
The principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income (2015) - drawnalong
https://medium.com/@thersa/creative-citizen-creative-state-a3cef3f25775#.3n4hli2vj
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golemotron
UBI seems like a good idea but it is important to recognize that the problem
it seeks to solve has a cultural component too. Some people will use free
money to build enriching lives. Others will fall into various addictions
because they haven't found meaning. I'd like to see a UBI conversation that
discusses is this point because it is significant and the history of welfare
shows that it is real.

~~~
throwaway2048
The entire point of UBI is to get rid of 19th century style notions of worthy
and unworthy poor people, thats a huge part of the inefficency and waste of
the current system.

~~~
brbsix
By unworthy I assume you mean unworthy of our support and sympathy?

What differentiates the "19th century style" worthy and unworthy poor is that
unworthy poor are thought to have made poor decisions and brought about their
circumstances on themselves whereas the worthy poor were seen as suffering
through little to no fault of their own.

Prior to the welfare state (which makes no such distinction) the "unworthy
poor" served as an example of what not to do. Do we really want to discard
that wisdom (even more than we already have)?

Put another way, is every poor person equally deserving of our support and
sympathy? I would think not.

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throwaway2048
The arguement is that such distinctions are a (massive) net harm to soceity,
and mostly born of fake outrage news cycyle "trailer park welfare queen"
bullshit. We would be better off without such nessisarily subjective
judgements, and just do a better job of ensuring everyone can meet their basic
needs.

~~~
golemotron
So the plan is to do UBI rather than get rid of "fake outrage news cycle
'trailer park welfare queen' bullshit"?

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ThomPete
What most of these cases get wrong is that they confuse UBI as yet another way
to deal with unemployment as the market corrects itself and new jobs are
created.

I.e. it's seen as this temporary state that we might or might not be in for a
limited amount of time.

The truth is that UBI is meant to deal with the fact that we will more or less
all be unemployed and have no jobs and thus no income.

It's not meant to solve an isolated problem with the labour market, it's meant
to solve the realization that there wont be any.

~~~
beat
It's not so much that there won't be a labor market, but rather than radical
changes to the labor market are accelerating.

Two centuries ago, well over 90% of income earners were farmers. Today, it's
like 2% and dropping. But unemployment didn't become a more massive problem
than it was then. Labor became available for other purposes, enabling the
industrial revolution.

~~~
chrisco255
We had 25%+ unemployment during the Great Depression, at a time when hardly
any women were in the workforce. I would say that was a much more difficult
time than this great stagnation we find ourselves in currently. Our economy is
now largely service-based, but we are still quite a ways off from automating
most services. There's a lot of speculation that the economy will imminently
suffer rapid upheaval with few jobs to replace the ones that are automated,
but it remains speculative.

~~~
ThomPete
What you and others get wrong in that analysis is that you don't take into
account that just one algorithm have to learn something then all the others
can do the same.

Point machine learning towards a problem and things that normally was
cumbersome and took several people to do is suddenly done in the fraction of a
second.

It's like claiming that if an alien race landed on planet earth with superior
skills and superior technology it wouldn't effect the human ability to survive
because we endured battles with other species before. We can't use history to
teach us much since the opponent is different.

This is not speculation anymore. This is unfolding right in front of us and we
better take it serious.

~~~
chrisco255
Machine learning is still far from automating most services. If anything,
machine learning will create as many jobs as it will destroy.

~~~
ThomPete
You must be able to provide some examples of jobs that will be created.

So when machine learning will remove the need for radiologist and many
surgeons as it's already well underway to. What areas is it that these doctors
will then be able to work in thats going to be of value?

It's ironic how steadfast many of you are in this idea that more jobs will be
created when there is no evidence it's the case and the new jobs that are
created require much less than whatever it replaced.

You are also confusing globalization with actual job creation in the west.

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jsprogrammer
The byline appears to have a redundancy, or a contradiction:

>There is an increasing global conversation about the idea of a ‘Universal
Basic Income’ – a universal weekly payment to all eligible citizens.

Wouldn't everyone be eligible for a universal basic income? Are all persons
eligible citizens? Is the article actually talking about an ‘Eligible
Citizens' Basic Income’?

~~~
hermannj314
I'm guessing criminals (current and former), drug addicts, and the willfully
unemployed wouldn't be eligible. These are the vulnerable, marginalized and
(sometimes) disenfranchised groups that America loves to shit on when it comes
to social programs and basic rights.

~~~
josscrowcroft
> _" I'm guessing criminals (current and former), drug addicts, and the
> willfully unemployed wouldn't be eligible."_

I believe "criminals (current and former), drug addicts, and the willfully
unemployed" are all eligible under most proposed schemes, although the income
level may differ for current prisoners.

Edit: according to the RSA blog introducing their proposal: "Prisoners would
not receive it."

[https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-
articles/rs...](https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/rsa-
blogs/2015/12/in-support-of-a-universal-basic-income--introducing-the-rsa-
basic-income-model/)

> _" These are the vulnerable, marginalized and (sometimes) disenfranchised
> groups that America loves to shit on when it comes to social programs and
> basic rights._"

The RSA (publisher of this report) is British.

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hermannj314
I know. I have no doubt the British have a sensible system that treats human
beings with dignity. I was speaking about US hypothetically.

I would think when the state acts as ward to an individual, the agency would
receive the BI on their behalf.

I've always felt basic income would greatly simplify many funding /
administrative questions. Perhaps my view is too simplistic.

~~~
c22
> I would think when the state acts as ward to an individual, the agency would
> receive the BI on their behalf.

Probably not a good idea if we want to see our prison population lessen in the
future.

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jupiterrising
[deleted]

~~~
hermannj314
The current system in America provides a disincentive to work.

Social programs generally are not considered as income and do not preclude you
from being eligible for other social programs (i.e. the benefits stack). This
creates the unfortunate situation that some people that don't work at all
receive more annual income (in kind) from the government than their working
neighbors. It works out to nearly $60k per year in benefits.

I support the idea of a basic income that strives to create an equitable
situation for the working class.

~~~
aoeusnth1
Absolutely - and UBI would free people who want to work from having to find
dead-end jobs. They would have the financial freedom to pursue education,
volunteering or educational unpaid internships.

~~~
chrisco255
This idea of a "dead-end job" is foreign to me. Only privileged, spoiled
people talk like this. All job experience is valuable and will teach you
lessons if you let it. If you can't look at even an entry-level job as a
chance to gather experience and use it as a stepping stone to something
better, and you'd rather sit back and be idle and privileged with some welfare
check over working then you're the problem, not the economy.

~~~
JDiculous
No, dead-end jobs are very much a real phenomenon. Working as a janitor is not
a stepping stone to anything except more minimum wage janitorial work.

Meanwhile as a software engineer, the work you do can be put on your resume
and used as leverage for better opportunities.

~~~
chrisco255
Not unless you make it so. No one who's ever determined to educate themselves
or earn their way to a better position has ever been stuck as a janitor their
whole lives.

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sctb
We updated the URL from [https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-
articles/re...](https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-
articles/reports/basic-income), which points to this.

