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Comment by haaen | Hacker News Reader

The YCR statement says:

"We think everyone should have enough money to meet their basic needs—no matter what, especially if there are enough resources to make it possible."

Why give free money to people who are too lazy to work?

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Why not just give them money? If someone is "too lazy" to work, they're not going to be productive in any job anyways. We already give these people substantial subsidies in the form of food stamps, housing assistance, etc.

If someone wants to not work and live in a bad part of town. No offense, by why do you care? You'll live a much nicer life than them, working, and having more.

> If someone wants to not work and live in a bad part of town. No offense, by why do you care?

Sounds like "basic income will cover rent in the bad part of town" means that safety isn't covered in "basic"?

I have a hard time understanding how BI is going to afford everyone the ability to live in a nicer part of town. "Nicer parts of town" are a scarce resource. As such, they're costly. If you increase the BI to a level that would presently afford everyone to live in nicer areas, then the prices would simply rise commensurately.

Also I'm not really sure what safety has to do with the BI. The whole point is that each person gets $n and they can spend it as they see fit. Maybe someone would like to spend 10% of their BI on secure rural accomodations. Maybe another person would like to spend 100% on a sketchy rat trap in the Tenderloin. That's their prerogative.

Too lazy to work? Or the economy can only support 100k jobs when we have 100 million people? Eventually the latter will be true.

There is plenty of work to be done.

When people talk about only having a limited number of jobs, I hear "tremendous waste." Don't fix that TV, throw it away. Don't bother sorting out the recyclables, throw it all away. Don't clean that, throw it away.

That work is not done because it does not create enough economic value to provide a living. People can't afford to do low-paying work. BI makes low-paying work affordable, so more people will do it, which will benefit all.

How does that happen? People's reservation wage goes up with income, not down.

I used to think that a BI would work, ten years ago, well before the current craze. But it was wishful thinking that I had never been challenged on.

We do know that an EITC or NIT increases work hours. It would make a lot of things that are wasteful economically viable for both parties.

Not all work provides regular, consistent cashflows.

Examples:

* Launching a startup

* Developing a vaccine

* The performing arts

* Solving math problems

* Fruit picking

* Writing your first book

There are plenty of people who do work but still can't cover their basic needs reliably (minimum wage isn't nearly enough in big cities but cities still need the jobs that pay minimum wage) and then people who can't work (infirmity or lack of skills).

Why should money just accumulate at the top where it's marginal utility is vastly smaller than if it were in the hands of the bottom portion of our population?

Finally why should work be the measure of a person's worth to the point of denying basic survival if you don't?

Of course there will always be people who cannot work. But the point is, BI is a basic income for anyone. No strings attached, Here's OPM, even for people who could make a living without BI. Strikes me as a waste of taxpayer's money?

Providing a wide ranging universal safety net seems like exactly the kind of thing that government is best suited for over any other institution. There's a lot of places it could wind up saving money over the current system anyways: practically no administration costs, lower health costs because people aren't forced to live in shitty places that make them sick because they're too poor to move somewhere else.

Even if it winds up costing more I don't classify giving everyone the freedom to live their life in a way of their choosing ultimately as a waste. Hell that's the basic utopian dream from Star Trek, Culture or a thousand other places, so much wealth that anyone can do anything with their lives and it's a rounding error. Are we there, no, but we have the surplus to take care of everyone's basic needs today.

Government fails in most areas. I agree with your point about administration costs, but don't you think politicians will come up with other things that they can spend the saved money on?

There's a lot of things they could spend money on that also wouldn't be a waste of money. Infrastructure could really use more money, the space program could definitely benefit from a pile of cash to both the public and private sectors, and funding for education is in serious need of an increase (as well as reforms to improve effectiveness).

Just because the government wastes money some places doesn't mean they're incapable of putting it to good use in other ways or that we should avoid good programs just because they might misspend savings from it.

Why not? Who taught you that you must work or you are worthless?

I dindn't say that.

You said that people who don't work shouldn't get money. Not sure how else to interpret that.

And, on the other extreme: why make people work when there's already enough for everyone?

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