[JulianMorrison]

Basic income. Free tuition. An outright grant, no repayments. Literally zero barriers except ability for anyone, for any level of academic achievement in anything. Result: a culture with a lot more understanding of the real world, and the preservation of human and humane values, rather than a laser focus on the hand-to-mouth of Jobs Right Now.

[Lazare]

That sounds like a very nice world to live in. It also doesn't sound much like our world. It's certainly not how any country on Earth operates.

One day, I hope and imagine, we will live in a post-scarcity world, and then yes, that sounds like a great plan for organizing society.

> rather than a laser focus on the hand-to-mouth of Jobs Right Now.

Perhaps we should wait to relax that focus once we've actually solved the problem. If you look around, you'll notice employment, especially among people 18-29, is a real challenge, while government finances and pensions are grossly underfunded.

It's the old hierarchy of needs thing; self-actualization is at the top of the pyramid not only because it's the most important, but because it relies on all the others being fulfilled in order to be an acheivable goal.

[tombo2008]

"That sounds like a very nice world to live in. It also doesn't sound much like our world. It's certainly not how any country on Earth operates."

We've had a system not a million miles different from the one described in Ireland since the 70's/80's. There are grants for school uniforms and books for those that cant afford them, the cost of a college degree is not exorbitant and is again covered by a grant for those that cant afford it (I went to college with several guys who were on the grant) There's always the focus on getting a job, for obvious reasons, but there are plenty of people who go back and re skill with a 2nd degree.

[talmand]

That is in no way even close to the imagined situation that the response you are quoting is referring to.

[bjovulf]

In Denmark students have since 1970 and actually dating back to the 50's had the right to SU (Statens Uddannelsesstøtte = government support programmes) in form of government grants and government subsidized loans for any students studying on a government approved list of mostly government subsidized secondary and higher education. Hope that triggers some anti-big gov't folks over there.

[ap22213]

It is extremely unlikely that a post-scarcity world will ever occur without, say, a collective global work project. There is no financial incentive for private capital to initiate it. Just like the Internet (in its current form) would have never occurred without government funding.

The technology to bring about a post-scarcity world mostly exists, and we could get there very quickly (maybe 5-10 years). But, how do you convince the upper classes (who control the capital) to support it? How do you temper the common idea that 'the lazy people' will just do nothing all day? (like that's a bad thing)

[JonFish85]

"But, how do you convince the upper classes (who control the capital) to support it?"

This is a red herring. It's easy to assuming that such an enormous undertaking can be solved by "tax the rich". It doesn't work that way. There isn't enough money in the top 1% of the United States to pay for such a program. Inevitably a UBI would be paid for by the middle class, the meaty part of the bell curve.

This means people who took on debt loads to become a doctor, lawyer, whatever, and have worked hard to pay it down (and probably still are paying it down). $250k/yr sounds like a lot, but when you're paying back $400k worth of loans, it's really not as exorbitant as it sounds to many people -- especially if these same people are trying to buy a house, save for their kids' college, etc.

[lkbm]

This seems more optimistic than I usually hear. Do you mind going into what you mean by "post-scarcity" and how we'd achieve it? Does it just mean a living UBI, or is there tech/infrastructure (extensive solar, e.g.) to be developed/built out as well?

[ap22213]

Our current global scientific and engineering output is staggering, and it is continuously accelerating. If there was a global 'manhattan project' focused on this, then it would happen.

Global economic output is $80 trillion. There are 100s of millions of scientists, engineers, programmers, technicians in the world. Aside from the ideological complexities, which are probably intractable, it seems like it would be pretty easy to me.

What would it really take to provide basic housing, food, water, clothing, energy, and medicines to 7 billion people? Robotic automation, free / cheap energy, and access to natural resources.

[LesZedCB]

we bulldoze away houses, we throw away food. meanwhile, people are homeless and hungry. Clearly we already live in a society of overproduction.

The difference is that the owners of the capital aren't willing to lose on their investments, and it's cheaper to bulldoze and throw away than to give it away or provide work maintaining the communities that these properties exist in/on.

[chmln]

> we bulldoze away houses etc

People can do whatever they want to their property, no?

Do you personally allow homeless people into your house?

Problems you mentioned are real and tough, but the objections are very simplistic. Its very easy to demand others to do something, and distance yourself away.

[LesZedCB]

appealing to individualism won't solve systemic problems. I don't have to house syrian refugee immigrants in my home personally to realize that europe has an ethical problem by refusing them and treating them the way they have been.

There is a long and historical precedent for demanding that people with excess amounts of capital owe a greater portion than those who own relatively little. There are material differences between the capitalists and all the rest of us, and those allow us to demand specific concessions from them.

[ud0]

> 'the lazy people' will just do nothing all day?

IMHO It's a bad thing considering the fact that a lot of people worked hard to get us to where we are today.

[ap22213]

Sorry that I wasn't clear. My point is that it's a subjective qualifier. My productive may be your lazy and vice versa

[shaftoe]

That sounds great, but there's no free lunch and when you ask people to pay (a lot) for something, you're going to get their opinion.

Here's mine. I roughly divide human activities into jobs and hobbies. One ultimately builds enough value to support existence, one is primarily done for enjoyment. Education for the former can and should pay for itself over the long haul, so we're discussing who pays for hobby education.

Personally, I don't want to pay for other people's hobbies. I've volunteered to teach people some of mine, spending hundreds of hours with educational groups. But, I can't imagine forcing taxpayers to pay for university education in these things.

[awinder]

I'm sorry but, insinuating that humanities and arts are "hobby educations" is pretty rude and smacks of superiority complex.

Look at the achievements that have stood the test of time and become valuable to us as a species. It's a pretty beautiful blending of scientific achievement and artistic achievement. If this system can't encourage both, let's not go to war with the arts, let's make the system that we invented, support the things that are important to us.

Beyond that, from my perspective, more of my tax dollars will go towards issues and causes that I am personally conflicted with than ones that I agree with. The college loan issue will never compete with the size and scope of something like the military. So it's beautiful that you would be personally affronted by this use of tax dollars but: welcome to the club, est. 1776

[zaroth]

Don't apologize for personal attacks, just refrain from them.

Any argument made by starting with calling someone rude or accusing them of having a superiority complex, can only be made better by instead empathizing with rather than dismissing opposing viewpoints.

What's even worse is patronizing a mis-characterization of someone's statement.

> I roughly divide human activities into jobs and hobbies.

This indeed is a rough characterization of life. At no point does shaftoe insinuate humanities and arts are 'hobby educations'. Rather it seems to me a simply capitalistic view that anything humans do well can be done for money, at which point we call it a job. Certainly that also includes artists and philosophers. Or another way to think about it, to be truly great at something you must spend the majority of your life doing it, at which point it probably also needs to pay the bills.

People should only be investing 5-figure sums of taxpayer's dollars to learn what they expect will be lifelong skills that will significantly increase their lifetime earning potential. In almost all cases, this is not Art History class.

[awinder]

Telling someone that their humanities education was all a hobby is a much greater insult than calling someone out, so I'll let the universe sort out who was the true meanie-head here lmao.

[cmdrfred]

If humanities are so valuable, why aren't they valuable?

[tsunamifury]

They are valuable. Myself and most of my colleagues make 6 figure+ with arts degrees. Journalism, Visual Arts, etc. On top of that, most of them manage engineers, or lead their projects. And the engineers who work with them would never be so naive as to insult their work or their education in the way that the individuals in this thread do.

[orly_bookz]

You're right, they're not valuable in the capitalistic sense.

They're valuable if you don't want to live in the world depicted in Brazil (1985), or Neuromancer, or pretty much any cyberpunk dystopia.

[matwood]

Basic income I think is going to have to happen at some point in our lifetime. There are just simply not enough jobs.

Please stop saying 'free' tuition. It's not free, it is just not paid by the student. Keep in mind that many states already have just this setup for in state students to use lottery money.

[CmdrSprinkles]

Basic income is my one hope from the next 4-8 years (because socially, we are screwed)

Much like with Obama, Trump and the Republicans are going to learn what is and isn't possible for the POTUS. And while there are many factors in the election, a significant chunk of the votes were poor whites who are traditionally opposed to social programs.

So on the off chance we build more factories, they are going to be modern (automated), dispelling that myth.

Which should set the stage for the Dems (or even the Republicans, but I doubt it) to pivot back toward being "the poor people's party" and finally get to push some of those social programs.

And the only one that really makes sense (at least, to me) is some form of basic income/guaranteed minimum income.

I am still sceptical that we'll see the real thing in our lifetimes, but I do think we can start down that path sooner than later.

[awinder]

It's also the mode of operation for ages 5-18, with a nation wide avg of 12K / year in spending per student. So that 160k-ish in spending is downright American, but spending 1/4-1/2 of it on college is a give-away, socialism, the very demise of lady liberty

[koolba]

Why stop there? Why not have it be open to everyone, forever, at any point of their life? Why should anyone have to work at all?

[awinder]

The scope of someone going to college for say 40 years (from 20-60, for sake of argument) is a lot different than saying 4 years of education should maybe be an institutionalized cost. If you figure:

1. At 12K/year, base education runs a cost of 156K 2. At 20K/year, college education for 4 years runs 80K 3. At 20K/year, college education for 40 years runs 800K

Then what we're saying is 80K represents 50% of the educational costs we're all comfortable with sinking into base education. But letting someone never work and just go to college for free for 40 years would cost over 400% of the base educational costs. That seems like a totally different scale of issue to me. We're also probably hitting diminishing returns over what 4 years would prepare someone for, and I don't think the audience is that large. Most people want to go to college to get skills to then contribute something to society, whether or not today's economy specifically values what they want to contribute.

[koolba]

> Then what we're saying is 80K represents 50% of the educational costs we're all comfortable with sinking into base education.

You're making assumptions that we're all comfortable with paying for 12 years of education. I think the majority of that is a waste of time (and by extension money).

> Most people want to go to college to get skills to then contribute something to society, whether or not today's economy specifically values what they want to contribute.

Sure but I don't want to pay for that either. If people didn't get hand outs that hide the true price of college (i.e. government backed loans), the price of college would come down drastically. It's artificially inflated to match amount of money a student can expect to beg / borrow.

If there was going to be any type of "college for all", the only approach I'd advocate would be free education that was provided by the government itself (i.e. community colleges). At least that would have a downward pressure on tuitions at private institutions that would suddenly have to price compete against it. Anything else will just increase the problem further.

[awinder]

Sorry to lump you in, caveat that statement in whatever way makes you feel comfortable. Hopefully we can agree that at least as far as level of discussion goes, much more is made of college costs than of childhood education costs. I found to be a little absurd given the financial numbers involved (every kid goes through primary education, even if college is free it'll never rise to the level of every kid utilizing it, etc.)

> Sure but I don't want to pay for that either

I left a comment in another thread, but the amount of shit that is in the budget leaves every American with a feeling of "I don't want to pay for that". The DoD budget alone clocks in at over 8x the projected cost of free college education, very few people talk with vitriol about the hand-outs we're creating for the myriad of people that make up that apparatus.

> It's artificially inflated to match amount of money a student can expect to beg / borrow

I'm not as well read here as I'd like to be, but I have a hard time understanding how this is going to be such a magic fix. Professors aren't going to be too keen to take a pay cut here, and state universities aren't exactly making out like gangbusters right now. Is the idea that we'd have less students and less professors? What's the economic impact of seeing those jobs, and the dependent jobs in school communities, eliminated?

[cpursley]

If someone can just get on Basic Income, why even bother with attending college and putting in all that hard work?

This is a serious question. Most people are not intrinsically motivated; the hacker news echo-chamber is an anomaly.

[JulianMorrison]

Most people ARE intrinsically motivated. It's just that in this society, the things you do for intrinsic motivations are called "hobbies" or "play".

Hobbies are basically non-job things to get good at that don't pressure you with an economic sword of Damocles.

In a Basic Income world, essentially, ALL jobs are hobbies. Those that suck too hard to be hobbies had better automate.

[drabiega]

People always want more. I've met plenty of people who had enough inheritance / other random windfall to just get by who still went to college and careers. If those who get it by random chance or family act as such, why should we assume that those who would get it from Basic Income would be any different?

[msandford]

You do realize that you met those people who did get that random windfall because they were working, not because they just took the money and ran, right?

Sure you might have met 20 of them. How many haven't you met because you're busy working instead of being where those folks hang out while they're not working?

[JustSomeNobody]

If we have basic income, why do we need to be educated at all? Just stay home and live minimally.

[Fargren]

Because self-actualization is a human need and for a lot of people education is a means for that. Because some of us enjoy creating things that are of value to others. Because life is more than survival, basically.

[exclusiv]

You may be right on some, but if it was a good idea you would have said most.

[Fargren]

Are we talking about UBI, or about education? Because if it's UBI, what I mentioned was just one of the mechanisms by which it could work. But I honestly don't know if it would. I suspect it would, but we can't know without more research and tests. Human behaviour is too complex to model a priori.

[JulianMorrison]

People like to learn things, if the desire hasn't been regimented out of them and their energy drained to the dregs.

[dragonwriter]

Because democracy. One of the major reasons we need education now.

[wang_li]

> Basic income. Free tuition. An outright grant, no repayments. Literally zero barriers except ability for anyone, for any level of academic achievement in anything. Result: a culture with a lot more understanding of the real world, and the preservation of human and humane values, rather than a laser focus on the hand-to-mouth of Jobs Right Now.

Scarcity is a thing in the real world. We are nowhere near a point where we can produce more than is necessary for everyone to have everything they want at every point in their lifetime. Assuming that's even possible as there are things that are naturally limited. I mean, under the everything is free to everyone model, how do you determine who gets to live in the house on the cliff overlooking the ocean and who gets to live inland surrounded by tract housing?

[programmarchy]

Terrible, dystopian idea. You know education can't be "free", right? Unless you want to enslave educators and force them to work for nothing. In reality, the middle class will have half their income seized to subsidize the dependent class, being worked to the bone in mega corporations. Meanwhile, the elite will reap all the profits and pour them into more social control programs. Result of basic income will be a culture of demoralized serfs, totally dependent on a feudal corporate state for their survival.

[tombo2008]

Mr. Orwell? Big fan - may I have your autograph? :)

[chronic6l]

> Basic income. Free tuition. An outright grant, no repayments. Literally zero barriers except ability for anyone, for any level of academic achievement in anything. Result: a culture with a lot more understanding of the real world, and the preservation of human and humane values, rather than a laser focus on the hand-to-mouth of Jobs Right Now.

Incorrect. This will foster a culture of inferiority because not everyone is equal. No matter what you do, the lower class will be jealous of the upper class and will always demand for more.

Money and education is solved? What about universal access to entertainment? Universal food? Universal housing?

[conanbatt]

By this line of argument, its not "incorrect" its just a wall to keep to separate ones of the others. Just because theres always a demand doesnt mean satisfying demands wouldnt make peope happier or better.