Comment by nnq | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nnq | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if the "basic income guarantee" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee) applied at something like country-level wouldn't dramatically increase the number of people working on "big problems" and of entrepreneurs trying "big problem businesses" - with no personal risk of failure, people would actually start chasing the "big problems" simply because they are FUN, and with no adrenaline from our little economic rat-race, this could actually become the only source of "fun" (besides hard-drugs for now and maybe some virtual-reality based entertainment) for creative and problem solving types. I don't advocate this - it would probably fail miserably and be "globally unfair" if applied at the level of a wealthy nation, but I always ponder on the consequences of such a thing. We're so "knife to neck" in this race for profit that only very few lucky and smart people have the opportunity to ponder the big problems without any other worries - maybe quantity (as in number of brains involved and pumping up ideas good and bad) as opposed to quality (very few very smart and well funded "geniuses") would yield better results on these so called "big" problems (I think of things like "general AI" or "cure for cancer" kind of problems). And the funny thing is that such an "arrangement" has never been tried in the history of mankind, so it might as well "work" (in the sense of "accelerate" the solving if "big problems").

...and traditional market forces have never been known to catalyze work on "big problems". The only good catalyst I can think of is war (think the nuclear weapons problem or the race to the moon fueled by the cold-war).

Access to socialized healthcare is a similar factor. If a potential entrepreneur in the US relies on health insurance from their current employer, they may be reluctant to start their own business without a "social safety net".

...yeah, it's almost easy to forget that there still are wealthy developed countries without socialized healthcare :)

"Access to socialized healthcare is a similar factor."

Having lived in both Canada and the U.S. for many years, I'm curious why I've met so many more entrepreneurial and succcessful people in the big cities in America versus my extensive time in Canada. I figured having basic healthcare for all would make it significantly easier to jump ship from a job and start ones own business.

Few people care about health care until they really need it. Thus I would argue that it really is not such a significant factor.

Other things are much more important. In a sense all Americans are businessmen. There are few countries that value business, entrepreneurship, business people and property as highly as Americans.

Old people care. Because, as you point out, we really need it.

How many old people are stuck in a job because of health insurance. There's a lot of old people.

I feel you have different perspective, maybe that of a younger man. IMO people who are 35+ and support families will be more conscious about not having healthcare that a younger person. And the image of the entrepreneur predominately being a young man dropping out of college to form a company is not accurate. The reality is a large proportion of successful entrepreneurs are people exiting the corporate world mid career. And I would argue for them healthcare is a significant consideration.

As for America valuing businessmen/entrepreneurs/property more than other countries, how do you get to this conclusion? Have you worked with people from abroad before? From Western Europe to India, China or Africa I have seen businessmen/entrepreneurs/property being held in very high esteem. I'm not sure how I would index how society values them but I would be hesitant to say the US values theirs more than other countries.

I love the idea of a BIG, because we are post-industrial and have a surplus of almost everything we need in the first world, but just don't distribute it due to the dramatic income divide.

It would also let me, say, try writing a new development IDE, or a new programming language, or a new OS kernel, or most other low-level software products you can't "sell" to people, full time. Right now you really just can't commit to those kinds of projects because they don't feed you.

The only problem is it can't happen in our current culture. At all. At least in the US, the entire political system, tax code, etc are all so horribly broken, abused, exploited, and convoluted no change can happen at such a fundamental level.

I just wish there was a new frontier to try these ideas out on. I wonder how badly humanity as a species suffer from the inability to pick up, go to unknown lands, and try something new. You just can't try new social or political philosophy anywhere anymore.

I'd personally support BIG/negative income tax if it were universal and thus eliminated the administrative overhead and political power of other special interests created by special programs for the poor. Even as a libertarian who is generally against government intervention (mainly because it distorts the economy, but also because it's inefficient), this seems like the best realistic tradeoff we could make.

It's unclear to me if it should be a cash payment or basic life support (barracks-style housing, food) available for the asking; advantages and disadvantages to each. There are probably people who are incapable of managing their own affairs (the mentally ill, orphans, aged), but for other people, cash is more appropriate -- letting an entrepreneur decide that buying a new laptop is worth eating sub-standard food for a few months.

The latter is extremely vulnerable to corruption and exploitation. The housing will become dilapidated, the food will become as bad as public school lunches. If you fix it to the living wage as determined by economic theory, you are getting a real currency you can utilize, vs. easily corrupted resources. It is very easy to say "I'm supposed to get a check for $X, but I got $Y" but hard to protest poorly maintained state housing and food rations.

You do bring up an important consideration, but the thing is that something like BIG is just that - a fixed paycheck derived by increased taxes. I almost wouldn't be surprised if switching over that today would barely increase tax rates over current social welfare in place, just because it cuts out a significant managerial overhead when its just "ship checks to all social numbers over 18 that are still alive" or even "ship checks to registered voters", though the latter would probably be struck down in court.

People who can't manage the money they get would still end up in conditions like anyone broke today, except in their case they can expect new money next month. Unlike the perpetual hole you easily get yourself in currently, if you are getting a living income regularly, rebounding after declaring bankruptcy isn't as catastrophic. It should, hopefully, only require some moderate counseling to manage money, else you have a more severe issue that is best solved through mental health professionals.

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