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The case for universal basic income UBI

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Pieter Steenekamp

The case for universal basic income UBI

I speculate that UBI *could* be very positive for humanity.

But there are many reasons why it could not work as well as intended too. Three main criticisms that come to mind are:

a) There are many people who need to be employed to have meaning in life. (please exclude me from this group)

b) The economy needs to provide incentives for people to do productive work to oil the gears of the economy, UBI removes this incentive.

c) It will just be too expensive

There could be many more valid criticisms of UBI of course.

For those who are interested in hearing the positive case for UBI, the clip of Ben Shapiro's interview with Andrew Yang is IMO a good resource for this. (21 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TABoe_wLPYc

Just a comment on this interview, I really like it if people with very different world views are having civilised conversations. This is one such an example.

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gepr

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Pieter Steenekamp

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

@Glen, re your "Ben Shapiro is a troll whose shtick is suckering people into "debates" just so he can get air time for his ideology."

I'm not knowledgeable about Ben Shapiro, what you say could be true about him in general, I just would not know.

Did you listen to the video clip before making the comments about Ben Shapiro?

After reading your comment I listened to the video clip again and Ben asked very good questions and gave the mic to Andrew Young and allowed Andrew to speak without interrupting or even disagreeing with him. Ben asked questions, listened to the answers and moved on and asked more questions. This video clip certainly does not support the view you expressed about Ben Shapiro.

You're welcome to do whatever you like, I'm not criticizing you, but personally I like to listen to the arguments of a wide range of different people and refrain as much as possible from hanging labels around peoples necks and attacking the man and not the argument.

On Tue, 4 May 2021 at 15:37, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ <[hidden email]> wrote:

a) How many people need employment for meaning? 10? 1M? How was that data gathered? Where is that data?

Worse yet, in a world defined such that you *die* unless you're employed, it's circular reasoning to argue that employment gives meaning to life. The only way to escape such a vicious circle is by providing other options. What if people didn't die because they can't buy food, pay rent, etc?

b) "The economy" is a diverse rhizome, not a needful entity. The concept of "productive" vs. non-productive work implies an optimization objective. What objective do you propose distinguishes productive from non-productive work? Is art non-productive? Is strip mining productive?

c) In a world where some people live long lives accumulating billions (soon to be trillions - Musk? Bezos?) of US dollars, it's difficult to understand how it might be too expensive. The only way I can make sense of that argument is if you fundamentally believe in the argument that cumulative wealth is *necessary* for some tasks (like colonizing Mars). If you believe that society *must* have cumulative wealth stores (e.g. the government, Musk, Bezos, etc.) in order to achieve [your favorite objectives], then that implies the vast majority will need to be poor or near poverty. So, any attempt to "lift all boats" is "too expensive".

But the constraining argument is that those crystals around which wealth accumulates have to come from somewhere. Efficient governments don't emerge by accident. We don't (yet) know how to engineer the emergence of Musks and Bezoses. That implies that we need a diverse pool of talent, most of which will end up non- or less than optimally productive. But some subset of which will be kernels needed for making progress on [your favorite objectives]. And that diversity includes non-productive people who can't pay rent, buy groceries, etc.

Therefore, UBI is necessary for [your favorite objectives].

p.s. Ben Shapiro is a troll whose shtick is suckering people into "debates" just so he can get air time for his ideology. It's a symptom of our postmodern society that we can't tell good from bad faith arguments. The Five Ws are ancient and still work: https://letterstoayounglibrarian.blogspot.com/2016/12/information-literacy-as-liberation.html

On 5/4/21 1:49 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> a) There are many people who need to be employed to have meaning in life. (please exclude me from this group)
>
> b) The economy needs to provide incentives for people to do productive work to oil the gears of the economy, UBI removes this incentive.
>
> c) It will just be too expensive

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gepr

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Pieter Steenekamp

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

@ Glen, Thanks but no thanks. I'm just not interested in Ben Shapiro and not going to waste my time researching him or even discussing him further. So from my side about Ben Shapiro, I'm outa here and I'm not going to make anymore comments on Ben.

My interest when I started the thread was in UBI and I used the video clip where, IMHO, Andrew Yang gave very good arguments for UBI. If you want to, in a different thread, discuss Andrew Yang, I will certainly participate. I have many good things to say about Andrew Yang.

On Tue, 4 May 2021 at 17:07, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Yes, I understand you might feel that way. But this is part of the shtick. It's a rhetorical tactic that very smart trolls hone and use well. To get a better understanding of who you're listening to (one of the Five W's), this article lays it out well:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/12/how-hollywood-invented-ben-shapiro

I also understand the typical reaction to apparent ad hominem. But, as I've argued on this list before, most accusations of ad hominem are, themselves, the fallacy fallacy. It may seem like I'm attacking the man, Ben Shapiro. But I'm not. I'm attacking the *brand*, the troll persona he and his agent have worked so hard to cultivate in order to colonize your mind. Ben Shapiro is not Ben Shapiro.

On 5/4/21 7:52 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> @Glen, re your /"Ben Shapiro is a troll whose shtick is suckering people into "debates" just so he can get air time for his ideology." /
> /
> /
> I'm not knowledgeable about Ben Shapiro, what you say could be true about him in general, I just would not know.
>
> Did you listen to the video clip before making the comments about Ben Shapiro?
>
> After reading your comment I listened to the video clip again and Ben asked very good questions and gave the mic to Andrew Young and allowed Andrew to speak without interrupting or even disagreeing with him. Ben asked questions, listened to the answers and moved on and asked more questions. This video clip certainly does not support the view you expressed about Ben Shapiro.
>
> You're welcome to do whatever you like, I'm not criticizing you, but personally I like to listen to the arguments of a wide range of different people and refrain as much as possible from hanging labels around peoples necks and attacking the man and not the argument.

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gepr

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

gepr

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

In an attempt to answer my own question (a), I found this article:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/tracking-wonder/201903/you-are-not-your-work

It's confirmation bias, for sure. But there are some interesting links. And I get to add "workism" to my basket of modern -isms, like scientism and wokeism. Seriously, though, with the "gig economy", it's difficult for me to imagine the person who drops off my food or Lyfts me home from the bar "derives their meaning of life" from that work. Most of them, and I try to talk to all of them, seem to believe it's the other way around, that their need for a job interferes with their ability to derive a meaning of life. (One such Lyft driver pumps out some super cool EDM and electronic trance, which he plays while driving us drunks around town -- good marketing. It's quite clear his meaning of life is not derived from his driving gig.)

A UBI to help sustain them through their derivation of a meaning of life seems so much more productive than any $ incentive we're applying by making them "buy" a car and depreciate it as they "make" that $. Although I disagree with the argument, one could argue that tipping exacerbates the problem, participates in the hoodwink that such gigs are in any way sustainable. A better answer is to allow them the resources to find more meaningful ways to use their time.

On 5/4/21 8:28 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:

> Hm. OK. If you'd prefer to talk about UBI (instead of my postscript), how about responses to these points:
>
> On 5/4/21 6:35 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
>> a) How many people need employment for meaning? 10? 1M? How was that data gathered? Where is that data?
>>
>> Worse yet, in a world defined such that you *die* unless you're employed, it's circular reasoning to argue that employment gives meaning to life. The only way to escape such a vicious circle is by providing other options. What if people didn't die because they can't buy food, pay rent, etc?
>>
>> b) "The economy" is a diverse rhizome, not a needful entity. The concept of "productive" vs. non-productive work implies an optimization objective. What objective do you propose distinguishes productive from non-productive work? Is art non-productive? Is strip mining productive?
>>
>> c) In a world where some people live long lives accumulating billions (soon to be trillions - Musk? Bezos?) of US dollars, it's difficult to understand how it might be too expensive. The only way I can make sense of that argument is if you fundamentally believe in the argument that cumulative wealth is *necessary* for some tasks (like colonizing Mars). If you believe that society *must* have cumulative wealth stores (e.g. the government, Musk, Bezos, etc.) in order to achieve [your favorite objectives], then that implies the vast majority will need to be poor or near poverty. So, any attempt to "lift all boats" is "too expensive".
>>
>> But the constraining argument is that those crystals around which wealth accumulates have to come from somewhere. Efficient governments don't emerge by accident. We don't (yet) know how to engineer the emergence of Musks and Bezoses. That implies that we need a diverse pool of talent, most of which will end up non- or less than optimally productive. But some subset of which will be kernels needed for making progress on [your favorite objectives]. And that diversity includes non-productive people who can't pay rent, buy groceries, etc.
>>
>> Therefore, UBI is necessary for [your favorite objectives].

uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Pieter Steenekamp

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

In reply to this post by gepr

@Glen, I'm a supporter of UBI and mentioned a couple of points I came across from people that're against it. I don't claim to have all the answers and I am open to listen to the arguments of those against it, that's why I mentioned them, but I don't support those claims so I'm not going to defend them.

The whole point of my post was that Andrew Yang answered the criticism against UBI much better than what I can. What I hoped would happen was that somebody would listen to the views expressed by Andrew Yang and we then discuss that.

It's fine by me if you don't want to listen to Andrew Yang as interviewed by this other guy (who's he again?, I just forgot his name), but then you miss the point of my post completely.

On Tue, 4 May 2021 at 17:32, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hm. OK. If you'd prefer to talk about UBI (instead of my postscript), how about responses to these points:

On 5/4/21 6:35 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
> a) How many people need employment for meaning? 10? 1M? How was that data gathered? Where is that data?
>
> Worse yet, in a world defined such that you *die* unless you're employed, it's circular reasoning to argue that employment gives meaning to life. The only way to escape such a vicious circle is by providing other options. What if people didn't die because they can't buy food, pay rent, etc?
>
> b) "The economy" is a diverse rhizome, not a needful entity. The concept of "productive" vs. non-productive work implies an optimization objective. What objective do you propose distinguishes productive from non-productive work? Is art non-productive? Is strip mining productive?
>
> c) In a world where some people live long lives accumulating billions (soon to be trillions - Musk? Bezos?) of US dollars, it's difficult to understand how it might be too expensive. The only way I can make sense of that argument is if you fundamentally believe in the argument that cumulative wealth is *necessary* for some tasks (like colonizing Mars). If you believe that society *must* have cumulative wealth stores (e.g. the government, Musk, Bezos, etc.) in order to achieve [your favorite objectives], then that implies the vast majority will need to be poor or near poverty. So, any attempt to "lift all boats" is "too expensive".
>
> But the constraining argument is that those crystals around which wealth accumulates have to come from somewhere. Efficient governments don't emerge by accident. We don't (yet) know how to engineer the emergence of Musks and Bezoses. That implies that we need a diverse pool of talent, most of which will end up non- or less than optimally productive. But some subset of which will be kernels needed for making progress on [your favorite objectives]. And that diversity includes non-productive people who can't pay rent, buy groceries, etc.
>
> Therefore, UBI is necessary for [your favorite objectives].

On 5/4/21 8:24 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> @ Glen, Thanks but no thanks. I'm just not interested in Ben Shapiro and not going to waste my time researching him or even discussing him further. So from my side about Ben Shapiro, I'm outa here and I'm not going to make anymore comments on Ben.
>
> My interest when I started the thread was in UBI and I used the video clip where, IMHO, Andrew Yang gave very good arguments for UBI. If you want to, in a different thread, discuss Andrew Yang, I will certainly participate. I have many good things to say about Andrew Yang.
>
> On Tue, 4 May 2021 at 17:07, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ <[hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote:
>
> Yes, I understand you might feel that way. But this is part of the shtick. It's a rhetorical tactic that very smart trolls hone and use well. To get a better understanding of who you're listening to (one of the Five W's), this article lays it out well:
>
> https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/12/how-hollywood-invented-ben-shapiro <https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/12/how-hollywood-invented-ben-shapiro>
>
> I also understand the typical reaction to apparent ad hominem. But, as I've argued on this list before, most accusations of ad hominem are, themselves, the fallacy fallacy. It may seem like I'm attacking the man, Ben Shapiro. But I'm not. I'm attacking the *brand*, the troll persona he and his agent have worked so hard to cultivate in order to colonize your mind. Ben Shapiro is not Ben Shapiro.

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gepr

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Pieter Steenekamp

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

Okay, I'm happy with that. It's just that on UBI we probably have very similar views. I also agree with the views expressed by the psychologytoday reference you gave above about You Are Not Your Work.

But, maybe my reading of your comments are wrong? Do you support UBI?

On Tue, 4 May 2021 at 18:39, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ <[hidden email]> wrote:

OK. Well, if Andrew were here, I'd be happy to discuss it with him. But he's not and you are.

The link you sent is to Ben Shapiro's brand marketing channel. Anyone who wants Ben Shapiro to make more money, please watch it and hit those like and subscribe buttons. 8^D

On 5/4/21 9:24 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> @Glen, I'm a supporter of UBI and mentioned a couple of points I came across from people that're against it. I don't claim to have all the answers and I am open to listen to the arguments of those against it, that's why I mentioned them, but I don't support those claims so I'm not going to defend them.
>
> The whole point of my post was that Andrew Yang answered the criticism against UBI much better than what I can. What I hoped would happen was that somebody would listen to the views expressed by Andrew Yang and we then discuss that.
>
> It's fine by me if you don't want to listen to Andrew Yang as interviewed by this other guy (who's he again?, I just forgot his name), but then you miss the point of my post completely.

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thompnickson2

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

In reply to this post by gepr

Ah, now THIS is the Glen I know and love. Your 10:00 post rekindled old rage concerning the incentive-value of money. Here I go. Up on my high horse. Hi, Ho, Silver. Budda bump, budda bump, budda bump, bump, bump.

The very little Marxism I know tells me that it is the "triumph" of capitalism to reduce all relationships to money. This seems right to rich people because the richer you get, the truer it becomes. I can imagine Besos, Gates, and Musk falling asleep at night, musing about which of them will first reach a trillion. If you've lost your soul and you've lost your wife, what else could they possibly want. Such people even turn women into a kind of coinage. (Cue Waspish Moral Outrage). But isn't that the point of UBI; that it frees people to think about something else? And yes, what IS this so-called "productivity"? The "happy ditch digger" and the "carefree slave" are all part of the same self-serving capitalist iconography. I am sure there are people who love to dig ditches, but if that's what they love to do, give them a thousand dollars a month for free and let them dig ditches for Habitat for Humanity in Peru, if that's what they feel like doing.

Glen, keeping your ad hominem firmly in mind, I am again going to use your post as opportunity to flog my old work which argues that it is capitalism's reduction of all ambition to coinage that makes it so toxic.

[end Rant]

Nick

Nick Thompson
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
Sent: Tuesday, May 4, 2021 10:00 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

In an attempt to answer my own question (a), I found this article:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/tracking-wonder/201903/you-are-not-your-work

It's confirmation bias, for sure. But there are some interesting links. And I get to add "workism" to my basket of modern -isms, like scientism and wokeism. Seriously, though, with the "gig economy", it's difficult for me to imagine the person who drops off my food or Lyfts me home from the bar "derives their meaning of life" from that work. Most of them, and I try to talk to all of them, seem to believe it's the other way around, that their need for a job interferes with their ability to derive a meaning of life. (One such Lyft driver pumps out some super cool EDM and electronic trance, which he plays while driving us drunks around town -- good marketing. It's quite clear his meaning of life is not derived from his driving gig.)

A UBI to help sustain them through their derivation of a meaning of life seems so much more productive than any $ incentive we're applying by making them "buy" a car and depreciate it as they "make" that $. Although I disagree with the argument, one could argue that tipping exacerbates the problem, participates in the hoodwink that such gigs are in any way sustainable. A better answer is to allow them the resources to find more meaningful ways to use their time.

On 5/4/21 8:28 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:

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gepr

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

This post was updated on .

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Pieter Steenekamp

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

I speculate that there is hope for Glen's wish to have some revolutionary change to the current money-based system. With the technological progress that's happening right now all the products and services all of humanity will be provided in abundance by robots and AI without humans at such a low cost that even if we have money, the cost would be so low that it's not worthwhile to sell it, it'll be free.
Of course there are no guarantees, we just don't know what's going to happen in the future. My speculation is simply based on the premise that the technological progress that's been happening for a long time will not stop. Why will it stop?

On Tue, 4 May 2021 at 20:52, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Reduction. All things in moderation, including moderation. Reduction is a triumph, if it captures what you're looking for. And fiat currency has done great things for the world, a cultural technology that allows us to explore possibilities we wouldn't have otherwise explored. Financial instruments have allowed us to spread ownership across demographics that would never have been allowed based on real property.

But those instruments are a reconstruction of the space that currency reduced out. And I think we're seeing that the reconstruction is trending dysfunctional. So, it's time to reconsider the initial reduction and, importantly, why the reconstruction isn't a cover for the original (full) space.

We are doing that in both ad-hoc ways (e.g. the Psychology today article, finding other dimensions by which to bolster the reduction) and fundamental ways (e.g. transhumanist experimentation of "what are we"). UBI is a reasonable suggestion to reduce suffering. But, ultimately, it's a capitalist suggestion, proposed by *conservatives* who want to prolong the status quo, to milk the current system for as long as they can. That's OK, of course. We try to balance exploitation with exploration and nobody knows crisply when to emphasize which.

On 5/4/21 11:16 AM, [hidden email] wrote:
> Ah, now THIS is the Glen I know and love. Your 10:00 post rekindled old rage concerning the incentive-value of money. Here I go. Up on my high horse. Hi, Ho, Silver. Budda bump, budda bump, budda bump, bump, bump.
>
> The very little Marxism I know tells me that it is the "triumph" of capitalism to reduce all relationships to money. This seems right to rich people because the richer you get, the truer it becomes. I can imagine Besos, Gates, and Musk falling asleep at night, musing about which of them will first reach a trillion. If you've lost your soul and you've lost your wife, what else could they possibly want. Such people even turn women into a kind of coinage. (Cue Waspish Moral Outrage). But isn't that the point of UBI; that it frees people to think about something else? And yes, what IS this so-called "productivity"? The "happy ditch digger" and the "carefree slave" are all part of the same self-serving capitalist iconography. I am sure there are people who love to dig ditches, but if that's what they love to do, give them a thousand dollars a month for free and let them dig ditches for Habitat for Humanity in Peru, if that's what they feel like doing.
>
> Glen, keeping your ad hominem firmly in mind, I am again going to use your post as opportunity to flog my old work which argues that it is capitalism's reduction of all ambition to coinage that makes it so toxic.

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gepr

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

thompnickson2

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

Pieter wrote:

My speculation is simply based on the premise that the technological progress that's been happening for a long time will not stop. Why will it stop?

Well, the first step would be to make a distinction between "progress" and "change", with the former being a subset of the latter. Now, the task is to see if there is any way to define "progress" transculturally. For me, culture bound as I am, hand and foot, the wordprocessor program was progress because it made it easier to do the things I love to do, and facebook was regress because it demanded I do things I did not want to do.

Nick

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
Sent: Tuesday, May 4, 2021 2:16 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

This bleeds back into my response to (c), which in essence was that we *need* diversity. One huge problem with technology is that tools bias the projects within which they're used. (To a hammer everything looks like a nail.) Hearkening to Ashby, if the diversity of the robots fails to match the diversity of the cultural and biological world, technological progress will be constrained by the culture set by the prior technology. And if that "funnel" from diverse to homogenous goes on too long, it'll crack, perhaps catastrophically, perhaps merely "disruptively". And if it's catastrophic, then we regress.

But with the transhumanist rhetoric (as opposed to the strong AI rhetoric), the diversity is more likely to maintain. Some of us rely on robots, others implant neural links, others edit our germlines, etc. The question is well put in the Ezra Klein podcast (I think Nick mentioned), where they ask whether we let the market decide who becomes transhuman and risk the same wealth asymmetry we see now or should we democratize it somehow? And if so, how?

On 5/4/21 12:07 PM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:

> I speculate that there is hope for Glen's wish to have some revolutionary change to the current money-based system. With the technological progress that's happening right now all the products and services all of humanity will be provided in abundance by robots and AI without humans at such a low cost that even if we have money, the cost would be so low that it's not worthwhile to sell it, it'll be free.

> Of course there are no guarantees, we just don't know what's going to happen in the future. My speculation is simply based on the premise that the technological progress that's been happening for a long time will not stop. Why will it stop?

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jon zingale

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

This post was updated on .

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

"""
The very little Marxism I know tells me that it is the "triumph" of
capitalism to reduce all relationships to money.
"""

To reduce all relationships to money is an operation that seeks to
objectify things via construal as scalar valuations. That is, two things
are considered the same if they trade the same. The pedantic here may
point out the possibility of vector valuations, but the idea for me would
be no different. This is one reason I feel that it is fair to criticize
EricC when he suggests that two theories ought to be considered the same
if they measure the same.

"""
Reduction is a triumph if it captures what you're looking for.
"""

When reductions capture what one is looking for then the resulting
categories make for powerful rhetoric. IMO, it is exactly that reductions
to crisp objects capture what *some* want, while obfuscating the desired
objects of others, that makes the whole reduction-objectification game
so insidious in practice (a kind of conceptual imperialism?). Sometimes
objects can be presented with such clarity and precision that it becomes
difficult to imagine any others, to dislodge unproductive beliefs or
practices, or to remember that the objects are fantastic shorthands.

"""
But, ultimately, it's a capitalist suggestion, proposed by *conservatives*
who want to prolong the status quo.
"""

And in theory, services could be provided (at reasonable prices) to these
*conservatives*, services that ultimately (once capitalism enters its
death throes and not even the most unscrupulous can frack it for value)
provide infrastructure for the next and hopefully more equitable world
to come.

Steve Smith

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

In reply to this post by gepr

I'm glad I held back from throwing in my own $.002 on this topic
earlier... I like the general arc it is on and is being articulated much
more gesturally than I think I am capable of.   I can't say I *fully*
follow Glen's use of reduction and reconstruction in technical detail
well, but it suggests an abstraction that rings hopeful if not
(necessarily) true for me.

Given that my trite belief that "when the road hazards are coming at us
faster than we can see much less avoid, that we should pump the brakes
and downshift" is based in an inapt (inept?) metaphor, and that in any
case we aren't going to do a whole lot of self-limiting under the
current aesthetic we (mostly) share (pedal to the metal and let 'er
roar!).

The Prepper/Survivalist community is mostly about trying to gather up
the resources they think will help them survive a crash or more
importantly the aftermath.   The post/transhumanists seem to be trying
to figure out how to strapon (or grow out of their own bodies') wings
and jet packs and road armor to escape or survive the inevitable crash.

Careening vehicle metaphors aside, I'm pleased to hear more and more
discussion that frames the economic aspect of "the culture war" as
*post* rather than *anti* capitalism. Whether technology makes
*everything* too cheap to meter or not, I think the relative abundance
of manufactured goods as well as commodities for the top 50% of the
first world is confronting the *scarcity* model that was (maybe?)
necessary to keep the engine (oops, vehicles made it back in) of
consumerist markets accelerating.

I am not sure that Yang has all (or even many) of the answers but I do
give him great credit for having promoted the question on the national
(and world?) stage with his run for President.   I had thought about UBI
and similar mechanisms before but somehow his presentation or affect or
maybe just timing brought it to me in a much more compelling way than
before.

I very much appreciate Glen's point about UBI being an intrinsically
capitalist proposal to try to keep their system going as long as
possible, I just hope we will use whatever time that buys us without
significant disruption to plan out what things might/could look like on
the other side of a revolution in (socioeconomic?) thinking that now
seem inevitable to me.    When I used to ski (poorly), on any given run,
there was likely a brief period of time when I realized I as absolutely
going to crash and burn, and if I had any choice in the matter it was
whether I was going to do it earlier rather than later and whether I was
going to take a big bite of ice-slicked mogul, some off-run powder, or
maybe a tree.    Maybe I'll just leap off a mogul and evaporate in the
sunlight mid-air (Kurzweil's Singularity)?

- Steve

On 5/4/21 12:52 PM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:

> Reduction. All things in moderation, including moderation. Reduction is a triumph, if it captures what you're looking for. And fiat currency has done great things for the world, a cultural technology that allows us to explore possibilities we wouldn't have otherwise explored. Financial instruments have allowed us to spread ownership across demographics that would never have been allowed based on real property.
>
> But those instruments are a reconstruction of the space that currency reduced out. And I think we're seeing that the reconstruction is trending dysfunctional. So, it's time to reconsider the initial reduction and, importantly, why the reconstruction isn't a cover for the original (full) space.
>
> We are doing that in both ad-hoc ways (e.g. the Psychology today article, finding other dimensions by which to bolster the reduction) and fundamental ways (e.g. transhumanist experimentation of "what are we"). UBI is a reasonable suggestion to reduce suffering. But, ultimately, it's a capitalist suggestion, proposed by *conservatives* who want to prolong the status quo, to milk the current system for as long as they can. That's OK, of course. We try to balance exploitation with exploration and nobody knows crisply when to emphasize which.
>
>
> On 5/4/21 11:16 AM, [hidden email] wrote:
>> Ah, now THIS is the Glen I know and love. Your 10:00 post rekindled old rage concerning the incentive-value of money. Here I go. Up on my high horse. Hi, Ho, Silver. Budda bump, budda bump, budda bump, bump, bump.
>>
>> The very little Marxism I know tells me that it is the "triumph" of capitalism to reduce all relationships to money. This seems right to rich people because the richer you get, the truer it becomes. I can imagine Besos, Gates, and Musk falling asleep at night, musing about which of them will first reach a trillion. If you've lost your soul and you've lost your wife, what else could they possibly want. Such people even turn women into a kind of coinage. (Cue Waspish Moral Outrage). But isn't that the point of UBI; that it frees people to think about something else? And yes, what IS this so-called "productivity"? The "happy ditch digger" and the "carefree slave" are all part of the same self-serving capitalist iconography. I am sure there are people who love to dig ditches, but if that's what they love to do, give them a thousand dollars a month for free and let them dig ditches for Habitat for Humanity in Peru, if that's what they feel like doing.
>>
>> Glen, keeping your ad hominem firmly in mind, I am again going to use your post as opportunity to flog my old work which argues that it is capitalism's reduction of all ambition to coinage that makes it so toxic.

gepr

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

This post was updated on .

In reply to this post by jon zingale

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

jon zingale

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

Whether de-objectification, projection pursuit, scaffold-hopping, or asignifying rupture, I am all for germs guiding what follows. Let the capitalists see nails, for who here hasn't opened a beer with a hammer?

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Steve Smith

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

On 5/4/21 4:11 PM, jon zingale wrote:

Whether de-objectification, projection pursuit, scaffold-hopping, or asignifying rupture, I am all for germs guiding what follows. Let the capitalists see nails, for who here hasn't opened a beer with a hammer?

I tried driving a nail with a beer once... I think the result was similar. Some kind of commutative relation holds... Can you write that in Haskell?

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