[loceng]

I can't wait until competent leadership who actually understand business, who are actual entrepreneurs, get into positions of power - like Andrew Yang with his policies.

I keep saying this: I believe piracy is a valid counterweight mechanism to the capitalistic for-profit system that would milk society dry/fleece us year round until we die from the elements: charging us more than is reasonable so we'll so FU and pirate, or due to there being so much amazing content that you're competing for our time for entertainment because there's so much amazing entertainment to choose from?

Likewise I believe a UBI lever, where $xxx is allocated/earmarked monthly towards different types of creative/content work (to be defined/determined) will be how you fund the industry and artists (once they reach a level of competency commanding whatever level of pay); they can live off of their general UBI, developing their talents, their health/self-improvement/knowledge and skill development, or raise a family - in the meantime. And then we'll also have content produced that better mirrors the likes/needs/desires of society; Andrew Yang's Democracy Dollars voucher policy, every eligible getting $100/year to contribute to the political candidate of their choice falls is a similar/same mechanism but for different system - to break apart the duopoly - along with Ranked Choice Voting would compound powerfully; he wants to do this for journalism - "Journalism Dollars" - essentially to combat the duopoly (to create more than 2 core narratives that gets pumped out) but also the mainstream media/media industrial complex in general.

Re: "Dunno. As much as I hate copyright, and as much as I love free culture, it's hard for me to get too interested or worried about stuff like this nowadays, from a legal realism standpoint."

Jordan Peterson's Rule 1 of his latest book - "Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life" - goes into this necessary balance in very good detail - I'd recommend reading it; "DO NOT CARELESSLY DENIGRATE SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS OR CREATIVE ACHIEVEMENT"

[misterkrabs]

> they can live off of their general UBI

More like their landlord can live off their general UBI.

Abolish rent!

[noeltrotsky]

I sure didn't expect an Andrew Yang commercial in comments on a Canadian government internet story!

[why_Mr_Anderson]

Translated: I can't afford X so it's OK to steal it, because corporations are evil for being for-profit. Got it.

re UBI: you don't have to wait to see how 'well' would UBI work in practice - ask anyone from any European countries about their Roma population and how effectively they use the 'subsidies' (not the right word, but I can't recall the right one) from government. So many enterpreneurs and artists ... (/s just in case)

[derefr]

Re: Re: UBI — there's a difference in how a person who's in pain but otherwise healthy will use painkillers, and how a person who is in pain but also is addicted to painkillers will use painkillers.

Like an addiction, prolonged poverty — and especially being born into poverty, and having your social circle consist mostly of other people born into poverty — changes many people for the worse, such that they become less able to effectively strategize to lift themselves out of poverty if they do get offered the resources to do so. They never learned how, and/or they have no role-models to mirror, so they don't even try.

UBI certainly isn't a magic fix for poverty. But I've never seen anyone claiming it to be. People in poverty are already usually receiving social assistance, so UBI wouldn't even change anything for them!

Instead, UBI is more likely to serve as a prophylactic to prevent poverty. It's a secure, predictable safety net that's just always there by default; a much-improved version of Unemployment, without stigma (because everyone gets it no matter what) and without restrictions (e.g. you get it even if you were previously self-employed. I mean, you get it even while you're employed, so of course you do.)