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Comment by easytiger | Hacker News Reader

I love the idea of [U]BI simply because it exposes the emotional core of how fundamentally broken the philosophy of those who support it is.

It doesn't work. It can't work. Utopian ideals always end the same way: imposed only through tyranny.

Every study I've read by proponents starts from a view that it will work or must have a manner of working that is yet to be discovered because it meets the fundamental criteria of all their political beliefs; namely that all people are victims being oppressed by economic systems. Which is of course not true.

As with almost all "social science" studies, these are easily designed to prove whatever the author needs to.

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maybe it does not work within your current paradigms.

people never considered widescale remote work as an option, when it became a necessity, we found a way to make it work.

i don't like blanket "it cant work" statements - not possible for one person to have the perspective to make such a judgement.

people deserve to live a life of dignity, what's the point of progress if it does not benefit all of us. not everything has to be driven by cold hearted free market ideas. we did not choose to exist.

Remote work has been functional for years before COVID hit and forced a migration.

It was always a middle layer management that was against and they still don't love it.

That aside, UBI when centralized through a bureaucracy is doomed to failure, ala the human condition, find a way to decentralize it and encourage human agency through an open system of shared, public, and private equity holdings..then maybe..(yeah I'm talking blockchain).

> people never considered widescale remote work as an option, when it became a necessity, we found a way to make it work.

That's literally untrue. Almost every job I've ever had has had some element of WFH for the last 20 years. Even if your false supposition were correct it wouldn't be remotely related or comparable.

> people deserve to live a life of dignity, what's the point of progress if it does not benefit all of us. not everything has to be driven by cold hearted free market ideas. we did not choose to exist.

As predicted above - imposition of an unsubstantiated widespread victimhood used to inversely justify a need rather than a natural driver for it.

> what's the point of progress if it does not benefit all of us

What's the point of getting an ice cream if not everyone gets one?

Remote work existed long before covid and had some great successful examples across both America and in Europe. I worked fully remote for the past decade. I used HN often to find good remote jobs.

It was easy to see that remote work could work in more environments given the right push. Software and technology ultimately needed to improve and it absolutely has.

Now compare to UBI, it's just not feasible. We see countries with extreme inflation and how bad it is, we see that UBI requires tyranny to work, it's just not comparable to remote work in any way.

A lot of claims with nothing to back it up, there.

Folks have guaranteed incomes now. Lots of folk, lots of places. The world hasn't ended. Pensions, annuities, allowances, grants.

Of course it can work. 90% of everything is automated now. We don't need everybody to work for what we consume, and haven't for a couple decades now. If it weren't for a strong Protestant Work Ethic and make-work programs, we'd see far more people doing things other than slaving away at a job.

In future it'll only get more appealing, when nearly 100% of our needs are met by automation. Sure, build some pointless strawman about "What if nobody does anything?!!!" Not a problem, as long as folks who work earn more, then there will always be willing folks to do Engineering and whatnot.

Face it, it's only FUD and that troubling work ethic that get people so riled up. Not logic nor pragmatism.

> Folks have guaranteed incomes now. Lots of folk, lots of places. The world hasn't ended. Pensions, annuities, allowances, grants.

A pension or annuity paid for by your own effort is not even remotely related or comparable.

> Of course it can work. 90% of everything is automated now.

I'm not sure if it is funny or disturbing that you believe that. How sheltered, or privileged, must you be to believe it. The automation fantasy - I'll believe it when I see it.

So, in short, as per my post, your philosophy relies on an appeal to victimhood and a theoretician utopian advancement.

For something that's only Apparently 10% away it sure isn't manifesting in utopian robots everywhere

Yeah you must not work in the business. Factories with workers are evaporating as fast as they can be obsoleted. It's been going on for 2 decades now.

The obstacle to UBI is not financial nor technological. It's social. Old entrenched views that haven't been revisited since childhood, and the folks holding those views making decisions.

I think a generation will have to grow old and die before UBI will be found acceptable.

ROFL.

....because it exposes the emotional core of how fundamentally broken the philosophy of those who object to it.

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