
A New Golden Age Part III: The Basic Income Guarantee - nkurz
https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/a-new-golden-age-part-iii-the-basic-income-guarantee
======
yummyfajitas
This article is internally contradictory. First, the article claims
consumption will go up:

 _No longer will poor Americans have to choose between heating oil and food,
between medicine and shoes for their children._

Then it claims investment will go up:

 _Also, demand increases — giving firms reason to expand production and hire
new workers._

Firms may have _reason_ to expand production, but the resources needed to
expand production are instead being consumed. Rather than building a factory,
workers are making shoes for poor children.

(At least the ones who didn't tell their boss to "take this job and shove it"
\- a direct quote from the article. That's just a deadweight loss the article
ignores for no apparent reason.)

I really wish someone would write an article about BI that was more than just
clueless pop Keynesianism - "Demand Good, Investment Bad, Free Lunch for All."

~~~
kaonashi
You're assuming the economy is running at full capacity.

~~~
tcbawo
It would be interesting if basic income were tied to some combination of the
Gini index and inflation rate. It would serve as a nice automatic offset to
deflation, then fade away as the economy took off and wages increased.

~~~
ItsDeathball
What I'd like to see - and never see suggested in these discussions - is
starting with a revenue-neutral carbon tax to fund a BIG. Since the tax would
internalize the externalities of pollution and climate change, the government
could cut subsidies and tax breaks for energy production and efficiency, and
throw those savings into BIG as well. Anyone willing to be a below-average
greenhouse gas emitter comes out on top, while anyone who owns a private jet
is doing well enough not to care.

~~~
cam_l
a revenue-neutral carbon tax to fund a welfare state..

Love the idea, but we had one of these for a couple of years, and at $23/t
there was at least an order of magnitude less money in it than needed for a
GBI. And per capita, we are among the highest carbon emitters on earth.

------
jboggan
"The last time the economy was in this bad of shape, it took a world war to
restore prosperity."

Pros and cons of basic income aside, this is likely what we are seeing
already. I don't know how else to describe a proxy conflict in Syria with
U.S., Russian, Chinese, and Cuban actors.

On the main topic of the piece, the danger of inflation is just waved off and
the function of creditors ignored. How would say the Chinese government feel
about significant inflation that makes our Treasury debt more easily repaid
with devalued dollars? These kinds of considerations loop back to the first
point.

~~~
Diamons
I've heard this many times before and I've even been taught this in history
class. What is the reason for this?

The explanation is often that it stimulates the economy, but really, is war
effective at fixing the economy because it just acts as a giant reset button?
If there's too many workers and not enough job, the easiest way to fix that
problem is to kill X% of the population, and what better easier and cleaner
way to sell this to the American people than your country is under attack and
it needs your sacrifice?

~~~
derefr
I don't think the deaths are the most important thing; rather, it's the
absences:

• Presume that a job market contains people with job-skills, and people
without (i.e. "lemons").

• Presume that businesses function better when they can select from a talent
pool with fewer lemons; and that lemons in a job market create "noise" in the
hiring process that cause openings to go unfilled for longer.

• Now, presume either a draft (which doesn't care about job-skills, but does
care about age, tending to select for younger people with fewer job-skills),
or simply a military with lower job-skill requirements for entry than most
occupations.

Thus, a military on a war footing will selectively withdraw more lemons than
non-lemons from the job market, leaving it full of higher-quality candidates,
making the businesses in that market more efficient.

For this hypothesis to be accurate, the same thing would have to happen if we
just gave all the people being sent to war public-sector jobs (or Basic
Income) instead. Though that would perhaps work _better_ than a war for
stimulating the economy: people remaining in the country would be spreading
their demand across the market, rather than consuming goods exclusively from
the military's line-of-supply contractors.

~~~
Retra
The military doesn't have lower skill requirements than the average job. It
_does_ have very large and expensive training programs to make up for that.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Which looks the same at the input end of the process - they'll suck up anyone
with four limbs and both eyes, regardless of the skills they have prior to
enrollment.

------
tolmasky
Like most basic income proponents, this article conveniently forgets the
actual problem with basic income: it hurts immigration. Granted, with the
amount of people against immigration maybe it would actually help these
arguments, but the truth is that such a plan can be potentially devastating to
the long term health of the economy (if you know, these dreams of the end of
scarcity don't pan out).

The basic problem here is that these plans mis-consider the US as an isolated
economy. If you have basic income, what is the policy on immigrants? The
options appear to be:

1\. Open immigration and same benefits to everyone. Maybe you can argue that
we can afford basic income for current US citizens, I think it would be a
stretch for anyone to argue that we could afford it for anyone that comes into
our borders, and thus...

2\. Get even more hard line against immigration. America is already pretty
anti-immigration, just wait how opinions turn when anyone inside gets a
guaranteed income. As usual, anti-immigration laws will hurt the next round of
brilliant foreigners from coming to the US and bringing their great ideas and
prosperity here. Its already the case that we're increasingly lending
foreigners our education system and then not letting them stay and thus
exporting that knowledge and prosperity.

3\. Make basic income only available to US citizens. Congratulations, we have
now fully devolved into a classist society, where an 18 year old that wants to
"figure things out" will be granted a monthly salary, but an immigrant who has
3 kids won't. To make matters worse, they probably WILL pay taxes on their
income that will go for said basic income. Arguably we have this partially
now, but since its services its not as unfair as giving a check to someone by
birthright while the other person has to labor. For all the talk of automation
the reality on the streets _today_ is that immigrants largely do our back
braking labor, and if you now "buy out" all Americans from menial jobs, you
are cementing that these tasks are for outsiders.

Milton Friedman put it best: you can't have open immigration and a welfare
state. We already see the effects of our current system hurting immigration.
These proposals always have the ring of "post history" to them: we've _figured
out supply_ , now its time to just find out how to split up the goods. I think
they greatly underestimate that the world economy is still not figured out and
we could soon find the US behind other states.

~~~
Retra
_" Make basic income only available to US citizens. Congratulations, we have
now fully devolved into a classist society"_

Do you honestly think that this is a fair description of the consequences of
that course of action? There are plenty of things only available to US
citizens. Voting. Running for office. Any kind of federal assistance. Military
enrollment. Diplomatic protections.

I really don't see how this option is anything different from what we already
have. It would be federal assistance, after all, and non-citizens already
don't get that.

~~~
tolmasky
As I stated in my own comment, we already have a form of this today, so
clearly I do think it is similar to our current system. However, I think that
a defining differentiator is that a basic income can assist in luxury
assistance beyond pure help. That is to say, if we offer purely assistive
programs that are arguably _necessary_ to a subset of the population (such as
healthcare), it is clearly fundamentally unfair, but arguably morally net
positive. If however, you offer a check that the person can use at their
discretion (and thus _choose_ to for example use it for vacation or gambling
or any purpose they choose), then it is unfair and morally questionable. I
think this is obvious.

Separately, I do not think it is unfair description at all, but rather an
objective measure of the service proposed, as opposed to a subjective one from
thethe population that stands to gain vs the population that stands to lose. I
have listed scenarios that I think are fundamentally unfair: young able-bodied
members of society with no dependents receiving aid whereas older members of
society that have dependents would not. It doesn't matter to me that "we
already" do unfair things, this point has not been at all addressed. Existing
wrongs are not arguments for new wrongs.

Additionally, regardless of whether you agree with the fundamental morality of
these situations, I think you can't argue with proposed consequences. I think
that this system will absolutely make immigration harder in the US (through
increased "protective" insular policies to keep "freeloaders" out), and thus
hurt the economy as a whole.

~~~
Retra
I still don't see how that's an argument. How is it unfair to offer US
citizens the resources collected by the US government? That is the express
reason the concept of a "US citizen" exists.

US citizens pay taxes. They choose to distribute that money among themselves.
That is the purpose of the US government: to protect and serve the interests
of US citizens.

If you feel that this is morally wrong, then I don't see how you can't argue
that _every single aspect_ of _any_ government is morally wrong. The fact that
I live in the US and not Syria is _unfair_ , but it's not morally wrong.

 _" If however, you offer a check that the person can use at their discretion
(and thus choose to for example use it for vacation or gambling or any purpose
they choose), then it is unfair and morally questionable. I think this is
obvious."_

Do you have a job? Are there stipulations on how you can spend your money?
Because you are arguing that paying people without such stipulation is morally
questionable.

And furthermore, Immigration is already controlled. You don't get US
Citizenship without the approval of the federal government. How does this
change that? They let fewer people get citizenship? If these immigrants are
benefiting the economy, then surely they are worth the basic income we'd be
paying them for that benefit.

Which gets me to my point: You're not handing out free money for nothing.
You're paying people to be economic participants. There's no reason to require
stipulations on that, and no reason for you to think it's considerably more
unfair to anybody than the regular variation in life's circumstances.

~~~
tolmasky
_> US citizens pay taxes. They choose to distribute that money among
themselves. That is the purpose of the US government: to protect and serve the
interests of US citizens._

Non-citizens pay taxes too. Residents/green-card holders/visa-holders pay full
income taxes without getting full benefits. Everyone pays state sales tax if
there is one.

 _> If you feel that this is morally wrong, then I don't see how you can't
argue that every single aspect of any government is morally wrong. The fact
that I live in the US and not Syria is unfair, but it's not morally wrong._

Your argument is "the US government: to protect and serve the interests of US
citizens.", so I don't see how you can think there exists ANYTHING that the US
government does for its citizens at the expense of its non-citizens that _isn
't_ morally wrong. Since the reason corporations exist is to benefit
shareholders does that automatically make all their actions ethical as long as
they increase share value? Obviously not. Thus, I think we can conclude that
its possible for the US government to do things that help its citizens which
are morally wrong.

 _> Do you have a job? Are there stipulations on how you can spend your money?
Because you are arguing that paying people without such stipulation is morally
questionable._

Uhm, the difference is my employer and myself mutually agreed to the
transaction. That is obviously why he can't stipulate what I can do with my
money, whereas with taxes, which are taken from me, and which I by your own
argument a few sentences above explained have some control of through our
votes as US citizens, we do have a say in. Let me use your own logic here:
"plenty of US services have stipulations on them, such as voting which you
can't be a felon for, for example. THUS we should be able to have stipulations
on these new services".

 _> If these immigrants are benefiting the economy, then surely they are worth
the basic income we'd be paying them for that benefit._

Sure, but that doesn't mean they'll actually make it in. We already turn away
lots of people that would be incredibly beneficial to our economy. I am
arguing that a policy such as this would _further_ these bad policies.
However, if you believe that the government always makes the right choices,
rather than our immigration policies being a mess of special interests and
constituencies, then I suppose we are at a fundamental impasse.

~~~
Retra
_" Your argument is "the US government: to protect and serve the interests of
US citizens.",_

No, it isn't. My argument is that it is not morally wrong for the government
to give money to its citizens without stipulating its use. At least it's not
any less wrong than having everyone pay taxes that fund schools, roads, and
hospitals they don't use. (Things which, if you objected to them, you could
negate most of the other things we have a government for.) Basic income is not
some petty luxury bonus, it's a form of social welfare.

And how is BIG not a mutually agreed to transaction? If you don't want the
money, I'm sure you can find a way to send it back. Stipulate it yourself if
you think it should be stipulated.

 _" THUS we should be able to have stipulations on these new services"_

We _can_ have stipulations. There's nothing preventing that. We just don't
want them, as that's the whole point of basic income. You're trying to claim
we can't _not_ have them, which is absurd.

And stop overusing the word 'obvious.'

~~~
tolmasky
_> And how is BIG not a mutually agreed to transaction?_

... the other end of the transaction. You know, the part where the money is
collected from tax payers.

 _> And stop overusing the word 'obvious.'_

I used it 3 times in 3 comments. I think even someone that supports the
_stipulation_ of what can and can't go in a comment would agree that's not
overuse.

------
gortok
Some libertarians support the Basic Income Guarantee _only_ if our _only_
choice is between our current system and abolishing it for the Basic Income
Guarantee.

I can't speak for all libertarianism, but generally speaking libertarians do
not support federal government welfare systems, for the following reasons:

\- They usurp the role of private welfare, or even local community run
welfare, where you know who the money is going to and whether or not they're
abusing it

\- "Top down" social programs only last as long as you have more producing
than non-producing (or in our case, as long as you can borrow money to pay for
it). They lead to financial ruin and in the long run will cause disaster for
the generation holding the bag.

\- They increase the amount of force and coercion; suddenly using welfare as a
weapon, the left can increase the size of government, the right can increase
the size of the military (I do not differentiate between Veterans welfare from
the VA or civilian welfare).

\- They take money from those that produce and give it to those that do not

And I haven't even gotten into the economic issues with a basic income
guarantee.

You notice that whenever the government gets involved in an industry, those
costs immediately go up? The government literally gives away money every year
(and even guarantees loans without even asking what your loan is for), and the
cost of college keeps rising and rising. This is classic inflation.

What do you think will happen to the cost of goods if we are suddenly printing
money simply to give to every last human being on this continent? If you don't
expect prices to rise, you haven't been paying attention to either healthcare
or education.

~~~
vacri
Libertarianism massively overstates private welfare. Massively. We've already
seen society that only had private welfare - look to our societies before
public welfare existed, and you'll see that private welfare was basically a
toy.

It doesn't even pass the sniff test; the idea that all these people whining
about having to give up their money to other people would start giving up
their money to other people if it was 'voluntary'? And people actually get
sucked in by this argument?

~~~
yoyar
People with higher incomes give more to charity. People with more disposable
income give more to charity. Government "charity" consumes about 70 percent of
the money in bureaucratic overhead. Private charity overheads are typically
below 30 percent, and much better in many cases. What you want is more money
in the pockets of people so that they can give more to charity. Any dollar
spent on voluntary charity vs taxes is much more efficiently used to help the
needy directly. If you really care about poor people you should want more
money going directly to private charities not the government. In fact, private
charities were a much bigger part of day to day society before the welfare
state and poverty was decreasing between the 40s and 60s. When the government
steps in it changes people's behaviour and takes away more and more of their
disposable income. I know you'll find this hard to believe but its true the
richest in our society give more than anyone else to charity.

~~~
vacri
Government welfare gets money to all locations over the long term. Private
charity does well in short, acute phases (eg hurricane relief), but over the
long term, it's only useful for socially attractive services - and even then,
it's not enough. 'kids with cancer' charities do a lot better than 'young
adults with mental illness' charities, which in turn do better than 'disabled
people who need 24-hour care for life' charities.

> _poverty was decreasing between the 40s and 60s_

... something which had little do to with welfare or private charity.

> _I know you 'll find this hard to believe but its true the richest in our
> society give more than anyone else to charity._

I don't find it hard to believe at all. What you're finding hard to believe is
that even though the rich give more than others, it's still a drop in the
bucket compared to government-supplied assistance.

------
judah
The article suggests that the Bible commands basic income and that economic
conservatives like the idea.

As a lifelong student of the Bible and as an economic conservative of 20
years, I can say with certainty that this premise of the article is faulty.

Very early on in the Biblical text is the divine command to work and provide
through labor. Basic income undermines and ultimately aims to eliminate this
divine directive.

Among economic conservatives, we generally see Basic Income as a fool's errand
and a pipe dream pushed by idealistic, Utopian thought disconnected from real
world economics. We see Basic Income as a foolish idea with disastrous
implications for the economy if attempted.

~~~
bradleyjg
It's not so much a command as a curse:

17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy
wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou
shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou
eat of it all the days of thy life;

18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat
the herb of the field;

19 _In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread_ , till thou return unto the
ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt
thou return.

~~~
dhd415
It's pretty widely held among both Jewish and Christian Biblical commentators
that work existed before the curse per Gen 1:28. The curse just made work more
difficult and unpleasant.

------
dicroce
I don't know enough to form an opinion, but a question comes to mind
(actually, same question comes to mind whenever minimum wage increases come
up)... What stops everything from simply getting more expensive and offsetting
the BIG?

~~~
mrfusion
Here ya go [https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-
basic-...](https://medium.com/basic-income/wouldnt-unconditional-basic-income-
just-cause-massive-inflation-fe71d69f15e7)

~~~
0x49
I read the article and i just dont agree on some points.

One point is that basic income would mean an increase in new businesses
forming. The problem is that while yes, more people will have the ability to
start a business. The increase burdon of taxes and most likely, regulations
that go along with it, will make it difficult to move from the startup phase
to actually running a profitable company.

Countries like denmark and sweden are great examples of this in action: small
companies are scarce,the majority of investors avoid them, and most people
either work for the government or a large company.

~~~
BBlarat
Do you have any links to back up your claim about sweden and denmark? I live
and work in Sweden and my view is that there is great many small companies
here.

------
theworstshill
A New Golden Age won't come from basic income, it can only come from cheap,
abundant energy. I won't dig out the sources atm, but its pretty obvious that
coal, and later oil drove the last two centuries of rapid progress. Unless
another abundant and cheaper source of energy is found, the world economy is
in for a slowdown.

~~~
TeMPOraL
We have one. The only thing that stands between it and us is irrational fears
of the public. I'm talking about nuclear (fission) power, obviously. It's more
than enough to keep us up and running until we crack fusion.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
There's also Methane Hydrate. Sure its a CO2 producer; but it is easily
drilled for and delivered to coastal cities, which is where most of the (US)
population lives anyway.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Isn't that the thing we could easily cook the planet with if we released it by
accident?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I don't know about that scenario. Seems unlikely - the bottom of the ocean is
cold; Methane Hydrate is locked in ice nodules under the ocean floor. Warming
it slightly will release it as gas - making free natural gas wells.

I guess its a question of, is there oxygen down there, that could cause a fire
if released? Thus creating a runaway reaction. Could be. If that were true,
I'd suppose there would be no more deposits, as Earth is hit by meteors
regularly and they would pierce/heat the deposits. So history/geology seems to
say No there's not a problem.

Anyway, the Japanese already have test wells. They're ocean-locked and have no
native fuel sources. So they're extremely interested in harvesting fuel from
the sea.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Methane is something like 20-70 times more potent a greenhouse gas (depending
on timescales you look at, estimates for 100 and 20 years respectively) than
carbon dioxide; it's not burning that would be a problem, but massive release
of unburned methane.

Aunt Wiki[0] seems to confirm it may be a problem.

Anyway, I only learned about dangers and potential as energy source of
clathrates from Fate of the World[1], so I don't claim to know much about the
topic.

[0] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate#Methane_clat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate#Methane_clathrates_and_climate_change)

[1] -
[http://store.steampowered.com/app/80200/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/80200/)

------
cjalmeida
Brazil has being doing something similar for almost a decade. It's by far the
most efficient poverty reduction program in place.

~~~
dnautics
And now Brazil has twice bad crippling inflation that threatens a drastic
revaluation of the currency (the first time they even had to rename their
currency the "real" \- who knows what's next) which threatens to retrace much
of the progress made in reducing poverty. Who knows how much of that would
have happened anyway due to economic liberalization and technological
improvement?

~~~
ufo
I think its too harsh to blame fBolsa Família for the current state of the
Brazilian economy. Its share of the budget is not even that big in the grand
scheme of things. For example, subsidized loans the government/BNDES gives to
large business (who coincidentally happen to be campaign contributors) are
responsible for a bigger hole in the budget than the bolsa família.

Also, the reason we had to rename the currency last time was because Brazil
had suffered from hyperinflation for so many decades that even after the
government stopped printing money prices kept goingup out of sheer inertia. To
give an idea, most supermarkets hired a person that would go around the aisles
restickering things and mindlessly bumping prices by 2% every day.

Nowadays the government again has gone back to the times of a screwed up
monetary policy but we are still far away from hyperinflation.

------
tuxidomasx
I think it would be awesome for people to be able to chill out and not work
for a couple of years while they figure out their next steps in life, without
going broke and/or racking up debt.

~~~
stvswn
Can we all do that? Wouldn't that be great -- everyone just does a collective
3 year chill-out?

------
drblast
This might be politically impossible because of my mom:

Mom: "The democrats are taking away Bush's tax credits. They're a bunch of
idiots. It's my money, not the government's."

Me: "Yeah, I think it would be great if we established a basic guaranteed
income."

Mom: "But that's socialism."

------
agumonkey
Reading the title I had a vision (sorry no grandiose talk here) of homeless
free cities. Just being able to afford the slightest amount of private
shelter, hygiene and nutrition.

------
tghw
_" Once more of us are familiar with it, the Basic Income Guarantee should be
an easy sell politically. It gives money to poor people, reduces taxes for
rich people..."_

I don't have my work from the last time I ran the numbers, but I recall that
the break-even point on increased taxes vs. guaranteed income was at about
$70,000.

This didn't take into account the potential of eliminating social programs,
but even without those, a BIG would require tax increases on the order of
doubling the US federal government revenue. While I like the concept, I don't
think you can sell it this way.

~~~
bitJericho
Also you'd have to get over the hurdle of people calling it communism XD That
would be very tough.

------
kaonashi
Why not bring back the WPA? The program was enormously successful and was only
disbanded due to the need to focus on the WW2 effort.

------
not-humanist
Two main issues with Basic Guaranteed Income:

1) It assumes that, just because you're a member of homo sapiens species, you
ought to get resources that others produce. Why? I care more about my dog than
I care about most people. If someone kidnapped my dog and 100k random people
and told me: "You can either save your dog or 100k random people. Choosing one
will mean me killing the other". I would choose my dog to live and permit 100k
people to die.

2) Something very similar could be applied to dating and reproduction. Why
not? You could argue that you live long enough to reproduce and that
reproduction is the basic, biological purpose of life for all organisms. So,
if someone is unattractive, just create a Basic Reproduction Guarantee. The
same reasoning used for redistributing money could be used for redistributing
sex. Since Basic Income is not considered stealing, then Basic Reproduction
should not be considered rape.

~~~
pikzen
What the flying fuck

>1) It assumes that, just because you're a member of homo sapiens species, you
ought to get resources that others produce. Why? I care more about my dog than
I care about most people. If someone kidnapped my dog and 100k random people
and told me: "You can either save your dog or 100k random people. Choosing one
will mean me killing the other". I would choose my dog to live and permit 100k
people to die.

If you thought the trolley problem was a nice ehtics question, that right
there is pure neglect for the value of human life. Can't do anything about
that for you mate.

>2) Something very similar could be applied to dating and reproduction. Why
not? You could argue that you live long enough to reproduce and that
reproduction is the basic, biological purpose of life for all organisms. So,
if someone is unattractive, just create a Basic Reproduction Guarantee. The
same reasoning used for redistributing money could be used for redistributing
sex. Since Basic Income is not considered stealing, then Basic Reproduction
should not be considered rape.

The term "basic" income is stupid, and should not be used. What is basic is
being able to live in reasonable conditions. As it stands, the only way to do
that reliably right now is to have a guaranteed income. Sex is not necessary
for you to survive. And contrary to what you might think, no, basic income is
not stealing. Taxes are not stealing. That's part of living in a society. If
you wish to not have things stolen from you, I highly recommend going to live
in a remote part of the world, where noone will prevent you from doing your
job. Of course, your job is probably only possible because of the whole
framework that your society has put into place.

~~~
not-humanist
> that right there is pure neglect for the value of human life

What value? If you believe in God and think that people were created in his
image, then human life does have value independent of what anyone thinks. But,
if you're not a believer, then people are just self-deluded carbon-based life
forms with limited lifespans on some tiny rock in a vast universe with 100s of
billions of galaxies and 100 of billions of stars in each of those.

> Sex is not necessary for you to survive.

Of course not. That is not what I wrote. The question is why you would value
survival instead of reproduction. If reproduction is the basic, biological
goal, then it should have more value than survival.

\- For example, the goal of working for the most part is to get the money.
Since you like Basic Income, you would say that people should get the
goal(money-basic income) and skip the work.

\- What I say is that people make money for the most part to find a partner
and reproduce. So, using your reasoning, since the goal is reproduction, then
they should get that goal(dating-sex-reproduction) and skip the money. Get it?

~~~
cbd1984
Ah, you're an anti-atheist using a stupid strawman to attempt to argue against
the idea that morality can have a source other than divine commands. Most
religious people aren't as stupid as you seem to be, so I doubt you'll find
much buy-in for your arguments here.

[http://www.iep.utm.edu/divine-c/](http://www.iep.utm.edu/divine-c/)

~~~
not-humanist
You're a total manipulator.

First, you don't provide a definition of morality. You could say: "I have a
dog named 'Morality', so it's possible that the source of morality is
something other than divine commands". What is your view of morality?

Second, you don't provide an argument for how it's possible that human life
can have intrinsic value(independent of cultural of personal preferences).

BTW, I'm a non-theist and a moral nihilist.

~~~
kaonashi
The ideology of the free rider.

~~~
not-humanist
Is that supposed to be an argument?

Ideology is a set of beliefs or preferences. Therefore, since morality is a
set of preferences and beliefs, it is an ideology or mass delusion.

Moral Nihilism is a position based on acknowledging the truth that morality is
illusory and used to manipulate people into submission.

~~~
kaonashi
No, it's supposed to be a dismissal.

