[grok2]

People don't get pissed when income from a shared resource (petroleum for instance) is divided among people living on the land or in the country. People get pissed when the taxes they pay (for improving infrastructure and governance) is directed towards subsidizing the living of others (even though in the long run, it might be in many ways beneficial as a society). In many ways it is natural for them to be unhappy about this. I think, there needs to be more education on the benefits (as a social net, they themselves may be the beneficiaries) that alleviates people's fears on such UBI plans and shows the overall societal benefits. Also more longer-term experiments to confirm if it really helps.

If society makes progress and does move to a model where machines are doing most of the work, and there is more free time for people and most people don't need to do any work for their living or will not be able to find work for their living, we will definitely need to look at this model or any other alternate model that may come about as a result of natural experiences with such progress.

[zozbot234]

This study has nothing to do with taxes, though. It's talking about unconditional handouts managed by GiveDirectly (a charity, and widely considered a highly efficient one), targeting households in extreme poverty. Much of this could be expected, BTW; since the grants were fairly large, the GDP-boosting effect was probably due to recipients acquiring some sorts of physical assets and kickstarting broader economic growth. These dynamics would only apply to a very limited extent in high-income countries where automation is a concern - even though UBI is quite likely to be a good idea for a variety of other reasons.

[iguy]

> This study has nothing to do with taxes, though. It's talking about unconditional handouts

Sure, but it's being read as a pilot study for such things "at home", where it would most certainly have to be funded by taxes. Or at least this reading is GP's explanation for why people get angry.

When people are only discussing how best to spend 3rd world development aid, then nobody gets all that angry.

[grok2]

Yeah, I was responding to why this generates anger. It's not directly about taxes, but about how the people who generate the taxes spend large portions of their day "working" to produce the income that gets taxed while the social net helps people who aren't"working" -- yeah the issue is more complex than that, but I think the anger is due to thinking of this simplistically in a cause-and-effect manner. UBI appears to be a form of social net which might encourage people to not work.

[zozbot234]

> UBI appears to be a form of social net which might encourage people to not work.

UBI is actually the only form of social net that tries its best to limit this.

(And it's not an easy problem to solve - a redistribution arrangement like UBI inherently involves some sort of "means testing" and must be phased out as one reaches the breakeven point where one starts "paying into" the system.

People who tell you that this isn't a thing and that UBI "gives money to everyone, or to the rich" are totally clueless. They fail to understand the basics about balancing a budget, never mind actual, non-trivial economics.)

[CuriousSkeptic]

Depends on where you put the emphasis. Most UBI discussion (amongst proponents) start from the assumption that it has to be a certain size with various disagreements of the proper sized vs budget concerns.

I think that is the wrong focus. If we instead start with deciding “just” financing options, an make a public dividend it would be a good start.

One study concluded that an unconditional payout as low as $50/month can help some people tremendously (IIRC this was in Sweden)

“Just” financing to me is to recognize that some resources are truly part of the commons, and any expropriation should generate rent for everyone. Land being the typical example, but also things like fishing rights, carbon emission rights, or why not ipv4 networks and dns-domians.

[marcusverus]

I'm not comfortable implementing any form of UBI. In my estimation, UBI will create an easy, explicit mechanism for vote-buying, which will be too much for politicians and voters to resist and would drive the benefit ever upwards.

If everyone gets $50 UBI bucks in the mail every month, and candidate A runs on the platform of raising it to $100 per month, they will guarantee themselves the support of some significant self-interested portion of society for whom this would be a net benefit. Other candidates would be pressured to make similar offers to compete. We already see this kind of thing (farm subsidies, student loan forgiveness, etc), UBI would be more explicit/immediate, and expand the affected block to include every eligible voter. Just how hesitant politicians are to make the needed reforms to social security, even though we all know that it needs to happen in some form. UBI would be worse.

[perl4ever]

"People don't get pissed when income from a shared resource (petroleum for instance) is divided among people living on the land or in the country"

I think that statement is worth considering a bit more. For instance, Alaska and Saudi Arabia fit that description, setting aside whatever "on the land" means.

I don't know if people "get pissed" about it, but it has been noticed that such a situation oftentimes doesn't seem to result in a healthy economy/society.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

[kijin]

The resource curse mostly affects poor African countries with terrible governance. The revenue from the valuable resource usually goes straight into the pockets of whoever holds the most power, triggering a fierce competition for who can get away with the most corruption. I don't think any of these countries have tried the Alaskan model of just paying everyone an equal dividend, so that's a huge confounding variable.

[perl4ever]

Well, you're just asserting the causal relationship goes the other way.

And..just because Alaska isn't that bad doesn't mean it couldn't support the hypothesis. It's not California. Of course, California has a lot of resources too, so one could also say it's not New Jersey, or New York.

I suppose that Alaska does make a case that giving away a "citizens dividend" can be done without attracting the world to move there and making it unmanageable.

[chiefalchemist]

> "In many ways it is natural for them to be unhappy about this..."

Is it? Anyone with a reasonable understanding of the process of life knows how fragile a given (personal) status quo really is. Factor in the indirect costs to everyone for any single "failure" and only naivete can explain your assumption.

Note: I'm not saying your naive. I speaking of those who would fall under your the umbrella of your observation.

[grok2]

Isn't it? Atleast thinking of it from the perspective of someone who spends a large part of their day "working" in jobs that might not be something they really like to do.

As a society, I think people are already conditioned to help out their "family" by their labors, but the education I was talking about should be geared towards thinking of every one has part of an extended "family" where some parts of the family need to be subsidized and that it is natural to do so :-).

[chiefalchemist]

The use of the world "natural" was/is the key issue here. That's misleading, at best. Naturally, in the Darwinian sense of natural, we as a species survived because there was a we/us. In that context (of history) "narural" is completely unnatural. From Darwin to Orwell, see? :)

The myth of the individual is a "modern" invention that has little if any historic support. To normalize that myth (read: false assumption) with the word natural is silly at best. Of course, those most susceptible to that ruse are typically the least likely to realize and/or admit they've been duped. Of course they want to believe everyone else was duped as well.

I hope this helps.

[Red_Leaves_Flyy]

We're already at a point where machines do most of the work.

There are so many homeless Americans because our government has failed to manage the resources of our country to provide even a basic poverty level standard of living for everyone. There are countless reasons and studies about how or why this occurred but I think the reality is rather simple. People in power exploit those they control to get more wealth and power. Whether it's the manager at mcdonalds or bezos himself, if they can abuse their power they will. The reason there is so much anger against handouts to the destitute is because this reduces the power these oligarchs hold. Unless you're topping Forbes richest list then you're a peon in their game and they're not going to capitulate to the life of a pleb without a fight that'd make Hitler look like Rosa parks.

[adventured]

> We're already at a point where machines do most of the work.

We're at a point where machines are very clearly doing far less than a quarter of the work. I think it's more likely under 10%.

If you were right, right now we'd have true mass unemployment as we're nowhere near prepared for that level of automation in the global economy. The next tier of jobs are not here yet to absorb the labor. Scan from country to country, you'll find global unemployment has never been lower.

Further, if we were at that level of machine labor share, we would have likely seen a large increase in productivity or profitability in manufacturing. Manufacturers are not replacing humans en masse unless it makes a lot of business sense (in output, cost, or a combination; and we're not seeing anything even remotely close to those types of seismic-shift figures showing up in manufacturing numbers anywhere).

The vast majority of all manufacturing in China is still done by hand, with minimal machine contribution. They've barely begun to scratch the surface of machines taking over their manufacturing (and naturally they're freaking out about the future unemployment prospects of that, just as people in the US and elsewhere are). And Chinese manufacturing is further down the machine-adoption curve than other countries like Mexico or Vietnam.

We have hardly even automated a consequential share of the labor in your typical fast food chain. Globally we're just getting around to electronic ordering kiosks as the norm.

[iguy]

If work means mechanical work (which was once important!) then machines must be well over 99% now.

More generally, the only sensible answer is probably to divide labor productivity today with that of pre-industrial labor. Which amounts to approximately the ratio of GDPs. Which means about 500/50_000 (USD, very roughly). Which again leads to the conclusion that machines & automation are doing about 99% of the work, right now.

We don't have mass unemployment because all the people no longer working with their muscles have found other jobs, providing things other than food, which their ancestors simply didn't have. Like hospitals, HVAC, websites, and food stamp programs.

BTW both China and fast food are massively automated/mechanized. The price difference between McDonalds and having a personal chef cook you a similar burger is the degree to which machines have been used instead of human hands. The fact that none of them look like C-3PO is irrelevant.

[unishark]

If work also counts as things like performing mathematical calculations, communicating between people, data entry, and most other unskilled tasks, then your point still applies.

[bumby]

Comparing GDP only means we’ve gotten more efficient, and only when it’s compared on a per capita basis. It doesn’t mean machines are the sole method of that increase in production.

[corporate_shi11]

>"There are so many homeless Americans because our government has failed to manage the resources of our country to provide even a basic poverty level standard of living for everyone."

Americans enjoy a higher general standard of living than most others in the developed world precisely because our government has a relatively hands off approach to "managing resources".

Homelessness is the result of addiction and mental illness. The government could pour huge sums of money (even more than it already does) into initiatives focused on addressing these issues and the broken people that comprise the homeless population will still not get better.

[lotsofpulp]

> Americans enjoy a higher general standard of living than most others in the developed world precisely because our government has a relatively hands off approach to "managing resources".

How can one come to this conclusion?

Does it account for the boost the US got for not being destroyed in WW2? For having tons of natural resources per capita? For having land borders with only 2 countries, neither of which can threaten it, and oceans on other sides?

I can easily see how there are more factors to the quality of life in America than the government being relatively “hands off” managing resources. Although, even that is tough to define as the US government is very hands on in many businesses.

[nicoburns]

> Americans enjoy a higher general standard of living than most others in the developed world

I'd question that. Rich americans maybe. But the average american has to deal with long working hours, poor access to high quality food, extortionate costs for healthcare, cities where you can't walk anywhere, etc.

Homelessness is indeed a difficult issue. But what about the people working 2 or 3 minimum wage jobs. They'd benefit big time from mote government support.

[indecisive_user]

> But the average american has to deal with long working hours, poor access to high quality food, extortionate costs for healthcare, cities where you can't walk anywhere, etc.

I'd question that. Poor Americans maybe. But the average american has relatively average work hours[1], shops at large grocery stores or supercenters[2], and has among the highest median income in the world(adjusted for PPP)[3]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time#OECD_ranking

2. https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2015/august/most-us-hou...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Gross_median_hou...

[Retric]

Including part time workers distorts the average.

On average, a full-time employee in United Stats works 1,768 hours per year, or 38.6 hours per week. By comparison, Europeans work up to 19 percent fewer hours annually compared to those working in the US.. Even more extreme On average, a full-time employee in Germany works 1,363 hours per year, or 34.3 hours per week That’s the equivalent of 26 days more per year full time Americans are working.

Median income PPP is not that great of a means for comparing standards of living. The US bottom 25th percentile earn less than 1/2 the 50th percentile. I would argue for disposable income PPP after taxes, food, shelter, and medical care at the bottom is more representative as a minimum standard of living.

[corporate_shi11]

It would be useful to look at the median in addition to the average here. I suspect that because there are specific highly compensated professionals in the US that regularly work 60 or 70 hour weeks (Lawyers, doctors), the average may be distorted upwards.

[indecisive_user]

The original comment I responded to compared the average American to the average citizen in the "developed world". I'm using OECD countries as a proxy since the term "developed" is ambiguous. But comparatively, US workers are only slightly above the OECD average in number of hours worked per year (1,781 vs 1,763).

>The US bottom 25th percentile earn less than 1/2 the 50th percentile.

Again, only considering the average American here. I would agree that it's worse to be poor in the US compared to a lot of other countries due to fewer social safety nets.

[Red_Leaves_Flyy]

Income is a worthless metric if getting in a moderate severity car accident means I'm going bankrupt and will be mostly unemployable the rest of my life.

[Red_Leaves_Flyy]

>Homelessness is the result of addiction and mental illness.

Citation needed.

You're wrong, but spout long since debunked victim blaming rhetoric as fact. Apt username.

[rayiner]

> We're already at a point where machines do most of the work.

This premise is false on its face, given how aggressively western countries are trying to encourage working age immigration. The entire developed world is facing shortages of construction workers, nurses, daycare workers, doctors, engineers, etc.

Jobs aren’t being automated away for you look at the labor force participation rate: https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-particip...

From 1998 to 2028, there will have been a sharp drop in the 16-24 age group. But there will have been only a few points drop among 24-55, and sharp increases among 55+ (which mostly happened from 1998 to 2008).

[Red_Leaves_Flyy]

You're completely missing the point. Either willfully, or you're just so blissfully unaware of the marvels of modern technology. You're missing things like automated knitting and sewing. A garmet that would take 25-100 hours by hand can by made by a machine in minutes and sewn into shape in just moments more. Have you ever done a needlecraft? I have. Besides the yarn for a sweater costing over $100 itself, I'd have to ask $3,000 for the labor alone. Brick roads used to take weeks just for a few blocks with an equivalently sized crew, and several orders of magnitude greater effort. Now far more length can be torn up recycled and paved over again in days with relatively minimal effort. We used to have manned switchboard operators. Do the math on how many we would need to accommodate the internet at current scale without routers and switches then get back to me.

You just don't see now many thousands of billions of hours of hard, boring labor is done by machines every day, and mostly perfectly. It's truly marvelous. The fact that people are still homeless is a crime against humanity that rests squarely on the world leaders who allowed so a tragedy to occur. In a truly civilized society these leaders would imprisoned.

Want to really know how dann good you have it? Spend 10 years in the northern reaches of canada. I doubt You could survive the summer months. You can only bring the clothes on your back. No tools, supplies, books, or resources. If you want to take my bet drop me an email. I'm sure we can come to a fair wager.

[JackFr]

> People in power exploit those they control to get more wealth and power.

True, if we include bureaucrats. Otherwise that's a just-so story leftists tell to cement their grip on power.

Despite the US Federal government controlling over 36% of all money spent in the economy, it's not enough cause oligarchs. Meanwhile our nomenklatura are pure of heart, selfless with only the interests of the people at heart.

[Red_Leaves_Flyy]

Sorry, I assumed that was clear. I'm specifically referring to any relationship where one party has distinctly more power than the other. This includes bureaucrats, police, politicians, managers, c level, teachers, HR, advertising companies, the list goes on and on. Everyone's angling for more at the expense of everyone around them and that's the accepted status quo. Taking a step back to think about this and it's like everyone's on crazy pills.

[3fe9a03ccd14ca5]

We have to be really careful! If not the distant future will be dystopian nightmare where government controls everything you do and tells you how to do it.

To stop it, we need to make sure the government is telling everyone what to do and how to do it! It’s the only way!