How about a Genius Basic Income?
ideassleepfuriously.substack.com
ideassleepfuriously.substack.com
And it's still doing that. My anecdote: a relative who did poorly in primary school, but in the last 5 years has gone from enlisted service people to college educated engineer on the GI Bill.
Genius grants are great (the MacArthur Fellowship funded the deciphering of the Maya Writing system [2]), but should be handled by private philanthropy, which has plenty of money these days to support the 140 IQ+ talent.
1. https://www.legion.org/magazine/242265/gi-bill-outer-space
The US military budget is a back door for all sorts of social programs with really twisted incentives (twist may vary by program, GI Bill being among the most harmless). Because the social programs are buried in a military budget, the extent to which those programs are inclusive of those on the receiving end depends largely on the size of the receiving end (e.g. was military action taken?) and the extent to which the people on the receiving end deserve any consideration at all (e.g. language around accommodating victims of war will likely be more effective than no language around accommodating customers of weapons conducting their own wars).
By and large, neither extreme is especially beneficial to those on the receiving end of being outside our borders, unless we have a fairly lax immigration posture… which, is a laughable concept at this point. And the concept of burying social programs in a military budget laughs right along with that.
I think it’s deserving of the term ironic to point out that other historical examples of programs which work this way are largely prefixed “Soviet”, or at least were aligned that way.
Defeating the Nazis was just and invading Iraq was unjust, but we should not differentiate how we treat those whom we sent to do the fighting, as long has they have served honorably.
Perhaps you are using "Godsend" rhetorically, but it was hotly debated and even opposed by members of Congress who felt that the class of people who physically fought the war had no place in institutions of higher education [1].
Some members of congress opposed it on the grounds that it could in theory help African Americans:
"On March 24, the Senate passed the G.I. Bill unanimously, but the House continued to debate the unemployment and education provisions for another two months. Rankin, chair of the House veterans committee, had evolved into one of its sharpest critics. An unrepentant segregationist, he worried that African-American veterans would use the benefits to avoid work and live off the government. Rankin also didn’t see the need to give African Americans the same benefits as whites." [2]
In the end, ways were found to exclude African Americans from the benefit even after the bill passed [3]. The generational knock-on effects of that are well documented.
But the tremendous value added to the economy because of government support (however unequal) of regular "non-genius" people is pretty well demonstrated by the successes of the GI Bill.
1. https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/celebrate/gi-bill.pdf
2. https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2014/julyaugust/feature/how-t...
3. https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-ben...
that's the problem. high IQs are not that rare.
Also, we're talking enough money to live comfortably off of
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill#Racial_discriminatio...
Racial bias being intentional or not, the ideas of the GI bill seem like they would have worked even if they weren't targeting certain classes of people, making the idea of the bill good. That's the interesting conversation.
But it doesn't detract at all from the fact that investment in regular "non-genius" people (whether via the GI Bill or otherwise) had a fundamentally positive impact on the society.
Other programs like universal income could also be egalitarian and lift all boats, and might be fantastic or a horror show, depending on your stance on motivation and it’s relation to money.
A universal income for geniuses would not be egalitarian but could provide outsized benefits for its cost to society. If the government (us, collectively) own the results and IP, it might pay for itself / run a profit. If it expanded human knowledge faster than without it, it could provide a sort of compounding effect to how fast our societies advance.
I don’t know that these things would happen but they could, which seems worth exploring rather than discarding immediately due to historically-rooted moral systems.
Is it available to everyone if it needs the beneficiary to have enlisted in the US armed forces? It excludes those that won't be accepted (based on physical attributes) and those that wouldn't want to spend a few years oversees killing people.
This sound like a call to bring back aristocracy. Meritocracy rewards actual contribution as opposed to potential contribution. Even if your IQ is 160, if what you contribute to society has minimal tangible benefit, maybe you shouldn't be given a mansion and butler.
Not to mention the practical problems of who decides who and what constitutes genius and who pays for the patronage.
Just a thought.
How can you measure the tangible benefit of research - isn’t that the essence of it ?
Research is placing bets on future unknown returns
I disagree the premise of the article - It seems to me that more individuals than ever who choose to devote their careers to basic research are able to do so while also living a comfortable lifestyle.
the word "meritocracy" has an interesting backstory that you might find interesting (tl;dr the creator of the word intended for it to be used as satire). relevant link: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment
There are plenty of private endowments that recognize genius if you really feel too good to have a job. The idea that these should I stead be funded by taxpayers misses rhe forest for the trees.
plenty of hedge funds would love to have a field's medalist
Isn't that what a job is? Unless I am missing something.
But to me it is simple. The genius probably doesn't want to live in London per-se. They want to mingle with other geniuses. So they want to be near the best universities so they are contunially interacting with the best when they want to. But also having private spaces to think.
Really they just need a decent serviced appartment on university grounds, or in housing nearby.
Which is something the government will probably already own or could build.
Hardest fields require this extreme raw intelligence, thus even capable people have only their 20s to produce their most groundbreaking work.
It would be cool if human aging weren't structured like this, but if this is a problem with a solution at all, a solution still needs someone extremely talented in their 20s to work on it for a few years.
Compared to the upside, I think that providing UBI to such people should be a non-issue.
This is simply not true. Some fields require learning 10-20 years of domain knowledge before one can push at the edge. Another factor is discipline, often the young are impatient, and lack the rigour and discipline required to execute.
I think that the large leaps made by the young are through fresh ideas made from new perspectives, their minds unburdened with legacy methods.
I’m not arguing that human intelligence peaks at young adulthood, I’m arguing that contributing to “hardest fields” is NOT simply a factor of raw intelligence like your answer assumes.
So really they would love someone who could be a field medalist, to give that up, make them a few billion, and pay them a few million.
The tech is there for basic income for all. The resources are there. They've been there for a long time.
What's holding us back is that the powerful LIKE US SCRAPING BY. Billionaires pay millionaires to convince the dumbest of us not to help people too much.
"We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody." - Bucky Fuller
"This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career." - Einstein
Buckminster Fuller was a certified genius. So was Einstein. MLK, James Connolly, Helen Keller, Bertrand Russell, and many others said similar things - not that you'd hear much about that side of them in school. They supported the idea that we ought to make things better for HUMANS, for the planet, for all beings.
To try and sum up - I don't think any genius worth the title would want to be part of an elite class, while their so-called less worthy brethren can't afford school lunches, or are getting bombed by genius-made weapons.
Basic income - yes, let's do it. Basic income only for people who will feed the beast - fuck off.
In Europe we don't have this level of anti-intellectualism, but still aren't doing our best at harnessing our top talent.
I single out America because we are hurting the world the most (according to most global opinion since 2001), and because we have the most severe anti-intellectual streak (for like the last hundred years at least).
Still, even in Europe, the idea of separating potential "cream" from mere worker drones ought to make the hair rise on the back of your neck.
Again - basic income is very cool. Supporting talent is very cool. But let's not pretend that there wouldn't be huge resentment from something like the OP's proposal, everywhere and not just the US.
FY2019 the US saw a tax revenue of $3.46 trillion in total tax monies, with right at half of that coming from income taxes at $1.72 trillion. Meaning, taxation for UBI would be a tax increase of $350 billion on top of current income taxes if you wanted to pay every single American a $1k monthly UBI. Last census showed 20% (ok, actually 19% but rounding up to keep numbers simple) of Americans do not pay payroll taxes (this is why I did not count FICA taxes with the $1.72 income tax number, because when I say 20% I mean 20%. So I excluded people who pay FICA, have an SSI exemption, income to low, ect)) so that means the base population numbre of 350 million I used now is 280 million total Americans (and we both know that a quick glance at the current U6 number on an unemployment chart will crush the pipe dream of 280 million Americans having jobs and paying federal taxes. So now we're talking some serious tax increases. And I think a lot of people might be shocked at how many people with two UBI checks coming into their household would consider that retirement money....adding even more tax burden to the rest.
I know some people like to blame Trump, some Biden, and some point to Obama....but we've been trying the free money experiment since the Great Recession with those first moves Bush made and every President has followed since. The Federal Reserve slammed rates to zero and kept them there because there has never been an economic recovery. Which is why the Fed has also artificially supported several private markets (don't even get me started on the Federal Reserve's trading desk when they want to buy a crap ton of stocks or bonds to stop a market slide when it starts getting around +1,000 or more.), and all it's achieved is giving us terrifyingly large asset bubbles and even more scary debt bubbles. Without getting off into a novel on the topic, quite simply, the answer is no....we do not have the resources available to hand out UBI. I've heard some advocate the logic of it's fine since we can print as much money as we need. People who say this simply don't understand how the US economy and the Federal Reserve work as for every single USD that is created...there is also debt created via the interest owed on that one dollar. This is why anyone who says they can pay the debt off or not add to it is either lying or selling something. The literal only way to address the US's debt (both public as well as Unfunded Liabilities....which total $170 trillion in debt just counting Medicare and SSI) is liquidation. Sure, we could "tell" the Fed no more interest and to waive all interest owed it....but that would make the USD toilet paper globally. And if that ever happens that the world views the dollar as useless then we'll see a crash on the scale of Mad Max stuff like doom prophets on youtube always swear is happening in 5 hours.
If someone is single and needs help, you can't beat the military (I joined the Army for this precise reason) for food, clothing, shelter, income, insurance, ect. That's where I got a lot of my college education for free, but if single there are way to many grants to not be able to do a few night classes a week since there are no wife or kids at home waiting on you. If you have a family as I did (wife and two toddlers) it was even better as the Army gave us free housing and extra money for groceries and my family enjoyed my benefits. As far as the intellect argument....we live in the age of the autodidact thanks to the internet. Anyone that can't be bothered to take half an hour a day to educate themselves doesn't want or need help. I left my job in automation right after the recession and since all that had happened I decided to learn how the economy works, how the dollar works, what the Fed is and how it works, how it applies geo-politically, ect. It's why nowadays I sit at home in my boxers and trade the markets while also having a second portfolio that is more passive and functions best if left alone.
The argument that people would stop working and being productive if not under the threat of starvation has been debunked over and over and over again. The people telling you the threat of death is necessary for the economy are millionaires hired by billionaires to keep the status quo going.
Most of the "free money" America gives out is to the extraordinarily wealthy. Billionaires getting tax breaks, paying virtually nothing or even getting their money back. This is while children are going hungry, and millions are suffering from simple and treatable conditions. You speak candidly of people being forced to join the military for a chance at a better life, but it doesn't seem to all quite connect and join up in your worldview.
There are very few countries where is it seen as normal to have to join the military for "food, clothing, shelter, income, insurance, etc". And no other country's military is nearly so "active" and well funded. It cannot be overstated just how stunning the difference is between how the US perceives our military's actions, and how the rest of the world sees them. The reason for that - once again - is that millionaires are hired by billionaires to create that false narrative.
> ...we live in the age of the autodidact thanks to the internet. Anyone that can't be bothered to take half an hour a day to educate themselves doesn't want or need help. I left my job in automation right after the recession and since all that had happened I decided to learn how the economy works, how the dollar works, what the Fed is and how it works, how it applies geo-politically, ect. It's why nowadays I sit at home in my boxers and trade the markets while also having a second portfolio that is more passive and functions best if left alone.
Is this a blunt parody of privilege? Am I getting Poe's Law-ed? I'm glad you're alright, Jack, but telling society to just join the Army and use the internet to beat the market in their boxers strikes me as staggeringly callous and disconnected. Please, please tell me that was humor.
I still think that sci-fi novels are the best material covering the ethics of science.
it requires a spot be open, very competitive, requires a lot of published research, may require having to move, may have teaching obligations
Instead of plain FUD and denial of this inequality, we should develop sophisticated means of cognitive enhancement and make these available to all.
1. http://www.nature.com/news/how-to-raise-a-genius-lessons-fro...
2. https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2016/09/smpy-in-nature.html?m=...
Some of the societal outcomes could be explained with elite IQ distribution as per "Smart fraction theory" though.
When I rented I had one phone number to call and they had to deal with it.
> In a sane world, Hairer would long ago have been given a healthy grant or a generous basic income, as well as a majestic set of lodgings wherever he so desired.
Is this comedy?
And heuristically, society doesn’t prioritize geniuses.
So I guess we are just all realistically sad, huh?
There is also a difference between something being absurd and something we are just not used to yet.
And does society really have a say in this decision process? Because it is pretty obvious that the ones deciding society-wide investment priorities are, for a lack of better word, the elites.
As fellow HNer noticed in today's thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32120063 elites are very much used to having precise control over their environment, and known&unknown unknowns irritate them.
From this POV natural geniuses are just such an instance of a hard to control variable, and so it's obvious that prioritization of geniuses would pose a problem to the elites. Who knows when a popular genius will decide to amass the political power and change the power balance?
It seems that the current packaging of the brightest into the ivory tower of the academia is a compromise, where one side gets a certain amount of income and freedom, in return for giving away broader ambition.
And at least to me, this is disappointing.
I'm sure that there are a lot of smart engineers here and they are doing fine.
It's like giving free stylist to the most beautiful people, it seems a waste.
It also seems a way of gatekeeping universal income.
It would be insane if this wasn’t parody.
Does it, though? No matter how hard scientists try (and do they try...), they cannot prove that education causally drives increase in fluid intelligence (g). At best it's crystallized intelligence, which is not the same.
The research paints a different reality: education is about sorting, networking and acquiring crystallized knowledge.
If one really seeks to find a way to raise g, one has to search elsewhere.
But even if we step away from the beaten question of pre-uni education ROI and study the real and measured Flynn effect, we can sadly conclude that it is mostly (at least after the 1950s) about so-called[3] hollow gains. The problem with these being that they do not generalize to most tests and low-level measures of g such as reaction time. It can be argued that "Flynn IQ" can be of at least some use[3], but even then, the effect is close to saturation[4] by now, and increases to the underlying g-factor would avoid the controversy altogether.
Historically, real & massive g-loaded IQ gains tended to occur when people for the first time ceased being nutrition- and sanitation- limited during their formative years. If we sidestep the question of IQ heritability, there are lesser-known potential ways[5] of increasing g in children. Clearly, this field could use much more money and human resources allocated to it, given the unquestionably valuable prosocial outcome it could deliver.
I'm all for methods to raise g, especially in healthy adults and not just in children to be born sometime in the future, but just pushing more education into anxious highschoolers (or mid-career adults, for that matter) isn't going to cut it. Some fundamental approach based on neuroscience of learning and memory[6] is sorely needed.
1. https://skolvarlden.se/artiklar/ny-rapport-matteresultaten-s...
2. https://www.information.dk/debat/2020/02/naar-gennemsnitlige...
3. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...
4. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...
5. https://faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1096/fj.20...
6. https://www.amazon.com/Neuroscience-Intelligence-Cambridge-F...
Why would that demonstrate there is no effect? No treatment -> no effect bolsters the case for education, as my example shows treatment -> effect. There was no change in education that would have led to large IQ increases during that period in those countries. There was in South Korea, and the effect on IQ was dramatic.
This question is very deep and has wide implications. One thing is sure: without harnessing the natural talent of the human genius qualitative progress is impossible.
To put it in mildly simple term, you are likely not in the same political spectrum as parent.
What’s the big political difference?
I still don’t get how “Give everybody free money” and “Give a subset of ‘worthy’ people as determined by a government agency free money” are that different.
They’re both kind of bog standard socialist/communist ideas, just one has the self-dealing and nepotistic downsides to these ideologies explicitly baked into it by design.
Edit: It’s kind of like arguing “feeding everybody is communism! Feeding everybody that is approved as officially My Buddies is Good Capitalism!”
We’re discussing two different scenarios in which the government collects taxes and distributes that money to people without them being employed in any way.
It's just that the shortest path to this is, likely, some sequence of Manhattan projects/X-PRIZEs culminating in a set of technologies and knowledge that could be used to uplift any consenting person and support automated labor to provide for our needs.
You cannot get to the moon by piling up equally sized chairs.
Well, that would cost thousands to millions of times more.
I know that's a gauche point to make in contemporary America, where we don't have any concept of the difference between a program costing a million dollars and a quadrillion dollars, but I think it might be relevant here?
if it's demeaning for him, it's demeaning for everyone.
Wouldn't it be great if some smart, driven, altruistic people used a small ratio of our tax money to create something qualitatively new, with a potential of providing a better future to all of us?
However, tptb want us in the dirt. There's no other way to explain the legislative choices of the last 50 years.
And many - most, if not all - of the paths to creating a better future would fuck with their business. They pay very competent people in diverse fields to deal with such "threats" to their way of life.
And we tolerate it, because 50% are caught up in the faux wrestling match that is American politics and the other 50% have no representation outside like 6 Democrats, some tiny independent media, and a handful of ethical businesses.