Comment by oliverx0 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by oliverx0 | Hacker News Reader

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I am not sure about whether UBI would work or not. I am mostly against the idea of just giving people free money without having to work for it. But leaving my political views out of this:

1) Do we all absolutely get it? That would be fine, unless it starts like that and then it is decided that only some people should get it. I see this as a strong possibility: the rich already have enough, why give them more? This then falls under the usual debate about whether the rich should pay for everyone else.

2) I would be more open to it if it was run as a one year experiment. A problem with a policy like this is that once approved, it is very hard to take it back if it does not work at scale or unforeseen problems arise. What politician in his right mind would tell the population that they are cancelling the $500 check everyone gets once a month?

3) It takes away the need for work. I don't but the "flipping burgers at McDonalds is no better" argument. If UBI solves this problem, then there won't be any more people flipping burgers at McDonalds? That is bad because a lot of businesses will go under. For fast food restaurants to work, someone has to be willing to do that work. The idea that now everyone will be "free to explore more meaningful work" seems far-fetched to me. If everyone gets money, then prices will increase accordingly.

> 1) Do we all absolutely get it? That would be fine, unless it starts like that and then it is decided that only some people should get it. I see this as a strong possibility: the rich already have enough, why give them more? This then falls under the usual debate about whether the rich should pay for everyone else.

The whole point is to avoid all the problems of means-testing, application and so on, and just give every citizen the money.

> 2) I would be more open to it if it was run as a one year experiment. A problem with a policy like this is that once approved, it is very hard to take it back if it does not work at scale or unforeseen problems arise. What politician in his right mind would tell the population that they are cancelling the $500 check everyone gets once a month?

Well, if you believe in democracy then democracy should be able to solve difficult problems. If UBI were disastrous, surely a democratic majority could be found to vote against it; to the extent that it remains popular, it can't be going that badly.

> 3) It takes away the need for work. I don't but the "flipping burgers at McDonalds is no better" argument. If UBI solves this problem, then there won't be any more people flipping burgers at McDonalds? That is bad because a lot of businesses will go under. For fast food restaurants to work, someone has to be willing to do that work. The idea that now everyone will be "free to explore more meaningful work" seems far-fetched to me. If everyone gets money, then prices will increase accordingly.

Businesses that rely on a supply of people doing really crappy jobs for very low money will go under, yes. If no-one is forced to flip burgers in order to eat, then if you want a burger you'll have to pay enough to make it worth someone's while to make it for you, or figure out a way to automate it, or do it yourself. The end result would probably be fewer atomised person-as-robot jobs and more people doing their own cooking / cleaning / repairs / childcare / etc.. Would that be so bad?

OT but it also means less burgers eaten overall, leading to a smaller burden on the healthcare system. Sounds like a win to me :)

With 3) society is basically admitting that it is built on top of "slave labor". If no one wants to do the "dirty jobs" because they have UBI, then wages for those jobs will rise. Prices will indeed rise but is that such a bad thing? Few people complain that they want more child labor to be used in Bangladesh so that they can have cheaper t-shirts.

It’s not just wages too. There’s also the component of worker treatment and workplace environments. Cheap, volume products likely have less of a place in society too because people would be able to afford something better and plan long term.

UBI is a great debate topic as no one knows what will really happen. What it does do is reveal how people think of humanity and society.

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