[littlestymaar]

You can have UBI at a country level if you finance it with government budget (through taxes)[1], but as a for-profit enterprise, there's no that's a good idea (for it to work at all, it must have a monetization strategy, and they all look dystopian)

[1] it actually exist(ed) in France (see RMI/RSA, though the different governments recently added tons of bureaucracy to it as a way to deter people from getting it, ruining the point), but the political will that it requires (and whether this is a good idea at all, I don't have a strong opinion on that) is the limiting factor.

[brandall10]

I took a look at RSA and 1) it's not technically UBI but a conditional welfare program (UBI is allocated to all adults, even wealthy ones) and 2) it's exceptionally low - just $514 a month. That's 30% minimum wage and a bit less than half the poverty threshold.

I don't think UBI will really work if it doesn't even have support at the poverty line. Part of the point of UBI is a segment of the population which can't find work due to obsolete skills can at least spend the energy to retrain, or perhaps pursue some endeavor that is difficult to monetize but provides some benefit to society. That's difficult to do when one is destitute. As well, it needs to be effective for large swaths of the population if we are indeed heading into a post-work society over the next 10-20 years.

[__MatrixMan__]

Is that the kind of UBI we want though? If it has a single issuer, like the government, then it has a single point of control which can be used to coerce people (i.e. by threatening to take it away).

The ideal UBI system would let you threaten to overthrow your government in a way that does not threaten the integrity of UBI. It ought to be a safety net that makes otherwise impractical growth possible.

As a crypto, CirclesUBI is a bit of a disaster (e.g. the hosted UI, and sensitivity to certain kinds of attack), but I think they got the tokenomics right: it encourages Sybil resistant behavior among the users without trying to bind an address to your body and without relying on an issuer's good behavior.

[Ataraxic]

> The ideal UBI system would let you threaten to overthrow your government...

Crypto Anarchism is not attractive the vast majority of people.

I'll argue the UBI people want involves their government sending them a check, direct deposit, or cash.

[landemva]

Since USA still controls it's currency issuance (unlike EU members), why isn't this in place today? Rename food stamps and WIC into newUBI and start rolling it out.

[__MatrixMan__]

Given that we'd have to all conspire to respect the UBI token while we replaced the government, I'd classify it as cryptocommunism, but I take your point.

I just have a hard time imagining a government that both:

- keeps the U in UBI

- is not under some kind if existential threat from its people

You need the latter to have the former. But if you're coordinated to achieve the latter then you don't really need the government to achieve the former anyway.

[dragonwriter]

> The ideal UBI system would let you threaten to overthrow your government in a way that does not threaten the integrity of UBI

If you can, categorically, overthrow it without threatening the integrity of UBI in its territory, it was never actually the government in the first place.

[JumpCrisscross]

> can, categorically, overthrow it without threatening the integrity of UBI in its territory, it was never actually the government in the first place

Which underlines the ridiculousness of the thought experiment. The solution to wars being destructive is...a blockchain?

[littlestymaar]

there's a civil war ongoing but your income is still at its pre-war level (without any devaluation, meaning you keep your pre-war purchasing power) thanks to the magic of the blockchain.

[ben_w]

> without any devaluation, meaning you keep your pre-war purchasing power

That's not how economics works.

The purchasing power of any currency, for example USD, isn't the same everywhere even at a fixed point in time, because we don't have negligible-cost transportation in war zones (amongst other places).

[__MatrixMan__]

It would come down to devaluation by whom right? If everybody wants the war to end and both sides see you as somebody that is working towards a reasonable plan of ending it, then I expect your tokens would go pretty far.

And even if you're not the magical mediator who ends the war, what matters is not some global market evaluation, what matters is your tokens' evaluation by the people who grow the food that you eat and your evaluation of their tokens as well. Reciprocal exchange and utility, not market value.

[JumpCrisscross]

> devaluation by whom right

This isn't how currencies lose value in wars. If the amount of money doesn't change, but half the factories are bombed, the output of the remaining factories rises in value relative to that currency. (Ceteris paribus.) The only way around this is to backstop production with unbombed factories. Something a blockchain does jack squat about.

[__MatrixMan__]

I'm not sure about that. There's more to being a government than preventing people from using media of exchange that you haven't blessed.

Besides, if borders had anything to do with it, it was never UBI in the first place.

[dragonwriter]

> Besides, if borders had anything to do with it, it was never UBI in the first place.

Yes, it would; neither form of the “U” in UBI includes free of borders in the sense used in the term, and reinterpreting that way and pretending its what the term means is just lazy equivocation.

[__MatrixMan__]

I don't know what you mean. If you're denying people access to the system based on where they happen to be, it's not universal.

[dragonwriter]

> If you're denying people access to the system based on where they happen to be, it's not universal.

“Universal” seems to be a later construction, it was originally “unconditional”, and in both cases the writings on it for many years under either name made it clear that the reference was principally freedom from means- and behavior-testing, contrary to status-quo welfare programs, but that it would target a population based on (exact scope differs in particular proposals) residency, citizenship, and/or age. Not surprised that the “no borders” crowd has seen it differently, and their version certainly is a valid instance of the general idea, but they don’t get to rewrite history and narrow the scope of the broader concept to their new version.

[pessimizer]

And you don't need a magic orb to do it. You can do it in the US through the mysterious buildings referred to as "unemployment offices" by changing the signs and opening twice as many. It would also be amazing to use these buildings to match employers and the unemployed, but that's obviously asking far too much of government.

[dragonwriter]

> And you don't need a magic orb to do it. You can do it in the US through the mysterious buildings referred to as "unemployment offices" by changing the signs and opening twice as many.

You could do it through the agency known as the IRS by adding a standard refundable credit, you might need a few more employees, but nothing like twice as many.

[landemva]

IRS already implements the child tax credit which pays, so a negative income tax should be straight-forward.

[dopidopHN]

To add :

France minima sociaux are not enough to live on by themselves.

Last time I checked the RSA was around 400 euros / months.

The idea of UBI imply that you can live in a ok way with it.

I have friends who lives with the French RSA, they have previous stash of money to complete it.

One is close to spend only 400/month, but he lives on land he bought with his last job.

[littlestymaar]

> The idea of UBI imply that you can live in a ok way with it

Not really, or rather it depends who you ask: on the left's perspective on UBI, you're right, but on the right side (Milton Friedman being the most prominent on that side having talked about UBI) then it should be barely enough to replace all other form of state wellfare without necessarily be enough to live from it.

[iraqmtpizza]

As soon as the money becomes conditional, it's not UBI. If you have to irrevokably sign up to an organ donor list, it's not UBI. UBI is inherently redistributive. Which I happen to think is immoral.

[nerdbert]

Almost every interaction between more than one human that involves resources is either abusive or positively redistributive to some degree. If intentional redistribution with the goal of increasing equality is immoral, that leaves abuse as the only moral choice in your worldview.

[iraqmtpizza]

LOL so theft and coercion are in the redistributive category and barter and contracts are in the abuse category? If what you say is true, then I would choose abuse over theft.

[lost_tourist]

Do you think that public roads and schools are also immoral?

[iraqmtpizza]

In principle, yes. In practice, one occasionally has to choose the least immoral option. That does not invalidate the principle.

[landemva]

Do you think USA doing more deficit spending to redistribute USA's munitions to Ukraine is immoral?

Seems like the past 30 years have been ongoing interventionism to shovel money to war makers.

[iraqmtpizza]

Yes. We're borrowing money from China to fund salaries in the Ukrainian government. Let Europe do that. I don't mind sending old munitions that are set to be destroyed anyway, especially if we get some good data out of it.