
Martin Luther King on “Guaranteed Income” (1967) - AvenueIngres
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY1OKSObkH0
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utnick
It seems like it would be easier through technology to just reduce the minimum
cost of living so much, that whatever basic income needed would be extremely
small or even nothing at all.

I'm reading the Wright Brothers Bio right now and what struck me is how they
came from a really poor family ( dad was a travelling preacher ), and they
owned a small bicycle shop in a small town, yet they had no trouble owning a
big house, and could afford to leave the shop for several years in their 20s
to go across the country to do flying experiments.

That would be unthinkable today due to rent & food & healthcare costs.

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JDiculous
I think that's the one thing that needs to be addressed more from basic income
advocates. Basic income alone will simply lead to inflation of housing prices
in artificially supply-constrained areas like NYC and SF.

Basic income should be coupled with government initiatives to increase the
supply of housing (eg. zoning and regulation changes to allow increased
density, subsidizing non-luxury apartments, land value tax).

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pkaye
One of the reasons people live in high population areas is because that is
where the jobs are. If we had some form of basic income, people could live
more spread out and reduce the demand on expensive high demand housing.

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jb613
government subsidies cause distortions. Somehow providing basic income to
incentivize people to live more in rural areas would only cause those
currently living in rural areas to be more costly. The salaries of farmers,
oil rig workers, truck drivers, miners, lumberjacks, etc... would rise.

Plug one hole in the dike and others will pop up. Just let the free market
work and people choose where they want to live and work.

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literallycancer
There are many villages and towns where a significant portion of the
properties is uninhabited, so an increase in population wouldn't necessarily
increase the cost of living there (up to a point). This is a real problem for
rural areas at least in Europe, and many places are offering various
incentives to try and lure some younger people, since otherwise they will be
completely empty in a few decades.

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gcr
What are some good MLK book recommendations for Thanksgiving break? I'd love
to get into more of his work but never had the opportunity to study it.

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WaltPurvis
This is an excellent anthology of some noteworthy King speeches and essays:

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0807034525/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0807034525/)

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ftrflyr
Take a look at Milton Friedman's thoughts as well. I believe MLK's stance was
largely influenced from what he knew about Negative Income Tax.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM)

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nathcd
I'm surprised I don't see negative income tax brought up in more basic income
discussions. A NIT with a flat tax[1] has always seemed to me to be a really
pragmatic way to implement a basic income.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax#Flat_tax_w...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax#Flat_tax_with_negative_income_tax)

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cpleppert
A negative income tax has the same issues as a basic income. It isn't remotely
affordable based on the current tax rates without large cuts to social
spending and/or eliminating it entirely.

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Apocryphon
Full excerpt from King’s book “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community”:
[https://medium.com/basic-income/mlk-on-guaranteed-income-
bfd...](https://medium.com/basic-income/mlk-on-guaranteed-income-
bfd060fd5314#.i3v0dnkya)

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dilemma
UBI is a practical impossibility because it isn't possible to answer the most
basic question in a satisfactory manner:

How high should that income be?

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llsf
I just watched the video, and a "Join NRA" Google ad appeared on the screen.
Really, Google ?!? Placing a "Join NRA" ad on a MLK Youtube video... Either it
is an awful coincidence or someone thinks it is okay to do this now.

~~~
grzm
I think you may be reading too much into it. What mechanisms are behind ad
placement? I haven't done any online marketing so I'm not familiar with how
advertising on YouTube works. So here's some speculation, none of which is
meant to imply that I'm trying to assume what you're thinking. There's too
little in your comment for me to do that :)

If there's no ad targeting, it'd just be coincidence, right? If there's some
sort of ad targeting based on some demographic data, what does that say? It
may just mean that you happen to match some criteria, like you happen to live
in a certain location. How about if the advertiser is targeting certain videos
or types of videos? Should that be allowed? Disallowed? Allowed only in some
circumstances? Maybe just not this advertiser under any circumstances? How
would you set up Google's advertising?

I guess I'm not sure what "someone thinks it is okay to do this now" implies.
Maybe I'm misinterpreting you?

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llsf
I might have over-react. I just hope that it is not a deliberate choice from
NRA to target such video. I get it that the targeting can be complex and
factor lots of different things. The end result here is a bit disturbing.

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grzm
I understand. It's hard not to react when something hits you emotionally, in
particular with what's been going on recently. I've been trying to figure out
how to navigate all of this as well, which is why I've been asking questions.
Thanks for being a part of that :)

