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Comment by Jhsto | Hacker News Reader

In Finland people receive conditional aids, sometimes amounting so much money that there is little incentive to go to work anymore, because doing so would cut your subsidies.

I guess what the government wanted to see is that given it "unconditionally," would people take up low paying jobs because now they don't lose any more aids by doing so.

I agree it was dumb to coin this as a UBI.

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Yeah, another interesting aspect of UBI would be how many would quit their existing job and just subsist on UBI.

The real fear of most against UBI seems to be that the majority will quit their jobs, resulting in the government losing way more in income tax than they pay out in UBI.

You don't even need to test UBI to see that it won't work. You can tell by our existing system that UBI will promote people to take advantage of the system. If you're poor, you get free grants to go to college, food stamps, and all sorts of free programs. As soon as you start working, you lose all those things. This also contributes to why black families have only one parent, because the government gives more money to broken families than regular families.

It sounds like you're referring to welfare cliffs. Practically the entire point of UBI is that there are no cliffs.

I don't know exactly how to say this without seeming insincere, but can you try your comment again? There's no part of it that makes sense to me. I think it's potentially an interesting surface for discussion, but when broken down, I can't quite find anything about it that makes enough sense to respond meaningfully.

Let me make it more clear for you. The feed back loop of getting paid, is that you are being productive in the market place for producing goods or services that are in demand in the market place. Handing somebody "free" money takes from the productive sources that earned the money and distributes it to people randomly. What did the person receiving the money provide to the market place, rather than simply existing? Truly, if UBI was high enough, there would be no incentive to work at all, and you might be able to live quite comfortably with not working if you pair it with food stamps and all the other "free" things the government provides. What's preventing unambitious people from not working, having children and perpetuating the cycle? Over time, this would drain further and further on the system because you've created a false dynamic in the market place that rewards those that do nothing. This is the same reasoning behind wanting to get rid of non essential foods (like hot Cheetos, ect.) from EBT cards. You should not be happy receiving welfare benefits or UBI, you should be uncomfortable enough to be ambitious to find a real job in the market place to better your living condition.

I see. Yeah, I didn't understand your position from your previous comment. I still don't think I quite understand the racial angle you're playing here, because I don't think you can demonstrably separate the systemic racism (eg, drug prohibition) from the economic impact of welfare.

But I think it's reasonable to point out that this is fuzzing the price signals of the market. Generally, I don't care for government meddling in the economy for this reason - I gather that you share this view.

In order to be satisfied that the impact will be negative, though, I find myself needing to understand whether the current price signals are optimized for the most important values.

Currently, in the crony capitalist system, the scenario you describe is rampant: "Handing somebody 'free' money takes from the productive sources that earned the money and distributes it to people...". I mean, isn't this basically all defense contracting and prisons? And most finance, insurance, and real-estate?

Meanwhile, things that are unquestionable worthwhile, like art and philosophy, aren't particularly economically viable.

So how do you line up price signals with genuine value? It's a hard question. Like what I gather is your position, I am far, far more inclined to trust a free market than government. But if I'm reading your comment correctly, you seem to have a bit of a fetish for "jobs" and capitalist ambition.

I don't care whatsoever is somebody has a job. I don't think most people want jobs, and I don't think most jobs need people. The vast majority of the population can find something better to do than a menial job, and I don't think it's reasonable to suggest that they need to be "uncomfortable enough to be ambitious" as a result.

If we are able to automate many (even most) jobs out of existence, don't we want people to thrive while doing something better with their time than pumping your gas or checking you out at the store?

Those are all arguments for why UBI will work, since all of those are direct effects of the conditions of current means tested aid programs that are eliminated with unconditional basic income.

> The real fear of most against UBI seems to be that the majority will quit their jobs

Often ignored in this discussion is the viewpoint that this isn't something to fear, but to celebrate.

There are a lot of dumb jobs out there that don't need anyone working them any more. What if those people can instead write poetry or paint or dance or invent? That's more the world I'm interested in. I don't give a hoot if the government can't raise enough money to drop explosives on people - at worst, that is a pleasant side effect.

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