Here's what a Sam Altman-backed basic income experiment found:
A recent study on basic income, backed by OpenAI founder Sam Altman, shows that giving low-income people guaranteed paydays with no strings attached can lead to their working slightly less, affording them more leisure time.
The study, which is one of the largest and most comprehensive of its kind, examined the impact of guaranteed income on recipients' health, spending, employment, ability to relocate and other facets of their lives.
Altman first announced his desire to fund the study in a 2016 blog post on startup accelerator Y Combinator's site.
Some of the questions he set out to answer about how people behave when they're given free cash included, "Do people sit around and play video games, or do they create new things? Are people happy and fulfilled?" according to the post. Altman, whose OpenAI is behind generative text tool ChatGPT, which threatens to take away some jobs, said in the blog post that he thinks technology's elimination of "traditional jobs" could make universal basic income necessary in the future.
How much cash did participants get?
For OpenResearch's Unconditional Cash Study, 3,000 participants in Illinois and Texas received $1,000 monthly for three years beginning in 2020. The cash transfers represented a 40% boost in recipients' incomes. The cash recipients were within 300% of the federal poverty level, with average incomes of less than $29,000. A control group of 2,000 participants received $50 a month for their contributions.
Basic income recipients spent more money, the study found, with their extra dollars going toward essentials like rent, transportation and food.
Researchers also studied the free money's effect on how much recipients worked, and in what types of jobs. They found that recipients of the cash transfers worked 1.3 to 1.4 hours less each week compared with the control group. Instead of working during those hours, recipients used them for leisure time.
"We observed moderate decreases in labor supply," Eva Vivalt, assistant professor of economics at the University of Toronto and one of the study's principal investigators, told CBS MoneyWatch. "From an economist's point of view, it's a moderate effect."
More autonomy, better health
Vivalt doesn't view the dip in hours spent working as a negative outcome of the experiment, either. On the contrary, according to Vivalt. "People are doing more stuff, and if the results say people value having more leisure time — that this is what increases their well-being — that's positive."
In other words, the cash transfers gave recipients more autonomy over how they spent their time, according to Vivalt.
"It gives people the choice to make their own decisions about what they want to do. In that sense, it necessarily improves their well-being," she said.
Researchers expected that participants would ultimately earn higher wages by taking on better-paid work, but that scenario didn't pan out. "They thought that if you can search longer for work because you have more of a cushion, you can afford to wait for better jobs, or maybe you quit bad jobs," Vivalt said. "But we don't find any effects on the quality of employment whatsoever."
At a time when even Americans with insurance say they have trouble staying healthy because they struggle to afford care, the study results show that basic-income recipients actually increased their spending on health care services.
Cash transfer recipients experienced a 26% increase in the number of hospitalizations in the last year, compared with the average control recipient. The average recipient also experienced a 10% increase in the probability of having visited an emergency department in the last year.
Researchers say they will continue to study outcomes of the experiment, as other cities across the U.S. conduct their own tests of the concept.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mcgrew on Monday July 29 2024, @01:26PM (12 children)
Do people sit around and play video games, or do they create new things?
Depends on the individual people. I'm retired, living on a pension and Social Security, about $45k a year which is plenty to suit my needs. As I'm not a money worshiper (the love of money is the worst of addictions, I pity the billionaires; I have enough, they never can) I write books and post them in their entirety on one of my websites.
My dad hand-crafted pocket knives.
A bartender at the track shack is retired, and tends bar just to get out of the house.
A woman on Britain's generous welfare system wrote Harry Potter.
My oldest daughter is middle aged and disabled. She watches TV and plays video games.
The actual data would be interesting, what percentage played games as opposed to writing, painting, or otherwise creating? Few of us are truly creative.
Impeach Donald Palpatine and his sidekick Elon Vader
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Username on Monday July 29 2024, @01:57PM (4 children)
I don't think getting extra income would motivate people to contribute to society. It would just increase taxes on other things, making life more expensive.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Tork on Monday July 29 2024, @07:18PM (2 children)
You might be more optimistic if you had seen my FB friends list starting with the lockdown. A number of my buddies took up learning something new in one way or another. This includes both myself and my wife. The issue was simply a lack of time.
I'm merely offering an unsupported anecdote, not data. I'm not suggesting more than that. This is why I'm glad they are performing tests.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Touché) by Thexalon on Tuesday July 30 2024, @03:14AM (1 child)
Pandemic times definitely gave us a nice preview of what happens if people don't have to be constantly running the rat race just to survive. From singing sea shanties to baking bread at home to learning what they really think about their families.
I'm pretty sure that also was the motivation behind trying to force all the office drones back into cubicles. We can't let them get too much freedom, otherwise they might become aware of how much they're being screwed.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 30 2024, @05:51AM
>the motivation behind trying to force all the office drones back into cubicles.
I saw an article claiming that many companies pushed RTO to drive a RIF, they mostly wanted to reduce staff so RTO was a way to do that quickly.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday July 31 2024, @12:38PM
Yet you have absolutely no data to back up your assertion. People get bored.
Impeach Donald Palpatine and his sidekick Elon Vader
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2024, @02:03PM (1 child)
I wonder what the migration path would be like for countries without welfare or similar. How do you get from "capitalist" to "basic income".
After all there's a good chance the AIs would get cheaper and more capable as the years go by and start outcompeting most humans in many fields.
$45k/year is a lot of money in a cheaper country. Not saying you should move. But some with good health and fewer ties/responsibilities might consider travel or long term stay in various other countries.
Apparently it's now enough for a family of 4 in Tokyo: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Tokyo [numbeo.com]
I hear Japan is a nice place to visit as a tourist but not so nice to work in...
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 30 2024, @05:53AM
I gave serious consideration to migration to Singapore... But, having grown up in the racist US South as a white man, putting myself on the minority side of Asian culture didn't seem like a great idea...
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday July 29 2024, @08:15PM (1 child)
Actually, I think that "creative bubble" klnd of thing requires more than a few months to show up. In one of the sub-studies the duration was three years. That's probably borderline for any visible effect, and too short for most of the plausible effects. When I retired it took me over a year to recover from work stress. It probably took three years before I started seriously attempting the project I'd been planning. (Then I discovered technology had moved on, and what I'd been planning was obsolete. O.) I've been looking for another attractive project (one a bit less ambitious) for years now, but not always seriously.) I could segue into kernel maintenance or something, but I'm old enough that my skills have started to decline, and I'd probably need to quit about a couple of years after I got up to speed.
Also, they're looking for a sparse effect. Most people won't find something that both motivates them and is feasible. But if all that happens is that they take better care of their kids (not mentioned in the summary) it's would still be socially useful.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 30 2024, @05:56AM
They did mention more healthcare spending, I assume they weren't any sicker, so the spending indicates taking more proactive care...
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Disagree) by darkfeline on Monday July 29 2024, @10:34PM (2 children)
It doesn't matter if you create things.
It matters if you do things that provide critical value to society. You painting or writing, in all likelihood, does not provide value to society; certainly not enough value to compensate for the food and shelter you demand.
Because someone has to provide critical value to society, and if someone people aren't and some people are, we call the latter slaves.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday July 31 2024, @03:49AM
Value to society? What is of value to society? Probably you're thinking the usual economic sort of thing: goods produced, services rendered. But there are other things. I would rate prevention of war very high, maybe the highest of value. Our might has grown faster than our defense against such might. Ever since the advent of nuclear weapons, we've been teetering on the edge of annihilation. Nuclear war is not the only existential peril. There's runaway global warming, ecophagy (gray goo), killer robots, bioengineered plagues, anoxic events, and other subtler perils, and of course the dinosaur killers, the meteor strikes or volcanism or maybe both.
I would also rate self-improvement very high. There's only so much grinding in an MMORPG a person can tolerate before burning out, and turning to things of more value. One improvement is seeing to your own needs. A person with all their wants satisfied is much less willing to take desperate chances. Most young men who join the military don't do it because they like fighting, killing, and risking their lives, they join for lack of other options that pay as well.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday July 31 2024, @01:23PM
I pity those, like you, who see no value to society in the arts.
Impeach Donald Palpatine and his sidekick Elon Vader
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ACELLC on Monday July 29 2024, @02:11PM (26 children)
Seems kinda obvious that folks getting free money (stuff, housing...) would find other things to do with the time they would have spent earning it. I wonder if Altman will do an experiment on how many hours folks forced to pay for someone else's basic income have to work to make up the difference.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aafcac on Monday July 29 2024, @03:16PM (23 children)
People say things like that, but somehow payments to the rich for doing nothing of value are OK. The money that goes to the folks at the bottom is mostly spent pretty much immediately and circulates up through the economy to wealthy. There is a very real problem that we may well hit where there's not enough jobs for a significant portion of the population and no welfare either.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Monday July 29 2024, @03:50PM (20 children)
> but somehow payments to the rich for doing nothing of value are OK
There is a difference, in that the rich people have been assigned assets ("earnt money") at some point in their, or their ancestor's, past. That is not true of poor people.
There is a correlation between asset assignation and doing useful things.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by acid andy on Monday July 29 2024, @04:11PM (13 children)
You mean like lobbying governments to erode human rights and working conditions, trashing the environment, monopolizing markets to squeeze out small businesses and stifle innovation, and concetrating money and power increasingly into the hands of a small "elite"? Those useful things?
error count exceeds 100; stopping compilation
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aafcac on Monday July 29 2024, @04:19PM (6 children)
Exactly, if the people getting those tax breaks had earned the money advancing the interests of society at large, giving them the tax breaks would make a lot more sense. But, most of it comes from the sort of activities that you're listing. There are no good billionaires out there, they all got there by stealing from the people and engaging in practices that are questionable at best. A modest UBI to ensure that everybody has the basics of life would be a much better use for the money and it's likely to encourage economic growth in a way that giving money to the utlrawealthy doesn't.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 30 2024, @06:06AM (5 children)
>There are no good billionaires out there
There are several good Billionaires out there, the other 95% of billionaires make the good ones irrelevant.
In that 95%, there are many who do give millions to good causes, they just hoard the vast majority of their wealth while doing so.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Wednesday July 31 2024, @12:37AM (4 children)
Which ones? And is the good they do actually better than the harm they did to become billionaires?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 31 2024, @05:16AM (3 children)
The other 99.9% of billionaires out there, not so much.
Could those three have run their companies in less destructive ways, of course. But the same can be said of 99.9999% of competitive businesses out there.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday July 31 2024, @02:13PM (2 children)
Bill Gates money, love or hate the man behind it, has cut malaria deaths worldwide by half. It's millions of people, and that's something.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 31 2024, @02:19PM
All Gates did was basic "good business" while being in the right place at the right time. Same could be said for most every billionaire (or their ancestors) out there. Gates just happened to be the richest man in the world while I was starting out in my career, so he's a stand-out.
I credit Melinda (and Bill's compliance) with most of the Gates' Foundation's achievements.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by weirsbaski on Thursday August 01 2024, @04:53AM
And Al Capone opened soup-kitchens and sponsored the arts during the depression. Doesn't mean we should overlook how he fraked people over to get the money to pay for it.
(Score: 2, Touché) by PiMuNu on Monday July 29 2024, @04:29PM (5 children)
Yeah, or producing food, building cars, designing computers, making medicine.
Your comment would seem to indicate that wealth is anti-correlated with doing stuff, which I don't think is supported by evidence.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday July 29 2024, @04:32PM (3 children)
Some wealth is needed for doing that stuff, yes. But there are clearly limits beyond which it ceases to be useful and instead becomes detrimental.
error count exceeds 100; stopping compilation
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Monday July 29 2024, @04:57PM (2 children)
There's also no reason why that wealth needs to be concentrated into so few hands. If it was just an amount of wealth to allow living a kick ass life in retirement there wouldn't be problems. The situation though is that so much wealth is in the hands of a few people that there's no reason for them to behave responsibly. They don't need to care about the environment because they can create their own doomsday vault to hide in if they so choose. As long as things don't get so bad quickly that people rush their gates, they'll be fine. And more likely scenarios don't involve measures that are that drastic. Simply moving to a less miserable place would suffice.
Having produced a fortune based on the ICE back at the start didn't have to lead to the situation we're currently in where that's a massive part of what's destroying the environment. It was the way it was used that caused a lot of the trouble and the failure to move onto better technology that did it. Had we went all in on more environmentally friendly options in the '70s when it became clear how much of a problem it was, we wouldn't be in this mess.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 30 2024, @12:57AM (1 child)
> Had we went all in on more environmentally friendly options in the '70s when it became clear how much of a problem it was, we wouldn't be in this mess.
Re current USA market full of SUV's and large pickup trucks--in large part I believe the transition from more-sensible-sized cars was promoted by a combination of fuel economy and crash regulations initially applied to cars. The result was that trucks sold for lower prices, buyers saw that trucks were a bargain. Then the auto companies worked out how to advertise and make driving a truck look cool...and here we are with expensive trucks/SUVs that get poor mileage and also pound the crap out of whatever they might hit--which dis-incentivizes a possible movement back to more appropriately sized cars.
Fwiw, I still drive a modest size car and take my chances among the road rhinos and hippos that I have to mix with.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday July 31 2024, @02:53PM
The thing driving the larger trucks isn't what you'd expect. There are people that want a big ugga dugga truck, but there is a huge untapped market for small-boi trucks that cannot be served because of a perverse incentive problem.
The EPA fuel economy requirement for trucks is based on the vehicle footprint. A 2024 small truck like the B1700 or Isuzu Pup would have to get gas mileage comparable to a Prius, and the vehicle form factor doesn't permit that. Yes, Toyota could swap the powertrain of a Prius into the truck, but the weight balance (which is already bad in pickups) would be significantly worse.
There is another factor too, a Tarriff on imported "utility vehicles" that makes it cheaper for a contractor to drive a big truck with a trailer instead of a Panel Van. This tariff is punitive enough that many "utility vehicles" are manufactured as passenger vehicles overseas, shipped to the US, then the extra seats are pulled out to make them fit the target market.
I want a small-boi truck, but I have a land yacht instead. :(
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday July 31 2024, @09:15AM
No, billionaires do not do those things. They pay actually productive people to do those things, then take the vast majority of the resulting profit for themselves.
If that money went to the actually productive people, they would do even more productive things and probably waste less mal-investing in impractical or actually impossible "technology".
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Monday July 29 2024, @04:16PM (3 children)
That's not true, most poor people have royalty in their past if you go back far enough. Likewise, a functioning economic system is not going to reward current people for what people did generations ago. Rewards should go for current development and ideally development that doesn't unduly destroy the environment.
I fail to see why scumbags like Elon Musk should get to continue to reap the rewards of Apartheid while people that actually contribute to society get so little. Why should society just give him money for nothing of value?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Monday July 29 2024, @04:39PM (2 children)
Your suggestion that wealth is anticorrelated with doing useful things does not seem to be supported by evidence.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aafcac on Monday July 29 2024, @04:52PM (1 child)
It's not at all. That is literally the reason that the US has Sherman and Clayton on the books. Hoarding all that wealth is anti-correlated to useful things. It's easier for companies like Apple to smash the competition with tactics like tying their ITMS to their iPods without licensing anybody else or Microsoft intentionally sabotaging open standards to force people to buy their products rather than cheaper competing ones even if the other option is better. Not to mention all the larger hardware companies that have been switching to SaaS model for things that don't have any reason to be so limited.
If you're not seeing it, it's because you're specifically avoiding looking. Nearly all of the innovation that's been happening is from smaller companies with less wealth. In some cases it's people with literally no money in the bank and a bunch of sweat equity.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday July 30 2024, @07:43AM
> Nearly all of the innovation that's been happening is from smaller companies with less wealth.
Okay, but the funding for that comes from investors i.e. wealthy people.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday July 30 2024, @03:28AM
If there's any kind of correlation, it's inverse: If you sit on a bunch of wealth, you can do absolutely nothing useful and still get everything you want.
Take, for instance, some guy named Charles, whose main accomplishment in his entire miserable life is having a mom who was rich and had a fancy title, and they now treat him like royalty (because he is).
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 30 2024, @06:03AM
I certainly find it much easier to do useful things when I have disposable income/wealth. With no spending money, there is not much one can do beyond working to survive.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday July 30 2024, @02:50PM (1 child)
Stop being suckered and doing ultra stupid things, then.
Here's a list of ultra-stupid things to avoid:
#1 Social Media sites. (Just don't. Your life will be much better off, if you just call/text/e-mail/snail mail your relatives. The more I read about ultra-stupid things, the more I am glad I don't use a Social Media site. SoylentNews doesn't really count as it's not a soul-sucking mega-corp that is hell-bent on monetizing your soul. Also, if you don't think potential employers or current employers never look people up, you're smoking something. Which leads up to point #2.)
#2 Recreational drugs, Alcohol, and/or Smoking (All negatively affect your health and long-term stability. They all also cost a lot of money.)
#3 Microtransaction mindset. This includes Gambling in any shape or form. (The house always wins as they say. The occasional Lotto ticket doesn't hurt/count.)
#4 Subscriptions. (Don't pay literally every scum sucking subscription you can find. Sure you will need a phone plan, insurance, etc. You don't need 4 different video subscriptions, 2 different audio subscriptions, a handful of domains, a subscription to Amazon Prime, and a few patreons / humble bundle / youtube subs / etc. Look at what you really use and drop the junk.)
#5 Trolls/Trolling/Trolled (Whether they're on the internet or in real life. Some people are just mean and spiteful, really don't want you to succeed, and/or are just doing it for the lolz. You can't change them, but you can do your best to avoid them! *See item #1*)
List of things you absolutely should do:
#1 Do something that brings you joy, daily. *Hopefully that's not trolling on the internet. Seek help from a professional psychiatrist, if so.*
#2 The occasional thing that "you should do", but you avoid because it's uncomfortable.
#3 Nice things for others with no expectation of reciprocity. Even better, if you can do so anonymously.
#4 Be part of a team that is working towards positive goals. Whether it's with your spouse, friends, or co-workers, team work makes the dream work.
#5 Be conscious about what you consume and strive to do what you know you should. *Blueberries good. Fudge bad. Sometimes it's as simple as that.*
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday July 30 2024, @02:53PM
Perhaps none of that is "fixing the ultra-wealthy problem", but it sure will make you feel better.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Monday July 29 2024, @03:33PM
They don't have to pay anything - it was already funded.
There were benefits in terms of people's well-being. It also improved their quality of life - "more autonomy, better health". There is a balance to be found, that is for certain. But the money was not frittered away as some thought it would be.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 30 2024, @05:59AM
That's why the real proposal is Universal Basic Income.... Everyone would get it. Otherwise it's need based welfare like the US and Europe have today.
How much tax are you paying for bureaucracy to determine all the various forms of welfare eligibility and all the mess surrounding that debacle?
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Insightful) by DadaDoofy on Monday July 29 2024, @03:14PM (25 children)
"The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." - Margaret Thatcher
Even in this "experiment" they admit it incentivizes people to work less. It's obvious to all but diehard Marxists, if people don't have to work, they won't.
(Score: 5, Touché) by GloomMower on Monday July 29 2024, @04:19PM (19 children)
> Even in this "experiment" they admit it incentivizes people to work less. It's obvious to all but diehard Marxists, if people don't have to work, they won't.
They got a 40% income boost but yet only worked 1.4 hours/week less. I don't know what percentage of work that is but I doubt it is close to 40%.
The horror of maybe spending an extra 1.4 hours/week of leisure time like playing with their kids or something. Human's so lazy!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aafcac on Monday July 29 2024, @05:00PM
Also keep in mind that that's just talking about hours worked, that says nothing about their productivity during that time. It also doesn't talk about whether that extra 1.4 hours was cutting from 40 hours to 38.6 or from 60 hours down to 58.6.
People are so obsessed with the poorest people getting a break and don't bother to consider the fact that even with the money, life probably still sucks for them, they just have a little bit of breathing room to catch up.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by DadaDoofy on Monday July 29 2024, @05:15PM (13 children)
"The horror of maybe spending an extra 1.4 hours/week of leisure time like playing with their kids or something."
No. The horror lies in the earnings of productive members of society being confiscated and handed to people for doing nothing. That's a recipe for mass starvation, as it has been throughout history. USSR? PRC?
(Score: 4, Touché) by janrinok on Monday July 29 2024, @05:37PM (10 children)
They were all productive - they had jobs. Or is it only those nice people with jobs that you approve of that are 'productive' in your society?
So if sharing national wealth equitably leads to mass starvation, are you quite happy to let just the poor ones starve? That doesn't seem to bother you too much.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aafcac on Monday July 29 2024, @06:54PM (4 children)
Even for amoral crackpots having a bunch of people that don't benefit from society is risky. Those are the folks that start forming gangs and engaging in organized crimes our outright riotign. Most people have a certain number of meals they'll miss before the rules of society become irrelevant and it's probably a lot lower if there's a bunch of other people starving around them.
It never ceases to amaze me that people seem to think the status quo can go on forever without there being major riots and an overthrow of the government. I doubt the French monarchs expected the revolution until it was well underway.
(Score: 0, Troll) by DadaDoofy on Monday July 29 2024, @07:17PM (3 children)
"having a bunch of people that don't benefit from society is risky"
Agreed, but the worst thing to do is give them money for nothing. They need the opportunity to thrive through tenacity and hard work. Public assistance for a limited duration is fine, provided there are strict work requirements attached.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Monday July 29 2024, @08:05PM
That's going to happen eventually regardless. We're at a point where most of the necessities of life can be provided with very few people doing the work. We're not at Star Trek levels where everything can be provided without effort, but we're getting there for most of the essentials.
Or, we'll just have a system where people essentially bitcoin with effort just to say that they've done enough work to deserve their allotment of credits.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2024, @09:16PM
so presumably the reason you didn't use the word "bootstraps" here is because you knew you'd be roundly heckled huh
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday July 31 2024, @09:04AM
Consider, it's not uncommon to pay farmers to NOT produce in order to stabilize an important market. The employment market is certainly important.
It's also worth remembering, every time the cry of "where were the parents? Why didn't they put a stop to this?", the answer is often "at their second job". It is in society's interest for parents to have enough time away from work to properly raise their kids so they don't join gangs and deal drugs.
(Score: 2, Troll) by DadaDoofy on Monday July 29 2024, @07:29PM (4 children)
"sharing national wealth equitably"
First, there is no "national wealth", only what the government confiscates from those who earn it. Second, taking from people who contribute to society and giving to people who don't is hardly "equitable" unless you are a Marxist - from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. Again, a recipe for poverty and mass starvation, as has been proven time and time again.
(Score: 5, Touché) by janrinok on Monday July 29 2024, @07:57PM (1 child)
The people in the experiment were contributing to society. They were all employed. Did you read TFA?
So the answer to the question that I asked appears to be that Yes, you would be happy to watch them starve.
It is amazing. People on this site call me a right-wing fascist and a Marxist. Have you realised that many of you only view people as extremes? Some of us are smack bang in the middle. And that is when measured is on the global spectrum, not one that revolves about 2 right wing parties where one isn't quite as right wing as the other.
The nation has wealth. It could have a lot more if only it would tax the super-rich appropriately. Nobody has suggested taking money from YOUR pocket. But if we expect automation, AI, and robots etc to free us up for more leisure then we are also going to have to work out a better way of ensuring that everyone contributes an appropriate amount and that everyone has enough to live. That was the purpose of the experiment.
The nation also has resources. Oil, metals, rare earths etc. It should use them wisely for the benefit of all, not just a few who are raking in billions. Of course those companies should be recompensed for the work that they do extracting those resources, but the majority of the profits after they have had their fair share, should be for the benefit of the nation.
Argue about it all you like - eventually something will have to change.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2024, @10:48PM
We leave socio/psychopaths in charge of the world. For the bean counters extermination is still on the table.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2024, @09:13PM
I love how you capitalist bros like to just fling out the word "Marxist!!" as if that automatically destroys any argument your opponent has
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mykl on Tuesday July 30 2024, @12:07AM
Explain to me how a Hedge Fund Manager "contributes to society" in a positive way. Then explain why we allow them to basically use a bunch of bought-and-paid-for loopholes to effectively pay no tax while we have teachers, laborers, nurses etc pay the biggest chunk of the country's income tax.
I agree that Marxism is a bad model - that was shown may times in the 20th Century. But so is late-stage Capitalism, as we can see by the breakdown in American society happening right in front of us. The social problems being experienced in other Western countries are nothing like the problems in the US, because the US is the country that hates their poor the most. Abandoning the poor to starve to death does not result in good outcomes for the rich. Just ask Marie Antoinette.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GloomMower on Monday July 29 2024, @05:39PM
I was bringing up hours worked. Were they just working 1.4 hours before then?
I don't really like the subsidizing either. It just doesn't seem right that a company can hire workers who would literally die from starvation except they get food assistance. They are able to reduce costs a lot and have the government pick up the costs compared to a company that would actually pay enough for their workers to be alive. End result the company that pays less ends up buying the company that pays enough for their employees to be alive.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday July 29 2024, @08:10PM
That might be true except things have gotten so far out off track. We now have the majority of wealth hoarded in the hands of a very few people at the top. Billionaires with enough pocket change to start their own competing space programs.
Guess what? If you tax the rich, they are still rich! Still billionaires. Even if they merely paid their fair share in taxes, they would continue to have more money than the vast vast majority of us could spend in a lifetime.
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Tork on Monday July 29 2024, @07:30PM
Lots of that 'something' is 'spending money' which makes the economy move. I know I'd spend more money if I just had some friggin' time. I haven't purchased a new game in two years!
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1, Redundant) by darkfeline on Monday July 29 2024, @10:38PM (1 child)
Good job missing the point.
They're being subsidized by the rest of society. If *everyone* was getting it, inflation would skyrocket and their effective income boost would be, wait for it, 0%. Welcome to money supply 101.
(Actually, it'd be worse because the people paying attention, aka the rich, would be moving their value out of inflationary dollars and into better assets like property, stocks, and potentially even Bitcoin, leaving the poor to be stuck with hyperinflation. God, don't you love Chesterton fence policies by people who "just do something")
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by GloomMower on Tuesday July 30 2024, @12:41PM
> Good job missing the point.
> They're being subsidized by the rest of society. If *everyone* was getting it, inflation would skyrocket and their effective income boost would be, wait for it, 0%. Welcome to money supply 101.
I was replying about some extra money reducing hours worked. Not if this was a policy for everyone.
I wasn't trying to advocate this should be a nation wide program. Just was interesting with income increase of 40% there was only 1.4 hours less work per week. A small amount compared to the income increase.
About money supply, if this was some nation wide program. If it is subsidized by the rest of society, I assume that means you are talking about it being from some kind of tax, rather than being made from thin air. A tax can be used in a way to control the money supply. Anyway I would agree that if it was a nationwide program it would be complicated to know what happens. Maybe minimum wage ends up being lowered or continued to not be raised, and companies hire workers paying them less with the idea that the rest is covered by the stipend or something.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 30 2024, @06:09AM
Not to mention, 40% income boost is 40% more money pumped into the economy feeding others' employment and profits...
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday July 29 2024, @09:09PM (2 children)
I'm not really sure I'd go with Margaret Thatcher for quotes to support your argument, considering that she seems to be one of the most widely hated Western political figures outside the US I can think of.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday July 29 2024, @10:41PM (1 child)
I'm already all for her, you don't have to sell me harder.
Being widely hated in the current political landscape is a great accolade.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday July 30 2024, @06:37PM
Please tell me you're not a staunch Trumper.
Sometimes being widely hated just means you're widely hateable.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 30 2024, @02:24AM
So some might end up working less anyway because they can't find suitable jobs.
And thus it doesn't necessarily mean that other humans would have to work more hours to pay for those nonworking humans.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 30 2024, @06:01AM
Maggie was a vacuous twat, serving the same puppet masters behind Reagan and now Trump.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Monday July 29 2024, @09:55PM
Which is it?
It's basically a very long severance agreement. It's too short to make substantial life changes such as a career change. Too short to start going to school although maybe long enough to complete an already started degree.
It's about long enough to get a serious start at a small business or major side gig, so it has that going for it. It's too short to have and raise a child (at least from conception to elementary school).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday July 29 2024, @10:51PM (1 child)
When I click on the link, it says "Enable ads to continue".
Yeah. That looks exactly like a future dreamts up by Sam Altman.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Monday July 29 2024, @11:41PM
I guess you missed the small grey type below "Enable Ads to Continue". Where it says "Continue without disabling".
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jelizondo on Tuesday July 30 2024, @12:41AM (1 child)
This could be a reply to many a comment here; so I´m posting in the main thread.
Full PDF [kahlilgibran.com]
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Tuesday July 30 2024, @12:41PM
My takeaway is that productive people are being compared to exploitable resources. I'm not a goose to be consumed at someone's leisure. And no to the last sentence. Your limited right to existence doesn't imply that you deserve free shit from me. It's all fun and games until the stealing starts.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 30 2024, @04:08AM (16 children)
I see three effects that are widely ignored. First what happens when you have people with extremely light or nonexistent work experience? They become deadweight. The primary way you learn competence and cooperating with others is through some sort of work. Anything that creates a large population of such people is going to cause substantial problems.
The second thing is that it will become socially acceptable to become deadweight. My belief is that just as attitudes changed in a single generation concerning retirement, we'll see the same with respect to unemployment. There's huge marketing ecosystems already devoted to normalizing life-styles like childless families, retirees, kids/young adults with money, etc and urging them to consume more. For example, here [time.com], here [cdmginc.com], and here [wethecollective.com]. Someone will figure out the UBIer formula as well, and they'll be milked just like these other emerging demographic groups.
Third, there's no brakes on the UBI bus. I've repeatedly asked over the years what will keep a majority of voters on UBI from simply voting themselves more UBI? I have yet to hear a credible answer.
Finally, consider the synergy. What happens when you have a growing population of people who are completely useless except for their ability to cash their UBI payments? They have only one obvious route to improving their lives - getting more UBI. Combine that with the political power of the ecosystem feeding off of these people (and working hard to make being a deadbeat couch potato a socially respectable career), and I think we could see spectacular collapse in whatever societies entertain this system.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 30 2024, @06:17AM (15 children)
Anyone who is getting by on just $12k per year is far from dead weight. It takes a lot of hustle to get by on that little money most places.
I foresee a lot of expansion in the economy serving people with very little money. Today, if you don't have steady work, you are a terrible credit risk, and if you do have steady work you are generally making far more than $12k per year. Who wants to mess around with people who will likely be unable to pay their bills in the near future? With UBI, the would at least have more than zero income...
I would actually advocate for UBI starting at something more like $600 per month. Enough to make a real difference, but not enough to get comfortable as dead weight.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 30 2024, @08:21AM (5 children)
Who knows they might be one of those one hit wonders (whether in the arts or sciences). Or at worst they contribute to the immunity genetic diversity pool.
It's the ones that "row backwards" or actively destroy stuff that are a bigger problem.
I wonder if some "Aliens" ever came, would they be that interested in our top "GDP" stuff? How much would that count towards us not getting moved/removed to make way for an "interstellar bypass" or something. Maybe even some Youtubers might count about as much (just so some aliens can publish some research etc).
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 30 2024, @04:12PM (4 children)
>as long as they aren't allowed to keep producing children
Given the current "Horrors! Population COLLAPSE!!! Economic contractions looming!!!!!" concerns, I would soft-start population (and immigration) control like this:
Every Citizen over the age of 18 gets UBI.
Every Citizen (over the age of 18) gets child-support UBI for One, and only One child in their lifetime. You want to have twelve, you pay for their expenses.
Tweak ratios, proportions, etc. as actual economic-population reactions dictate.
>It's the ones that "row backwards" or actively destroy stuff that are a bigger problem.
This is the problem in all group dynamics, the trick is clearly identifying who is the problem because accusations tend to fly in multiple directions.
>some Youtubers might count about as much
There is tremendous value in communication.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday July 31 2024, @08:43AM (2 children)
I see your argument for limiting this support, but I have questions about your limit. Are you envisioning one (supported) child per family, or one per parent (i.e. 2 in most familes)?
The context of my question is that we need roughly 2.1 children per woman [wikipedia.org] to maintain stable population numbers, so a funding limit of 1 might cause population inversion problems, depending on how it's implemented.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 31 2024, @02:02PM (1 child)
One per parent, if we still need more, increase the UBO given for children, too much? Lower it
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 01 2024, @06:08AM
So conceivably someone might go, "this couple are really great at raising kids, their kids are great, we should have more people like them, so here's my quota, have another!".
I've seen some people who do make good parents and raise decent kids.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02 2024, @05:06AM
If it's that difficult to identify it's a problem, then how big a problem is it really?
In contrast if they are going around injuring/killing other people or destroying other people's property then it's clearly a problem.
With basic income some people might get bored and deal with it in destructive nonbeneficial ways.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 30 2024, @12:14PM (8 children)
They could just get a job. Sorry, I don't buy that there would be hustle.
I still find that my concerns about UBI ballooning out of control outweigh the alleged minor benefits of UBI. And there is a ready fix in the form of getting a job that presently more than adequately covers what UBI would cover.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 30 2024, @04:17PM
>They could just get a job. Sorry, I don't buy that there would be hustle.
How is getting a job not hustle?
How is $12K per year guaranteed income a problem for getting a job?
I would actually advocate for a ratcheting back of minimum wage, eventually to zero, so that people are working for jobs that they find worth working for instead of being forced to take whatever crap is on offer because they need to eat.
Employers have a great deal of latitude in what they can offer in terms of quality of life for their employees - work from home is an excellent recent example of something that was "impossible to do" for most workers 5 years ago, yet, mysteriously, seems to be working quite well for a lot of employers and employees and the environment. My annual fuel consumption is down about 80% since I work from home - that's like going from 20mpg to 100mpg without even having to tune up the car.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 30 2024, @04:20PM (6 children)
>I still find that my concerns about UBI ballooning out of control outweigh the alleged minor benefits of UBI.
I still find that the alleged minor concerns about UBI ballooning out of control are absolutely trivial as compared to the huge upside potential for major segments of the population.
Alaska has had UBI for 48 years now, it doesn't seem to be ballooning out of control there.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 30 2024, @10:56PM (5 children)
We didn't see huge upside in the example of the story!
Because the source is rigidly fixed. There's only so much money you can extract from the Trans-Alaska pipeline. When it comes to general tax revenue, the source isn't so fixed. You can raise taxes and borrow lots of money.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 31 2024, @05:09AM (4 children)
>We didn't see huge upside in the example of the story!
The story wasn't about Universal Basic Income, therefore it had virtually zero potential to influence employer - employee dynamics on the employer side.
COVID on the other hand was much more Universal and I do perceive a resultant shift in employer - employee dynamics, mostly to the benefit of the employees.
Both the study and COVID were temporary, not reliable long term, and therefore very weak in terms of long term behavioral effects.
>Because the source is rigidly fixed.
Like hell it is, Alaskans could vote for all kinds of changes in the program, just the rest of the US can amend Social Security for the last 90 years. Everything can be ballooned out of control, in your head when you let it.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 31 2024, @12:14PM (2 children)
You can't have universal basic income without basic income. And even on this limited scale (both in amount and duration) there was few percent decline in hours worked.
So what? We still have information. And there are long term studies around such as public pensions. So we aren't operating in a vacuum.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 31 2024, @02:24PM (1 child)
>And even on this limited scale (both in amount and duration) there was few percent decline in hours worked.
Meaning: more employment opportunity for everyone? Sounds good for the future I'm seeing.
>So what?
Cherry picker.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 01 2024, @12:22AM
My view is that it's far better to create more employment opportunity for everyone by increasing demand rather than dampening supply.
What happens if we pick a different cherry than covid?
(Score: 0, Redundant) by khallow on Thursday August 01 2024, @12:19AM
And they wouldn't get anything more out of the pipeline than they do now. "Changes" don't increase the revenue from a pipeline.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by r_a_trip on Tuesday July 30 2024, @11:32AM (5 children)
UBI will be a thing that will tear current societies apart. The egocentric lucky and fortunate will never accept a system that removes the stigma of being less fortunate. We are all paying for wellfare right now too, but the system is set up to make it very clear that once you are on it, you are a pariah and less than. Lots of strings attached and a lot of red tape with the clear message that one is not good enough.
UBI is no strings attached, no message of, "You aren't good enough, how dare you exist." No real way for the fortunate to look down on the less fortunate. It also levels the playing field too much. A "nobody" from a low opportunity background suddenly gets a more level playing field. What if the piece of trash gets an in and outshines you? You! Who came from a good background. Who has a divine right to climb the ladder without usurpers stealing your spot.
The pecking order among primates needs inequality to make society work. Why would one put in any serious effort, if you can't make fun of the ones lower on the ladder. If one can't implement policies to add insult to injury. Doing something humane isn't in the cards for most. Misery of others exists to remind one of their own sublimeness.
Yes, my view on humanity is bleak.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 30 2024, @12:35PM (4 children)
Indeed. We merely need to look at your stilted narrative to see that lack of magnanimity. Rather than consider the obvious problems of UBI, blame is already being placed on the people most affected. But there's two big problems with UBI, there's no need served by the program and no natural way to limit how big it can get.
I also find it interesting how you are more concerned about the social stigma of welfare than making a society that doesn't need to dish out so much welfare. My take is that there's vastly more value in creating an economy where people can employ other people without a lot of overhead than in massive wealth redistribution.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 30 2024, @02:27PM (1 child)
People talk about the "lucky" and "fortunate" or resistant rich, but you can't one size fits all society.
Is owning a house basic? A car? A detached house? How many room mates? Maybe a neet would be happy living in their megacity 500sq ft apartment, but what about anyone with aspirations whatsoever?
So we say; basic income is just enough to live and be sheltered. What happens when we do live in that AI "utopia" and there is zero social mobility. There's no job you can acquire to get out of your situation. All your whittled home made pocket knives or OF pics don't have customers. AI beats you at anything else, robots are cheaper to use for labor. There is nothing you CAN contribute to society to improve your lot.
Fundamentally you are creating a dystopia. Even if you solve all the economic problems, humans aren't pets. The rich will still be rich and you have created a permanent underclass. It's why someone like sam altman would experiment with this. HE gets to be the new upper crust, more than he is already. Maybe without the immediate pitchforks. That's the real "need" it serves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 31 2024, @12:23PM
I doubt I'm the one creating a dystopia by opposing UBI. Did you reply to the wrong post?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by r_a_trip on Thursday August 01 2024, @08:33AM (1 child)
Yeah, you still believe in capitalism as the end all be all of making things work in society. Except capitalism has the fatal flaw that it strives for maximum profits. Anything that can bring costs down is fair game in capitalism. Conventional machine and resource efficiency is already at peak, so no more gains there. So only the most expensive component is left; labor. Get rid of the people and you can produce as cheaply as possible.
The paradox here is of course that not having employees also means you have no customers. So how will you sell your goods that have no demand anymore because all the former workers are broke? So far the best thing we came up with is UBI. It is of course a product of the scarcity mindset of humanity. Only things that are scarce have value. We also tend to see everything as a zero sum game. If you have something and I don't, you win and I have lost.
You worry about the size of the hand outs. You still think that labor will have any value in the future? They are very busy working out the kinks of our humanoid replacements. Autonomous robots powered by an LLM are already scary in what they can do. Give it 10 years. So we might all become dependent on handouts. The final step in automation is well underway. Humans are made obsolete.
It's funny that you still see this as you continuing to have value on a rapidly changing job market and railing against people who don't (can't) work and get "free" money with UBI. Which all goes back to if you can't or won't work, you have no value. These thought patterns will probably do us in as humanity.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 01 2024, @01:15PM
The obvious rebuttal here is twofold. First, it works and has done so for centuries. Automation has never shifted to this doomsday scenario - even today. There is a remarkable failure to acknowledge reality.
Second, are you maximizing your profits by posting here? Nobody prevents you from speaking out despite your non-optimal profit strategy. Capitalism when combined with democracy has an enormous capacity to accommodate different economic and ideological strategies. Just as SN operates here without obstruction, nobody forced Mr. Altman to halt his basic income experiment because it might not be profit maximizing. He was able to pursue a non-optimal strategy without interference.
Sure, capitalism has flaws. But I find a lot of talking down of capitalism combined with a telling lack of viable alternatives. Your system doesn't require capitalism to be terrible. It merely needs to be better than capitalism. When you're talking down capitalism rather than coming up with advantages over capitalism, then you're doing it wrong.
You wouldn't be the only one in the boat. Do economics with everyone else with the same problem - you know, like we do now? This is the absurd conclusion to the AI takeover puffery. A bunch of humans are too poor to afford the AI/robotics products so they will choose to starve instead of doing the obvious and trading among themselves.
br. Consider this. Efforts to help workers have turned out more harmful than automation. Some basic regulation makes sense. In the developed world, we have: safer workplaces, pollution down to insignificant levels, people not killing each other in the streets. Past that, there's a vast amount of regulation that actively harms people: minimum wage laws, enormous variety of cartel/rent seeker protection, and just making things complicated and expensive - which favor large, powerful businesses.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 01 2024, @04:06AM (56 children)
>My view is that it's far better to create more employment opportunity for everyone by increasing demand rather than dampening supply.
And your brilliant plan for increasing labor demand?
The last big run on skilled labor was .com 25 years ago, that inspired people with money to invest to take it out of their traditional hidey holes and go hire people with computer skills... Comp Sci and engineering degree values inflated 100% in the space of two years, and the federal budget flipped from deficit to surplus due to the activity. Basically a bunch of rich guys with "ground floor opportunity" ringing in their dreams stopped caring about dodging taxes or underpaying engineers as much as possible for a couple of years.
Otherwise, besides massive military mobilizations, what gets the employment demand up for you these days?
My proposal is to structure work into something people want to do, instead of something they hate and avoid as much as possible.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 01 2024, @08:38PM (55 children)
We don't need big runs on labor, just good economies where people aren't punished for employing other people, trillions of dollars aren't redirected through pointless Keynesian theater, and rollbacks of regulation so that you don't have to be a huge corporation to hire people, and you can easily move to a job in some other region of your country without jumping through hoops.
My view is that a vast amount of the effort that was intended to help someone has instead helped to create this near stagnant economy throughout most of the developed world. Meanwhile just knocking out many of these hurdles would create demand for jobs just from the greater freedom of action.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday August 02 2024, @02:44AM (54 children)
> just good economies where people aren't punished for employing other people
Punishment is a relative opinion. Employers only offering 30 hours per week of minimum wage positions could be considered abusive of their employees - offering those same employees educational programs in how to get government benefits in their income-poor state could be considered abusive of the taxpayers.
Employment truly should be "at will" not under duress. Since we have long since eliminated the option of an "employee class" person just going out into the world and making a living for themselves off the land, some consideration should be given to protect that rather large class of our population from monopoly and collusion style abuses from the minority "employer class."
>trillions of dollars aren't redirected through pointless Keynesian theater
Agreed. Let's start with ending subsidies for the fossil fuels industry.
>and rollbacks of regulation so that you don't have to be a huge corporation to hire people
Also agreed, to an extent. I very much like the U.K. model for restaurant licensing. If you want to run a restaurant "off license," all you have to do is meet whatever laundry list of requirements they have for that, then hang a public notice that your restaurant is operating off license. Anyone who wants to patronize your restaurant with that notice prominently displayed is free to do so. Businesses below a certain size should be exempt from the majority of employment regulations with a simple "at will" agreement between the employer and the employee. In a world with (sufficient) UBI I believe this should extend to a waiver of minimum wage requirements. As businesses scale up beyond, say, six employees, such regulations as make good sense should start to apply to prevent monopoly and collusion type behavior in the market. If you need 1000+ employees, you should be providing them all the employee protections we have today and probably a few more.
>and you can easily move to a job in some other region of your country without jumping through hoops.
I've moved cross country several times for employment, from my perception the only hoops we encountered were in the real-estate sales racket.
> helped to create this near stagnant economy throughout most of the developed world
Stagnant by what measures?
>Meanwhile just knocking out many of these hurdles would create demand for jobs just from the greater freedom of action.
Unshackle the employers and they will gleefully shower us with improved working conditions, higher pay, safer workplaces, and a glowing economy that benefits all more than what we have today?
One of my perceptions of how UBI would transform the economy would be to usher in a robust lower tier, where people (not just megacorporations) could set up small businesses with a much higher rate of success without as much overhead per-employee. Employees could choose to work for lower pay in jobs they preferred doing. All of these low end endeavors would be more stable, less prone to flash-in-the-pan try it and bail out (often via bankruptcy, burdening legitimate businesses) when their idea just didn't have enough profitability to "make it" on whatever their initial investment capital was. Bushy's "Thousand Points of Light" wouldn't be restricted a bunch of fat-cats cutting a check for less than 0.01% of their net worth a couple of times a year and doing a 15 minute photo-op at a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving. Volunteer organizations could focus on their mission without rolling nearly as much effort into fundraising.
If you want more, certainly: raise funds, get bigger investors and go for the brass ring, get a "real job" and earn your own big seed money whether it's for a business, or an investment, or a trip around the world, but with UBI it won't just be children of rich parents that get to flounder around "finding themselves" with entrepreneurial ideas.
As for those "real jobs" - UBI offers the deadwood more viable escape hatches. Don't want to be there? find something that fits you better. Dilbert's Wally is far too common in the real world, and PHB really can get more out of his department with Wally gone off to a career as a coffee critic.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 02 2024, @03:43AM (34 children)
I've seen Soylentils pine for low hour work weeks - indicating such "consideration" is far from universal. And if the taxpayer didn't want to be "abused", they'd get rid of those government benefits programs - there's no point to complaining about a program being used as intended.
Needless to say, I'm disappointed once again by what you choose to care about.
It is at will. There's no point to the rest of the paragraph. And sure, there's already regulations again such abuses in the US. But the best approach is to increase the space of employers. No monopolies and collusion-style abuses are greatly tempered by competition.
In other words, "usher in a robust lower tier" == institutionalize class stratification. People can already do all the stuff that you want UBI for, including being part of whatever robust lower tiers they want to belong to. I'm not at all impressed by the "lower risk" stuff. Creating business is not just about "risk". It's also about workplace knowledge which a UBI would discourage. A nation of permanent couch potatoes is a far more likely an outcome than risk-adverse business creation.
Sorry, this is more of that wishful thinking. We didn't see such activity with public pension funds. Maybe it's time to wonder why.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday August 02 2024, @12:52PM (33 children)
> And if the taxpayer didn't want to be "abused", they'd get rid of those government benefits programs - there's no point to complaining about a program being used as intended.
Every single person in this country needs at least the money provided by those programs (on average), whether they get that money through "hard work", easy work, successful business venture, inheritance, crime, or government subsidy, they absolutely need a certain amount of money just to supply the food and shelter they require to survive. Dick Proenneke started with a substantial investment before retiring to live off the land of a national park, documenting his exploits on super-8 film. There are no similar 20+ years "in the wild" stories on TikTok or similar today because the authorities have stepped up regulations and enforcement to make that kind of retirement / lifestyle extremely difficult. The US has more billionaires than people living sustainable independent lifestyles "off the land" of national parks today - people living off their own land pay more in taxes than they would need to buy the food they grow / hunt.
> Needless to say, I'm disappointed once again by what you choose to care about.
My disappointment in your stated positions is implicit, never doubt it, absence of comment means: you're talking like a fucking idiot with their head so far up the ass of the elite that you don't even know what you can't see, hear, smell or taste out in the real world. You obviously altogether lack feeling / empathy for the majority of people. If you genuinely believe all the things you say, it's a form of Stockholm syndrome, like my co-worker in 2003 who was cheerleading tax breaks for the rich - we talked openly about it and he said it comes down to this: Yes, he knows that he's already in the top 10% of incomes in this country, he knows he has only an infinitesimal chance of him or his children ever receiving any net benefit from the tax breaks then being granted to the wealthiest 2% in the country, but if he ever does become one of those people he aspires to be he wants those tax breaks to be there for him. It's a kind of Stockholm Syndrome / hero worship with offerings to heroes that only abuse you. If you really do suffer from this rather common derangement, you have my sympathy - even if it does mean you continue to annoy the world with self-injurious opinions.
>the best approach is to increase the space of employers. No monopolies and collusion-style abuses are greatly tempered by competition.
All historical evidence to the contrary.
> institutionalize class stratification.
Baseless bullshit, next:
>People can already do all the stuff that you want UBI for, including being part of whatever robust lower tiers they want to belong to.
Until they starve to death, or waste their lives in pursuit of handouts from a byzantine, capricious, and abusive welfare bureaucracy. This is a two sided waste not only of the effort and lives of the program beneficiaries, but also the agencies who have built up to do the necessary advocacy for them to get benefits, and of course the whole bureaucracy administering the benefits.
>I'm not at all impressed by the "lower risk" stuff.
You should be, risk of total loss is the primary criteria used to evaluate investment in new business ventures.
> It's also about workplace knowledge
Sure is, but time and time again I have seen money flow down from Wall Street in the current system, administered by people with little to no clue about the workplace they are managing - they step in with some hip-shot opinions and fail 19 out of 20 times, leaving a wake of unemployment, abandoned clients and unpaid debts in all those failures. They take companies that have managed to survive for decades without the investment capital, pump them up "for their big shot" and typically try to go public, dump the stock, collect 200% (or more) ROI, and shut it down to do it again. They say they're looking for that 1/20 "big win" that makes it all back, but 3 for 3 the multi-million investment scenarios I have been a part of just devalue the smaller investors' stake to zero and liquidate when they are ahead. It's all about 51% control, once the investors have that they make the rules, and they rarely put in the big money without it.
My deranged tax breaks for the rich friend finally did start his own business, get the title CEO, he works harder than I do for roughly similar pay and still never will get ahead: because he failed to maintain 50% control of his company, so he's still just an employee, literally working for the money. Still not benefiting from those tax breaks he supported 20 years ago, but his owners do.
>workplace knowledge which a UBI would discourage.
All micro-loan studies worldwide to the contrary.
> A nation of permanent couch potatoes is a far more likely an outcome than risk-adverse business creation.
Couch potatoes are a market. You sell them Cheetoes, you sell them Netflix subscriptions, you sell them CBD gummies, you sell them self-help books and counselling. Some don't stay potatoes permanently, some will. I have a lot of co-workers who would improve overall company performance by becoming couch potatoes instead of cubicle trolls.
And you aren't grasping the business creation risk relationship at all. The players in the business creation are at lower personal risk because they have some measure of personal security even in the event of total business failure. The business itself is free to run far greater risk due to this fact. Not only the owners, but all employees are at reduced personal risk - the business itself is then free to take on much more risk due to its reduced responsibility to the people involved.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 04 2024, @11:18AM (32 children)
I wonder why you're lauding the squatter life-tyle when elsewhere you've advocated Half Earth [soylentnews.org]:
A few billion retirees living off the land can mess up that set aside 50% quite a bit. Remember that most large land animals disappeared around 10k years ago with a human population (of hunter/gatherers) at least two orders of magnitude lower than what we have today. You don't want more than a few people doing the Proenneke lifestyle. The natural world just can't support that.
That leads to one of the hidden truths of the modern world. At today's high populations, industrial society is better for the natural world than pre-industrial, because it's a more efficient use of land, allowing for more natural land to set aside.
As to your first sentence, almost everyone can get the resources they need through work. There remains no need for a government subsidy to do what people routinely do on their own.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 05 2024, @04:31PM (31 children)
>I wonder why you're lauding the squatter life-tyle when elsewhere you've advocated Half Earth [soylentnews.org]:
I wonder why you're calling a man who "earns" his living directly from nature with minimal dependence on society a squatter.
That lifestyle works tremendously well, in combination with significant population reduction.
>A few billion retirees living off the land can mess up that set aside 50% quite a bit.
A few billion retirees with "average" 3000 square foot climate controlled homes, SUVs, frequent global jet travel and all the other things that boomers have come to expect as their birthright for working so hard in their office jobs will screw up the environment just about any way you cut it.
>Remember that most large land animals disappeared around 10k years ago with a human population (of hunter/gatherers) at least two orders of magnitude lower than what we have today.
Because then, as now, people were fucking inconsiderate short sighted selfish asshats who splurged and wasted during times of plenty and scraped the earth bare during times of hardship.
>You don't want more than a few people doing the Proenneke lifestyle.
It comes down to density. I would swag that one Proenneke per square mile is sustainable. Bachelor, no wife no kids. If he wants to support a family of four, then four square miles - in the type of environment he chose to live in. Note, this is one Proenneke, not one average shithead with a gun (or tribe of shitheads with spears) out there wasting resources and polluting the land.
>The natural world just can't support that.
Correct.
>industrial society is better for the natural world than pre-industrial
How is the smell up there, deep in the colon of the industrial capitalists? Industrial society has _the potential_ to be better for the natural world, per capita, than a bunch of guys in loincloths chucking spears at anything they might eat, yes. In practice, Industrial society is on track to decimate the natural world once per century, that is: 90% gone within 100 years, 99% gone within 200 years, etc. both through direct exploitation like palm oil plantations (and a myriad of other "industrial land uses") and indirect effects like coral bleaching: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/how-does-2023-24-global-coral-bleaching-compare-past-events [climate.gov]
>almost everyone can get the resources they need through work.
Except, of course, those who can't. UBI isn't about making sure everyone is fed, UBI is about leveling the playing field to take the threat of abuse via the welfare system out of the equation. 38 million people in the United States (more than 1/10, more than the combined population of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin) live in poverty. They deserve the right to work with dignity, not under threat or actual experience of wasting their lives in the pursuit of welfare benefits.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 05 2024, @05:58PM (30 children)
It's merely an accurate term. That's why. And still wondering why you want half the world set aside from even a slight squatter presence while simultaneously approving of the squatter lifestyle.
Any lifestyle works with enough population reduction. We already know this lifestyle is very inefficient for the number of people we have now because it was too inefficient for populations two orders of magnitude lower than us.
And yet, we found an even worse way.
Hence the need for a different lifestyle given the higher population. We have this one figured out.
And the obvious problem is that you could then support a mere 50 million Proennekes. Where will the other 8.4 billion people go?
We don't have to guess about the potential. Modern society didn't kill off 80% [cambridge.org] of all animal species above 1000 kg:
Nor do we have to drop human population by two orders of magnitude to fit an ideal lifestyle that is otherwise ridiculously impossible to attain on a usable scale. And no, your alleged decimation isn't happening.
And why do we need those alleged benefits? We don't need a field leveled. We don't need to take welfare out of the equation for the few who can't care for themselves. We will have tens of millions living in poverty just due to the relative deprivation argument (that is, if you aren't above a sliding scale number, you will be "poor"). And we will always have relative deprivation merely because wealth isn't a priority for some people as others. There's the same flimsy justifications that we've had before.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 05 2024, @08:16PM (29 children)
> wondering why you want half the world set aside from even a slight squatter presence while simultaneously approving of the squatter lifestyle.
If you read deep into my Half-Earth ramblings (titled: 50/50 by 2150, because achieving such a thing would inevitably take time to do smoothly), there is a half-baked provision in there for human presence in preserved land - either for zero-impact monitoring work, or as long term residents seeking a non-technological lifestyle. I believe my threshold was use of metals, if you are willing to forego the use of metals and otherwise live sustainably, that would be a good use in my opinion, not only from the standpoint of biodiversity of the preserve areas, but also from the perspective of maintaining basic "end of civilization" skills within our species, for those (like todays' "uncontacted tribes") who choose that lifestyle.
>We already know this lifestyle is very inefficient for the number of people we have now because it was too inefficient for populations two orders of magnitude lower than us.
When it is practiced by a bunch of uncivilized competitive hungry people lacking historical knowledge. I'm sure some of them were quite civilized, but for the most part, they weren't. We, collectively, are (or at least: can be) better than that today. Today's knowledge can be passed on to those living what you label "squatter" lifestyles, and today's broad area non-invasive monitoring capabilities can be used to inform, educate, and interdict when necessary, if the 'squatters' are not being beneficial to their environment.
In addition to wiping out the Megafauna, some of the pre-Colombian inhabitants of North America also rather dramatically improved their environment without going 100% utilization monoculture: https://www.permaculturenews.org/2020/09/29/ancient-gardens-of-the-north-america/ [permaculturenews.org]
>>Because then, as now, people were fucking inconsiderate short sighted selfish asshats who splurged and wasted during times of plenty and scraped the earth bare during times of hardship.
>Hence the need for a different lifestyle given the higher population. We have this one figured out.
In your head. Where do you keep that, again?
>And the obvious problem is that you could then support a mere 50 million Proennekes. Where will the other 8.4 billion people go?
A world of 50 million Pronnekes isn't anything close to a goal. Diversity is. 100,000 Pronnekes makes sense, alongside 50 cities of 10 million people, 500 cities of 1 million people, 5000 towns of 100K, 50,000 towns of 10K, and 500,000 rural areas comprising ~1000 population each - a spread resembling that. Where will the other 6 billion people go? To their graves as they die of old age, disease, famine, war, the usual suspects. Target date:: 2150.
>Modern society didn't kill off 80% [cambridge.org] of all animal species above 1000 kg
Nope. Modern society is well on its way to killing off 80% of all wild animals above 10kg instead.
>Nor do we have to drop human population by two orders of magnitude
Nope. IMO 99% is nowhere near necessary, 70% should do it.
>And why do we need those alleged benefits?
I have lived "poverty adjacent" in large, prosperous urban areas, and also in rural settings. Not only do I, myself, not want to be poor, I don't want poor anywhere around me. I think that's a pretty common attitude, worldwide. I don't want poor, because I have no desire to exploit the poor. I'm not making myself better by making them worse, so I just don't want them at all - and IMO those who do rise up on the back of the poor are reprehensible. So, do we take all the poor out and shoot them? Not really a good long term answer IMO. Do we "offshore" them and let faraway lands provide us with the benefits of their poor labor (see: diamonds, gold, chocolate, clothing, Apple electronics, many others...) out of sight, out of mind? That was the colonial European innovation - I think it's a really bad one, even today. It's an answer for "the poor are nasty, angry people, some of whom want to hurt me" - but it's very short sighted and does nothing to address global problems.
How about: the poor need not fear starvation, homelessness, and humiliation at the hands of the welfare administration circus? There will always be those who don't seek wealth and therefore don't have it, but even they need food and shelter.
For some fundamental Christian soundbite perspective:
Tenzin Gyatso; The 14th Dalai Lama (just about the coolest human on the planet recently, IMO) gives the concept a bit more development: https://www.dalailama.com/messages/compassion-and-human-values/compassion [dalailama.com]
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 06 2024, @12:07PM (28 children)
Fine, though metal working is one of the big end-of-civilization skills.
"Interdict" won't be non-invasive monitoring. And once poachers get wise to the monitoring, they can make it a lot hard for monitors to figure out what's going on.
Using labor intensive, subsistence methods that wouldn't work in our 8+ billion people scenario. The monoculture allows us to feed 8 billion people with a small fraction of that workforce. I think this example illustrates some of the differences in our outlook from more basic premises. If you think humans will be displaced out of work by robotic AI-driven workers, then it doesn't make sense to talk about freeing up labor for other things, industrialization, or opposing a UBI. If you don't, well there's a lot of work out there to do. It's better to do work that helps us all, like building developed world societies or helping us live longer rather than subsistence labor that barely gets by.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 06 2024, @02:28PM (27 children)
>Fine, though metal working is one of the big end-of-civilization skills.
Agreed, and my primary concept is to drive diversity, transparency, monitoring, review, education, and improvement. Half the earth would continue more or less as we have been: maximizing productivity specifically for human society, still regulating pollution, encouraging green spaces and all the other things that directly benefit people, the other half would be maximizing the long term "health" of nature - whatever "health" means, which also benefits humanity - but in a much longer term aspect. As a start: biodiversity and robust ecosystems. Keeping humans out is a starting point. Letting humans in, under very controlled conditions wherein the human presence is demonstrated to improve the natural world, with zero or even negative value attributed to human exploitation of it. My concept for the "half" division would be to work toward a checkerboard pattern roughly one degree of latitude by one degree of longitude within the +/- 30 degrees of latitude belt, then growing "wider" in the latitudes closer to the poles. That's roughly 20,000 "patches" each for humans and nature, so we certainly could run a few pilot programs for "metalworking in harmony with nature."
On the eons scale, I would expect the two halves to eventually merge in their lifestyles - achieving a whole earth where humans maximize human benefit through the maximization of the health of the natural world. There should still always be at least hundreds of large scale (3500 square miles+) "control areas" representative of ALL ecosystems (not just open ocean, desert, swamp and icy wasteland) where nature is left untouched - as a "control" vs our more developed areas.
>And once poachers get wise to the monitoring, they can make it a lot hard for monitors to figure out what's going on.
Kings of old would simply execute poachers. I believe tracking chips are a more humane modern solution. Don't want to wear a location tracker for the rest of your life? Don't get caught poaching. Simple presence in protected areas without authorization should be sufficient proof to warrant future tracking.
>"Interdict" won't be non-invasive monitoring.
It would be non-invasive to everything but the humans.
>Using labor intensive, subsistence methods that wouldn't work in our 8+ billion people scenario.
Read, and understand, the linked article. Food bearing trees in forests all across North America were cultivated by our pre-Colombian ancestors, and they continue to bear benefits to travelers in the woods today.
>The monoculture allows us to feed 8 billion people with a small fraction of that workforce.
For how long? https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=agricultural+soil+depletion&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart [google.com]
>It's better to do work that helps us all,
Yep.
like building sustainable developed world societies
>or helping us live longer
What's that good for, exactly? Sounds like assuaging selfish fear of death more than anything else to me. I'm not opposed to longevity research and development, but I am opposed to diving headlong into a dystopia where a large number of people devote their entire lives to extending the lives of a frightened, but wealthy few. The US is the current world leader in the race to that future.
The slipperier but more important metric to me is: quality of life. We all have finite quantity of life, if that ever changes in a Kurzweilian fashion - birth control becomes a completely different animal that it is today. For the time we have, a focus on quality of life would be my preferred metric far above any "five year survival" statistic.
>rather than subsistence labor that barely gets by.
Completely losing our ability to survive on subsistence methods is an existential threat to our global society. I'm not suggesting that even 1% of humanity choose those lifestyles, just that 50% of the Earth's land and sea surface area be reserved away from monoculture cropping and other "high yield" subsistence approaches for O(10B) populations. Like missions to Mars and similar, I strongly suspect that if 50% of the world were reserved for nature, returning to the natural state it was in roughly 10,000 years ago, something on the order of 0.1% of the population would not only volunteer, but compete for the privilege of a "subsistence lifestyle" away from the developed areas. Bonus: those people (when successful) wouldn't even need UBI, though I believe other people would utilize the nature dwellers' UBI in their monitoring, education and support.
We know a lot about feeding a lot of people, use that knowledge, develop half the surface of the Earth to maximize yields in that fashion that we have learned in the past ~100 years, reserve the other half for practice of the knowledge that brought humanity into being in the first place, evolved across billions of years.
Better to max out at 50% population with lower risk than to shoot for 100% population with significantly higher risk of causing the 6th mass extinction event, killing off not only humans but most higher life forms on the planet.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 06 2024, @11:56PM (26 children)
Assuaging selfish fear of death is huge, of course. So why downplay that? Even the religious approaches deal with the fear by inventing long lived afterlives.
But let's consider some obvious benefits instead. When an 80 year person dies: 80 years of experience, skills, and knowledge dies with them. There's this enormous trashing of humanity that is accepted merely because nothing can be done about it. Longevity research changes that. Similarly, a common complaint here is that people don't think about the future because they'll die before the really bad consequences of their actions can take effect. Longevity changes that. If you'll live 500 years, for example, then you have a reason to care what happens centuries down the road, because you'll be alive for it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 07 2024, @01:29AM (25 children)
>When an 80 year person dies: 80 years of experience, skills, and knowledge dies with them.
Have you actually spent much time with the elderly? Not just those suffering from dementia (which is most over 70 if we are being honest) but all of them tend to cap out after some point, no longer learning and growing, but just repeating the same things over and over. By 90 you are lucky if their deep knowledge repertoire takes more than a few hours to communicate.
Change that, give the brain vastly expandable capacity with true lifelong learning and minimal forgetting, and we won't be human anymore. Maybe that's a good evolution, maybe not, I'm sure we will continue to work toward it, but as of today it's fantasy.
Sooner than later we all end up as flustered and confused as Donald and Joe, and while that experience deserves respect and attention, it's not peak human performance.
>Longevity research changes that.
Longevity research hopes to change that. So far it has resulted in massive "progressive care" retirement villages (all over Florida) where the elderly are basically entertained and cared for like children, if they can afford it, until they die.
>Longevity changes that. If you'll live 500 years, for example, then you have a reason to care what happens centuries down the road, because you'll be alive for it.
500 is incredibly optimistic at this point, and the likely manifestation of 500 year lifespans is for the super wealthy who really don't care what happens to most of the people on Earth as long as they they can perpetuate their positions of privilege.
Those are the idiots who will build themselves domed cities with artificial atmosphere and total climate control, maintained by people who live outside and suffer the consequences of unregulated exploitation of the Earth.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 07 2024, @02:31AM (24 children)
Yes, I have. Perhaps you're doing it wrong?
And longevity would also be about fixing the above mental deficiencies that are now merely accepted as being old.
Unless, of course, we fix that.
In other words, you can't even be bothered think about longevity research.
This point is not the future. And, of course, the "likely manifestation of 500 year lifespans" is merely an opportunity to spew defective narratives about rich people. After all, why do something that profoundly benefits everyone on the planet when it only benefits the "super wealthy". Perhaps in the future, longevity research will fix your mental issues.
In other words, bringing in the Bug Paste Utopia where JoeMerchants totally nail it.
Reality trumps wish fulfillment narratives, especially ones that require disaster or deep dystopia in order to fulfill. I'd rather be right now rather than in some imaginary terrible future.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 07 2024, @03:21PM (23 children)
>And longevity would also be about fixing the above mental deficiencies that are now merely accepted as being old.
So far, progress in longevity research has produced more people walking around with dementia, not fewer.
>Reality trumps wish fulfillment narratives,
Sure does. Keep working on it, yes, but "progress" so far amounts to memory care centers full of seniors who require fabulously expensive support, on the order of what it costs to keep criminal prisoners because: let's face it, those people are living as prisoners.
> you can't even be bothered think about longevity research.
Oh, I think it's a worthwhile endeavor, I just also feel that, empirically, what we have implemented in the broader population so far is of questionable value to most of the people who are living longer.
>merely an opportunity to spew defective narratives
Yes, but you are entertaining anyway.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 08 2024, @01:07AM (22 children)
So far there hasn't been much of a need to address dementia. You have to live long enough first. A lot of health problems are like that. Can't die from cancer, if you die from a heart attack first.
I strongly disagree. A recent elderly person I know got hit by covid recently and later suffered from a complication of blood clots that would have killed him without modern medical care. Instead he was away from work for about a week (well about a week more than just from his covid infection). People are surviving and recovering far better from heart and circulatory illnesses than they used to be. For example, just search on SoylentNews for keywords like "stent". With that I ran across Soylentils who had experienced heart attacks and strokes, sometimes multiple times. We have a number of posters who wouldn't be here now without modern medicine.
That's with the current primitive state of longevity research.
Anyway to tie this back to the topic, live longer, live better, etc requires a vigorous economy and that in turn requires a lot of work. There's too much assumption that we can screw with it by various, ever growing impositions and it will still function as it has in the past with all the rich people somehow paying for everything - even though they can't now.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 08 2024, @02:42AM (21 children)
>So far there hasn't been much of a need to address dementia.
Peruse the retirement communities of Florida for a while and then repeat that fantasy for me.
>A recent elderly person
And you fail to provide any quantifiable measures, not even a rough decade of age - I do remember when 50 was elderly IMO. Here in my late 50s, I think younger me did have a point, even if I wouldn't repeat the opinion now.
>People are surviving and recovering far better from heart and circulatory illnesses than they used to be.
Yes, they are. And my observation is: the more money they have, the longer they live - in those long term care facilities under lock and key with occasional visits from relatives. Just spent a week visiting a 90 year old aunt in a LA retirement home, she's a happy old bird, well adjusted to her circumstance in her little cage, but doesn't remember much that happened between 2 hours and 20 years ago, and really only remembers a handful of stories from the old days too. In 7 2-3 hour visits, we probably covered the same 4 hours of material four or five times, favorite stories like details of how her father beat her and all her siblings of course come up more frequently, at least 20 times in the week.
>keywords like "stent".
Yep, stents kept my step father alive for at least an extra 10 years, the last two of those on a feeding tube, and the six before the feeding tube of very questionable value - quality of life wise - for both him and my mother. So - 2 years of good life added by the stents, and 8 years of progressively more miserable torture... tell me: are we winning?
>live longer, live better, etc requires a vigorous economy
In your head. Most of what was wrong with my step father, making him unable to do anything beyond sit on the couch and marinate in Fox News (he used to boat, fish, fly, hunt, travel...) was traceable to on the job injuries he incurred while driving for work as his part of the vigorous economy, and some of it traceable to his 20s in the submarine corps. That vigorous economy is what gave him and my mother more than 15 years of stay-at-home and do little but shuttle back and forth to doctors and hospitals life.
> There's too much assumption
Agreed.
>we can screw with it by various, ever growing impositions and it will still function as it has in the past with all the rich people somehow paying for everything
Rich people don't pay for jack shit as it is. Rich people employ poor people to scrub their toilets, build their mansions and yachts, serve them food and drink and provide them with travel and luxury services. None of that contributes to longevity research or anything else of value. The only thing that activity contributes to the rest of the economy is when it gets taxed. What's your stance on luxury taxes, again?
Cherry pick a few billionaires whose fortunes drive research and development of new technologies. For every one of those "points of light" there are a hundred more "dark" billionaires who brood on 99% of their pile of gold without doing anything useful to the rest of us.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 08 2024, @12:33PM (20 children)
Peruse those retirement communities 30 years ago and repeat that fantasy for me.
Let me just say that my search for stent uncovered that several posters have stated they have had stents or other medical procedures (bypass surgery) to stay alive. I don't see the point of providing a number when I was just looking cursorily, but what I read so far indicated three SN posters and a wife of a SN poster.
So two years of good life plus eight of so-so?
You have any "quantifiable measures" to go with that? There are after all other people in the world than your step father and your mother. Perhaps they have different experiences with medical care?
They pay taxes. They employ more people than you'll ever know. And last I checked, you're the only person whose job it is to do anything useful for you.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 08 2024, @04:19PM (19 children)
>Peruse those retirement communities 30 years ago and repeat that fantasy for me.
I did. 30 years ago, the snowbird retirees dominating my county's population were concentrated in trailer parks, riding their tricycles to the grocery store and dropping dead of various diseases - mostly cardiac - before they became too infirm to care for themselves.
The whole "all levels of care" retirement community boom was just getting going in the late 1990s. Now, instead of living in your own tin-can with your significant other until you kick off, you "buy in" for - well - whatever you can afford, generally in the $100K - $300K range, but there are a few cheaper, and many more expensive too, and then hand over a typical SSDI payment + a bit more as "maintenance / meals" fees, and start out in a nice "independent living" apartment, until you can't handle that, then move into "assisted living", "memory care" and "intensive nursing", as needed. Those later stages have grown in population by leaps and bounds in recent decades.
My question to you is: what quality of life are these "advanced stages of care" senior citizens experiencing? Many of them are living the "50 first dates" experience of waking up each day not remembering anything from the days before. Most of them are living as widows, quite a few less as widowers. Their "value" to society is obvious: they sell their primary asset (their home) for the buy-in, and sign over their retirement annuities from various sources to their care-givers, so it's a great make-work program not only for the people building and maintaining the facilities, but also for all the nurses and other support staff earning their living from the walking dead.
>So two years of good life plus eight of so-so?
Two years of creaky old joints, chronic fatigue, poor eyesight, failing hearing, and for my step-father he was already on "blood thinner" drugs that left his limbs constantly covered in bruises from the slightest activity.
Eight years of cleaning shit from diapers and diaper leaks, heavy-lift transfers from bed to wheelchair to car and back, virtually impossible verbal communication from any distance more than three feet, senility, arrest and neglect while incarcerated under the Baker act as a danger to self and others, problem alcoholism, oxycontin addiction (these didn't come until well into the 8 years), evacuation from a hospital after the roof blew off during a hurricane, yeah, you could call that so-so - there are definitely a lot of senior citizen couples out there who have it worse.
>You have any "quantifiable measures" to go with that?
Start with workman's comp claims, then inflate that number by a significant factor because workman's comp is the shittiest insurance process known. We know many "teacher's aides" working in "problem behavior" schools who are injured on the job on a regular basis, and they often choose to pay for their medical care out of pocket (on their $16-18/hr salaries) because a workman's comp claim will delay their treatment by weeks, months, or perhaps indefinitely.
>There are after all other people in the world than your step father and your mother. Perhaps they have different experiences with medical care?
Well, we can start with my mother's parents who provided advanced care to one of their mothers - bedridden with zero quality of life for 8+ years while my grandparents acting as her caregivers were 90%+ tasked with her care. That experience inspired them to never be such a burden to anyone else - grandfather made good on that by refusing amputation to save his life after his last femoral artery shut down, two weeks in hospice and he was out - without experiencing a decade or two of life as an amputee. Grandmother opted for one of the staged care centers and she was less of a direct burden, but did run her son around for 5+ years managing her various and increasingly frequent doctors' appointments at the end.
>>The only thing that activity contributes to the rest of the economy is when it gets taxed. What's your stance on luxury taxes, again?
>They pay taxes
Have you seen your memory care doctor lately? Better tie a string on your finger, your retention of written language seems to be spotty.
>They employ more people than you'll ever know.
Do they? I acknowledge that their businesses do, but those businesses are virtually all "artificial person" corporations which first meet their contractual obligations, then - like an artificial slave - turn over all their excess profits to the owners. Businesses beneficially owned by billionaires (and everyone else) could continue to benefit society exactly as they currently do without funneling inhuman levels of wealth to their owners. What's an inhuman level of wealth? That's going to be a fuzzy line, but let's start with "more money than you could ever earn by direct labor in a hundred years."
Think of authors and recording artists: they receive royalties - basically a tax agreement with their publishers. They perform their art, then take a little slice of every income earned from it across millions or even billions of customers. Fair? Who cares, it is the way it is, and it results in literally inhuman levels of wealth being funneled to individuals (and moreso: their publishing companies.)
There are less than 3000 billionaires today. Show me one who didn't "earn" the majority of their money by effectively taking little slices off of millions, billions, or even trillions of transactions. What does that arrangement sound like to you? Sounds like taxes to me, taxes levied by the oligarchy.
>And last I checked, you're the only person whose job it is to do anything useful for you.
Yep, while government taxes are at least partly returned for the benefit of the taxed people, oligarchy taxes aren't doing anything useful - not even for their employees.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 08 2024, @10:47PM (18 children)
Sounds better than the trailer park and thus, my point shown.
As to the litany of complaints about present day "all levels of care" retirement community and such, it's foolish to blame that on longevity research. Instead one needs to follow the money: Medicare. This is in large part theater funded by a massive tax revenue stream. And to be very blunt, it's a UBI-style solution with the UBI-style problems associated with it. If arsenic is killing the patient, then we need more arsenic.
When I hear this, I hear what a short-sighted JoeMerchant would be saying after 60 years of UBI, assuming we survive [soylentnews.org] the short-term consequences associated with UBI. Note the poster of the link asserts a lot of problems while blaming those problems unsarcastically on the people who have to pay for the UBI system - setting up another party to blame for failure before UBI even starts.
These failings of thought are typical of the ideology behind UBI: no real problems to solve except the ones already created by previous applications of the solution, and more interest in finding parties to blame for failure than in preventing failure.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday August 09 2024, @05:09PM (17 children)
>Sounds better than the trailer park and thus, my point shown.
To yourself. In my, and my wives', ancestries, so far only one ancestor has submitted to admission to a long term care facility, that one willfully - the rest strongly preferred to "die at home" and succeeded.
Those trailer park denziens were filled with like-minded Bingo playing trike riders - most of them would have to have been dragged, kicking and screaming, into a long term care facility - even if it were free.
Now I've got a DINK aunt who bailed out halfway through chemo for her stage 3 lung cancer treatment, she's likely to make that 5 year survival mark and more, but she needs an elevator instead of climbing stairs, and many other things that come with your 70s after a less than healthy lifestyle for the previous 50 years. She's ready to check-in, and her husband is along for the ride. My mother (his brother) waffles - she'd rather die at home, but after caring for her bed-ridden husband for 8 years she's also realistic about the best way to deal with _that_ eventuality.
They're all set to live as long as, or longer than, their parents - call that "successful" longevity tech if you will. If you admit that there's such a thing as "negative quality of life" - and you integrate quality of life across the person's lifetime, we may not actually be making overall positive progress on average.
>Medicare. This is in large part theater funded by a massive tax revenue stream. And to be very blunt, it's a UBI-style solution with the UBI-style problems associated with it.
To be very blunt, this Medicare is only like the strawman UBI you pull out of your ass everytime you want to bash UBI. A brief recap of the UBI I have been describing, for years.
U - Universal. Do we have Medicare for all? If so, I missed it. I did hear Trump propose it in 2017, but he was instantly buried by an establishment pile-on that educated him in just how powerful a President is not. Medicare is very much a needs-based system, with the attendant army of Need auditors determining who gets and who does not get Medicare funding, when, and for what.
B - Basic. Medicare will whip out tens of thousands of dollars for procedures that Medicare has deemed "necessary" for the recipients. In my book, that's not Basic funding, that's lavish funding of the pet programs which have Medicare approval - which, itself, generates a huge army of industry lobbyists whose only function is to get, or increase, Medicare funding for their pet recipients of it.
I - Income. Medicare may make payments "for the benefit" of individuals, but it's nothing like income. With Medicare, the beneficiary gets cut on, pumped with drugs, or otherwise medically treated - you can't spend that. The only people getting income from Medicare are the medical service providers.
So, yeah, Medicare comes from tax money - like roads, schools, the armed forces, first responders, social security, etc. UBI would come from tax money - so sure, they're EXACTLY alike. In your head.
These failings of thought are typical of khallow - either outright ignoring previous conversation to argue in bad faith, responding only to trigger words with unrelated blather from his own fantasies - or perhaps a sign of dementia. You have my sympathy either way - inability to comprehend the other side of a conversation is a terrible condition which you repeatedly show all the signs of.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 12 2024, @01:17AM (16 children)
It covers almost every US citizen over the age of 65 one way or another. Checks the box.
That's the basic level of funding for the program. That it is used to "lavish funding of the pet programs which have Medicare approval" is just a feature of centralized basic funding.
Hence, why it's "like" rather than "is".
There's a point to these terrible examples. You keep insisting that UBI will be net good. Where's the evidence supporting that claim? Presently we have merely small benefit and small harms from small real world basic income. That's why looking at these other real world examples is so important. US Medicare in particular is glaring because it's a benefits program with huge coverage both in the number of people and level of service that isn't sustainable over the next few decades due to cost growth combined with inadequate funding. It and US Social Security by themselves threaten the future of the US. Their spending grows faster than the US economy and there's no real option to keeping them going other than cutting benefits substantially.
Moving on to the earlier part, this is just an application of the imperfect world fallacy. Just because the present world is imperfect so that taking care of old people is expensive and industrialized doesn't mean that it will be less imperfect with UBI. I think we have strong reason to believe otherwise.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 12 2024, @01:10PM (15 children)
Checks your box. https://www.hhs.gov/answers/medicare-and-medicaid/who-is-eligible-for-medicare/index.html [hhs.gov]
In my book, this is a f-ed up program from the get-go, waiting until you are 65 years old to begin making sure you have adequate healthcare, then stepping in when the bills for your lack of healthcare to date are spiraling out of control.
Universal, is it?
And when you don't pay your part B premium, you don't get part B coverage - but who needs medical insurance, anyway? Just wait until you're hospitalized with an untreated condition, then Part A might cover you.
And on, and on - complications, rules, exceptions.
My version of Universal: Legal Adult U.S. Citizen? If yes, then you receive it. It, being the same without exceptions, variations, etc. One country, one benefit. If your local cost of living feels "too high" for you, move.
So, this is your idea of Basic? https://www.uhc.com/medicare/medicare-education/medicare-initial-enrollment-period.html [uhc.com]
My idea of Basic: $600 per month. Flexible payment options: Monthly check, direct deposit instead of check, no bank required Debit card option. Basic. The fanciest option I see: hourly deposits of $0.83, for people who would otherwise tend to splurge and then have a problem with money for food / shelter until the next payment arrives.
Beyond: gubbmint baaaahd, power to the poor people baaaahd, lower taxes gud? I haven't heard you articulate anything beyond hand waves at the world as it is as an example of how we're all going to suffocate under the current systems, while simultaneously lauding the last 100 years of progress as unprecedented amazing improvements in quality of life - the very same 100 years that followed FDR's new deal, massive social programs in Europe and even Australia-New Zealand's universal healthcare, but that progress is what's going to send us all back to the dark ages.
blah blah blah.... as you previously ignored: US Medicare doesn't give people anything - it gives the medical service provider industry everything, and I'm all for taking a U.K. UHS approach as a target for Medicare reform.
I agree with you there, and at the risk of repeating an example I've talked about before, consider the VNS vagal nerve stimulator. In 2003-2005 I worked as the principal electrical engineer for the company that made the implantable VNS device. In 2003 30,000 people around the world, mostly in the US and Europe, were implanted with the device because they and their doctors perceived it to be beneficial to them - in some cases it provides significant relief from epileptic seizures, a condition which is estimated to impact the economy $-100,000 per year per patient between lost productivity and cost of care.
To the present point: the cost to manufacture and deliver the device in it's glorious dry nitrogen filled welded titanium case with platinum electrodes dangling on a high tech biocompatible lead wires stress tested to withstand millions of flexes: $700. That included me and dozens of other engineers at $100K per year salaries, the quality, documentation and regulatory compliance departments, and our administrative overhead. It includes the assemblers in their bunny suits in the semi-clean room where the devices are assembled. That $700 is where Boeing has been cutting corners to get down to $690 to increase shareholder profits, because: that's job one for aspiring management types: profit.
Meanwhile, my R&D department fell under a Vice President who was also in charge of Medicare reimbursement, and he had just successfully negotiated the Medicare reimbursement for the purchase of the device itself, and the hospital installation surgery, up from $14,700 for the device and $15,250 for the surgery to $15,300 for the device and $15,700 for the surgery. The VP did this personally, thus demonstrating his super-human value to the company because in a single act he alone (backed by his team, of course) negotiated an increase in profits for the company of $550 per device - more than could be gained by completely eliminating the entire regulatory, documentation, quality and R&D functions' costs altogether.
But, with this margin of $14,000 per device sold, and 10,000 new devices being sold per year, why wasn't this company more profitable than Apple? (Actually, in 2005 I believe it was, but....) Well... the cost of sales... varied, but generally ran around $14,000 per device. They hired experts from the Pharmaceutical industry who established a "successful" sales model which hired attractive young women and men straight out of college, just educated enough to not offend Neurologists with their ignorance, they paid them $80K per year straight out of school and offered them a commission structure that basically meant: either they would be making $200K+ per year if they were successfully selling devices at the expected rate (which, about 10% of them were capable of), or their starting "teaser" salary would dwindle to basically minimum wage after 6 months to a year and they'd be looking for another job. They flew all over the country and the world doing direct face to face selling to their assigned neurologists. They identified potential candidates (with the occasional ethical transgression like paying doctors or their staff for copies of their patient lists) and did direct face to face selling to them, showing them how to get maximal insurance coverage for the cost of the procedure. And, while we were delivering the devices to the operating rooms for a net cost of $700 per device, it was costing $14,000 per device to identify and convince patients that they actually wanted the device installed.
This 20x (2000%) overhead margin seems to be typical in the industry. My son takes a "new" drug that's actually just a combination of an old drug and tonic water, but which a pharmaceutical company has run the approval and reimbursement system for. Getting the drug from a compounding pharmacy, hand made pills under the supervision of a $300K+ per year pharmacist, the most expensive way to make medication, the pills are $0.50 each, $90 for a three month supply - but you know who doesn't cover the cost of those compounded drugs, even when prescribed by a physician? Both my "big corporation" company insurance, and Medicare. Getting the pills from the Big Pharma company at $20 per pill, $3600 for a 3 month supply? 100% Covered by insurance, even Medicare with a nominal co-pay of something like $10 per refill.
There's your cost growth, and "business as usual" has continued to let it inflate beyond absurd levels, unchecked for 50+ years.
The U.K./Canada NHS and rest of the developed world Universal Healthcare answer? Cover the compounded pills, 100%.
UBI and healthcare are about as related as food and fuel. Both are necessary for modern life, but Income for individuals - while it could cover healthcare - as demonstrated so well in the US, healthcare and money don't mix well: you'll pay anything to prevent your own death, and just about anything for significant improvements in quality of life that healthcare can (and should) provide. Controlling peoples' impulse to spend more money than they have on healthcare is harder than controlling their impulses to gamble or take addictive drugs. Divorcing healthcare and "income" money is a very sensible, and cost effective, thing to do, as demonstrated all over this imperfect world today by the countries that have been doing it for many decades.
Meanwhile, micro-loan programs and UBI studies have shown significant improvements in quality of life, and financial self-sufficiency, by moving the "floor" of income up from zero.
I agree - that's what you say you think. I think otherwise.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 12 2024, @03:43PM (14 children)
In other words, there's your basic as advertised.
Your idea of basic is irrelevant. This is basic as well, and more importantly what basic evolves into. You were mentioning that basic income experiments were short-term. At 60 years, Medicare isn't short term.
Not at US prices they won't.
Of this example goes beyond "government bad" - though that is a useful starting principle for this sort of thing. My take is that if it's not a last resort situation like disaster preparedness and recovery, nor has a huge conflict of interest associated with it, like national security, then government involvement is a strong demonstration that you're doing it wrong. Universal services that can readily be delivered by the intended recipients are nowhere near this.
As to sending us back to the Dark Ages, I challenge you to look at actual real world cases where that has happened - Haiti and Paraguay for example. It's not absence of social programs that causes the impact crater, but enormous hubris like institutionalized stealing or starting lots of wars that do that.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 12 2024, @04:17PM (13 children)
>As to sending us back to the Dark Ages, I challenge you to look at actual real world cases where that has happened - Haiti and Paraguay for example. It's not absence of social programs that causes the impact crater, but enormous hubris like institutionalized stealing or starting lots of wars that do that.
So, because Haiti and Paraguay cratered without social programs, we should all forego social programs?
Congratulations, your logic is beyond me - though counter-arguments such as: meeting basic human needs reduces unrest / violence do come to mind. Likening UBI to institutionalized stealing: because Alaska is teetering on the edge of financial ruin after 50 years of UBI?
Transparency is always the answer. Simple programs with simple rules. Our process with 435 lawmakers each earmarking every spending bill with a little something for their benefactors (as opposed to their constituents whom they just need to fool into voting for them once every 2 years) is a big root cause of the mess we have created.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 12 2024, @04:23PM (12 children)
I can show cases where my concerns led to societies in decline - including institutionalized society-wide theft and corruption such as UBI would cause. You have yet to show that absence of social programs causes any such problems.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 12 2024, @05:16PM (11 children)
>You have yet to show that absence of social programs causes any such problems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_riots [wikipedia.org]
How many of those _lacked_ issues of economic stress on the rioters prior to their decision to riot? I will grant, the recent riots in France, and absolutely the Jan 6 thing, _might_ be stretching the issue of economic stress a bit... but as for the hundreds of other examples? Even the UK football rioters are lower class drunks who can't quite afford the beer that fuels them.
Many point to social injustice - police or others murdering one of their own - yet, how many times have the affluent WASPS of the United States, or affluent groups of any country, taken to the streets to riot in response to a murder of one of theirs?
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 13 2024, @03:27AM (10 children)
You don't get it. "Economic stress" is not absence of social programs. In fact, existence [wikipedia.org] of social programs can cause a lot of economic stress - take Venezuela for a recent example. Recall your complaints about fossil fuel subsidies [soylentnews.org]? Well, that was a Venezuela social program and one of many that have solidly contributed to their current mess and high emigration of recent years.
I would suggest the January 6 protest/riot as an example [uchicago.edu] of such:
Since this is a recurring issue for others on SN, I continue to disagree that this was an insurrection. But that doesn't mean that I will refuse relevant data from otherwise biased sources.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 13 2024, @11:41AM (6 children)
Representative cross section of the US electorate indeed. The video coverage must have been very biased to miss all the black and brown Jan 6 insurrectionists.
If your source cherry picks their metrics to justify the term "representative cross section" what else are they lying about?
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 13 2024, @12:08PM (2 children)
"They closely reflect the US electorate on most socio-economic variables." Ethnicity isn't the only socio-economic variable. Plus, while underrepresented, other ethnicities were there [northjersey.com].
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 13 2024, @12:19PM (1 child)
Race is a relevant attribute when describing voters, and vote count deniers.
When you marinate in cherry picked source material, you start to believe the echoes:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/07/for-those-with-power-and-rich-donors-the-ac-is-always-on-even-if-its-melting-outside [theguardian.com]
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(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Wednesday August 14 2024, @12:18AM
So are lots of other attributes. So why again are you cherrypicking this one?
Sorry, you cherry picked ethnicity and then accused the source of cherry picking. It doesn't work that way.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Tuesday August 13 2024, @12:10PM (2 children)
We don't know if the original source is cherry picking or not - you haven't shown that even a little. We know you are.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 13 2024, @02:19PM (1 child)
I didn't watch all the video footage, but I would say that I saw a sampling of at least 100 rioters clearly enough to determine their ethnicity.
The Rump's Cabinet isn't all white and male, either, but calling it a representative cross section of the constituents they serve would be demonstrative of what passes for truth in there:
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/the-trump-administration/the-cabinet/ [archives.gov]
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 14 2024, @12:31AM
Can you similarly determine whether they're business owners, employment status and white or blue collar, have military service, belong to militant groups and gangs, or come from urban versus rural counties? In addition, there are characteristics that you are likely be able to determine from the videos - age and sex. I won't claim that is at all a comprehensive list, but apparently a key part of the study was to test various assertions of the characteristics of protesters who committed criminal acts during the protest. For example, they found that such protesters were more likely to come from urban counties:
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 13 2024, @03:41PM (2 children)
Apparently the Venezuelan social programs haven't completely ruined the place: https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-flee-venezuela-loses-election-elon-musk-interview-1938321 [newsweek.com]
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 14 2024, @12:37AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 14 2024, @01:06AM
>talking up the threat of scary, dangerous Democrats
Oh, they are a scary bunch: talkin' 'bout raisin' taxes on the rich 'n all...
Since you brought up wall - did you know that during the 2017-2020 time period, a total of 80 miles of new wall was constructed on the US-Mexico border? At a net cost to the US taxpayers of approximately $15B?
For $100 million per day, spread across a 2000 mile border, that's $50,000 per mile, per day. Figure Bubba 'n his 30/06 can easily cover 100 yards of border, keepin' them wetbacks at bay better 'n any wall. We'd just need 18 Bubbas per mile (give 'em night vision goggles too) on 3 shifts, that's 54 Bubbas per mile earning $925 per 8 hour shift - pretty sure Bubba would be more than happy to do it, even if he had to sit out under a 10x10 easy up for 8 hours tuh get his $925.
1940 miles of border, that's over 100,000 Bubbas employed for more money than they could make anywhere else, sheeoot, they could work one month on, two months off and still be makin' over $100K per year. All for the same cost to the US taxpayers as Trump's actual wall performance over 4 years in office.
Spoiler Alert: The Rump has no interest in helping 300,000 Bubbas earn over $100K per year, his $15B went to big time construction contractors and other "good people" who are in a position to kiss his ass later.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 02 2024, @03:52AM (18 children)
As long as we end subsidies for all energy sources. Remember renewable energy subsidies [soylentnews.org] are just as large per unit of energy produced.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday August 02 2024, @12:55PM (17 children)
>As long as we end subsidies for all energy sources. Remember renewable energy subsidies [soylentnews.org] are just as large per unit of energy produced.
I could get behind that, although the renewables do deserve some start-up investment to compete with the Trillions already given to develop fossil fuels.
Otherwise, we become Venezuela with US $0.10 per gallon gasoline... that doesn't seem to have done any great things for their people as compared to investment elsewhere.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 04 2024, @11:20AM (16 children)
Renewables already picked that start-up investment. My take is that if renewables still need start-up investment after half a century of start-up investment, then there's something wrong with how the subsidies are being used.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 05 2024, @04:47PM (15 children)
>Renewables already picked that start-up investment.
Did they now?
https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/climate-change/energy-subsidies [imf.org]
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 05 2024, @06:16PM (14 children)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 05 2024, @06:48PM (13 children)
>For the US, that means subsidies of fossil fuels and renewables are fairly close to one another.
Thank you for validating my point: both are continuing to receive "fairly close to one another" levels of subsidy. If subsidies are eliminated on renewables, they surely must also be eliminated on fossil fuels - unless we are attempting to protect fossil fuels from fair competition.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 06 2024, @03:40AM (12 children)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 06 2024, @01:28PM (11 children)
Like science, research, and education, I believe it is in society's own best interests to fund the pursuit of knowledge and improvements to existing processes. As long as renewables are continuing to improve their performance through such research, I believe that it should be funded in "open" arenas where ALL businesses can benefit from the advances.
Business has a nasty tendency to focus on near term profits - any pining for the "good old days" of AT&T Bell Labs would do well to remember that they were effectively bankrolled by the public as a government protected monopoly.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 07 2024, @12:00AM (10 children)
How's that working out? My take is that we used that public spending to create a dysfunctional monster that's every bit as wasteful and corrupt as the military-industrial complex.
There's a solution - let business fail.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 07 2024, @12:07AM
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 07 2024, @01:32AM (8 children)
>Like science, research, and education, I believe it is in society's own best interests to fund the pursuit of knowledge and improvements to existing processes.
How's that working out?
Metric fuck-tonnes better that 200 years ago before such programs existed outside the homes of the Aristocracy.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 07 2024, @12:41PM (7 children)
We already see the failure modes of the modern scientific-technological elite. Namely, that they prioritize [soylentnews.org] getting funding over doing science. This in turn results in a number of pathologies:
A huge side effect of all that is a huge amount of wasted effort by millions of mankind's best and brightest to jump through bureaucratic hoops and play political games (often by through highly dysfunction ploys) rather than help us make a better world. 200 years ago a person could self-teach themselves advanced engineering techniques bypassing said aristocratic education and make big, self-funding money pushing the Industrial Revolution along - which incidentally helped end the power of the aristocracy. No need to "publish or perish".
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 07 2024, @03:51PM (6 children)
>that they prioritize getting funding over doing science
Which is why funding with less of a gatekeeper process on it is, ultimately, much more efficient.
It comes back to the same mechanisms / issues as needs-based welfare vs UBI:
People in need of food/shelter are, generally, not the best qualified people to navigate hostile and wasteful gatekeeper bureaucracies. So, they end up needing advocates / lawyers who waste more valuable time and effort getting benefits established and continuing to flow as needed.
The best scientists are not the best grant writers, so you either have good scientists who are getting little or no grant funding, or you have "research teams" with grant-writing members whose primary, if not only, function is to get grants for the team.
Both of these scenarios also lend themselves very much to cronyism: it's who you know, not how deserving you are, which determines how your funding flows.
I would rather not simply accept that our recent trouble with the USPS is "just how things are" - while we were away on vacation for two weeks, our neighbors were collecting our mail, except that neither they,, nor we received any mail for those two weeks. Turns out: all eight houses in our "box" weren't receiving mail. Nobody had the manifest will to determine why, one neighbor gets their income as checks from clients through the mail, but rather than endeavoring to get the mail flowing to our boxes again they simply started driving 30 minutes to the post office to stand in line to pick up their mail... I investigated, found that the carrier wasn't delivering due to a broken lock on the box - but the carrier apparently was incapable or unwilling to file any kind of repair request. So I filed a repair request, got a few neighbors to also file repair requests, and nothing happened for two more weeks. So, I wrote to our Congressman, and apparently that's what it takes to get the USPS to move these days; a federal Congressional inquiry, the lock was repaired within 24 hours of the inquiry. Took two more weeks for all the backlogged mail to come out.
Lots of people lacking advocacy skills in this neighborhood, apparently. The same kinds of advocacy skills required to deal with the SSA (an inquiry via a US Senator got them moving after two years of feigned incompetence.) Research grants? Yeah, I worked in a University town for companies that lived on research grants for about 7 years, it's a horribly inefficient way to get anything done - constantly begging for money, never knowing if or when or how long it will come through.
>200 years ago a person could self-teach themselves advanced engineering techniques bypassing said aristocratic education and make big, self-funding money pushing the Industrial Revolution along
An independently wealthy person. Interestingly, today you can take online classes from MIT and the like for free. Self-funding money is as rare as it ever was, but Bill Gates and the dork behind Facebook weren't exactly scrambling for nutritional assistance when they made their recent "contributions to progress."
>which incidentally helped end the power of the aristocracy.
John Lennon, Working Class Hero - published in 1970 and even more true today than it was then.
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(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Thursday August 08 2024, @01:41AM
Not for science. But then I'd be disagreeing with the well known scientists Albert Einstein 1 through Albert Einstein 100,000 who are eager to milk this new system. They have consensus on their side! Private world gatekeepers have a vested interest in the quality of the research they pursue because it's their money at stake.
How is the USPS example supposed to be relevant? Not seeing the point to addressing it. Heh.
They certainly were independently wealthy afterward.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Thursday August 08 2024, @11:14PM (4 children)
Sorry, I was never impressed by what Lennon could see and not see. This song is just tip of the iceberg.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday August 09 2024, @05:10PM (3 children)
Missing the point, as usual.
If you were capable of putting yourself in a 1970 Lennon-like perspective, you would also see a bunch of fucking deluded peasants.
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(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Sunday August 11 2024, @03:32AM (2 children)
I get the perspective, but I also get the pathology that goes into that perspective.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 11 2024, @12:24PM (1 child)
No other species controls access to the resources necessary for life anywhere near as totally as h. sapiens. We used to use that power for culturally acceptable absolute control of people as property.
Today we have (mostly) moved one step beyond people as property, but as discussed before: our artificial construct of money and the vastly different levels of access to money that different people have creates wage slavery when there is insufficient access to money for access to the resources necessary for life through it without accepting abusive working conditions.
What's an abusive working condition? Let's start with jobs that people with UBI would refuse to do.
Another insight into potentially abusive working conditions comes from Florida:s recent restrictions on illegal immigrants, and the total lack of ability to fill some jobs when the supply of illegals is reduced.
If we aren't willing to do those things for the compensation that the business owners are accustomed to paying, I would call that current level of compensation abusive of the peasants who apparently are serving as wage slaves.
Worship of the rich may be a social requirement for success in certain professions, like money counting, but I would call it pathological and ultimately self injurious in the big picture.
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(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Monday August 12 2024, @01:23AM
"Used to". When will your arguments reflect what we do now rather than what we used to do? I'm not interested in debating the old times of slave owners.
In other words, fake slavery. Nothing here for me to debate either.
What level of UBI? It's not a bit flag you set after all. I suggest using zero dollars as the only set point for that.
There are always jobs that aren't filled. This is not interesting.
If there's a problem with worshipping rich people, then don't do that Joe. Again, an argument that's not interesting nor worth debating.