The Insane Stupidity of UBI | Hacker News Reader

The Insane Stupidity of UBI

geohot.github.io

3 pointsswah7 comments

The people who have more than most by orders of magnitude will never tire in their attempts to convince everyone that (1) without their participation (rule) everything will break down; (2) without their philanthropy (self-serving monetary arrangements using tax-exempted entities they fully control) everything will break down; (3) giving people a modicum of pecuniary independence will cause an immediate collapse and everything will break down. Meanwhile they advocate for a draconian surveillance-based system because, as you can see, everything is breaking down. QED.

This is why I question the article’s premise. There is no risk of liberal democracies implementing a UBI that supports anything beyond subsistence. Most people in developed countries will want more than that.

The biggest issue I see with UBI is that the rates could be set below the cost of living and used as justification to eliminate all other support programs, as was feared the Nixon administration would do when it proposed a negative income tax in the late 1960s. Different solutions are still needed for the small subset of the population that cannot limit spending to necessities when required.

ITT: tech bro misunderstands democracy and fiat currency (and Malcom in the Middle)

i trust geohot when it comes to finding novel vulns and maybe writing code

i dgaf about anything he has to say about anything else, esp. 2nd year econ class rants about money

> It’s for children and high-end prostitutes.

I love how somehow he manages to make this about women at the end, such as the Malcom in the Middle "hot girl" take. Superlative arguement mon mi.

> A home for poorly researched ideas that I find myself repeating a lot anyway

no kidding

You can illustrate how stupid UBI is by describing it to a child.

Dad: UBI means just giving everyone money.

Precocious 5 yr old: neat! What do they have to do to get it?

Dad: nothing.

Precocious 5 yr old: Why would we do that?

Dad: Because ai destroyed all paying jobs and allowed billionaires to own everything.

Precocious 5 yr old: Why did we do that?

Dad: We weren’t paying attention.

Precocious 5 yr old: Ok But where does the money come from?

Dad: I don’t know, the government?

Precocious 5 yr old: How does the government get money?

Dad: Taxes

Precocious 5 yr old: How can people pay taxes if they don’t make money?

Dad: Well billionaires will make money.

Precocious 5 yr old: Do those guys pay taxes?

Dad: Sadly no.

Precocious 5 yr old: So where does the money come from again?

Dad: …

The precocious economist will add that banks make money by making loans.

This seems surprisingly backward looking. Most of the thought leaders around UBI aren't politicians. I agree UBI probably doesn't work without a paradigm shift, but everyone's talking like we're amidst a paradigm shift (whether we are is questionable) but like, communism doesn't work because of the way it impacts incentives (as described) but what happens if you fully automate egg production? Then "And even worse, many people quit work once they got the UBI. So now less eggs are made." become irrelevant.

If everything's fully automated, then "many people quit work" is irrelevant, because not many people are working, which is the point?

The price of eggs went up more for this guy than the rest of us…. I can get really premium organic eggs in the store for much less than $5.

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