Ask HN: UBI is immoral utopia – prove me wrong | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: UBI is immoral utopia – prove me wrong

5 pointsaristofun31 comments

1. Money is an equivalent of value that people trade with each other.

2. Value is something to be produced by people, i.e. something that requires work to be done (even if by pumping oil, or setting up AI systems, or protecting oil from neighbouring tribe...)

3. Why those who do the work would just pay for free loaders? Why is it considered to be moral at all?

And why being a free loader (assuming you are capable of doing work) is not immoral from any position?

On the most general common sense level, regardless of your political views or economical system...

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Proving your argument faulty is trivial, in that it's just a bare assertion that free loading is wrong. That's not an argument at all; it's just a statement.

There are plenty of positions from which it is immoral to allow a human being to starve in a world with so much food. That, too, is a bare assertion, but you've given no reason to think it's any worse than yours. Any time you find yourself appealing to "common sense", that's a red flag that you're really just asserting your opinions as facts.

You'll never be able to prove an "ought" from an "is" -- and you should be skeptical of any moral argument that claims to ground itself in absolutes. You can, however, make your moral assumptions as clear as possible, and then you can investigate why others make different moral assumptions.

Your moral assumptions seem to start with absolutist understandings of property. Those are difficult to justify in a world with a finite commons (all of your wealth involves some contribution from things you did not create), and where you cannot live without help from other people.

That does not disprove your moral assertions, simply because they are moral assertions and cannot be proven or disproven. But I can say that your argument is faulty in that you take the assertion as if it were ground truth, and that you don't seem to have examined your assertion very closely.

On some level, the United States already distributes a form of basic income via welfare. A lot of people already apply for it, but very few of those are freeloaders per-se; they're using a government service to supplant homelessness or destitution. Whether you consider it an abusive system or not, it exists; the logical leap of expanding it into UBI is not very large.

Now, I don't personally think UBI is a good idea, but I do think valuing people based on the whims of a free market is a terrible idea. Something better has to be proposed, or else the income gap will increase and the populist sentiment will further side with UBI. Your move, Voltaire.

> Something better has to be proposed

Absolutely! This is why I question these things. And it strikes me that seemingly some of ideas don't pass the lowest common sense bar...

It totally makes sense to me; nothing about it seems "immoral" like you've posed. Our country produces revenue far in excess of meaningful compensation for executives, business owners and shareholders. The only logical, nay moral way for the nation to survive is by imposing a more progressive tax structure to support a growing class of impoverished citizens. That's what postcapitalist economics looks like, sorry to disappoint.

UBI is a logical way to redistribute that excess, but it would require a frank reimagining of certain internal markets. It will also inevitably piss off the people who would stand to gain from exploiting those gaps, but that's just tough luck for them. If someone can sort that out reasonably, I'd support it too.

Wait wait wait... Don't go into fancy words and some details yet please.

Just explain to me — how is it moral for someone who does the work to give away part of their produced value to free loaders in exchange... for nothing?

I don't mean supporting people who are unable to work permanently or temporarily (like kids) and all the obvious people who has little choice over their abilities.

I emphasize people who can, but don't want to work and to produce any value, not even fart a melody (artists are not free loaders).

How is it moral to give them value that you was working for?

The state provides order. They police things and maintain the economy under terms we consumers call "good". That costs money, so we pay for it via taxation - logical and moral.

On top of that, a portion of your taxation goes beyond maintaining the state, and towards funding welfare. This is perhaps more controversial, but has little impact on the rich while providing substantial safety nets for the poor. This is where we are today; it's largely not considered immoral, except by people who disagree with the popular, democratic opinion.

Beyond that, UBI exists. That would be a lot of new things, and very scary. However, it's not that big of a mental leap to make; progressive taxes on business and individual wealth could be redistributed to those who need it more. If it's considered freeloading to allow citizens live above the poverty line, why let individuals and corporations extract infinite wealth? From a top-down perspective, citizens are being harmed by the businesses. We can either limit their profitability by setting the prices manually (aka Literal Communism), or we could redistribute that wealth in a way that encourages successful businesses to stay innovative. That all makes sense to me; if drafted well, I think it could be both moral and logical.

> How is it moral to give them value that you was working for?

I take it you live in Timbuktu, or are awaiting a particularly nasty IRS call. Unless you don't pay taxes, your money already goes towards everything you've mentioned.

You don't answer again :(

Is it immoral or not to be a free loader? Yes or no? In your opinion.

No, evidently. See my previous answers for justification.

Okay. Thanks.

Than next question - if it is not immoral.

What would stop more and more people choosing to become freeloaders if UBI is implemented?

They don’t have any economical incentives by definition, and in your view - not even moral ones.

> What would stop more and more people choosing to become freeloaders if UBI is implemented?

The promise of property and personal wealth, probably. UBI wouldn't be enough to live off of for most people, and there's no incentive to make it that way. Nobody would vote for a UBI definition that gives San Fran residents more money to cover their oh-so expensive housing.

As-is though, many people think there aren't any economic incentives in the status-quo. Low-end jobs in retail and food service are going unfilled across America, and it's not because of UBI. People hate the jobs, and the market is being forced to respond. If competing with the promise of UBI is too difficult for employers, they probably weren't offering a living wage in the first place.

Who is going to deliver your hamburgers then?

Who is going to clean your streets?

Really - if people can just do nothing for the same wage.

And those who are more smart, capable and ambitious - why would they do this job?

When you talk about "moral" you're implying a personal system of beliefs. Putting your ideas of right and wrong aside for a moment, do you think your life would be improved if there was less crime, fewer homeless, safer neighborhoods, etc? The idea of supporting poor people by those of us with a little more money is not only advocated by most major religions, it's actually an effective strategy for improving the general quality of life. If there are fewer desperate people in the world, who knows in what ways things might improve?

> your life would be improved if there was less crime, fewer homeless, safer neighborhoods, etc

Where is the evidence for that?

US to my knowledge is the world leader in both state and private donations and various support programs value (per capita).

At the same time crime rates look much worse than in many other poorer countries.

I cannot imagine how can one even measure any meaningful correlation and isolate signal from the noise of thousands of other factors entangled in any society.

As far as I know major religions advocate for donations as being essentially a voluntary act.

Which is important, because it makes me (as a moral agent) free to choose who and how I prefer to support based on my own perceptions of better good and prefer people really in need to lazy bums gaming the system.

The US is well known for having the worst social safety net of any advanced country. Where are your statistics showing that the US is a leader in supporting the poor?

If we took better care of those less fortunate, it seems obvious to me that they would commit fewer crimes, require less resources of policing and punishment, and people would be less afraid to walk the streets. True, there is a lot of poverty and crime in the US now. Do you think more police, more prisons is the best solution?

And anyway, if you don't want to help other people, I question your sense of "morals." It seems to me that helping to care for your fellow man is one of the basic tenets of morality.

You missing my point and moving focus away from the specific question I'm trying to ask. Instead you question my moral compass.

Can you please stay on track for a while?

Here is one of many stats you can find about US being a leader in charity and donations https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/statistics-on...

I agree that maybe the way it is organized in US is not optimal, but the amount of money is way beyond many other places.

> it seems obvious to me that they would commit fewer crimes, require less resources of policing and punishment

Remember not so much time ago it was obvious for everyone that the Earth is flat?

I wonder what evidence you have for yourself to support this for yourself? Just an intuition?

> Do you think more police, more prisons is the best solution?

Nope, I don't think so. Why? Because police and prisons most of the time address the symptoms, not the root cause.

And I assume that some seemingly immoral ideas like UBI contribute to the root cause, so I try to find more opinions and views on this.

----

Anyway, can you please answer a more simple question — is it moral to choose to be a free loader in a society (if this is your free choice)? Or it depends?

I don't equate accepting UBI to being a freeloader. If you read the results of various UBI trials, the participants generally used the funds wisely to meet their most immediate and pressing needs, and were then able to take steps to improve their condition, via education or training of some sort. These people didn't need a handout, just a helping hand.

And my main concern isn't about the morality of others, but about my own. What I am concerned about, however, is the state of our society and whether our environment, including our social environment, is improving or deteriorating. That has a direct effect on me. So from my point of view, if my taxes increase to match, say, some Scandinavian country, but my life and my surroundings noticeably improve, that's a worthwhile tradeoff.

Okay, I agree - not all of the UBI receivers are gonna be free loaders.

Let's narrow down - is it immoral to be an intentional free loader (decided just do nothing) or not?

Debt existed before money (based on plenty of anthropology research among other) and money was actually invented to more easily manage and satisfy it. Not to measure "value", that was a retroactive definition added much later.

Now, lacking any possibility to discharge debt was considered immoral in many religious and philosophical texts since antiquity. Similar arguments and reasons should apply to (im)morality of "undeserved" income.

Okay, let's use money just as a generic synonim for value, in a sense that UBI is about giving people some minimal amount of "value" to be able to exchange for other "values" (buy food, clothing etc.) produced by someone else.

With all that — how can it be moral to be obliged to pay for freeloaders (those who choose to not work)?

We are already placing all kinds of obligations on owners of money, or owners of anything else. Are all these automatically immoral?

And how do you judge anyone's reasons for not working? I prefer not to do it.

And yet another question - why do you want value more than wealth? Value is implied to be zero-sum game. But wealth actually grows when money circulates and when all people have their basic needs met. I'd prefer the latter.

You didn't answer a simple question — is it immoral or not to be a free loader (i.e. decide to not produce any "wealth")? Why do you think so?

I'm not judging, just want to hear your reasoning.

> We are already placing all kinds of obligations on owners of money, or owners of anything else. Are all these automatically immoral?

Absolutely not. Taxes in general are definitely moral. As long as people agreed on them (by any democratic process for example) and not forced (for example by being slaves and giving away their produced value).

You did not answer a simple question - how do you decide someone is a free loader, whether they freely decided to not produce?

I don't know. Just assuming anyone to be a freeloader is immoral. (By and large, there can be exceptions where they are loud and obnoxious freeloaders, but these are just exceptions.)

> You did not answer a simple question - how do you decide someone is a free loader, whether they freely decided to not produce?

If someone chooses not do anything valuable to the society (while having obvious ability to do something - like no illness, no disabilities etc.) — it is the definition of freeloader I use.

So, do you think it is immoral or not?

If you don't know, lets' leave morality.

Do you think such people are helpful to the society?

No, I will repeat this again and again, dividing people to helfpul and not helpful is immoral. Of course it's not obvious who is who! How can you boldly proclaim that while we have pandemic of invisible mental illnesses, drug abuse and long covid? Even many people with obvious and surmountable disabilities are neglected and gave up trying to do anything valuable.

If you let them perish that ends up more expensive for whole society than supporting them all, and enabling at least some of them to be, as you say "helpful". You can't sort them out in advance, that's why everyone should be supported equally.

I wish you could remain logical in this discussion.

I ask you: is it good to be X?

Your answer: how can you tell if someone is X?

(Presupposition that we have some good enough way to know was _outside_ of my question)

Good luck with promoting utopias )

Logical and moral reasoning about nebulous concepts (such as the "freeloader") is a road to hell.

I grew up in communist Czechoslovakia and back then all bourgeoisie were called freeloaders(or even parasites) because they supposedly don't work, don't provide value, just extract profits from capital. Is that true or why it's not true? Clear as mud.

I started this thread by pointing out that religious and cultural texts ask us to cancel debts. For thousands of years. And in societies that had much less surplus production of everything. Not do it all the time, but once you do it, just cancel all of them, not pick debtors that "provide value". Is that bad and immoral advice?

What kind of debt do you universally cancel when introducing UBI? I don’t follow.

Ps: i grew up in ussr, i know couple things about communism & utopias :)

You do see that pumping oil is not just a somebody's work and nothing more.

wdym

> wdym

I find the lack of quality in today's discussion astonishing.

do you have anything to say on the topic?

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