[bko]

I was thinking about this issue when I attended a meet up for independent game developers. I was shocked at the number of people I had met that just develop games full time. I met an entire team of 4 people that have been working full time over the last year designing and developing a mobile game. They have a playable prototype and it's fairly entertaining but nothing ground-breaking in my opinion. Running the numbers in my head, I thought that this game would have to clear over a million dollars for it to even be considered a break-even for 4 well educated, hard working young people working over a year on the venture. I didn't know their personal financial situations, but I couldn't help but be both envious and terrified.

I met another person who worked on indie game development for two years and now works for a company designs games for others for money up front. He told me he hadn't made any money in the years working for himself.

It's incredible how many young people devote their time to passion projects with the very limited social safety net of the US. Surely a basic income will increase the allure. The question is, does the world need more indie mobile game developers?

[ksenzee]

Young people who are middle- and upper-class have the mom and dad safety net. That's often why they can afford the kind of passion project you're talking about. It would be very interesting to see what people of other ages and classes could come up with, given the chance. I bet it wouldn't all be indie games.

[Sir_Substance]

>The question is, does the world need more indie mobile game developers?

What's wrong with having more artists, be it indie developers or semi-pro bands or hobbyist sculptors, if we can, as a society, afford it?

[Joof]

Open source developers are similar, but they end up getting paid these days. Unless it's certain infrastructure stuff...

[jjn2009]

These people are the exception not the rule, for every person like this there are many times more of those who would take the dole and do nothing with themselves. Basic income might increase the allure of risky proposition, I think in most cases these groups of people estimated some risk/reward function of their endeavours, considering the reward more so than the risk, but there is a healthy combination of the carrot and the stick. Basic income is to do away with the stick, most people need the stick to get out of bed in the morning, admittedly myself included, at least to some extent.

[ahlatimer]

Depending on the level of basic income, you keep the stick. You just don't beat people to death with it. I don't know about you, but (let's say) $20k/yr wouldn't keep me sitting on the couch. I'd continue to get out bed. That amount, however, might allow someone otherwise unable to do so to go to school, to pursue other interests, to spend more time with their family, and so on. All things that could be long-term more positive than languishing in poverty.

[jjn2009]

Frugal lifestyles at a modest UBI payout will never know the stick, if the payout is high enough no one will ever know the stick. My point is merely that if the payout allows for a 'basic' income and does as is advertised then there really isn't much of a stick to fear, by some definitions of the 'stick' the 'stick' is eliminated in a scenario where everyone has basic income. Not everyone runs on merely carrots.

[lawpoop]

I personally doubt it, but that remains to be seen. I'm open to being convinced otherwise. I think more people would take a "staycation" for a while, then get bored, and go into new endeavors, like starting a new business, writing a novel, becoming seriously involved in volunteering, continue working in their degree field, etc.

If people were only motivated by the stick, no one would seek a raise or change jobs for a pay increase. But nonetheless, people still seek to move upwards.

[jjn2009]

There is a healthy balance of stick and carrot, they both have their place. But the main motivation behind work is largely stick. Once you achieve a certain level of income it becomes normalized over time and work is done to maintain this lifestyle and the pain from losing what you have.

You have an extremely rosy view of the average person if you think thats how the vast majority of people are going to spend their time on UBI. I imagine people on UBI will act like any other person who I've met whose parents do not kick them out of their home and provide them with basic needs.

In my experience these people are not doing anything worthwhile or ground breaking, and its intuitive to any individual why this is the case. Nobody glorifies or looks up to this subset of the population yet you put on a pedestal the man or woman who has no worry of basic needs by way of the government payout.

[lawpoop]

But the people "on UBI" will be everyone. It seems like you're thinking of "the people on UBI" as only those who don't have a steady job, live at their parent's house, etc.

I think of the average person I know, who works, has hobbies, who might have a side business, play a sport, participate in local theater, volunteer at a religious institution or charity, belong to a club, etc. Those people will also be "on UBI".

I think, if they didn't have to work full time (or more), they would still be 'productive' members of society, engaging /even more/ in all those things they are already doing when they aren't working. They might continue working full-time, or part time, or on weekends, or take contracting gigs. They might be more apt to quit, or at least speak up, when a workplace is mis-managed, because the downside isn't as painful as just hanging in there. In that case, a truly bad workplace will see that fact more accurately reflected in turnover.

I don't have a problem with people who aren't working on UBI. They probably already get some government benefits; UBI doesn't change that or enable them any more than what we have now.

What UBI offers in addition, is that those productive, self-motivating people would have the freedom for self-direction, instead of stuff they have to do to pay the rent. I would rather subsidize them and get the people who could use their physics or mathematics PhD instead of slinging frappucinos.

As a programmer, I know a number of people who would probably devote a major chunk of time to their startup or open source project rather than nudge layouts on corporate pages, if they didn't have to. They would be doing it already if they didn't put their income and health insurance in jeopardy.

If the cost of that is to allow a few people to sit on the couch more comfortably, so be it.

[jjn2009]

>But the people "on UBI" will be everyone.

This is exactly what I'm trying to point out is the issue, if everyone had parents who gave them handouts we should expect the trend to be towards our stereotypical view of a deadbeat who lives at their parents house. All these people who you are talking about had the privilege of having a healthy combination of both the carrot and the stick, and while you are completely right they could provide value if they had UBI now if they instead lived in UBI for generations their priorities could have been completely different. If we imbalance this important piece of society too much we will be running a modern day behavioral sink experiment on the population.

[notduncansmith]

I don't think policies designed to incentivize creative/productive activities (combination of propaganda, training/education, and subsidies) would be prohibitively expensive in a nation that has already agreed to try BI. Much or all of that, I imagine, could be done by volunteers and donors.