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Comment by throwawaygimp | Hacker News Reader

UBI no one knows. Being sold or otherwise doesn't matter. Small trials here and there aren't much use. We need a country with balls to try it like Portugal did with drug policy.

So yea, I'm not sold either. No one really is until we get the hard truth. Nothing more complex (and chaotic) than society and it's economy. Good luck modelling and predicting that reliably ha!

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Whilst the detractors of UBI like to paint it as automatically impossible, like breaking some fundamental law of nature, I bet the same people would have said the same things about the Covid benefit schemes. In my country people could be furloughed by their employer on 80% of their salary... and somehow we paid for it ok.

Most people's jobs are utterly pointless. Yet still, by doing these jobs the workers get money with which they can buy their portion of resources. Let's just do the same thing without the pointless and wasteful busy work.

Maybe the only thing stopping us is our cultural values dating back to the industrial revolution when workers were indoctrinated with the idea of work as virtuous.

I mostly agree with this. When I worked in the federal government, a bunch of colleagues there used to jest that it was "middle class welfare". The point being, that a huge portion of the white collar federal employees just exist to fill a billet. The number of free loaders was insane. In my experience, most operations were done by a few, and much of the extra work that was done really didn't need to happen (example: making useless one time spreadsheets with 10 rows and 4 columns filled with data that expires in the short term, embed into powerpoint, make powerpoint look pretty, email it to someone)

The government needs to pay for this. The taxes collected come from people. So a fraction of the people have to pay for UBI.

If we assume full automation and no private property, then the machines work for us now. They don't complain like Ben Shapiro that paying for the poor with your wealth/income is "stealing". Communism is a good idea on paper, but humans in general are greedy and envious. If we had unlimited resources, the machines in such a scenario could produce everything for each greedy individual. However, our resources are limited, and one greedy person wants more than the other. That's actually the main issue here. People don't want to put up with getting the same thing as everyone else. (I would put up with it, though, but I am the minority here.)

Then there is Europe or social democracies. There is actually a limited form of UBI called "public assistance". You don't have to pay anything back and it is only for those who can't support themselves.

I hope there is a flaw in my thinking here. It would make my day if you would enlighten me with your wisdom. :)

PS: I couldn't resist sharing a good parody on Ben Shapiro's character: https://youtu.be/wPgwwZ8ih3k Sorry HN, I know this is somewhat silly from me, but it is too funny. :D

Edit: For the person who downvoted my comment here. Care to share on why you did this? Please enlighten me. I don't care about karma points. I care about why you think that I am wrong. Was my first sentence the offender? I meant it in this way: For UBI, the government needs to ...

Anyhow, tell me why I am wrong and not just downvote it and leave. Explain, please! Thank you!

> People don't want to put up with getting the same thing as everyone else.

I don't think that's true for most people. Rather, people don't want to expend energy when they can get away with not doing it. Working is hard, and if you're taken care off if you don't, then a sizable part of the population won't.

I hope so. Again, I wouldn't complain about it, but there are people like Ben Shapiro, you know. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ People like Ben then perhaps need to put up with it if the majority decides so. I just don't want to imagine his rage and anger...

Okay, the person who disliked my comment refused to answer why he did it. I can only guess why he did it. I suspect it is because of my silly remarks in general. Anyhow, it would be still better if you could provide me a reason, so I can get better next time. I cannot read minds you know, unknown downvoter whoever you are. Next time I will avoid being silly or making silly remarks. If this was even the offender? (However, my comment above was not entirely silly. A small part of it was.)

Edit:

Okay, I got an answer. Apparently it was because my argument was flawed. Thank you! :)

Ideally, the funds don't primarily come from other people's income, they come from corporate wealth and income (currently severely undertaxed), taxes on natural resource use (currently severely undertaxed), taxes on things we don't want like carbon emissions and other pollution (currently severely undertaxed) taxes on nonrenewable limited resources like radio spectrum usage or land usage (currently not taxed at all or nowhere near proportional to value most places), and direct wealth generation from nation-level investments (sovereign funds, resource funds). The "taxes come from people" is a common way to paint UBI as a self-defeating cycle of redistribution, but that's not how it is. Human income is a dropping fraction of total income, and human wealth is a dropping fraction of total wealth.

Thank you for your comment, Kliment. I am currently trying to see my error in thinking and fix it.

> currently severely undertaxed

Is it because companies such as Amazon are good at avoiding taxes?

> they come from corporate wealth and income

Hmm... I think this is what I don't really understand. Aren't corporations owned by a few people? So at the end the owners are paying the taxes? Can companies exist without owners (people)? (They change, I know, but can they exist without people?) I am probably to fixated on people, and perhaps I need to see companies as an own entity.

> taxes on things we don't want like carbon emissions and other pollution

Okay, so somebody and a "company" is also a somebody here, needs to pay for that? (So it is the owner at the end?)

> direct wealth generation from nation-level investments (sovereign funds, resource funds)

Okay, that makes sense. A stock is bought and sold by people, and its value increases and decreases depending on the decisions of people. However, you are right, the government owns that stock. So it belongs to all of us.

Okay, so my question essentially boils down to: Why is the owner of a company like Jeff Bezos irrelevant here? I can see this for the sovereign funds, resource funds part. However, I have trouble with the CEO part. What am I missing here? My understanding of government and taxes is wrong, perhaps. That's why I cannot see it, probably.

Taxes on corporations are paid by people. Every dollar taxed from a company is a dollar less the company is worth. For mom and pop companies, it's directly less value they have. For larger private companies, it taxes owners. For large public companies, it taxes everyone with any investment exposure, which is the vast majority of people by retirement time.

It lowers returns on pensions, which is a hidden tax on nearly everyone.

Lower capital in companies causes them to raise prices sometimes, hire less sometimes, fire more quickly in bad times, etc.

Just because you don't see how it taxes you doesn't mean you're not paying.

You expressed it better than I did. At the end it is people, but apparently we two have fundamental disagreements with OP (Kliment).

The most vocal detractors, yeah. But that's true for anything. The most vocal people are the ones that draw a hard line and refuse to budge, often choosing to scream people down instead of using actual logic or science.

That doesn't mean they're wrong, just that they aren't even attempting to put thought into it, just emotion.

You can't discount something based on it's most vocal proponents or opponents.

I'm not sure we can yet say with any confidence that "somehow we paid for it ok". The medium- to long-term consequences remain to be worked out....

UBI would be easily affordable if it was low enough. I don't know about the US but in the UK the progressive tax system means you don't pay any tax on the first £12,500. Scrap that and give it back as UBI instead then it would add up. The trouble is I don't think this is what the proponents have in mind.

Is it possible that UBI is inevitable? Machine learning is just getting started at making many jobs redundant, sooner or later it will explode. Yes, new jobs will be created too, but it's hard to imagine they will be on par with the amount lost. Those new jobs will most likely require a high level of education.

A massive wage gap and extreme poverty seems inevitable without UBI. In my personal utopian vision, I see us transitioning from a working culture to a learning culture, where personal growth is the goal.

I'm with you all the way on drug policy and prison reform. Addiction is an illness, not a crime. There's no such thing as good and evil, just cause and effect.

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