[hilariously]

Because they were promised it - fundamentally leaving the rich out of the social safety net doesn't even get us much and administrating the distinction costs money, and I am no fan of the wealthiest get additional benefits.

I think solving inequality will not be about reducing access to said safety nets but increasing them for all.

[lenerdenator]

> Because they were promised it

No, they weren't. They were promised a monthly check that, should they become absolutely devoid of marketable skills and liquid assets in their old age, would prevent them from dying in a gutter.

They're nowhere near dying in a gutter.

If you want to solve inequality, stop giving checks to people who spend it on golf trips to retirement villages in Arizona, and give it to people who have 84-month car notes and whose student loans are in forbearance. You only have enough money for one of those two groups, not both, so use utilitarianism to decide who to give it to.

[WalterBright]

The problem with "solving inequality" is there is no incentive for one to do better. If one can live as well as everyone else, with no effort, why should one make the effort?

[hilariously]

True, but I dont think any UBI scheme says "everyone live at the same level" more like "everyone gets enough to not die" which is a very different framing.

Work or die vs Work to gain additional benefits.

[WalterBright]

We already have welfare programs. Nobody is starving to death in the US.

[hilariously]

That's just incorrect.

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2023-04-13/...

Having been welfare adjacent more than once, getting food stamps is difficult and many legislatures have spent the last few years making it way more difficult, adding job requirements and the like. Ideologically you are probably fine with that, but it has consequences that you seemingly do not perceive.

[WalterBright]

The article is about old people having malnutrition due to poor eating habits and Covid disruption and the general ineptness of the government, and does not support your thesis.

[tekne]

Perhaps -- "the baseline is a decent life". Lots of people are willing to work really hard for perks and glory -- honestly, you can even take more risks if you're young and you know your life's not on the line

[WalterBright]

> the baseline is a decent life

The trouble with that is the same reason communism fails - too many people decide to just live off of the work of others, and play video games all day.

Also, who is going to work as a janitor? Most jobs are not filled with glory. They're tedious - that's why they are called "work".

[tekne]

You know... janitorial work really is an excellent example:

- Some labor is easy both to offshore and to automate -- e.g. factory work

- Some labor can be offshored a lot more easily than it can be automated -- this causes at least a practical problem for the "nice UBI" countries. I'm struggling to think of particularly good examples...

- Some labor can be automated more easily than it can be offshored, e.g. self-driving

- Some labor is "rare enough" that it can potentially be well-paid -- my intuition says construction and repair, especially with the aid of machines

But janitorial labor is low-status, is required constantly, needs to be done on-site, and is really hard for a robot.

So a particularly good UBI test: how do you hire janitors?

It's not necessarily impossible -- for example, if a few shifts of janitorial labor could double this "decent baseline," would people pick it up? Would this leave it affordable?

[Terr_]

Kind of a strawman though, innit? If "civilization will stagnate and humans will be unmotivated blobs" is one extreme, then the other is something like "condoning economic genocide".

In reality, few are concerned that Alice has a much nicer car than Bob, compared to concerns that Bob will die without insulin. Get Bob his insulin, and he will still be motivated to have a nicer car.

[WalterBright]

> Kind of a strawman though, innit?

Not at all. It's the primary reason why communes fail.

[nixon_why69]

I think there's likely a steel man version of "solving inequality" that's a little less radical than "establish a commune".

Something like "arrest the trend towards upward accumulation which also reduces incentives to excel", maybe.

[WalterBright]

If we did that, we wouldn't have SpaceX, Nvidia, AI, etc.

[croon]

There are points in history where the productivity increases were more equitably spread, and we still got lasers, microwaves, MRI, mRNA, microchips, the internet, etc, etc, from national funding no less.