no option to pay Costa Rican healthcare prices for Costa Rican health quality. It's all or nothing. The economy is also missing old-school solutions like boarding houses or dorm living for adults, that provide a very cost effective way for single adults to save money while working entry level jobs. Such accommodations now violate zoning laws. Right now economic policy is geared around GDP and per capita GDP. I would prefer for the key metric we judge economic progress by to be the ratio between the most basic cost of living for a normal person (a two bedroom home near jobs, a food basket with protein and vitamins, transportation costs of getting to work, healthcare coverage that will cover major health problems, amortized costs of education needed to land that median wage job, etc. etc.) divided by the median income for a full time worker. We both need to focus on keeping the basic cost of living down as much as we focus on keeping wages up.
- avn2109 12y ago
  >> "... because the entire transportation structure was designed for cars. If everyone else is driving a three ton steel machine, you need to drive one too, and better get one with airbags and a four-star crash rating." It's almost like the man designed it this way so as to incentivize you to borrow money from him to buy cars. The only thing stopping something like that would be the fact that the auto industry didn't historically have vast domestic political power and close ties to high finance... wait a second...

chongli 12y ago

Spending more money on college is just a wealth transfer from tax payers to upper middle class teachers and administrators. This is the case in the United States. In several places in Europe, however, it is a different story. Higher education is cheap or even free and schools are not bloated with a glut of unnecessary bureaucrats and administrators.

briantakita 12y ago
> not bloated with a glut of unnecessary bureaucrats and administrators In America, Education is about standardizing thought & systematically removing novelty from the students. That requires bureaucrats & administrators to ensure that the novelty is systematically removed on schedule.
burntsushi 12y ago
Higher education in the US is also plenty cheap if you look at state schools and community colleges. I took the path of going to a state school and escaped with a very small amount of debt. But that isn't popular to talk about. Instead, we blindly assume every school is $40K+ a year. (And indeed, some people are brazen enough to pay such costs.)

gbog 12y ago

Ok, but those who just do not want to be assigned a productive task, what would you do with them?

bokonist 12y ago
Then they go hungry. When they are ready to work and to eat, their local employment office will be ready with a job and a paycheck. But in the meantime, they need to stay off my lawn. I am a believer in anti-vagrancy laws, so I think with the "jobs for everyone" comes enforcement against sleeping on street benches and panhandling.
- sanswork 12y ago
  Your plan depends on everyone being able to work. There are a lot of illnesses and disabilities(physical and mental) that make that assertion not true. Would you have these people starve?
  - bokonist 12y ago
    No, I said very clearly in my original comment that everyone gets a job, even schizophrenics and quadriplegics. There is something that everyone can do. If you are physically disabled you can monitor security cameras or transcribe city council recordings or something. If you are mentally disabled you can still probably pick up trash in city parks. There is some make work job available for almost anybody. The only exception would be the extreme mentally ill, who would need to be treated and provided supportive housing as they are now. But if you are mentally able, but just unwilling, then you go hungry. Or maybe you get a soup kitchen and a bed in a shelter. But in someway it will be unpleasant and hard, so as to disincentivize sloth.
    - briantakita 12y ago
      Is sweeping streets a way of fulfilling your highest purpose in life? We live in an age of abundance. Why not allow people to create what they want to create? Art, music, love, good feelings in the community, etc. Here's a good story on a dystopia & utopia in an age with automated machinery, less jobs, & more overall abundance. http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

eqdw 12y ago

> My policy preference would be a law that creating a universal wage subsidy of $7.75 an hour, thus guarantees every worker a total wage of at least $15 an hour. I really like this idea. Lately I've been thinking about minimum wage laws (SF, $15/hr min wage, etc) and something about it rubs me the wrong way. It feels like minimum wage laws are a convenient way for governments to take all the credit for improving the lot of the poor, while making others (companies) pay for it. It also feels like it disproportionately impacts small business owners, who are already stretched pretty thin. Implementing a minimum wage like that, where part of the burden is on the government, and comes out of tax revenues (which can be collected in a more progressive fashion) really appeals to me

bokonist 12y ago
Yes, exactly. The economic right wing has a valid point, that many small business owners cannot bear the burden of a higher minimum wage. Asking a factory owner who is barely making payroll due to competition from China to boost his wages could be a death knell. The money for wage increases needs to come from those who are the big winners in the winner-takes-all-games that are technology and globalization.
- 001sky 12y ago
  Also, the value of min wage needs to be mapped on some topography of need. A $15/hr in SF or NYC is paltry due to the geographic localization of other prices--higher cost of living. Meanwhile, hiring 16 year in some middle-america towns probably shouldn't be dictated by "rich people's problems" imported from New York or California. All that being said, I also like the top-posters idea about adding a subsidy to basic negotiated/market wages. Because ultimately everything is simply a negotiation. And the non-work-related subsidy is something people can use to "walk"--so it's effective leverage as a tool of last resort.
  - bokonist 12y ago
    If SF or NYC wants a higher wage, the city could augment the subsidy out of its own tax coffers. I am however, very much against the idea of taxing a machinist in Alabama to subsidize wages in NYC. I am also amenable to the idea of having the subsidy only be for those over 18, or people who are supporting families. But I do think it is reasonable to provide $15 jobs in middle America. Right now, young people feel a compulsion to head to NYC/SF/DC to gain access to these job markets, which feed off the money surplus from winner-take-all-industries. I would rather that the money get spread around more, and that once again a decent middle class life would be easy to obtain in what is now known as the rust belt.

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago

>In the last sixty years, a tremendous amount of money has been poured into education. That wouldn't be the last sixty years of explosive innovation and social growth, would it? You mean the most inventive and creative sixty years in all of human history? The problem now is that universities have become degree mills and social networking clubs. The subscription fees are insane, and because education has become commoditised, and too much of the process exists to exploit students instead of educating them, the results are becoming ever-more mediocre. But it would surely be possible to make useful adult education a part-time thing, with the rest of the time spent on useful work. It's not as if there aren't enough jobs that need to be done in healthcare, infrastructure maintenance, childcare, teaching, and all the other work that counts towards social, not investor, dividends. Unfortunately these jobs are deemed 'too expensive' and 'a drain on resources' - which is code for 'we're not going to make money from them in the next six months, so fuck everyone.'

bokonist 12y ago
That wouldn't be the last sixty years of explosive innovation and social growth, would it? You mean the most inventive and creative sixty years in all of human history? The sixty years prior were pretty explosive too - we got the car, airplane, nitrogen fixation, radios, etc. In my observation, you maximize returns to education when a) 90+% of people are literate in terms of both words and math b) ~20% of your population has a good trade education and/or apprenticeship c) 5-10% of your population has a good technical education (engineering, accounting, medicine, etc.). Beyond that, there are diminishing returns. The benefit of giving 50% of your population a "business and communications" "education" at State U is pretty low. Especially when that "education" is really just a four year party. The U.S. was probably at maximal educational efficiency in the 1950's. And we are getting a lot of benefit from the small percentage of education that is actually technical. But the marginal, additional, dollars spent since then, IMO, have had little impact.

rokhayakebe 12y ago

1) If we moved from theoretical/general teachings in college and focused on apprenticeship, the benefits of universal education would be clearly noticeable. 2) My policy preference ... of at least $15 an hour. Why does everybody need to work? Just look around your own company, (arbitrarily) less than 50% of your workforce creates (arbitrarily) 95% of the value. We would save money by paying the rest to stay home. 3) The way productivity is being enhanced by technology means that sooner or later, only a small part of the population will make the workforce, and they will create more value than all of us are creating now. The only question at that point will be how will this value/profit be shared and benefit the "unproductive" population.

bokonist 12y ago
Just look around your own company, (arbitrarily) less than 50% of your workforce creates (arbitrarily) 95% of the value. That was not the case at my last company, as we were quite cutthroat about cutting away deadwood. But the company was in the marketing space, so arguably the entire company could just stay home and society would be no worse off. But to answer your question - why does everybody need to work? Because most people are not natural aristocrats. They are not going to be tinkering in their home laboratories, crafting programming languages or writing ebooks. I fear that most people will degenerate in every manner if not subjected to the discipline of work. They will end up drinking and playing video games all day long. Furthermore, I think most people want to work, it provides purpose and fulfillment. If we needed to create work on a massive scale (as opposed to just a stop gap for particular disadvantaged people) I would prefer that the government create some sort of massive, purposeful project. For instance, I'd love to see the U.S. president throw down the gauntlet and challenge China and the EU to race to Mars. (Although I'm not actually sure how many jobs such an endeavor would actually create).

gvr 12y ago

I went to the best physics program in Sweden. It was pretty amazing and at something like $50 per year essentially free. In addition, the government provided ~$300 per month in assistance plus a low interest ~$900 loan. Any good policy or form of governance (including socialism) will look bad if executed poorly.

lukasm 12y ago

Sure, a lot of stuff will get cheaper, but how are you gonna pay for that without any income? I speculate that countries in Europe will choose some form of Minimal Activity available for everybody. The transition faze will hurt. A lot.

glesica 12y ago

..."job of last resort" program... But why? Why is it so necessary that everyone spend their days working? Why not just allow the structurally unemployed to pursue whatever it is that they want to do? I'm not saying we have to give them all mansions and butlers, but why do we have to make up fake, worthless jobs for them to do? It seems as though overall human happiness would be better optimized by allowing them to stay home or perhaps contribute to society in other ways than clocking in for a 9-to-5. The goal shouldn't be for all of humanity to be employed, the goal should be for all of humanity to have happy lives.

bokonist 12y ago
I answered that same question here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7907937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7907937 I think most people are not natural aristocrats. They are not going to be tinkering in their home laboratories, crafting programming languages or writing ebooks. I fear that most people will degenerate in every manner if not subjected to the discipline of work. They will end up drinking and playing video games all day long. Furthermore, I think most people want to work, it provides purpose and fulfillment. That said, as long as I'm social engineering a solution to the nation's problems, why not try an A/B test? Try giving the money away with no strings attached in one city or state (far away from me please) and see what happens. I am just more pessimistic about human nature than you are, so I do not think it will end well. I think there is a lot of evidence about the problems of idleness from the history of welfare and housing projects. A compromise would be to make one of the "make work" options be an artistic or technological fellowship. So if you went to your employment office for your make work, and said you were working on an art project or new programming language, they would pay you to do that, you would just have to show some progress along the way.
- eqdw 12y ago
  > Try giving the money away with no strings attached in one city or state (far away from me please) and see what happens. My Alma Mater did that in the 70s. The results were unequivocably positive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome

Kaizyn 12y ago

As an adult-life on-boarding process, why not compulsory service? At least then, every person is guaranteed to have contributed at least something to society.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

bandushrew 12y ago

Money has beenb poured into education, but not spent on actually teching people. check out the budgets for the universities, and tell me where the money has gone.