> <i>Value, like energy, can neither be created nor destroyed, but it can change form.</i><p>This is both false and unproductive. Value is unlocked and created all the time. People are much wealthier and better off than their ancestors, despite our far larger population. Hello technology! They didn't have refrigerators, microwaves, the internet, smart phones, modern medicine and so on. Today we're increasingly concerned with overeating vs starvation.<p>As for UBI, I'm not sure if it's the best answer or not, but Andrew Yang makes the strongest case for it that I've seen:<p><a href="https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-ubi/" rel="nofollow">https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-ubi/</a><p>Also branding it as a Freedom Dividend is smart.
UBI is not politically feasible in America, realistically I can only see it working in a very homogeneous country (religious, ethnic, language, etc.).<p>Those who want UBI in America should redirect their focus on an expansion of the Earned Income and Child Tax Credits. I think eliminating the phase in period of EITC and increasing the benefits (by absorbing other forms of welfare) is the way to go.
I liked this phrase form JFK: "There’s nothing wrong with CEOs making more than their employees, but that there’s something wrong when the head of a failing company is making hundreds of times as much money as their employees..."
Andrew Yang is getting a lot of traction with UBI in the Presidential race. It'll be interesting to see if more candidates run on this platform for the Senate & Congress.
Just imagine if Hacker News gave a monthly 'points' stipend to every user. You wouldn't have to earn up-votes or make popular submissions-- the upvote 'points' would be equitably distributed among all readers.<p>What would that do to the discussions? Would it encourage more free dialogue? Would it help promote more civil discourse?<p>Serious question. It seems like a close model to UBI. Is there a point-counting-forum that has tried this?
I like the idea but I doubt this will be sustainable long-term. There is already a lot of pressure to reduce the social safety net and to have more tax cuts for the "job creators". Why would this be any different with UBI? The people who work full-time jobs will complain about the slackers who do nothing. Maybe once almost everything is automated there is a better chance to do this.<p>Personally I think it would be better to reduce working hours.
I don’t get what UBI solves vs the existing social safety net programs<p>>James Felton Keith, tells The Sociable that a Universal Basic Income is the best way to distribute an equity stake in productivity — thus creating an “asset holder class.”<p>US already provides a tremendous amount of value to its residents vs the rest of the world - doesn’t that count as a stake in productivity ?
I'm against the agism in the article but the rest of it is sound.<p>Right now we means test shareholders on the basis of whether they have capital to invest in a company, which is discriminatory in a society like ours where wealth inequality is the highest it's been in the history of the world. If half the country has no upward mobility and an impoverished quality of life that takes everything they got just to survive, then wealth is an inherited trait just like cultural identity.<p>I think it's time to question the rationality of people who are against UBI. Their failures in big picture thinking and long term planning, whether in basic economic principles like opportunity cost or tragedy of the commons, or in more existential philosophical matters like whether it's ok to subsist on the toil of others, shouldn't take precedence over our self-governance/determination.<p>What I'm saying is that we're approaching a day when one person owns the entire discretionary spending of each country, and has effectively corrupted government to the point where propaganda informs our beliefs more than ethics. Are we there yet? Maybe not quite. 10 or 20 years away? Perhaps - look who's president.<p>UBI threatens the status quo (specifically crony and vulture capitalism) more than almost any concept I can think of. So for that reason alone, I'm strongly for it.
Perhaps this thinking on UBI isn't bulletproof, but when you recognise the distribution of wealth is so concentrated, at the very least this is a great beginning to start thinking outside of the box in terms of how we approach Human Rights.
UBI smells like a trojan horse for privatization of what remains of social security, disability, unemployment, etc. I would much rather have a robust national pension system than "Uber, but for retirement."
Nobody can ever answer the question of "What happens when someone blows their UBI and cant afford to eat?" Will we let them starve? You'd almost have to from the government side of things.<p>How about 5 years after when someone introduces another entitlement program to help single mothers/seniors/etc and then criticizes everyone else as heartless for not supporting it? Will we just end up where we are now with even more entitlements?<p>>“I know Jeff Bezos is probably worth $50 million. I know for a fact that he’s not worth $150 billion. The rest of that money is mine.<p>Yeah that says it all right there. This guy feels entitled to someone else's money.
UBI will never replace welfare. People are not going to agree to cut off current welfare programs.<p>And it will not stay at a $1000. It will go up. Not long after implementation, a politician will soon say that $1000 is not a livable wage and that it needs to be $2000. The next politician will say that it needs to be $5000. Basically this opens the door to socialism where we will just be haggling on the amount of wealth redistribution. Wealth redistribution doesn't work and never has.
regardless of other arguments for ubi this piece is full of flawed thinking.<p>> Universal Basic Income means that we can create a universal ownership stake in productivity,<p>There is already a term for that, it's called communism.<p>> At any point that they publish evidence that they are leveraging knowledge or information from an individual, be it an employee or a consumer, they owe us a piece<p>They owe a piece to the government and military that ensure the infrastructure safety and fairness of the economic environment they work in. They pay that (and should pay that) through taxes. It doesn't make sense to say that every time there is an economic transaction both parties should pay back to each other because they somehow "we owe us" . That's just confused logic.<p>> am interested in raising income, so I can give people more humanity, more dignity, more piece of mind to really uncover what their callings might be, so they can be more effective and more contributive in their communities<p>What you 're giving them is more money to gamble/spend on drugs/ be just as irresponsible as before. People dont suddenly become productive because you throw them a bone. Welfare is MUCH better at identifying peoples needs and filling the gaps rather than expecting that "they ll just figure it out themselves". UBI is more inhumane than welfare.<p>> At no point does automation mean that jobs go away,”<p>I mean, yes it does. by definition, and saying it doesnt doesnt magically fix it<p>> So, whatever cool comes from that culture, they owe me and people like me<p>hmm. i stop here. cant read further