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Comment by newacct23 | Hacker News Reader

You are arguing about specifics that do not make any difference to the overall argument the author is trying to make. UBI for 244 million is still unfeasible.

UBI is just a bad idea, jobs in themselves have nice externalities that UBI wont give. People that have jobs generally don't commit crimes. Also a UBI will disincentivize working jobs that are undesirable but are necessary for a functioning society.

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> Also a UBI will disincentivize working jobs that are undesirable but are necessary for a functioning society.

That's kinda the point. You drive up the cost of undesirable jobs until you find someone who'll work it. If no one wants to work it, you'll need to automate it or do without.

Yes, this! I hate the "But who will pick up the garbage?" argument so much, the lazy thinker who says this is implying that our society only functions if there's an explicit hell waiting for those who fail it. And that's kinda fucked up, eh? If UBI fixed just that it would be worth it, IMHO.

Also, have you ever talked to the people who pick up your garbage?

Another option is that people deal with their own garbage and maybe learn to reduce and re-use and demand less packaging.

How about people who want to serve society with "jobs" that don't pay well (or at all) but are incredibly valuable, like charity work? Wouldn't a UBI free them up to do that?

Look, this straw man has been beaten to death. I don't think anyone who has seriously considered UBI is arguing that all working age people should have +${UBI_AMOUNT} extra dollars. Most people would have extra taxes roughly equal to their income from UBI.

If you want to argue against redistribution, then do so, but don't throw out this we can't afford it lame horse anymore.

Why do they not talk about the tax increase that pays for it? It's supposed to be closer to neutral. I.e. people making $100k get an extra $10k tax burden to cancel out the $10k they just got. Pretty important factor to include in the discussion, yeah?

obviously someone else is going to have to pay for people making under 10k.

Yes. Obviously. So the "cost of UBI" is clearly not $10k times (number of humans in the USA), but more like $10k times (number of eligible people making under $10k). The article omitting this pretty important thing basically discredits it and probably its parent site

>So the "cost of UBI" is clearly not $10k times (number of humans in the USA), but more like $10k times (number of eligible people making under $10k).

It is "$10k times (number of humans in the USA)," because the "number of eligible people" IS the number of humans in the USA.

You left out the "making under $10k" part, which is the whole point.

I didn't leave it out because UBI isn't means tested or income based.

They're not explicitly eligible, but rather implicitly eligible, because of the tax increase on the top end to cancel out the $10k they don't need and to pay for any gap that still needs closing after we redirect money from existing systems.

The people who as a result of this policy and the taxes net money is small, and that is the real cost. Not $3T which is a bald faced lie.

Don't they actually get more like an extra 30-50k burden to cancel out the 10k they got and pay 10k to several other people?

The people who make under 10k outnumber the people making good money by a factor of 3-5?

I'm not sure that's the right ratio to look at - someone making under 10k isn't going to pay taxes at all. The average income in the US is just over 50k - I would expect that's about the income where your UBI would be 1 for 1 - your taxes go up 10k and you get 10k from UBI.

He's calling the veracity of the article into question by citing an example, not "arguing about specifics."

When you can't get the simple things right, why should we think you got the harder things right?

Are you saying that people commit crimes because they have too much time on their hands?

It's an unfounded assumption, the reality is (and you can prove this with data) most people committing crimes today do it as an act of desperation. Professional criminals are definitely a real thing, but they'll exist with or without a basic income. However, if a basic income eliminates poverty, it may have a real impact on crime.

>Are you saying that people commit crimes because they have too much time on their hands?

Partially, yes. Why do you think after school programs are so good at keeping kids out of crime?

What about drunk/intoxicated driving? Ive seen a couple comments saying its ok if people smoke pot and play video games, but what about those who want to go out and drink? 33% of all traffic fatalities are alcohol related[1], and that adds up to be quite a few people. Ok, self driving cars will fix that eventually, but what about domestic abuse?

1. http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impai...

people generally don't commit crimes for want of a job.

and a better way to look at it is that it incentivezes changes in society that reduce the undesirable work that's necessary for it to function.

Notice that people do undesirable jobs because they probably don't have many other options. UBI gives them another option. This would either make pay for undesirable jobs increase, OR people would be forced to automate them. Seems like a win win.

>OR people would be forced to automate them

as if it were that easy. Why don't we worry about UBI once we actually reach the post scarcity economy?

Because it's not the post-scarcity part that's the driver, it's the post-jobs part, which is a very real problem for a small but growing part of the population.

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