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Think of it: The government prints more money or perhaps — god forbid — it taxes some corporate profits, then it showers the cash down on the people so they can continue to spend. As a result, more and more capital accumulates at the top. And with that capital comes more power to dictate the terms governing human existence.
UBI really just turns us from stakeholders or even citizens to mere consumers.
Meanwhile, UBI also obviates the need for people to consider true alternatives to living lives as passive consumers. Solutions like platform cooperatives, alternative currencies, favor banks, or employee-owned businesses, which actually threaten the status quo under which extractive monopolies have thrived, will seem unnecessary. Why bother signing up for the revolution if our bellies are full? Or just full enough?
Under the guise of compassion, UBI really just turns us from stakeholders or even citizens to mere consumers. Once the ability to create or exchange value is stripped from us, all we can do with every consumptive act is deliver more power to people who can finally, without any exaggeration, be called our corporate overlords.
No, income is nothing but a booby prize. If we're going to get a handout, we should demand not an allowance but assets. That's right: an ownership stake.
https://medium.com/s/powertrip/universal-basic-income-is-silicon-valleys-latest-scam-fd3e130b69a0
(Score: 2) by rleigh on Monday October 15 2018, @09:32AM (30 children)
Pretty much everyone has the capacity to create. Most of us are not "dumb criminals". Work is a creative outlet for most of us. In its absence, many would be denied to opportunity to make any difference to the world. We already see the destructive effects for people trapped on welfare dependency, and UBI takes that to the next level.
By "destroying virtual stuff" I take it you mean playing computer games. Gaming is fundamentally meaningless and unproductive. Fun for an hour or so, but not the basis of a meaningful and happy existence. I can't believe you are even seriously making that suggestion; it belies any serious consideration of the situation, and belittles the reality many people already have to face.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @10:11AM (8 children)
Most of the populace hides it quite perfectly. If you cannot offer a reliable way to unhide it, truth or falsity of your hypothesis means precisely nothing.
What percent of usual hobbies are meaningful and productive? What percent of regular jobs, come to that?
A person doing the work doable by a robot or a program, is by definition not more creative than said robot or program. Same as with a slave turning a wheel in place of a horse; when a human being gets reduced to a draft animal, it's "meaningful" all right but with the wrong type of meaning.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by rleigh on Monday October 15 2018, @01:08PM (5 children)
"Most of the populace hides it quite perfectly."
I find your attitude regarding your fellow human beings revolting. Given the opportunity, most of us have the aptitude to make something of ourselves. All of us can contribute something to society at large, no matter how small or insignificant. You don't need to be one of the elite to be useful and have purpose.
"What percent of usual hobbies are meaningful and productive?"
It doesn't matter whether your or I think something lacks meaning or is unproductive. Hobbies aren't meant to be so. The meaning lies solely within the person doing the hobby. It has meaning *for them*. But... hobbies alone aren't sufficient for most people to be the sole focus of our lives. We have family, friends, jobs, and other things going on; the hobby activities fill the fits of free time we fit around all the other stuff. We all need things in our live which provide the purpose and meaning which motivates us to get up, and live in the real world. UBI would remove that for a significant number of people. The incentive to get up, go out and earn some money to keep your family going is really important; our society isn't organised the way it is by accident, and we topple the key pillars of the stability of our society at our peril.
Gaming can be an interesting diversion. But it's not a substitute for real life. It's a waste of your life if not indulged in with some degree of moderation and self-control. It can't substitute for the meaning and satisfaction gained from doing real stuff that affects the real world, not for most people. Even the most casual conversation with a stranger has more meaning and importance then self-indulgent time wasting.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @02:19PM
And I find your attitude placing your emotions before demonstrable facts lunatic. So what? You, I, and the populace are what we are.
Once more: WHAT aptitude has someone with an IQ of 70 in a world of robots and (simplistic) AIs? Stop regurgitating sound bites and THINK.
Now you start contradicting yourself: "Gaming is fundamentally meaningless and unproductive." is what you argued just ONE message ago. Doublethink, or amnesia?
Yeah, sure it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour#Punitive_versus_productive_labour [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Monday October 15 2018, @02:26PM
And... exactly how UBI suddenly robs such a person of the aptitude of making something of himself?
This is like saying "A trapeze artist will suddenly lose his aptitude if he trains with a safety net".
Because UBI is exactly that: a safety net arresting your financial fall if you drop hard from what you are attempting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 15 2018, @10:09PM (2 children)
I see nothing in your post indicating that the attitude is wrong. I'll note here that a better approach would be to note that if there really were an overwhelming population of destroyers versus creators, we wouldn't have a civilization in the first place.
Gaming is one way to get those most casual conversations with strangers on the other side of the world. It's not bad communication-wise as hobbies go, if you're playing massive multi-player.
My view on this is that this is much like genetic expression. A gene "expresses" itself, if it has some concrete effect on the world. If that effect is positive to the organisms ability to survive and reproduce, then the gene survives to spread itself through the population. Similarly, when we do stuff in the real world, be it a job or a "hobby" with real world application, we influence the world in a way that improves our survival and improves further our ability to shape the world. A UBIer with a full time hobby of games may be improving themselves, but they don't have independence. They won't have much ability to control their lives, if someone pulls the plug on their UBI.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16 2018, @03:38AM (1 child)
Same goes for lots of people with jobs. Heck in the USA their health care is often tied to their job.
Those people would have even less power and freedom than the UBI consumers the submitter objects to - since they would have to work to live - they would be shackled to their jobs for many hours a day for a wage that won't go up if the robots don't get more expensive or worse. There are plenty of people in the world who don't have independence from their jobs. And a minority that if freed from having to do their jobs might actually come up with stuff that's interesting or even useful to many others, even if it would be a one time thing and not a "job".
Right now the robots are far from good enough to most people's jobs for cheap enough. But if the robots get good and cheap enough, why should people be forced to compete against the robots just to survive? That's just a race to the bottom.
Just think of the Chinese and Indian workers as the first wave of robots. Are the jobs they took really coming back to the USA? The Chinese workers can still compete with the robots for now. And they certainly can outcompete many workers in the USA: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/01/16/169528579/outsourced-employee-sends-own-job-to-china-surfs-web [npr.org]
The Chinese companies are looking to replace those workers with robots. They will be forced to climb up the ladder to escape the robots, or die. Guess whose jobs some of those workers will take?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 16 2018, @04:01AM
Well, if you pulled their UBI, they'd still be employed. If you pulled their job, they can always find another. It's not like a UBI where you can't find another sugar daddy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @02:04PM (1 child)
Many industries have developed out of hobbies - PC's, most things electronic, aeroplanes, rockets, drones, SCUBA. travel, GNU, linux.
(Score: 2) by rleigh on Monday October 15 2018, @08:45PM
While this is certainly true, it does not imply that it is sustainable or desirable for society at large to live this way.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday October 15 2018, @03:50PM (20 children)
"Want fries with that?" is not a creative outlet. But if enough people (for example, every citizen) is in a position where they can quit and do arts and crafts instead (perhaps beautify the neighborhood or sell their creations), employers will need to either pay a lot more and offer a better work/life balance so their employees can find a creative outlet or find a way for the work to be a creative outlet for the employees.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @05:04PM (19 children)
Which is why Indian reservations aren't dumps.
Oh, wait
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday October 15 2018, @06:32PM
The key cause of reservations (and city ghettos, and religious compounds) becoming, and remaining, dumps arises because:
(a) It's easy to lever geographically isolated individuals into culturally isolated insular cliques using little more than nonsensical finger-pointing at a claimed "enemy", and...
(b) Because almost every time such an insular clique forms, it generates its own patois and style which serve to form a very strong basis for everyone else isolating the group. Or IOW, the enemy now actually exists.
Once the cultural isolation reaches a critical point, most people inside don't reach out, and most people outside don't reach in — the isolated group descends deeply into antisocial patterns and the end result is terrible to behold. Very few people, relatively speaking, manage to pull themselves out of that kind of muck.
Once you've invested in your own special set of pseudo-identity-based isolationist rationales and complemented that with behaviors that "outsiders" will find repugnant or difficult to comprehend, you're done, and those "outsiders" will promptly stick a fork in you.
FYI, I have lived, longish-term, in two different ghettos (10y, 4y) and presently live right next door to an indian reservation (30y.) All three were, and remain, outright hellholes.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday October 15 2018, @07:29PM (17 children)
There are many reasons the reservations are dumps. A big one is that the various government programs all carry strings that prevent exactly the things I suggested as outlets.
The one case where that has changed is overwhelmed by the baggage of several generations growing up under a system where the strings were firmly attached.
We need to get rid of those strings ASAP so as to not train more people to fail.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 15 2018, @11:50PM (16 children)
Just remember that UBI is a string as well.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday October 16 2018, @12:01AM (15 children)
Nope. You get the money, you do what you want with it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 16 2018, @12:17AM (14 children)
Unless you don't get the money. Leaving the country and renouncing citizenship would be one such way to lose UBI. And of course, laws can be passed to remove or reduce UBI for any scary circumstance that the legislatures or security apparatus can dream up. It'd be a sleazy way to cut costs of the program, should they overcommit spending to it.
In addition, what hoops will you need to jump through to show that you're who you claim you are and deserve that UBI check? What information will you need to give to the authorities? Even a relatively innocuous program like this is an avenue for government authorities to exert control over you and extract information about you.
(Score: 4, Touché) by sjames on Tuesday October 16 2018, @01:39AM (13 children)
It takes a lot less than that to lose your job.
Your argument reeks of desperation.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 16 2018, @04:02AM (12 children)
And it takes a lot less than that to get another job.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday October 16 2018, @06:26AM (11 children)
Also, you should look up the meaning of "no strings attached". You are probably deliberately stretching the meaning just to have a pseudo argument, but just In case, I suggest looking it up.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 16 2018, @01:59PM (10 children)
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday October 16 2018, @03:25PM (9 children)
Here's a hint, those might be risks or concerns (and some easily avoided), but they are not strings attached. REALLY, go look up what that expression means!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 16 2018, @05:19PM (8 children)
The problem here is that every government program that doles out money has strings attached by implication. For example, they don't need to gather information about you in order to write UBI checks. But that will become necessary when my 500 children (John0 through John499, of course) start collecting UBI checks. Fraud and deceit always creep into any consideration of public goods like the UBI. The reactions to that invariably create strings.
Similarly, once money is doled out, someone will desire to use that stream of funds to influence or control the general population. It's human nature to meddle, and the existence of the UBI provides a great lever for such. That's another string.
And of course, I mentioned the obvious, that you have to stay a citizen in order to get the UBI. That creates an even higher barrier to exit for people in the US. I'll note here that one of the key ways to reduce income and wealth inequality is to allow freer movement of people.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday October 16 2018, @05:58PM (7 children)
Sorry no. You don't get to redefine words. You get the money with no strings attached. There exist risks that you may not continue getting money, but that's not related to how you choose to spend what you already got unless you foolishly contribute it to a right winger's campaign.
As for your arguments that it encourages you to stay in the U.S., what do you suggest? "OMG NO! We can't make the U.S. that good of a place to live, people might want to stay!!!". Perhaps we should turn the U.S. into a "third world shit hole" so people won't feel compelled to stay?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 16 2018, @06:36PM (6 children)
Why are you only looking at that for your strings? I think you should just reread my posts and realize thereafter that strings not only manifest in constraints on how one spends money.
What happens if the US no longer is such a wonderful place to stay, for example, because of a theocratic takeover of the country? It's not a strong string, but it is a string that complicates your efforts (and the efforts of your friends and family) to get out.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday October 16 2018, @07:22PM (5 children)
Because that is what is meant by no strings attached. It always has been. I said it that way to specifically contrast it with current safety net programs that fain due to significant strings being attached.
Otherwise, we can all be deeply concerned that if an asteroid ghits the earth, your job may be gone and other potential employers dead.
Now SHOO! Go buy a dictionary, or at least read this [thefreedictionary.com].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 16 2018, @11:11PM (4 children)
From your own link:
I already noted three things that qualify. The first counts as a special condition. Create a UBI and someone will need a bunch of info and power to prevent fraud. The second is an implicit obligation. Create the UBI and it will need to be defended from the busy bodies who will want to use it as a societal modification tool (particularly difficult since it was created for that purpose). And finally, the bit about having to retain citizenship in order to continue to receive the UBI is a typical restriction.
Now that we've settled that, I'll summarize my side. I merely pointed out that UBI has some strings attached to itself. It's nowhere as bad as poorly designed needs-base stuff that encourages people to stay in poverty. But they are there.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday October 17 2018, @12:21AM (3 children)
It's funny how everybody I have ever spoken with but you shares my understanding of the phrase.
But note that your rather over-broad definition of strings attached covers literally everything including breathing since nobody is guaranteed their next breath.
But you do seem at last to see my point. Without the means testing and restrictions on how it can be spent, it avoids being a poverty trap.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 17 2018, @01:38AM (2 children)
The dictionary shares my understanding of the phrase too.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday October 17 2018, @02:13AM (1 child)
Only if you read it sideways with the wrong prescription glasses.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 17 2018, @10:40AM