[blfr]

Yeah, it's the modern version of a minor landed gentleman who can pursue his interests. It's how we got science.

Sadly, the best argument against UBI is that vast, vast majority of people will not be working full time on F/OSS or quite possible anything else.

[Verdex]

If people don't work on anything once they get UBI this isn't really a problem. Currently, there are many many people who already don't do anything. They only do a little as possible to avoid getting fired OR they do periodically get fired from every job they ever hold once their employers realize they're always going to be a drain on productivity.

Having these people on UBI would actually allow productivity to rise.

However, I'm really concerned about UBI because:

1) One way to get more money on UBI is to convince others to give you their money. Many people on UBI will stop producing positive or neutral work and start finding ways to trick their fellow citizens into giving them their money. We will still need some sort of welfare to provide food to people who are tricked into giving away all their money for worthless services or items.

2) Some people have terrible planning skills and just want to be happy now. They'll spend all of their UBI on worthless items and go hungry until the start of the next month. Worse, they'll spend their children's UBI allocation on worthless items as well (or trick their children into doing it if it turns out parents don't get direct access to their children's allocation). We will still need welfare to feed the children of these people.

3) Some people will decide that their calling in life is now to cause problems for others. The food check comes once a month, so now their full time job is dressing up as a clown and terrorizing random people. Don't have to get up for work? Be really loud until 4am. The people who actually do have to get up for work will naturally get the option to live in a gated community because we need the few that actually do produce more than ever. This very well may cause society to schism into people who work and people who don't.

4) The potential long term effects are pretty scary. If you never have to work will you worry about education, socialization, or how to function in a society? How many people will decide to never learn any skills whatsoever? Sure, we could build up a lot of automation to take care of these people, but the result is going to be a massive schism where some people only know how to take their UBI money card to the food silo. And their children are probably going to be in the same bucket.

Ultimately, I think we as a society have a responsibility to use our plenty to help those who are going without. However, I'm not convinced that UBI is the right way to make this happen.

[jfengel]

UBI is not so attractive that most people will choose to do nothing with their lives. UBI is intended to keep people from starving, but it's not a very pleasant life, devoid of comforts and aspirations. Sure, there will be people who want that, but there will be many others who don't.

The most important tool there is a good education, which is mandatory for even the children of the laziest and most shiftless. That's where they get exposed to the possibilities of what they could do, and be engaged by. They'll be presented with role models in the form of teachers, who do get up and do work every day, and live better lives because of it.

Maybe they'll create nothing more than pointless forms of art. But even so, what would be wrong with that? Movies and video games are both pointless idleness, but they create genuine joy, and there were lots of mis-steps as people learned what forms of them would be worth doing. Similarly, a lot of the most advanced science seemed like navel-gazing until it turned into transistors and lasers and GPS.

I don't mean to be blandly utopian. There are many ways UBI can fail, and we will probably do all of them in varying experiments. But neither would I be so dystopian about people doing nothing at all with their lives. People enjoy comforts and they enjoy having purpose. Between the way our existing technology creates more than enough food and shelter at little cost, and the desire of many people to improve their lot in ways that also continue to move society forward, I think we can afford to experiment with letting some people live lives of complete (but unenviable) idleness.

[leppr]

I'm sorry but 1), 2) and 3) are ridiculous. What are you basing those assumptions on ? I don't see how any of these points relate to UBI. Why would we be obligated to provide welfare to people who spend their allowance on things other than food and healthcare ?

4) is a very good point. We don't actually know what keeps our civilization running. UBI assumes that people have a natural drive to be productive, but we got to where we are in a context of natural selection, survival instincts and greed. Removing those aspects from society is rightfully scary.

[Verdex]

With respect to 1,2,3.

People make some pretty bad decisions. And people like to trick other people into making bad decision. I didn't think this was controversial.

Why is this relevant to UBI? One of the benefits of UBI is that it allows us to get rid of the welfare system. However, if people are tricked into giving away their money OR if they spend all of their money on non-food items, we now have to decide if they just go hungry or if there is a welfare for them. This is more complicated because some of the people going hungry will be children who have irresponsible parents.

To recap. One of the arguments of UBI is that it will be cheaper than it looks because we can get rid of welfare. This argument only works if we're willing to let people who misspend their UBI go hungry. I'm not willing to let people go hungry if I can help if, so I'm only interested in a UBI program if we also find a way to feed irresponsible people. OR I'm not interested in UBI being enacted.

[azundo]

Is this not already a problem with the current welfare system in terms of selling food stamps? In which case is there any reason to suggest that UBI would worsen the problem significantly?

[wrycoder]

As you say, there will be cases like this. Laws can provide for them to be declared incompetent and to appoint a guardian who would be responsible for distributing their UBI funds. If it’s necessary to institutionalize them, their UBI would go to that institution for the duration.

[legostormtroopr]

So if you make bad decisions with money you get institutionalized? That sounds monstrous and unethical.

[wrycoder]

We have procedures now to have individuals declared incompetent and have guardians appointed. I agree, we don’t want the cure to be worse than the disease or to have corrupt institutions take advantage of people. Therefore, it would be best to error on the side of non-interference, which is about what we are doing now with the homeless.

I’d further suggest that only a portion of their UBI go to the institution, while the balance would be available to assist with the later transition out.

[shliachtx]

It also seems ripe for abuse. I can already see people going around declaring people "unfit" and getting a cut of their UBI from the committing institution.

[wishinghand]

What's worse, having a guardian to help you spend money or sleeping on the streets?

[indigodaddy]

Is your handle a wordplay upon Ry Cooder, or are you actually a wry coder, or both?

[wrycoder]

Yes

[vokep]

Why not welfare on top of that too, for the people who get tricked to waste their welfare money?

and what about those who waste their ubi money, welfare money, and backup welfare money? we need a failsafe fund for those too!

People are free to make their own decisions. It's good to help people and lessen the blow of mistakes, but at some point, a stupid person who keeps getting tricked into wasting their money, is not very helpful to anyone around.

If you're being given free money just for existing, and you can't figure out how to keep it? I think thats your problem, not society's.

[vram22]

None of those "tricking other people" problems you mention have anything to do with UBI, per se. They are all about human nature, both the trickers and the tricked. That is not going to change just because of UBI being enacted / implemented. The potential solutions lie deeper down the stack (of turtles).

"There's a sucker born every minute."

https://www.google.co.in/search?q=quote+there%27s+a+sucker+b...

Barnum may not have said it, but it holds true even today ... probably every millisecond, if you take the ratio of the world's population to the number of suckers/suckees/suckincidents ...

[pasabagi]

I don't think it's hard to find societies that subsist on income that comes 'for free'. Investors, traditional aristocrats - hell, the ancient spartan citizens. These are all people who had their wealth decoupled from their productive labour.

[nostrademons]

I'm also worried about inflation. If you give everyone $X/month to spend on essentials but the supply of those essentials doesn't change, then a very likely outcome is that the price of essentials, in aggregate, will go up by $X/month.

We already see some of this with student loans. The government decided that education is important, so it created federally-backed student loans that anyone can apply for, and effectively increased the amount of money available for education by a large amount. Some of this did go into increasing the number of kids that could go to college, but much of it just went into increasing the price of education. Plus, the supply of good jobs didn't really go up by much, so all those extra kids who went to college are now fighting over the same jobs they would've gotten in the first place, just with crushing debt burdens.

[fulltrottle]

+1 on this also. I'm not sure how this would play out. The prices might just normalize for the middle class, as if they ended up getting no UBI at all. But if rent and food prices go up across the board then it'll be as if it has no effect at all.

The upside is that the UBI will still support people that end up with financial shocks -- something unexpected happening in their lives. That little bit could help a lot

[wmf]

People keep saying that UBI will replace wages at the low end so those people won't have more money to spend. But for the middle class there will be inflation.

[TeMPOraL]

I'm still worried about this, and I can't get anyone to sketch a model showing this would not be the case (but see below, maybe it's way too easy to sketch a model showing anything you want).

Closest I got to seeing a counterargument is me vs. JoeAltmaier a couple of weeks ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18569493

[aklemm]

Yes, this is my main concern as well, and I haven't seen a satisfying answer to it. I'm bullish on UBI anyway because it answers a lot of questions of how to handle poverty and what to do with our societal wealth, but this one unanswered and fundamental question remains.

[tachyonbeam]

Most people will want to do something useful to supplement their basic income because it will only be enough to pay for the basic necessities. Would you want to live like a poor student for the rest of your life, renting a bedroom and being only able to afford thrift shop clothes and ramen noodles? Most people aspire to have their own place, date other people, have friends, etc. Most people have some minimum amount of drive for status. That will ensure that they make some effort to rise above the bare minimum.

As for how to pay for this, consider that central banks have printed trillions of dollars and basically handed that money to corporations, bailing them out of their debt. We live in the world of corporate welfare. We could expand the money supply and give that money to the people instead. In some ways, this is more capitalist than the alternative. Why? Because corporations who get too far into debt should die. If you give money to the people, you at least ensure that corporations will have to sell people something that they actually need/want, instead of being able to count on a corporate bailout.

[Verdex]

> Most people will want to do something useful to supplement their basic income

Most people will want to do something to supplement their basic income. It doesn't have to be useful. In fact it could be to scam other people out of their UBI. Additionally, if we schism society into people who work and people who don't work, then it will almost definitely be to scam other people out of their UBI because that will be the most obvious course of action to get more money having been isolated from people who do actual work.

[coldtea]

>Sadly, the best argument against UBI is that vast, vast majority of people will not be working full time on F/OSS or quite possible anything else.

That's sad only if we have the scarcity induced morality of associating "getting to have a living" with "earning it by working".

[blfr]

No, it's sad in the same sense gigahours wasted in front of TVs are sad.

[chriswarbo]

I get the sentiment, but "bullshit jobs" are also a waste of time (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs ); those also have the same downsides as many jobs, like stress, abusive managers, etc.

There are also many jobs which are actively harmful to society and/or the environment (e.g. cold calling), where it would be better for everyone if those workers could just watch TV instead.

I think this is one of those areas that can't be solved by deduction, since there are valid arguments pushing both ways. It needs measurements, observations and experiments to see what the relative impact of those arguments are.

[blfr]

Bullshit jobs problem is entirely caused by labour being too cheap in turn caused by the only now industrializing third world. Same with poor working conditions.

If the corporations had to pay the full cost of employing people without the option to subsidize it witch cheap Chinese labour, they would long had to get rid of most bullshit jobs (some inefficiency is of course unavoidable) and make work much better organized.

[TeMPOraL]

No. Bullshit jobs are the consequence of markets being short-sighted optimization systems, with goals only partially aligned with human values. It's quite easy to make money in ways other than delivering socially valuable things; in fact, many of the most profitable jobs and endeavours are precisely that.

[hoaw]

I would say those are two different things, but they are generally both bullshit. One is menial jobs with no future, essentially lost potential. The other is taking a position in something rather than do something, like middle managers. I know it isn't popular to talk about, but they are both a factor of inequality. You need to have economic equality to have distinction in merit. Otherwise merit for all intents an purposes comes second to economic success or failure. Of course that isn't absolute. But still a huge factor.

[andrepd]

I just want to say you condensed much of my thoughts about capitalism in a very short couple sentences. I'm stealing that.

[sridca]

Have you ever stopped to think where this 'watching TV is wasting time' belief originates from?

[blfr]

Mine? From exposure (to TV).

[mikekchar]

I watch a small amount of TV (about 30-60 minutes a day) and virtually all of it is useful. I use it as Japanese language training. Conversely I spend waaay too much time reading HN. Some of that time is useful, but I have to admit that most of it is not. For the average person, though, I think it's probably true that most of their time watching TV is not useful to them (and may even be detrimental). But probably some of it is useful (for stress relief if nothing else).

[sridca]

So my question was actually rhetorical.

The point I was hoping to bring to the discussion is the fact that nearly all of our value-preferences (here, the value of time spent on various activities) come from social conditioning[1].

In this particular scenario it could well be the case that this particular value-preference (the belief that watching TV is wasteful) comes from the work ethic (as in 'working' is useful, and 'leisure' is wasteful).

There is no autonomous thinking in all of this and yet we claim to be living in an individualistic society. Doesn't that make anyone pause?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_conditioning

[mikekchar]

My point was that I don't agree with your position. I don't think that nearly all of our value-preferences come from social conditioning. That's why I countered with specific examples of values/preferences that do not come from social conditioning.

The belief that watching TV is wasteful comes from the experience of actually wasting time watching TV when one would prefer to have done something else. Why don't we do something else? That's a good question, but not the question you asked.

A better example of social conditioning is "common sense". If you ask a question and the answer is "common sense", the likelihood is that the person is simply socially conditioned to think that way. An example that I've given a talk on is that Japanese people sit down while showering. Western people stand up while showering. Explain why one is better than the other. I did this in a workshop composed of half Japanese people and half westerners. After 10 minutes I had to halt the exercise because people were close to coming to blows. It was amazing. The answer, of course, is that it doesn't matter really (apart from preference for a couple of minor details), but I was not prepared for the backlash of unthinking cultural beliefs.

Perhaps a better question to ask would be "Is it better to read a book or watch TV"? There I would agree with you that people are socially conditioned to respond with "read a book". They don't actually know why a book is better and, in fact, are unlikely to have ever thought about it in detail (and almost certainly have never looked at any studies on the matter). They just know it to be true (for various values of the word "true").

However, I think these socially conditioned preferences are not in the majority. People's preferences are actual preferences. Someone likes meat, another likes fish. You can learn to like something else and you may be pre-disposed to like something based on familiarity, but that's not social conditioning. People do think about their preferences quite a bit, even if they are influenced by others. People like pop music, not only because it is popular, but also because the genuinely like it. If you ask them what they like about a song, they can actually tell you in surprising detail. Often they like some popular songs and don't like other popular songs. That most people enjoy the same songs in a culture is not surprising -- that's familiarity working. You like what you know.

One of the reasons I responded to this message is because I think it is a big mistake to underestimate people and classify them as a kind of "sheeple". They aren't a big unthinking herd, just following the person in front of them. There is an aspect of that, yes, but it is really dangerous to imagine that this is all there is.

It's easy to convince yourself of the opposite position due to confirmation bias (there are lots of examples of social conditioning), but I recommend looking for the opposite. I think it will surprise you.

[hombre_fatal]

From the lack of fulfillment it gives most people, and thus the regret as they spend more time on it.

[fulltrottle]

>Sadly, the best argument against UBI is that vast, vast majority of people will not be working full time on F/OSS or quite possible anything else.

There's a reasonable argument to be made that those people that'll end up doing nothing are already doing nothing. They're either unemployed, mooching of someone, or working some completely useless unproductive job that needs a slot to fill, that could easily be replaced by a machine.

As for actually productive people, I think very few of them would actually be happy with sitting around watching TV all day.

[vram22]

>Yeah, it's the modern version of a minor landed gentleman who can pursue his interests. It's how we got science.

And some of how we got Perl. I had read some time ago that Larry Wall said that Tim O'Reilly was his patron, as in the medieval sense of the term (think Florence etc.), when the nobility or rich people used to patronize (i.e. financially sponsor and recognize) artists, craftsmen, scientists, etc.

And Tim did sponsor Larry (and others who worked on Perl, I guess), via publishing Perl books and organizing conferences, etc.

[mcguire]

I dunno; I'm ok with that myself.

The actual best argument against UBI is that if you used the total of US government Social Security, Other, and Nondefense spending (At least portions of them seem to be UBI-replacable) on it, divided by the population of the United States (326,000,000), you end up with about $7,000 per person, per year. If you take the entire budget (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/...) of $4,000,000,000, you end up with $12,000 per each, per annum.

$1000/month?

[Zarel]

$1000/month is enough to live off in many parts of the United States. I lived off it pretty comfortably a few years ago when I was in college – although I had four roommates, we all had our own rooms.

Obviously, it's not affordable everywhere, but I think incentivizing people to live outside of expensive areas is a good thing (adjusting for cost of living would mostly just funnel the extra money towards landlords, i.e. rent-seekers).

[aaron_m04]

Your denominator is too large. Children would not be receiving UBI, presumably.

Also the numerator could be increased via a wealth tax on the top 0.1% or so.

[dllthomas]

Bear in mind that an income can go much further when you can invest significant effort in seeing that it goes further.

And certainly, as Zarel says in a neighboring comment, it wouldn't be affordable everywhere to live on just the BI. It doesn't need to be.

[CuriousSkeptic]

I’m quite happy if the vast majority of people doing active harm to society by working for evil corporations just do nothing instead. Quite possibly a net improvement just that.

I also imagine that if vast amount of people suddenly had more time on their hands there would be lot less need for services now optimized to keep them employed. Day care, schools and such would perhaps change into something more participatory.

[fulltrottle]

Yeah people definitely end up doing unethical things out of desperation, whether it's committing a crime or working at an ethically questionable business

[smt88]

> vast, vast majority of people will not be working full time on F/OSS or quite possible anything else.

I doubt this. Everyone has dreams or long-term things they enjoy working on. And UBI wouldn't be enough for most people, so they'd at least pursue some form of cash-generating work.

[andy_adams]

You must roll with some motivated crowds if everyone has long-term goals.

> 60% of the folks I meet would be pretty content watching TV all day, every day. When you talk to them, they just talk about the shows they watched.

[wool_gather]

I'm just as cynical and misanthropic as the next HN poster, but I do wonder about this.

My hunch is that many people would indeed find something other than mindless TV if they weren't having their intellectual/emotional energy used up on a daily basis by a job. Not all people, maybe not even most, but many.

What they got up to instead is a whole nother question, but I do really think that the typical human would find something active to do, given no forced use of their time.

[TeMPOraL]

I strongly second this. Most people tend to be pretty used up after a day at work, and after commute, errands and household chores, TV is pretty much all they have energy for.

Personally, I hang out with regular "normies" as much, if not more, as with technical people, and all the boring TV-watching "normies" I know do have dreams and hobbies, but it takes getting to know them better to discover that. And those dreams and hobbies are generally blocked by dayjobs and errands.

[Verdex]

Most people just want to waste time watching TV would be the good outcome. I'm more concerned that it turns out that once money is no longer a concern that a large portion of people would spend their time trying to figure out how to cause problems for others.

How many people would ignore education, socialization, and general societal cohesiveness if they knew that they would never have to worry about getting along with anyone else in order to survive.

[ilovetux]

I don't agree with this. People will still have to get along in order to survive. Two things:

First, crimes usually come with financial consequences I doubt that this would change even with UBI.

Secondly, its just as likely that the opposite becomes true and people learn to appreciate a sense of community much more deeply due to the lessening of competition. For instance intramural sports teams might become even more popular than they are now which could increase the general sense of camaraderie.

edit: grammar

[fulltrottle]

Why wouldn't crimes go down with UBI? people commit crimes out of desperation. The crime rate is substantially lower in socialized europe

[ilovetux]

That is what I am trying to say when I responded to OP, perhaps I phrased it poorly.

I think that without constant competition it is equally possible that people would have higher regard for community than less. There are many things to consider here, but I am generally not concerned about people becoming more problematic or dangerous as a result of UBI.

[SolaceQuantum]

I believe of the people who discuss shows they watched, this is actualy used as a way to bond with their peers, whom they are stuck with 8 hours a day.

[robohoe]

Or all the video games they played in their copious amounts of spare time.

[hinkley]

The best argument I know for UBI is that manufacturing is propped up by overconsumption because we have been able to make more than we need for a very long time. If one worker makes enough stuff for five people what do the other four do?

[idontpost]

They starve.

[RhysU]

> Yeah, [UBI]'s the modern version of a minor landed gentleman who can pursue his interests

Nah, that's called rolling in it. Not UBI.