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Comment by Chinjut | Hacker News Reader

Work on whatever you want to work on. If you're interested in nanotechnology, by all means, go work on it. But why should we design the world to force others to labor in ways they'd rather not under threat of destitution (starvation, homelessness, etc.), if we could instead allow people freedom from this bondage?

The way the world works now is that the wealthy are free to spend their time however they like, and the poor are forced to work on the projects the wealthy want worked on, regardless of their own interests, just to stay alive. Is this it? Are we done here? Is this the world we want?

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You know what? You're right. I'm tired of doing boring work for lazy rich folks. My basic needs should be taken care of and I should be free to live my life pursuing whatever whims or flights of fancy might make themselves manifest in my mind.

But why wait for our professional policy makers to bring basic income into reality? We can make it happen right here, right now. We'll free all the wage slaves from the bondage of their forced labor, one at time, and starting with me.

Here's an opportunity to act upon your principles and bring the world you want into being.

Send your donations to the following bitcoin address:

1NPgtWa3bR9iKzWdSm9HsTuXhLLDLvTesa

Your comment is exactly the sort that would fit in well on reddit, but sticks out like a sore thumb on HN. Why? Well, because after taking the 40 seconds to read your entire message, I realized that it was nothing but sarcasm through and through.

In short, you added nothing to the discussion, apart from disrespecting the participants (which is what 100% sarcasm is).

The fact that his retort is sarcastic, does not mean that he does not have a point. His point is that someone will be subsidizing his existence, and pointing out that nobody would want to do it, if they were faced with that reality, directly.

This is a silly false comparison.

No, I'm not willing to implement one tiny wealth transfer that could conceivably be part of a Basic Income scheme. That would be stupid.

However, if it were possible to magically enter into a voluntary but binding pact with a large enough group of people to make Basic Income work, then I absolutely would do it even if it would mean lower income for me.

It's a rhetorical device used by right-leaning people in many instances, for example when it comes to taxes. It's also pretty meaningless.

People at risk of starvation or homelessness are indeed in exceptional life circumstances and need urgent assistance. This is a matter for social welfare programs. Most developed countries already have such systems in place.

UBI is not a welfare system. It is universal by definition. Most recipients of UBI are not in the dire circumstances you described.

So let's talk about the real beneficiaries. I see no reason why a software engineer or a doctor needs an early retirement scheme that allows them to quit their job on the graduation day.

UBI will be financed by those software engineers and doctors because they are in the higher income tax bracket. Those people will still be paying more to the system than getting from it.

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