The Rich Douchebag's Approach to Basic Income | Hacker News Reader

The Rich Douchebag's Approach to Basic Income

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22 pointspashapiro11 comments

The title should have been a dead giveaway to the weight of the article. Does every Basic Income article make it to the top of HN now?

This article is total rubbish. It reads like the fan fiction "confessions" that 9/11 truthers write.

There are are reasons to be skeptical of BI, but the author is willfully misunderstanding what it is ("all profits go to me"???) and being an asshole about it.

> willfully misunderstanding what it is ("all profits go to me"???)

It's an analogy.

Rich douchebag = taxpayers.

Grad students = agency that manages the program.

Whores = those accepting basic income

The "profit" of basic income would go to us, the taxpayers, and to humanity as a whole. Or not! We don't know yet.

> being an asshole about it

You didn't see the big flashing neon <satire> sign? Or the fact that the author is a sci fi writer?

The "profit" in real BI would mostly go to the recipients, with the government only getting the usual IRS cut, and taxpayers likely not getting it directly.

The analogy also doesn't work because you also have the rich douchebag investing venture capital and buying board seats and laying people off. Taxpayers don't do that.

Also, semantically, calling those who accept basic income "whores" is not going to serve the goal of promoting basic income.

Also, the BI in the story only goes to those earning "close to the median income."

Etc, etc. There are so many ways this piece fails: Getting the facts right on BI, as an analogy, as satire, and as a pro-BI piece.

I think (though I'm not entirely sure) that this is intended as a somewhat satirical piece arguing for basic income based on its ability to unleash productive human potential trapped by economic circumstance, using the "all profits go to me" arrangement as a device to be able to construct a self-interested narrator so that the social benefit being advocated becomes a personal benefit of the narrator.

That is, I'm sure its satirical; I'm less certain of the exact intent (and particularly there are some choices of examples that are odd given the apparent intent.)

Author here. You pretty much nailed it.

The exact intent is what you describe plus "make people that read HN laugh". If some of the meaning gets muddied for the sake of comedy, well, that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

If it's not funny, well, that's the risk of satire. In any case, I'll keep working on the story.

I thought it was great my dude

I also thought it was great. I think people are put off because they hate the character.

Yeah, the darkness is a big part of the point. You should feel sort of dirty when you're done reading it, but still be able to see that an entity driven by greed can provide a social good.

Ideally, a good basic income program would provide a mix of incentives to maximize both social and economic good. The story challenges the reader to consider even the slimiest, scummiest greed as an incentive.

What a horrible article.

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