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Comment by TulliusCicero | Hacker News Reader

There are absolutely people like you, and absolutely people who will just play WoW all day, every day. The question is, how many of each?

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why does it matter? The point of UBI is to allow people to do what they want.

What would happen if everybody left their jobs overnight and started playing WoW? Other than Blizzard having to open thousands of new realms.

Of course not everybody will quit their job to play a videogame, but what if a significant % of workers were simply "lost" overnight?

If you look at the tragectory of humans from star dust, it's clear the pattern is progress

We are progress, it's the inability to progress that is the problem for a lot of us

If we break down that barrier then wow like things that supply fake progress will be less relevant

It matters because of the potential impact on society? Part of the promise of UBI that proponents often talk about is unleashing more human potential that's currently stuck in some corporate grind.

And while playing WoW all day isn't exactly the worst thing, I could see issues if that turns into people getting depressed. MMO addiction isn't really healthy.

> And while [sitting in an office] all day isn't exactly the worst thing, I could see issues if that turns into people getting depressed. [Office work] isn't really healthy.

> And while [bagging groceries] all day isn't exactly the worst thing, I could see issues if that turns into people getting depressed. [Menial labor] isn't really healthy.

> And while [driving an truck / bus / uber] all day isn't exactly the worst thing, I could see issues if that turns into people getting depressed. [Sitting all day] isn't really healthy.

UBI at least gives people options. If someone is happy playing WoW all day, and society doesn't really need them anyway... I see no harm in that. At least they have the option to quit playing and do something else. People doing menial labor often don't.

I'm worried about the inter-generational effect of UBI. What happens to the kids in a family who plays WoW all day? What if neighbourhoods become segregated between workers and non-workers? How are kids going to learn to develop marketable skills and basic work ethic?

Because, if it turns out that most people are just fine with fucking off all day and living off their UBI check then UBI is unworkable (pardon the pun).

The cycle would go something like this: * UBI checks start getting sent out * Large droves of people quit the shitty jobs * Due to reduced labor supply, cost of producing goods rises * The increased cost of living means that now we need to send out even bigger UBI checks (i.e. raise taxes)

This feedback loop continues until even the most motivated individual cannot rationally continue to pay into the system.

Straw man. No data to support that; just a scare story. How about: cost of goods continues to drop as automation continues to expand explosively (as it has in the last 10 years). Standard of living rises steadily as the workforce decreases.

What's the difference in the two scenarios? Data. Which we don't have. So certainly a UBI should be carefully introduced to keep the economy stable.

This is why we need more experiments like the one in Finland. It would be irresponsible to implement a UBI until we know which of these two scenarios is most likely. Although, I suspect the reality will fall somewhere between the two.

Or, just implement it and adjust the payment for stability.

There's not any data to support it because there's no data around a nationwide, long-term UBI, period. All we have are little experiments where people know it could end at any time.

Qualify that enough, you can make the point. But UBI has been around long enough to collect data (pensions, Alaska, experiments). What people 'know' has no place in economics. We can measure - did prices rise in those places? No? Yes? How much?

This is a persistent and pernicious misconception. UBI is intended to increase people's autonomy, but manly by eliminating the poverty trap. Too many people live off benefits they would lose if they took a low paying no job, so are better off or only marginally worse off not working. UBI takes that problem away to that everyone would always be substantially better off working. It would act as a major subsidy for low paying jobs by ensuring even quite low pay would represent a major improvement in marginal income, thus making it cheaper to hire unskilled labour and increasing the number and variety of jobs. It's not intended that a significant number of people would only rely on their UBI.

In the UK the poverty trap is very real. A young person with a family in social housing and on benefits has to jump right up to something like average income to be better off. The penalty for getting a job is colossal. UBI would mean that if they could get work for even 4 hours a week it would represent an improvement to their income. It is an incentive to work

> UBI is intended to increase people's autonomy

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/autonomy

1. the quality or state of being self-governing; 2. self-directing freedom and especially moral independence

exactly. The point is that they can do what they want.

This was in the context of talking about people playing WoW all day every day. That's not the sort of lifestyle UBI is intended to enable or encourage.

and vehicles were never intended to enable or encourage teenagers joy riding or drunk drivers, but NO ONE is going to seriously argue we should get rid of vehicles as a result.

Oh yeah! I long for times when 100% of society can play WoW all day long and Blizzards alone will foot the bill for all of us :) Ultimate economic perpetum-mobile with an Orcs race in it! :-)

So the more controversial question here is if we should do it anyway even if it turns out to be a net loss because.. we can.

Then the more dystropian view would be how else are we gonna keep the plebs under control if we think the unemployed will be the majority in the future?

Just pointing out there's a couple of different angles on this not just the net gain one.

> if it turns out to be a net loss because

Doesn't this assume a fixed loss? What if this encourages the former behavior to grow?

I doubt this will be read as I've taken too long in replying. But does it matter? If only 1% get to create new and interesting projects, then that is 1% more than at the moment.

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