
The Rich Douchebag's Approach to Basic Income - pashapiro
https://medium.com/@pashapiro/the-rich-douchebags-approach-to-basic-income-73e9c64f9504#.wikxt269x
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ZoeZoeBee
The title should have been a dead giveaway to the weight of the article. Does
every Basic Income article make it to the top of HN now?

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matt_wulfeck
This article is total rubbish. It reads like the fan fiction "confessions"
that 9/11 truthers write.

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Uhhrrr
There are are reasons to be skeptical of BI, but the author is willfully
misunderstanding what it is ("all profits go to me"???) and being an asshole
about it.

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dragonwriter
I think (though I'm not entirely sure) that this is intended as a somewhat
satirical piece arguing _for_ basic income based on its ability to unleash
productive human potential trapped by economic circumstance, using the "all
profits go to me" arrangement as a device to be able to construct a self-
interested narrator so that the _social_ benefit being advocated becomes a
_personal_ benefit of the narrator.

That is, I'm sure its satirical; I'm less certain of the exact intent (and
particularly there are some choices of examples that are odd given the
apparent intent.)

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pashapiro
Author here. You pretty much nailed it.

The exact intent is what you describe plus "make people that read HN laugh".
If some of the meaning gets muddied for the sake of comedy, well, that's a
sacrifice I'm willing to make.

If it's not funny, well, that's the risk of satire. In any case, I'll keep
working on the story.

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darkstar999
I also thought it was great. I think people are put off because they hate the
character.

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pashapiro
Yeah, the darkness is a big part of the point. You should feel sort of dirty
when you're done reading it, but still be able to see that an entity driven by
greed can provide a social good.

Ideally, a good basic income program would provide a mix of incentives to
maximize both social and economic good. The story challenges the reader to
consider even the slimiest, scummiest greed as an incentive.

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loco5niner
What a horrible article.

