Comment by myshpa | Hacker News Reader

Comment by myshpa | Hacker News Reader

The world needs basic income, with guaranteed housing, internet and food.

We have the means to do it.

Upto 75% of population is employed in bullshit jobs anyway (= not producing anything, or even being harmful to the society).

Only 2% of population working in agriculture already produces food for 10+ billion people, just 8% works in manufacturing (IIRC).

Give the basic income population plant-based food (== use just 25% of agriculture land) and automate transport (trains) and distribution (like amazon with its warehouses).

Everybody can choose to work on anything they want, and be compensated for doing so, of course.

We'd save the environment, stop biodiversity loss and store more carbon than produced since 1750 (reforesting grazing lands), solve the world hunger, save the environment (no need to own so much cars, burn so much fuel and time going to meaningless jobs, to pay for a roof over a head with 40 years of life, no need for so much pesticides/herbicides, deforestation etc.) ...

Hm ... time to stop dreaming. Back to work.

> Upto 75% of population is employed in bullshit jobs anyway (= not producing anything).

Source?

I love that so many people are convinced everyone but them is doing nothing and somehow getting paid for it.

> Only 2% of population working in agriculture already produces food for 10+ billion people.

What's your point?

Who's going to take care of sick people? Who's going to educate our next generation? Who's going to maintain our infrastructure? Who's going to police people? Who's going to defend our country from war? Who's going to make sure your cellphone still works? Who's going to make sure your house still has electricity? Who's going to make sure the laws are being followed? Who's going to make new entertainment for you?

We need to do more than just have beans to eat.

> I love that so many people are convinced everyone but them is doing nothing and somehow getting paid for it.

That's not the point. The point is what they are producing isn't contributing value to our lives, or actually creating negative value. Building highways looked very productive on paper in the 50's, but now we live in car dependent sprawl, and we continue to pay people to maintain that sprawl when we could have walkable cities that are human friendly.

You're forgetting that a lot of people that use those highways want to live outside the city and don't want to be crammed into the city.

I love it in the city, can't imagine living where you literally cannot walk anywhere - but most of those people out there like it or they wouldn't be out there.

So, no, the people maintaining those highways aren't doing nothing. Maybe they're doing nothing for you. Maybe you can argue you're subsidizing other people's lives. But you can't say that people maintaining highways are doing nothing or are net negative.

The comment you're reacting to is imho talking about the system of transportation, while you're talking about the people managing that system.

Our preferences, choices and decisions have ripple effects.

Maybe if we'd intentionally designed our society/environment differently, we wouldn't need so many highways, and so many people managing them.

It's a false dichotomy to say the only two options are walkable and cramped, and spacious and car-dependent.

> Source?

https://libcom.org/article/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-david-gr...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

> Who's going to take care of sick people? Who's going to maintain our infrastructure? Who's going to police people? Who's going to defend our country from war? Who's going to make sure your cellphone still works? Who's going to make sure your house still has electricity? Who's going to make sure the laws are being followed? Who's going to make new entertainment for you?

You simply seem uninformed. My english is not so good to be persuasive enough, somebody please help me.

Basic income doesn't mean all people will stop working. Jobs would still exist, and people would still choose to work, but for different reasons than they do now. They could do what they want, and stop anytime for any period of time, and start again whenever and with what ever they would feel like it.

We have voluntary firefighters now, don't we?

People just wouldn't have to choose job based on its capacity to provide sustenance for their family, but do what they love no matter the financials.

For example many teachers and nurses are now leaving the profession (in the US), because they're unable to earn enough to sustain their living expenses and would have to work multiple jobs.

> Who's going to take care of sick people?

Do you think that doctors and nurses are in it for the money, and nothing else than money? No, they do it because they want to help people. I don't fully understand it, but it is so. And they would still be awarded for choosing that vocation.

> Who's going to defend our country from war?

You're an american, are you not? Are you people really that scared? With all the money on your offensive defences and with bases in 3/4 of all countries of the world?

> Who's going to police people?

Don't keep people in poverty, and you wouldn't need so many policemen and prisons. Do you know you're 1st in the world in this area too? And do you think there would not be anyone who would want to police, without being forced to earn a living?

> Who's going to make new entertainment for you?

All those youtube attention seekers are not going anywhere.

Basic income would start a massive creativity boom. I'm sure of it.

> We need to do more than just have beans to eat.

We can be forced to do something, or choose to do something. That's the difference. The beans are just the failsafe.

You're probably 15 years old or thereabouts, so I'll keep this simple:

With UBI, you will have to drive your trash to the nearest landfill yourself. And the car will barely work for lack of mechanics. And the road will barely function for lack of construction workers. And the landfill will just be a disordered rubbish tip, and not a proper facility. Because no one--and I mean no one--is working in garbage, grease, or tar when they can sit at home instead.

It's the purest idiocy anyone ever thought of.

And yeah, doctors and nurses are in it for the money. No one works in shit and puke for fun either.

Money is not the best or the only motivator.

Maybe (ignoring the fact that ours is the age of trash, one of the things that should be solved first) those jobs you've mentioned are in fact essential and the only thing it shows is that the way how incentives are set is artificial and has nothing to do with the real utility of the job.

Making majority of population to work their whole lives although there are (will be) ways to automate it completely just because we need few dirty & greasy jobs done is not a stupidity?

And I for one don't believe that doctors and nurses are in it only for the money, there are many examples of people choosing jobs and risking their lives for others, no money are worth that. People (can) act out of their heart, not just out of their greed.

It's a complicated topic, with many unknowns and many things that would have to change, but insisting that status quo is the best way to handle things ... that seems like blindness to me.

I work in healthcare and could make more money doing other jobs I am qualified for but prefer to work in in-home healthcare because I don't hate it. Cleaning up human waste is preferable to working a higher-income soulless job. I have also been a volunteer firefighter for a part of my life and that didn't just not pay me, it also cost me.

Not everyone is a cynical monster who would only ever do anything that benefitted themselves personally.

> The world needs basic income

That's all we need. Basic income will allow people to get housing, internet and food.

Yes. But basic income means different things for different people.

I wanted to emphasize the level of sufficiency it should provide.

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