
Basic Income, Not Basic Jobs: Against Hijacking Utopia - lainon
http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/16/basic-income-not-basic-jobs-against-hijacking-utopia/
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tom_mellior
Good article. Money quote: "Basic income is unlimited runway. Entrepreneurs
can feel free to try out crazy ideas without the constant pressure of losing
their shirt; people in between jobs can feel free to spend time looking for
options they can tolerate. Basic jobs solves none of these problems, and
maintains the time pressures that prevent people from exploring interesting
ideas or realizing their full potential."

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batty_alex
These things could also be achieved with government spending into things like:
better unemployment guarantees, grants for entrepreneurs, or low-interest no-
nonsense business loans.

How does basic income solve the problem? If the income just covers expenses,
where do you get the money on top of your BI to be an entrepreneur?

~~~
tom_mellior
> better unemployment guarantees

I don't know what you mean here.

> grants for entrepreneurs

You have to apply for grants, with a business idea that someone else has to
consider sound. Not that good for trying out "crazy ideas" as the article
mentioned.

> low-interest no-nonsense business loans

A loan is still a loan and doesn't abolish the "constant pressure of losing
their shirt" the article mentioned.

Free money without strings attached gives you more freedom than non-free money
with strings attached, I'm not sure why we're even arguing about that.

> If the income just covers expenses, where do you get the money on top of
> your BI to be an entrepreneur?

Well, you won't be able to build a semiconductor factory in your bedroom on
the UBI, but neither will you get a grant or no-nonsense business loan for
that. The UBI can help entrepreneurs in industries with low capital
requirements, like software development. A few people with laptops getting
together and developing the next Angry Birds or Facebook or whatnot.

As for how you get _more_ money to have _more_ starting capital, there can
still be grants and loans and stuff, why wouldn't there be? Banks will
continue to exist and will need to loan their money out. But also, you could
get a job and earn money, like today, and save up. Or get a part-time job or
whatever.

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commandlinefan
I've been somewhat blessed that my first interaction with government income
didn't happen until last year, when the company I was working for shut down
unexpectedly (I came in to work on Tuesday morning, joined a conference call
where they announced that we were all terminated, effective immediately).
Although I didn't expect to be out of work long, this was right before
Thanksgiving, so I didn't expect to find anything until January at the
earliest, and filed for unemployment - after all, that's what it's there for,
right? Of course, the application process was ridiculously complicated and
poorly documented, but I got through it and started collecting, I think,
something like $500/week (which I still owed income tax on). Well, better than
nothing, I guess. There's a seemingly perfectly reasonable requirement,
though, that while you're collecting unemployment, you have to make 5 job-
search contacts per week. Of course, it's entirely unclear what constitutes a
job-search contact or how you're supposed to report them. Or what, exactly,
happens if you fall short. Well, I got a job offer not too long afterward, but
there was a two-week waiting period while they completed a background check on
me. But I was stil collecting unemployment during that two weeks, as I was,
after all, still unemployed. So, am I supposed to keep making job-search
contacts? Of course, nobody could give me a straight answer (and you'll be on
hold for hours trying to get in touch with somebody). So, to be on the safe
side, I kept sending out resumes to companies that I had no intention of
following through with just to comply with what seemed to be a legal
requirement. This sort of well-intentioned, but one-size-fits-all sort of
hidden regulation is exactly what concerns me about any government income
program... they can't make the rules too clear because if they did, clever
people would have an easier time taking advantage.

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dragonwriter
> This sort of well-intentioned, but one-size-fits-all sort of hidden
> regulation is exactly what concerns me about any government income
> program... they can't make the rules too clear because if they did, clever
> people would have an easier time taking advantage.

That problem seems to be an aspect of the broader problem with _conditional_
government income programs that _unconditional_ basic income is aimed right at
the heart of.

It's very hard to game a rule of, e.g., ”If you are a citizen or lawful
permanent resident, you get exactly $X/month” doesn't have a lot of room for
manipulation, despite being quite clear.

~~~
commandlinefan
> If you are a citizen or lawful permanent resident

I see a flaw right there...

~~~
undersuit
What's the flaw?

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Stanleyc23
FYI China has had a similar concept for a while now
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_rice_bowl](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_rice_bowl)

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powerapple
Basic Income is a technology problem, it will come one day. But not now.

~~~
petermcneeley
You have this completely backwards. Technology is making the lack of strong
UBI a potentially bad situation. UBI is simply redistribution of surplus, this
would consist of say bread and water in the middle ages, to healthcare today.
The lack of UBI does not indicate a lack of technology but a lack collective
social conscience.

~~~
perl4ever
I have not seen anyone else mention it, but I think there is a significant
factor in the resistance of elites to UBI that they will not admit, but is
important to think about. I don't think the cost of UBI is at issue per se,
but the social consequences. They may well consider that UBI would lead to a
significant increase in the number of idle people, and idle people are more
likely to become restive. Not being hungry may prevent riots, but so does
having something to do all day. From the point of view of a billionaire, it
may not be all about whether they have $10 billion or $11 billion, but rather
what maintains the social order.

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whataretensors
We do not need government involved in basic income. We only need capital. See
[https://www.mannabase.com/](https://www.mannabase.com/)

Universal income should be universal, not contingent on creating state slavery
as a precursor to full out socialism.

~~~
tom_mellior
Full out socialism is and has always been based on earning wages by _working_.
The UBI is very much the opposite of socialism in this regard.

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simonsarris
I wrote the article he is responding to. My reply is here:
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/16/basic-income-not-
basic-...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/16/basic-income-not-basic-jobs-
against-hijacking-utopia/#comment-629475)

~~~
tom_mellior
In the other article you'd like to see refuted, you're mostly attacking
windmills. I've led many UBI discussions, and _never ever_ have I met a UBI
proponent who said that people with medical needs should have their health
insurance taken away and replaced by the same UBI amount healthy people get.

For other things you point out the solution yourself, like conservatorship,
which exists.

Yet another point is the old "they will just drink booze all day and sit in
front of the TV". Which is certainly true for some people, and empirically
known to be false for others. Lots of people are rich enough to drop their job
and switch to drinking and TV all day... yet we know that they don't.

~~~
tom_mellior
> you're mostly attacking windmills

Or strawmen, rather. (Too late to edit.)

