A universal income is not such a silly idea - <AUTHOR> http://timharford.com/2013/11/a-universal-income-is-not-such-a-silly-idea/ <comment><USER3> It's not a silly idea at all but I like to think of myself as progressive and I think it is a very bad idea in reality vs on paper.

Just look at how college costs magically rise to the availability of loans and grants. What do you think is going to happen to food and rent prices once those supply chains figure out there is much more profit to be made?

The Walton family alone has more wealth then the lower 42% rest of the USA. What do you think is going to happen when they know all their customers have a certain base income - you think prices are going to stay where they are?

So you will just make the wealthy more wealthy.

<comment><USER4> It's already worse than that. There are many products which have a smaller size of that's more expensive than the larger size because the smaller one is WIC-approved. There's targeted price-gouging for people who are forced by the government to buy specific products. There are also ridiculous loopholes. People buy soda and milk with returnable bottles, walk outside, pour it out, return the bottles for cash, and buy a beer. This happens consistently at grocery stores.

<comment><USER5> Who cares? The government pays for WIC, so the only people being defrauded in this circumstance are the government. There's no "price gouging" involved here; WIC recipients get a voucher that pays full price for the items on the voucher, no matter what they are or how much that is.

<comment><USER6> The government isn't a person, the taxpayer is being defrauded so pretty much everyone should care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Rather than these posts discussing universal basic income in abstract, I would like to see someone go through a back of the envelope scenario for a real country that might try it. Switzerland or some other European country.

Presumably there would need to be major changes to income tax brackets (especially for the lower income tiers) & dismantling of various existing welfare programs in order to fund a basic income. I think Friedman included public services like schools, public transport, health services, etc in his definition of welfare. I doubt Europeans would go this far.

 _Then_ we can discuss the more speculative parts like who will be more or less incentivized to work.

Is there something like that on the internet?

<comment><USER8> Very good point. After all, we all know how sometimes wonderful ideas can turn out badly [1].

[1] - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism)

<comment><USER9> Socialism was a good idea, maybe an unrealistic one in many respects.

Whereas Communism via "Vanguard-party" was always a bad idea. Pretty much all of communist countries never got past the Vanguard transitional stage and ended up with a brutal dictatorship.

<comment><USER10> I think socialism has worked pretty well in the UK, all things considered. We've never gone the whole hog, but we have had a welfare state and a number of industries nationalised at various times. I rather like having a mixed economy where some elements of capitalism are balanced by socialism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm a conservative. One would probably assume I'd be against a universal basic income. In theory I am, but I actually think I find the basic income much more palatable than the current welfare state.

At least with the basic income, there is never an _incentive_ to not work. It makes it possible to not work, but it doesn't incentivize it. The current welfare systems make it such that if you start working you lose the welfare. If you don't have the skills to make significantly above the welfare level, you are actively incentivized to not work.

For those suggesting we'd have massive inflation making this completely worthless, I think you underestimate the level of money we currently give away. While there would be some inflation, we already give huge amounts of money in the form of welfare, food stamps, social security, etc. A basic income would replace all of those things.

<comment><USER12> Yes, exactly. The only problem is, in practice, it's so hard to get rid of those things, that we may end up with basic income AND various forms of welfare and that would not be good

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "This sounds like some communist plot. How can anyone take seriously the idea of paying people to sit around on their backsides?"

That's something a person that didn't experience communism would say.

Communists would never allow a person to just stay idle doing nothing if you don't have a job you would be sent to forced labor camps where people are needed.

Ask any Romania born before 1989 if you don't believe me.

</comment><comment><USER14> The UK benefits system has been built up over many years, over a range of different government departments, and covers many different needs and philosophies.

This means it's a horrific mess. For years it was not possible to know how much housing benefit you would get before you moved into a property. While I think there are flaws with the free market I can see that crippling it doesn't help at all.

It's really hard to work out if you're getting the correct benefits, or if you're getting too many. (We have a tax credit system. The credits lag real world payment information, and many people get caught with having to repay tax credits.)

There are other flaws. Someone getting voluntary work (improving their chances of getting full time paid employment) is penalised. Someone with MH illness who gets voluntary work as a step back into society gets penalised.

So, the different government departments have been streamlined a bit. The different benefits are being changed, and signals are being sent about acceptable use of the system.

I got a letter, to my name and address, with all my relevant information. It had a phone number. I called the number. They asked me security information, and confirmed my name and address. They sent me a form. I had to fill out the form and return it. That form is an assessment for an interview. I'll attend an interview, which is given by a doctor. That doctor doesn't do any diagnosis, they have a rigid check list which they assess the patient against. ("Can you walk 10 metres unaided?" "Can you stand for ten minutes without pain?"). The form is scored and sent to a decision maker. That is then returned to a bureaucrat, who awards one benefit, or another, or none.

The checklist is flawed - turn up with a dirty t-shirt because you're a lazy slob? You score points. Turn up with an ironed shirt and tie because your crippling OCD and anxiety won't allow you to leave the house otherwise? You lose points.

All of this bureaucracy is very expensive. The system is open to abuse from multiple parties - criminal gangs using dead people's names to claim benefits; people over claiming, or claiming while working, or claiming for something they're not eligible for.

Sweeping away all of this and replacing it with a relatively simple "Does this person exist? Are the eligible for the universal income?" would save so much money, and time, and stress. It would free people to do voluntary work, or small informal projects.

Then we just need a bonfire of the tax / duties system, and get something sane there.

<comment><USER15> > Sweeping away all of this and replacing it with a relatively simple "Does > this person exist? Are the eligible for the universal income?" would save so > much money, and time, and stress. It would free people to do voluntary work, > or small informal projects.

Exactly. Some people just can't wrap their heads around what people want. _Decent_ wages and free time.

To give people a certain minimum amount of wealth, we can just acknowledge that the best way to do social welfare is by utilizing efficient taxes and spreading that wealth equally amongst all, not because everybody needs it, but because it's ethical.

I'm in favour of the idea that it would still factor into your tax bracket. So making a UMI of $15,000 itself is meaningless at tax time, but working a part- time job and escalating that into the $40,000's should place you in that income.

This could mean that it ignores the wealthiest of us on a per year basis if we make more than $100,000 of so.

With the savings from those individuals and the elimination of our bureaucratic social system now, I truly think it should be attempted.

The real problem is the government firing those workers and saving that money. They would not like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Progressives seem to have lost all understanding of the concept of money. It is a means of trade. The spending power of the basic income will ultimately reflect the value its recipients produced in order to obtain it - zero in this case.

<comment><USER15> > The spending power of the basic income will ultimately reflect the value its > recipients produced in order to obtain it - zero in this case.

What do you think the purchasing power of welfare money is? Furthermore, can you really separate the purchasing power of the money utilized in the minimum income and the income from working?

<comment><USER16> I am not separating anything. I am saying that inflation will rise, because that's what happens when a country isn't producing anything more, but the country increases the amount of its currency in circulation. It's like a stock split - absent a rise in the actual value of the company, doubling the number of shares makes each share half as valuable.

In this case, over time inflation will adjust to the point that the spending power of the basic income will approach zero. It won't actually hit zero, because markets are not 100% efficient. But it will be close.

<comment><USER17> > over time inflation will adjust to the point that the spending power of the > basic income will approach zero.

Through what mechanism exactly? Please also explain why this hasn't happened with other, existing forms of social subsidies.

It seems like it is _your_ understanding of money that is laughably over- simplified.

<comment><USER16> They will have to print this money, because there is nowhere else to get it. What happens when you print money but there is no additional demand for it? You guessed it...the value drops. Markets are surprisingly efficient at pricing things like this in.

Are you seriously trying to make the argument that their economy will absorb this with no effect on the value of their currency?

<comment><USER17> > because there is nowhere else to get it.

Why that? Nobody's talking about abolishing taxes. Note also that the basic income would replace many other forms of social subsidies that already exist and have harmful side effects.

<comment><USER16> Why that? Because you can't tax enough to fund a basic income for every single person.

<comment><USER17> That depends entirely on how high it is, doesn't it?

Ultimately, it's not about money but about productivity. If the economy is productive enough to give everyone a minimal standard of living as well as comforts and luxuries for those who earn them, it doesn't really matter how said minimal standard of living is "funded".

And there is little doubt that the economies of developed countries _are_ that productive for a reasonable minimal standard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> In a country with it's own currency, wouldn't this just raise prices until finally the effect would be being back to step 1 but with huge inflation. I.e. I'm selling bread for $3. Now I get $1500 free money every month and I know you do too. I'm selling bread for $6 because I know everyone has extra money lying around and since I have extra money I don't really care if people buy less from me.

<comment> martin-adams I used to wonder what would happen if everyone in the UK got £1m given to them as a one off payment. We'd all be millionaires but poor as each other.

<comment><USER19> You are missing the point here, in your example when new money is created (to be able to hand it to everyone) you simply devalue currency and create inflation.

Universal income is not being generated out of thin air by the government, it is being generated by tax. Therefore you will not find hyper inflation of the form you suggest.

<comment> martin-adams Well, the point I was getting to is how to approach such an effect through a thought experiment. I agree that my scenario is very different, but it's about the short and long term effects. You're right, my example would probably devalue the currency and create inflation, but what would happen as a result. Would prices go up within days, weeks year. What about wages and tax. How long would the rate of increase last.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Meanwhile, Europe apart from Switzerland is busy building thicker walls around Fortress Europa.

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/01/razor-wire- divi...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/01/razor-wire-divide- morocco-melilla-inhumane)

[http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/asylum-policy- and...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/asylum-policy-and- treatment-of-refugees-in-the-european-union-a-926939.html)

<comment><USER21> Good. Immigration contributes to overpopulation, both by importing new people and causing replacement breeding in the emigrant nation.

<comment><USER22> But there is no overpopulation in Europe in terms of land availability or food supply (Europe's population density is 72 person/sqkm, the last famine was during WWII and not even then widespread). Sure, population density is very high in urban centers but there is still plenty of space in the country side. It just needs more incentives to be settled. So 'importing new people' really isn't a problem.

I cannot find any information on 'Replacement breeding in the emigrant nation' so I really cannot say anything about the validity of this statement. Could you provide a source?

EDIT: Fixed sqm to sqkm. Elaborated second paragraph.

<comment><USER23> Overpopulation is in the eye of the beholder. 72 is enough, we don't NEED more people! Side effect of overpopulation capitalism: need more people on the same space ? You need apartment, which requires capital, which means America and there 1%/90% ratio ... Do not want!

<comment><USER22> Are you suggesting that Europe is not capitalist already? I think it is and despite this we have still managed to maintain greater equality (as measured by Gini coefficients after taxes and transfers) than the United States by having more state intervention. Why would immigration change that?

I'm not saying that immigration is just going to turn out to be a positive effect without any action. Measures have to be taken to account for it, but I think investing large amounts of money in trying to prevent it is the wrong approach, because it a) does not work b) is inhumane, and c) does not solve the actual problem (people being forced to migrate).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think that eventually universal income will be a good idea. The question is not whether it's a good idea, but whether it's the right time for it.

This is a bit of a tangent, but since this is tech oriented community I think it's relevant. It's highly likely that one day strong AI will be able to run the entire world economy, and humans will not longer have to work, nor will they be needed. At that point humans will _need_ basic income to survive. In this scenario, the whole concept of "the economy" will have been stretched and squeezed into something entirely unrecognizable, so the problem of basic income being a drag on the economy will be irrelevant.

We are getting closer and closer to this point every year. Just look at employment figures. Computers are replacing humans in the workforce, and they will continue to do so at a rapid pace.

Basic income will be useful and needed, it's just a matter of time.

</comment><comment><USER25> Can we stop putting these "universal income" posts on the front page until someone has something genuinely new to say about the idea or there's some news about an actual implementation?

<comment><USER26> I had a genuinely new idea this morning. Paying people for idleness increases idleness, which isn't necessarily good for the recipient. Why not pay them instead for doing things that make their life individually or collectively better? * Pay them for taking and passing college classes. * Pay them for losing weight and getting their BMI to an acceptable level that reduces collective health care costs. * Pay them for giving up smoking, drugs, or drinking or not starting. * Pay them to drive more safely. * Pay them for art appreciation. * Pay them to adopt children and make their lives better.

This is an alternative to the model where everyone works for a living. It produces non-work social good that is to the benefit of the recipient and the society they live in.

<comment><USER27> Interesting thought! But then we are back to the huge bureaucratic system that needs to reinforce all those rules. Also, several of those ideas sounds very exploitable.

<comment><USER26> They're just a brainstorm. The simplest and most effective would probably be measuring BMI for rewards. It could put some brakes on the obesity epidemic. Being paid to do nothing isn't exploitable, because there are no rules, but that doesn't necessary make it better, because there is no connection between effort and reward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> One point of confusion for me, that I hope someone with a sounder economics background than myself can address, is:

Would the national unconditional basic income render the national minimum wage effectively 0 (or much lower than it currently is)?

For example, corporations could be taxed more heavily if they could offer their lowest paid positions a wage of £2 per hour. This extra taxation would then help fund a national basic wage (equivalent to say £5) which would leave a low-skilled worker earning £7 (roughly what they were before). I had assumed that any such 'basic income' scheme would be so prohibitively expensive as to require such drastic means, just to find the money, however I haven't seen any such changes mentioned in many of the articles discussing the relative merits of the Swiss proposal.

As an aside - for those saying: "What if people don't spend the money responsibly?" \- Isn't that, somewhat idealistically, a large part of the point of the scheme?

The scheme would encourage responsibility, rather than treating people like children? Yes things like addiction (to Gambling, Drugs etc...) throws a spanner in the works of this - but charities and support groups exist to tackle this kind of issue already - they could continue to do so, with one critical difference. Charities could do a lot more with less if their workers were earning a basic income from elsewhere, and could afford to give their time for less ££.

<comment><USER17> An interesting idea is that it might enable companies to compete much more through a pleasant working environment rather than wages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I support this idea in theory although I would need to see calculations of possible levels of universal income and tax rate in a given economy to fully support it.

The interesting thing is that with a generous universal income and a fairly high rate of tax (e.g. 45%) you would naturally get a really quite progressive tax and benefit system without the complexity of many thresholds that currently exist. It actually makes the idea of a 'flat tax' actually work and not be ridiculously unfair.

It would also enable people not to be employed and to work on projects that they are passionate about whether start-ups, internships, forming pop bands, writing, caring for children or parents but enable people to choose to earn additional money. Unpleasant jobs should command increasing premiums as more people have the choice not to do them open to them but interesting flexible jobs may not need as high wages as current minimum wages (which I could imagine being abolished for recipients of universal income).

Of course some would sit around all day doing nothing but I suspect that not many would do this long term and it may be better that they can declare it as an active choice rather than be bullied into interviews and appearances at job centres.

There would be complicating factors such whether/when immigrants were entitled to the universal income and if not a minimum wage may be required to protect them from exploitation.

</comment><comment><USER30> It is an outright fraud.

1\. Premise: "Basic income of X units of money is sent to everyone in population".

2\. Basic income comes from where? Either from taxes, or from printed money. Either way, purchasing power is being taken from some people in proportion to their savings/income.

3\. There's always a difference in income and amount of savings. If everyone was making the same amount of money, doing "basic income" wouldn't change much (except feed some bureaucrats in the process).

4\. Therefore, some people will be taxed _less_ than "basic income" they receive. And some people will be taxed _more_ that the income they receive.

5\. Therefore, some people do not really _receive_ any extra income. They are getting deprived of a portion of their purchasing power instead.

6\. Therefore promoting it as "everyone gets it, no strings attached" is a total lie.

If they said "we want to take from some people and give to others" it would be honest and true. But it doesn't sound as fair as "everyone gets", isn't it?

Note: I'm not debating taxation itself. Even if you think it's okay to tax and redistribute wealth, the description of this law is a total lie.

EDIT: I guess downvoting folks are too busy redistributing people's wealth to point out a logical flaw in my comment.

<comment><USER31> Everyone of consequence understands it has to be paid for, and thus it's not a _net_ income win for everyone. So you're refuting an obtuse interpretation of "everyone gets it" that only the very naive might believe.

The point of "everyone gets it" is to simplify administration, soften the stigma, and eliminate the sort of marginal-disincentive cliffs that patchwork 'progressive' benefits often create.

<comment><USER30> "soften the stigma" is the problem here. It's false, dishonest advertisement which means to produce a psychological effect when the practical effect is different. That's why it is called fraud: you say one thing, but sell another, and you know it in advance.

<comment><USER31> A basic income may or may not be a good policy, but people like Milton Friedman and Charles Murray weren't trying to perpetrate a dishonest fraud (or convince people it's a "free lunch") when they outlined its potential benefits over alternate existing patchwork systems of redistribution.

"Everyone gets it" means to avoid the complexity, corruption, and gaming that comes with an eligibility-testing bureaucracy. "Softens the stigma" means the marginal incentives, especially for the working poor and near poor, aren't muddied by taboos around other welfare programs. (And "softens the stigma" is a honest way to describe that part of the rationale, as well... because some listeners will consider the stigma a good thing, while others see it as a barrier to the policy's intended effects. Universal eligibility does, in actual fact, alter the stigma associated with receiving government income – and people can still argue about whether that's a good thing or not, without allegations of bad-faith fraud.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mck- One side effect I can think of is that this might spur innovation and entrepreneurialism, because the consequrnces of risk-taking are softened.

It increases the opportunity cost of getting a job, vs being an entrepreneur. Perhaps we will see a generation of new entrepreneurs that otherwise would never have taken that leap; Which in turn might be great for the overall economy

</comment><comment><USER32> An alternative that I prefer is a welfare system such as in Australia. Australian welfare is very similar to basic income, the main differences being that you have to look for work (but enforcement is not strict) and the way welfare decreases as your income increases, makes your effective marginal tax rate about 50%.

I'm not sure what the optimal tax schedule (pre-tax vs post-tax and welfare) should look like, but my intuition is that a high effective marginal tax rate for people on welfare is not bad, as the disincentive to work that it produces affects fewer people, than if we had a flat tax (e.g. VAT) plus basic income.

The disincentive to work produced by a higher effective marginal tax rate is also offset by the fact that welfare isn't a lot of money, and the longer you are on welfare the stricter enforcement becomes.

I also don't see the moral reason for a true basic income, except perhaps for men, who should be compensated for the possibility of being conscripted.

<comment><USER6> > the main differences being that you have to look for work

This is a bad idea in the long term. The whole reason basic income is being seriously looked at is because we know automation is eliminating the need for labor and that trend will continue until work simply isn't available for a large percentage of the population. People need to get over the idea that work will be necessary to live or the idea that work is how one contributes to society.

<comment><USER32> We don't know what the full impact of technology would be, so a basic income is premature at best.

When you say "People need to get over the idea that work will be necessary to live" you are just insulting people's intelligence. Of course I am aware that if you got paid for doing nothing, then work would no longer be necessary for (an individual) to live.

Also, the theory of technological unemployment is that technology will render labor less productive. Basic income might be a kinder and more efficient way to deliver money to people without jobs, but it won't magically make them more productive.

<comment><USER6> > We don't know what the full impact of technology would be, so a basic income > is premature at best.

Now, maybe, but one need only look at long term unemployment trends to see what's coming.

> When you say "People need to get over the idea that work will be necessary > to live" you are just insulting people's intelligence.

No, you are just choosing to feel insulted.

> Basic income might be a kinder and more efficient way to deliver money to > people without jobs, but it won't magically make them more productive.

It's not supposed to make them more productive, so who cares.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think the biggest benefit of a universal income is to remove the perception that unemployment is a bad thing. Now to reduce unemployment there's a fair amount of menial labor and policies encouraging it. If countries didn't have to worry about their employment levels I suspect they'd be a lot more willing to embrace new approaches.

</comment><comment><USER34> The thing I genuinely don't understand regarding the basic income for all argument is that surely it just moves the goal posts rather than solves the problem at hand?

In the current system, you can go stay at home and get income support, which should provide you with the basics i.e. a home, food, electricity etc. If you would like more than this, you can go and get a job and hopefully earn more (have a better lifestyle) than staying at home not working.

[Note the 'should' and 'hopefully' \- This system may not always work, but when it doesn't it's generally a fault with wages paid not being sufficient rather than the benefits system being broken]

This therefore means there is an incentive to go work. There is also control, to make sure the money the unemployed person is getting is mostly spent on the basics (such as housing, rather than say drugs).

The problem with suddenly giving everyone a minimum amount of money, is that due to everyone now 'at least' having that amount of money at hand, this becomes the new 'bottom' of the market. If I get a job, I earn money on top of this basic amount, which means I can afford nice things and the person unemployed still can't afford anything.

To clarify, this works similar to pricing of items in different markets. A beer in the UK is ~£3.50 (£5 in London), a beer in Vietnam is about 14 pence. Both costs are fairly relative to what they would have to pay their work force to produce the item (plus cover costs and make a profit) and what the local market can afford to pay.

If let's hypothetically say, you gave everyone in Vietnam this basic wage, the cost of beer would not remain at 14 pence. The first reason is because the work force would find their existing pay negligible compared to the basic pay (so wages would have to rise to be incentive to work on top of basic pay) which would in turn cause cost of manufacturing to rise, but also the market would realise with this extra money available - the price could be set higher and would rise accordingly.

Now back in the UK if this was to occur, you would have slight price rises due to these factors which would in affect move the poverty line up higher, which would mean the people at the bottom are still poor relatively.

What's worse is that assuming the people who are unemployed are given the choice on how that money is spent, they may in fact not spend the money sensibly (i.e. on their housing) and end up homeless instead.

The final problem with this model is that the cost of living and economic output is not evenly distributed throughout a country. £1750 a month in northern England may give you a fantastic lifestyle, where as in London you'd barely cover your rent. (What happens to the unemployed in London in a fixed give everyone a basic income situation? They have to leave London and move where they can afford, which then makes it potentially harder to find a job and splits the country into two halves, the elite / the poor).

<comment><USER35> I understand the confusion, but its mostly there thanks to misconception about how things works now,

> If you would like more than this, you can go and get a job and hopefully > earn more (have a better lifestyle) than staying at home not working.

Staying home and not working today is not actually an option in most places in the world. The reason is why this new model is called _unconditional_ basic income. The current system called income support is conditional.

And market forces love the fact that its conditional, since it allows exploitation. If income support is for example conditional on the unemployed not having received a job offering, then the market can exploit this fact and offer people jobs for below income support (or what ever is minimum). Unemployed people can not say no, or they loose the government income support, and thus become forced to accept a slave job or loose all income.

unconditional basic income would eliminate this issue from the board, and increase wages for unattractive jobs.

Inflation should also not be effected by much. The total amount of money in society is still the same finite amount as before. There is no "extra money available", only a different form of distribution. There is a larger group with money to spend on products, which drives prices both up (more demand), but also down (more incentives for large scale production). It also makes money change hands more often, and is often attributed as the reason why a income support system do not actually drive prices or wages down.

<comment><USER36> Your reasoning is severely flawed.

Nobody today wants to accept an income below what you need to survive because..you need to survive. Liberals don't want to see other people accepting an income below what is needed for them to survive in a way that we can accept, so pass rules about a minimum wage.

With this proposal, there is wage that it too low. As long as you make enough to afford something nice that you want that you couldn't otherwise afford, there is no reason not to take the job. Therefore at the low end, employers can pay LESS than they do now.

What it does instead is remove perverse incentives that make poor people receive less money for working than not working. The classic example being a single mom who, while working, and paying child care, makes less than on welfare. (Incentives that we've responded to by passing rules forcing poor people to take the otherwise irrational work option.)

<comment><USER37> _Liberals don 't want to see other people accepting an income below what is needed for them to survive in a way that we can accept, so pass rules about a minimum wage._

This is silly. If that were the motivation, then minimum wage would be a few dollars/day.

Here is a list of countries by GDP per capita, _after adjusting for purchasing power_. Lots of countries (e.g. Venezuela, Georgia, India) have a GDP/capita below the US minimum wage. The _world_ GDP/capita is below the US minimum wage. Yet somehow people in those countries still survive.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita)

 _As long as you make enough to afford something nice that you want that you couldn 't otherwise afford, there is no reason not to take the job._

Sure there is - you might value that nice thing less than you value watching tv instead of working.

<comment><USER36> I don't think you read what I wrote carefully enough. Here it is again.

 _Liberals don 't want to see other people accepting an income below what is needed for them to survive in a way that we can accept, so pass rules about a minimum wage._

The key points being that liberals don't want to see it (they don't see other countries), and it is the liberals defining what seems acceptable.

As for your "after adjusting for purchasing power" comment, you know enough economics to know that such adjustments depend on the bundles of goods being purchased, and the poor purchase different bundles than middle class people would. (The same problem means that the quoted inflation figures do not accurately predict the experience of specific socioeconomic groups.) Thus the figures should be taken with a grain of salt.

But that said, yes, people survive on that. But do liberals like seeing them do that? I submit that liberals don't, and this is the motivation for the minimum wage. (See the sibling reply to yours for verification.)

As for watching TV versus working, I'm sure that would happen. I know some of those people. I also know people who would happily work for less than minimum wage just to get out of the house.

<comment><USER37> I definitely misunderstood what you said. Thanks for the clarification. I suspect your theory about what people like to see has more than a grain of truth to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Universal income is a _fantastic_ idea. Imagine being able to work on your own coding project for 2 years with a guarantee of basic ramen and safe shelter. I don't think it'd work well in Western society yet. It would be feasible in, say, a dense and autocratic city-state like Singapore. IMHO it will come. As a world, we are starting to automate and displace work faster than our brains can learn new skills en masse. IE one person can create a skill and codify it (years), faster than 300K people can go to training and expand the industry organically (lifetime). This applies to both manufacturing and service jobs.

Structural lifetime unemployment is going to be the cause of future civil instability, and governments will use UI as a way to calm and control social order.

</comment><comment><USER39> Does anyone know how the swiss proposal treats travel/residency?

I've long thought that a guaranteed income is an idea worth trying. But it did occur to me recently that such an amount would let you live like a king in many developing countries. Is there anything in the proposal to stop people from simply moving abroad?

More generally, how should a well designed universal income proposal treat travel/living abroad? If you cut off payments for those that are no longer residents, you suddenly provide a huge disincentive for travel. If you keep them, you encourage mass emigration.

<comment><USER40> A rule setting a maximum of one or two months/year paid abroad would suffice.

<comment><USER39> Right. But then you've got a very large incentive against the kind of travel that young people routinely do.

Most of my family and friends have taken 3-4 month trips abroad, very formative. I expect many of them would have stayed home if they lost the income.

<comment><USER41> If they want to travel more, they can work to get the extra income required to do so above/beyond the basic income.

Which would act as an incentive for them to work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This is the best timing for this. When the cost of things are driven down anymore, universal income makes more sense than ever.

After all, there's no truth in "having" to work. I think there should be the freedom to choose if you'd like to work or not.

I've always pondered why people think you "need" to work. You "need" a job.

I like working, and have a job, but I know many people are fine getting by, and it stresses them out for having to work everyday, which I think is perfectly fine.

</comment><comment><USER43> Maybe the issue is, in the 'western' world its no longer actually necessary or even useful to have people work. That's not where the wealth comes from any more.

So incentive becomes less interesting. Demand, supply, innovation still count. But getting people to pound the streets and dig ditches en-masse is not important any more.

So a basic income makes employment not the goal. Its useful innovation and adaptation to changing conditions that matters.

</comment><comment><USER44> In order for a basic income program to save costs on bureaucracy and replace existing programs, those existing programs must be closed by legislation or executive order, and the people employed by them must lose their jobs, and the number of employees in the new basic income agency must be fewer. Many of these employees will not find replacement work due to age or their industry (government bureaucracy) shrinking so will go from middle class to poor on basic income.

This will have a large economic effect unless it is done slowly, but if it is done slowly, both programs will have to exist at once without paying too much to the same person. This will require the basic income agency to have the same kind of bureaucracy as the other agencies or else have no oversight. In the first phase of the transition, at least, it would cost much more.

The agency would need to maintain some bureaucracy to guard against fraud since obtaining benefits would never require a visit to an office or proof of some activity. It would be easy for someone to claim extra people without oversight.

</comment><comment><USER45> I haven't studied economics long enough to be an expert in the field, but doesn't a universal income drive inflation up?

It's basically the same as a minimum hourly wage that keeps going up to follow the inflation, it's always a catch up game and organization fighting for minimum hourly wage always say it's insufficient.

Maybe an economic alumni could enlighten me?

<comment><USER46> Not necessarily. Inflation is caused by several things, but mostly an increase in the money supply.

If a universal income is paid for with tax money, then the money supply stays the same and it shouldn't have much effect on inflation. If it's paid for by printing money, then yes, it will contribute to high inflation.

(very basic explanation, there are other factors that may cause inflation, but money supply is the big one)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> None of the universal income proposals have any math to back them up. Simple napkin estimates show it's nowhere near affordable. "But people are rich!" is not an explanation. "We can draw on labor" is not an explanation. I want an explanation that actually demonstrates the affordability of such a thing. Not hand-waving about how we just aren't trying hard enough.

Can the people proposing a basic income please demonstrate how much they want to give and how much that costs? Then point out how they would fit it into the existing budget?

Also, please explain why prices would not react to a basic income? If $40,000 represents the price of doing nothing, other prices will change to respond to _real_ not nominal costs. It doesn't seem like people proposing the basic income understand how prices are formed.

</comment><comment><USER48> Everyone seems so deeply concerned with the specific economic calculus of the poor and low income that this will affect.

But nowhere in this thread is there a bare mention of how the economic system has been perverted by incentives that only the truly wealthy and elite have access too (ie. LIBOR, etc.) when there is no BI and capital has complete control over the laborer.

A true BI system would not be inflationary and would do a great deal to increasing the general welfare of the populace. We shouldn't demand that people be slaves to the engines of production. A BI at moderate level would alleviate poverty and also in some ways be very good for capital as well. It would increase the velocity of money and increase consumption in the economy (remember that poorer people spend more of their money as a %age than the truly wealthy)

</comment><comment><USER49> I'm pretty ambivalent about basic income, although I think it's probably worth a try. Not a version that replaces earned income though, there are too many obvious perverse incentives for such a system, it must be supplementary. On the one hand I can see a lot of positive effects from it. On the other hand one of the biggest downsides is that now you have a very strong divide in terms of citizenship, which could potentially drastically change the dynamics of immigration. Personally I'm very much pro immigration and I think the fact that people from all circumstances have the opportunity to earn substantial benefits from their work by moving to the US (or the developed world in general) is one of the most positive aspects of this country and part of its life blood and character.

</comment><comment><USER50> Someone has to try it somewhere. I for one won't make predictions, and instead think I'll wait to see if a country adopts this and see what happens to its industry, quality of life, and so on before being on 'one side or the other'. Most of the predictions in this thread are based on basic assumptions of economics that come from political backgrounds/beliefs, and I don't think that's an appropriate way to argue something this complex.

A lot of you are programmers, at least some of you can run simulations. Stop arguing with words, and instead concentrate on developing models. In other words, start contributing to the science or stop arguing from ignorance.

</comment><comment><USER51> I find it sad, but not surprising, that one of the key disagreements with a BI system is the assumption that poor people are lazy and will spend it on drugs.

There are people like that but they make up such a small portion of the population considered, "poor," that it's insulting everyone in a very large demographic. I'd wager that the effects of these people who do use their BI for drugs and recreation will be statistically insignificant.

Whereas a BI would provide a lot of mobility and improve the bargaining power of the lower classes if I understand BI. It seems to me that would have far- reaching benefits for the economy at large -- even for high-income earners.

<comment><USER52> "assumption that poor people are lazy". Not only poor people are lazy, all people are lazy. People can overcome the laziness only when there are incentives for them to do so: food, housing, sex, fame, vanity. When you take out the basic incentives by providing them for free, laziness will prevail for most people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I still cannot comprehend how anyone with a basic knowledge of economics can perceive this as a good idea. All universal income can achieve is increasing the cost of living to the point where it is as if there is no universal income.

In other words, the universal income idea simply increases the cost of living by the same factor of the increased income. Perhaps it takes a year or two, so the poor benefit during that time, but in the end all it does is destroy the currency and suppress economic growth.

"There is no such thing as a free lunch"

Point being, there's always some trade off. All universal income does is push the cost of lunch onto the wealthy even more.

<comment><USER54> > Point being, there's always some trade off. All universal income does is > push the cost of lunch onto the wealthy even more

Yes, that is the point of welfare. Universal income is a type of welfare. It is a form of welfare which is preferable to other forms because of its simplicity of implementation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> People like to bring these things up to as thought experiments about how they'd fly in other countries, but one thing to keep in mind is that Switzerland is a really, _really_ different place. Particularly compared to the US, it has fairly stable demographics, and obtaining citizenship is absurdly difficult.

While the Reuter's article doesn't mention that as a prerequisite for income benefits, one can reasonably infer that they're not gonna start handing out money to anyone who wanders in.

Contrast that with the US, where you get healthcare and free public education just for making it across the border from Mexico.

<comment><USER56> > "[...] and obtaining citizenship is absurdly difficult."

Can you elaborate? I'd like to have some arguments from an "outsider" if I encounter a discussion about this again :) The current majority (more or less) of people in Switzerland seem to believe that obtaining citizenship is way to easy and want to limit basicly everything..

<comment><USER55> I actually only know this second-hand. A good friend is married to a Swiss national and we've discussed it on a number of occasions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I don't think this is a good idea. It could do a lot of harm to future generations. If we pay for this through debt, we're slapping a bill on our children.

I also don't like this idea because it increases personal dependence on the state. If the goal is to make people independent and self-confident, how does this help (on the whole, excluding edge cases)? And as the top commenter said, I think this will move the goal posts and surely cause inflation. I also think this will enable some peoples' destructive habits (how does the song go? "It's the first of the month... Get up, wake up!").

<comment><USER17> > It could do a lot of harm to future generations.

Or it could do them a lot of good.

> If we pay for this through debt, we're slapping a bill on our children.

That's obviously not the correct way to implement it.

> I also don't like this idea because it increases personal dependence on the > state.

It does the opposite, by replacing paternalistic and beaurocratic social security programmes.

> If the goal is to make people independent and self-confident, how does this > help (on the whole, excluding edge cases)?

By enabling them to do things like working on art or science or startups without having to worry about starving or homelessness.

> I also think this will enable some peoples' destructive habits

Ah yes, the poor must not be given money lest they spend it on booze. Otherwise they wouldn't be poor. Just world fallacy, anyone?

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Basic income has potential but I think people are waiting for the governments to provide, while there is possibly another way. Imagine creating bitcoin version that does not favor early adopters, but allows everyone participating to get the same amount of coins every week. Of course it's easier said than done, and it would need to be detailed a little more, but I think it's possible.

<comment><USER59> The problem with this is how do you prevent people from creating multiple identities and gain more than their fair share? Bitcoin solves this problem by tying money generation with something that can't be faked, computational power.

<comment><USER58> I would imagine something based on bitcoin with an added web of trust.. One person starts it all. Another person joins and their identity is certified by the first person. You then have to run mining software but it's not required that your rig is fpga or asic based :).. few hours a week on a cpu would be sufficient. If you run the software, some coins are mined and added to your wallet. You signup another person, they do the same... could grow pretty fast. Of course there is more questions than answers, your question of how to prevent people from creating multiple identities... Maybe few people will need to sign the cert.. and they can only signed it if their cert was signed by x number of people..

But even if this did not work out, I'm sure it would be a good experiment that could show us how basic income could/would work in a reality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I like the idea, a lot. The obsessive attachment to what Friedman said and did not said - like if it's a universal truth - is kinda pathetic.

</comment><comment><USER61> It is easy to see that the redistribution of wealth throughout all of society is a noble goal. This becomes clear as we approach a point in our evolution where we start to automate the collection and processing of resources.

We're all part of this giant machine of modernity. If everyone can feel the benefits of it, and I mean everyone on the whole planet, then we can start to really feel good about what we're building and how we're gonna compromise all of our own individual pursuits and dreams with all of those people around us.

The truth of the matter is that we've all been in this big global machine the whole time. Cultural interchange on a global scale is nothing new, only the speed at which it happens is changing. Pretending that the resources gathered through the skills of just one man somehow doesn't affect the rest of humanity is very short sighted, especially in our modern world.

The ability to extract and accumulate resources is amplified loudly by the existing machinery. Facebook is just an aberrate growth on the top of a very large system that is fueled by the blood, sweat and tears of billions of people living now and extending back in time to the dawn of recorded history.

This has been known to the modern world for some time. We've built systems that we call social democracy, liberalism, communism and fascism with a lot of these tenants in mind. And we argue about the merits of each, and the merits of other systems, and we pontificate about the expected outcomes of imaginary systems or invent new versions of incomplete readings of the past, and we get lost in an endless maze of rhetoric.

There is danger merely in the act of having faith in manmade systems like politics, economics and technotronics. There isn't a point to nor a way to quantify and classify everything under the sun. We can't ever know how these things will work out.

We need to make sure that our faith is actually in the people around us. We need to have faith that the vast majority of people have a good heart and able hands, and they also have just as big of an itch to create, discover, and explore the world. We need to carry that understanding with us everyday and in all walks of our lives and stop pretending like "playing the game" is in any way nobel or worthy of anything other than meaningless excess.

And yeah, Silicon Valley and the cracker jack crew of Hacker News users, I'm talking right to you.

</comment><comment><USER62> You would likely have to increase taxes. Taxes are extracted from us involuntarily through coercion. I don't think re-arranging this model in any format will change that.

Our best option is to spend less, shrink the state and get rid of income tax, especially on those say, living under this proposed living wage.

</comment><comment><USER52> Last time someone implemented this kind of social equality experiment was in 1959, 30-40 million Chinese starved to death: Great Chinese Famine [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine)

<comment><USER63> Huh? This isn't the same thing. What happened in China at that time was extensive and more complicated than this very basic system.

It worked great in a small village in India recently; [http://mondediplo.com/2013/05/04income](http://mondediplo.com/2013/05/04income)

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> This would not be Communism. We shouldn't be arguing Comminism vs Capitalism because both are extremes that have never been fully realized. This is more about compassion vs group association - a typically American Democrat/Republican debate.

</comment><comment><USER65> My question regarding this is how do you prevent gaming the system causing overpopulation? What will stop currently poor individuals from having 10 kids to collect their income? Is it just not awarded until you reach age of majority?

<comment><USER66> FTA:

> Payable to whom? > Everybody, or at least, every adult citizen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> One thing is for sure (IMO), this would never work in America. The not-obvious reason is the middleman problem. In America (again, IMO), the primary financial problems we have has to do with capitalist opportunists finding clever ways to become transition siphons for money flowing in any given direction. The: It's-only-2500$-a-month thing would rapidly become 10000$, 100000$, etc a month as politicians add pork fat, Local municipalities siphon from it, public welfare divisions sprout up to "support" the distribution, and finally the capitalist system itself engineers ways to absorb that new free money floating around the system.

No. This would never work. This kind of universal support system depends on a core of altruism. I don't think anyone will try to make the argument that America's core is altruistic.

</comment><comment><USER68> 1\. The title is misleading. 2\. Are you guys talking in the context of the US, or globally?

Different implications based on the two different scenarios.

PS: Studied and study economics.

</comment><comment><USER69> I don't recall Milton Friedman being for a flat basic income. I do recall him being for a negative income tax, which works quite differently.

</comment><comment><USER70> why don't we just give everyone $200,000/year. if this is a good idea, mine must be a _great_ idea.

<comment><USER71> The idea is to decouple survival/livelyhood from reward. Heck 25k is what's spent on ppl in jail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> The reason universal income works for the Swiss is because they are the Swiss. There are many countries and cultures and people for which it _would_ _not_ _work_ , at the very least not until some unknown time period required for adjustment, and even then only if conditions were right.

This is why (fiscally-liberal-supported) universal healthcare (and subsequently why Obamacare has flunked so far, because they wanted to promise universal healthcare and had to settle for a crappy healthcare marketplace that only a layer and more red tape to add to the overhead and cost of providing healthcase) and (fiscally-conservative-supported) fair tax initiatives would not work in the U.S.; because much of the economy, social norms, etc. are based upon it NOT being set up that way.

Status-quo is the best fiscal option.

And to everyone complaining that universal income would add to inflation, I'd like to add that I hope you are also not a fan of quantitative easing that we've done that will royally screw the U.S. in the future. We are now in "heavy experimental mode where we don't know what will happen", according to Ivy league experts on economic matters.

</comment><comment><USER73> I'm always shocked how otherwise very rational and logical people tend to be "communists". It is one of the things that lets me down when reading comments on HN. So sophisticated as far as hard science goes, so naive and just - <USER2> dumb - in terms of humanities.

Ever heard of inflation? If you give basic income to everyone what happens to the prices of everything? So the ROI on this is extremely limited and the price inflation will kill any benefit.

But still for some people rising prices with real unemployment at 15% is a good thing!

<comment><USER6> I'm always shocked how otherwise very rational and logical people tend think every socialist idea is communist and don't seem to know what communist actually means.

> Ever heard of inflation?

Yes, have you?

> If you give basic income to everyone what happens to the prices of > everything?

I don't think you know how inflation works. Basic income doesn't increase the money supply, it's income redistribution, not money printing. Wealth is taken from those with excessive amounts and given to the rest.

It's also not communism.

<comment><USER73> money printing is inflation.

<comment><USER74> And? No one is suggesting that money would be printed.

<comment><USER73> 2008 - 2012 money supply doubled. This means 100% inflation in long term - guaranteed. Who would care about their suggestions. Look at their actions and track record.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have a better idea:

Universal no-income.

Instead of making costs higher by distributing money and thus making it less effective, distribute no money, lower costs and allow people to live more comfortably.

</comment><comment><USER75> Can we stop putting these "universal income" posts on the front page.

<comment> marco-fiset Actually, we don't _put_ them on the front page, they get upvoted until they land here. That means there is some interest for to this post and may lead to great discussions.</comment></comment>


Why I hate the term consumer - <AUTHOR> http://whitegloveapps.com/2010/03/21/why-i-hate-the-term-consumer/

<comment><USER2> The rise of "consumer" as the default word to describe humans in our society is the loudest indicator of everything that's wrong with it. It perfectly denotes the role that the masses are supposed to (and largely do) play: cattle.

A citizen is an actively engaged individual among equals; that's why we don't refer to "citizens" any more. The very term sounds quaint. A consumer, by contrast, pigs out on entertainment, industrial food product, and drugs (not those _bad_ drugs, mind you - the _good_ drugs, the ones we tell you to take).

That this is our concept of what a human being is called to do in this world is depraved. Future generations will look back on us as insane. (I say this as an optimist.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I definitely agree that the word "citizen" is preferable when a general term for people is required. "Citizen" makes people sound like equals; consumer makes it sound like a few of us _make_ something, and the rest just take it.</comment></comment>


Secret Text in Senate Bill Would Give FBI Warrantless Access to Email Records - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2016/05/26/secret-text-in-senate-bill-would-give-fbi-warrantless-access-to-email-records/ <comment><USER2> "Blah blah national security just this one time in this focused fashion. Plus we've been doing it for 5 years already..."

Fast forward 10 years...

"Blah blah national security just this one time in this focused fashion. Plus we've been doing it for 5 years already."

Fast forward 20 years...

"...intelligence bill will give the FBI the right to enter your house and confiscate your possessions, without a warrant, in total secret..."

<comment><USER3> Don't forget the "we need a balance" statements, even though it's the U.S. government that has long moved away from that balance, and now just wants to be able to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants it, to whoever it wants, with no oversight.

<comment><USER4> Every "balance" argument is a strait up con. [http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/11/...](http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/11/Illustrated-Guide-To-Gun-Control.png)

<comment><USER5> I hate when balancing tests are invoked when the law is clear on its face.

But the 4th amendment is different than the 1st and the 2nd. It has balancing built into it, by only prohibiting "unreasonable" searches and seizures. It's as if the 1st amendment said "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of reasonable speech" or if the 2nd amendment said "the right of the people to keep and bear arms reasonably, shall not be infringed."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> And this is why we need SCM-level tracking for our laws.

<comment><USER7> > And this is why we need SCM-level tracking for our laws.

That'd be great. Each commit would be pushed by the attesting legislator and they could even put the corporate lobbyist that actually wrote the change in the author field!

<comment><USER8> And suddenly everyone would understand how to use git blame.

<comment><USER9> And at some point people would start referring to proposed laws by their commit hashes.

"The Senate hearing over controversial bill 4ad57b ..."

<comment><USER7> > "The Senate hearing over controversial bill 4ad57b ..."

Ha! That'd be a nice side effect this approach.

Taking the concept one step further, there should be a CI environment to test out new laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >... such as email subject lines and other metadata ...

How could subject lines possibly be considered metadata? It is quite clearly content.

<comment><USER11> Because calling them metadata provides the government with an argument that minimizes their importance, thereby allowing them to be exploited for nefarious purposes in the same way that calling torture "enhanced interrogation techniques" allows it to be exploited for nefarious purposes. And so we get stuck arguing over the definitions of words instead of the actual actions being performed under those definitions.

<comment><USER12> "We Kill People Based on Metadata" \-- former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden

Bruce Schneier's take on the distinction between "data" and "metadata": [https://www.wired.com/2015/03/data-and-goliath-nsa- metadata-...](https://www.wired.com/2015/03/data-and-goliath-nsa-metadata- spying-your-secrets/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How is this constitutional? I thought the courts have already clearly ruled that emails are private and therefor require a warrant.

<comment><USER14> They have not. Only emails you hold yourself are protected under the Constitution. Emails held by third parties like Gmail are subject to the third party doctrine and therefore have no constitutional protections. They still have some statuary protections which this bill is actually expanding (mostly besides this part).

<comment><USER15> Is there a market for email server software with UX akin to Sandstorm, then (i.e. easy to install / self-maintaining), or would this apply to EC2 servers just as it does to email?

If so, a simple physical mail server with a battery / cellular network connection for power or network outages seems like a good technical solution.

The more reasonable solution is a legal one, of course: treat treat third party email the same way one treats a third party mailbox (PO box). Safety deposit boxes are a good comparison, as well: [http://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2014/12/microsoft-tells-u...](http://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2014/12/microsoft-tells-us-the-worlds-servers-are-not-yours-for-the- taking/)

<comment><USER16> I would guess/hope something like this is on the sandstorm roadmap but I don't know.

<comment><USER15> [https://docs.sandstorm.io/en/latest/administering/email/](https://docs.sandstorm.io/en/latest/administering/email/)

Running a Sandstorm instance in your home with backup network / power is a separate story, however.

<comment><USER16> As long as it is for personal use I at least don't feel the need for redundant power or network.

I also ran a sandstorm instance locally for a few months and it was boring in a good way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> God, is Ron Wyden (D.Ore) the only one reading and disclosing these things?

<comment><USER18> Probably. Most senators do not read the bills. They get a sparknotes like summary by a private company and they read that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think more visualization and ML tools like this are going to made available to cull through data like too [http://220.127.116.11/recommend/chart- discovery/data/clusters/...](http://22.214.171.124/recommend/chart- discovery/data/clusters/9b5d75c00cb74fd80fc392d44ba49c1b27d41eaa-20160527-09_04_34_AM.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> Encrypt Everything.

<comment><USER12> "Hi, I'm F. Beeye. Please give us all your passwords, or you will be imprisoned until you do."

<comment><USER21> ... or we'll hit you with this rubber hose until you tell us. [https://xkcd.com/538/](https://xkcd.com/538/)

<comment><USER20> The only effective countermeasure is for everyone to encrypt everything. Unless you wan to get half of the population to torture the other half in shifts...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> There is no fighting the future, by political processes. There is only subversion.

Run your own mailserver, in your home or a semi-trusted local colo. Full disk encryption, fully encrypted offsite backups. Cabinet door reed switch triggers immediate power-down in the absence of a cryptographically signed override.

<comment><USER23> Running your own SMTP server at home is a pain in the ass, so it will never be widely adopted. I could easily move my mail server from Linode to my home connection, yet I won't. It's simply nicer to not have to worry about bouncing or delayed emails during power outage or network maintenance. And even if I did, the messages still come in plain text - we're only a few steps away from "email search" meaning "search of NSA's email records".

What we've really got is a protocols/software/UI problem. The end-to-end nature of the Internet came out of _engineering_ sense, which was necessary to bootstrap it but not necessary for its continued functioning (hence it's slide back toward centralization eg DPI gear). What we need are better protocols that explicitly _protect_ the end-to-end principle.

One should be able to have an untrusted cloud "mail server" that knows only what it needs to, passing messages to a slightly more trusted home server (your half-hardened hardware is really only protected by it's _unique_ nature, so not scalable). A message only needs to be fully unlocked when it is being read. And the system needs to work this way out of the box with a minimum of configuring, because sysadmin work is an annoyance when you're just trying to get something done.

<comment><USER15> > Running your own SMTP server at home is a pain in the ass, so it will never > be widely adopted.

It is, but it doesn't have to be. Someone could make a <$100 device which has a power backup for running through power outages and a backup network connection via the cellular network, which should provide high enough uptime for all practical purposes. Messages between mail servers are encrypted most of the time, more and more so every year [1]. This is a technical solution for a legal problem, though.

I'm not sure if I understand the system you are proposing, but email protocols seem secure enough now as they are now, it's just the third party principle that doesn't align with the obvious expectations of privacy in mail [2]. To me, it's pretty clear that my email account is like a PO box. Just because my email is held by a third party doesn't make it any less private than being delivered to my home, just as mail arriving at a "third-party" PO box isn't all that different from my mailbox.

1\. [https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/saferemail/](https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/saferemail/) 2\. [http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/30/google-will-also-stop- scann...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/30/google-will-also-stop-scanning- google-apps-inboxes-for-ads/)

<comment><USER23> It is not "a legal problem". It is a problem with legal, technical, governance (and probably more types of) approaches. If you're working on a legal solution I'll support you, just like if someone else succeeds in neutering the traitors in DC/VA, I'll cheer them on. But I am not a lawyer nor a soldier, so I'll remain focused on finding technical solutions.

Protocols "seem" secure enough, because you don't seem to be focused on the technicals (which is fine, as per what I just said. Just don't nay-say). For example, even if messages are encrypted between servers, the graph of who is talking to who is still revealed to a passive adversary, and this problem only gets worse with individually-run servers.

<comment><USER15> Hiding "who is talking to whom" against a global passive adversary is an active area of research and I don't know of any solution that is backwards compatible with email. Is this so of the one you are suggesting?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Who's Pooping on Twitter? - <AUTHOR> http://wonder-tonic.com/whospoopingontwitter/

<comment><USER2> I was transfixed and I watched the stream for several minutes.

<comment><USER3> Wow, oh wow. I'm going to leave this running on my computer monitor while friends and I watch the football game tomorrow and see who notices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have an engineer friend that tweets exclusively about his poop at work: <http://twitter.com/poopsatwork>

He likes to be very graphic with his descriptions. Personally, I find them amusing.

</comment><comment><USER5> Finally someone is building _something_ that has the potential to be the next Google...

<comment><USER6> Maybe they should have called it "Poogle"

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is crap...

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if this picks up tweets from my Android app <http://www.kefsco.com/pooplog/>

</comment><comment><USER9> The incredible feat of science and engineering that is the Internet and this is what it gets used for...

</comment><comment><USER2> Just saw this go by:

I'd rather sit on someone's knee, while they're taking a shit, than imagine Steve Buscemi eating corn-on-the-cob in slow motion

</comment><comment><USER10> this is surprisingly funny</comment>


Foreign firms that choose China will profit - <AUTHOR> https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1176005.shtml <comment><AUTHOR> You know, no one really talks about how Tesla's recent ride up has been partially driven by Chinese investment and entrance into the Chinese market. I wonder what it means and if any company is or ought to be above doing business in China, or if NBA, Apple, Blizzard style business should be expected going forward.

</comment><comment><USER2> Uh it's a poorly written article without any concrete evidence, data or anecdote. It's as if I'm reading some "appeasing" announcement from CCTV. I thought the "royal" writers could have delivered something much better</comment>


George Soros predicts riots, police state and class war for America - <AUTHOR> http://rt.com/usa/news/george-soros-class-war-619/

<comment><USER2> I always had that weird feeling that we are not paying enough attention to the Occupy movement, that we are witnessing history being made but that the current media does not (yet) attach much importance to it, that it is a precursor to something bigger: bigger riots, bigger clashes, etc.

And now Soros makes this prediction...

Assuming Soros is correct, I am wondering what the intelligent HN reader would do to prepare for, say, nation-wide riots in the US? Would you care about protecting your tangible assets (car, house) from damages? How would you protect your financial assets (what would you invest in, Bitcoin?) Would you just care about your life? How would you protect your family?

<comment><USER3> If Soros is correct, IMHO the best investments to own will be "off-grid" ones that are under one's control (partially or completely), and can generate recurring profits for its owner(s) under all but the most dire of scenarios. Examples: profitable businesses that provide necessities, rental properties in areas where demand outstrips supply, sustainable farms.

The worst investments to own, also IMHO, will be financial assets that are not under one's control, produce no cash flow, and whose value to one depends solely on what _other people_ might be willing to pay for them in the future.

As to protecting your home from damages, the only thing I can think of is: consider moving to an area where police/military protection will surely be outstanding (e.g., Northwest DC, where the Washington elite lives), or to a more remote area where the riots won't reach you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The best way to predict the future is to create it right? :)</comment>


Reddit Is Finally Facing Its Legacy of Racism - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/06/reddit-racism-open-letter/612958/ <comment><USER2> The problem with reddit is it seems to mostly crack down on stuff when the press is bad.

Radical free speech is a view i can respect. Making an intentional healthy and respectful community via a strong moderation policy is an alternative policy that i can also respect. However, cracking down when the press is bad but otherwise mostly not caring unless it is eggregious is a hard position to get behind morally.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's really just standardizing on a subset of hatreds vs others.

There are still many subs dedicated to Hate - but hate directed at people deemed "acceptable to hate" by social media.

Platforms that use simple voting tend to spiral into deeper and more extreme ideological bubbles. As that happens, the platform alienates more and more people, until it passes into obscurity, or is shut down for transitioning into advocating violence.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> For those who have trouble with the link:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20200612123831/https://www.theat...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200612123831/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/06/reddit- racism-open-letter/612958/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Get rid of default subreddits. Subscribe only to what you want. Problem solved.</comment>


Ask HN: Does Twitter throttle on a per-user basis? - <AUTHOR>

I'm having trouble using Twitter -- I keep getting "Something is technically wrong". When I log in with a different user everything works fine.
I suppose there could be something specific to my account (different group of servers or whatever) that's causing the problem.
Does anyone know how this works? <comment><USER2> I was having the same problem, but I saw my friends who cross-post to Facebook getting tweets in. As nbpoole posted, they were having some issues, but also, because of the distributed nature you'll find a Twitter outage to often being a rolling blackout sort of thing.

Also, they do throttle requests, something like several hundred within an hour, and I hit some message like that the other day, that I was over the API call limit, but I think that too was an outage of some kind.

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://status.twitter.com/post/4213087153/elevated-error- rat...](http://status.twitter.com/post/4213087153/elevated-error-rate)</comment>


FreeBSD to stop using hardware RNGs - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/09/freebsd_abandoning_hardware_randomness/ <comment><USER2> Like most of the articles using the FreeBSD developer summit wiki as a source, this one is highly misleading.

FreeBSD will not pass these hardware random generators directly to the user via /dev/random, but will instead use them as entropy sources for the PRNG that already exists.</comment>


What iPhone/iPod touch app are you missing? - <AUTHOR>

With 100k+ apps in AppStore, did you find everything you wanted? <comment><USER2> I want a remote control for my computer.</comment>


Ask YC: Best music/online radio to listen to when coding at 2 AM? - <AUTHOR>

Thanks. <comment><USER2> If you like trance, try these:

<http://22.214.171.124:9000> <http://18.104.22.168:9000> <http://22.214.171.124:8000>

</comment><comment><USER3> I wouldn't say it's the best but recently I've been listening to <http://www.tangerinedream.com> and the chill selections at <http://new.icebergradio.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> Don't listen to music. Actually it's bad for concentration, and working at 2 AM won't help too.

</comment><comment><USER5> Oh ya, should mention check out <http://www.live365.com> I found it the other day and had some decent channels from what I saw. TONS of genre's. You can pay for it if you don't want commercials as well.

</comment><comment><USER5> For Rock / Alternative / Some Punk:

Vancouver, BC: <http://www.cfox.com>

Victoria, BC: (lame java player) <http://www.thezone.fm>

</comment><comment><USER6> I like thesixtyone.com for indie (and indie electronic) or di.fm for dance music (though I haven't tuned into the latter for quite some time).

</comment><comment><USER7> <http://www.pandora.com> while it still exists. (What happened to that court case anyway?)

</comment><comment><USER8> <http://somafm.com> \- especially their Groove Salad or Digitalis mixes.

</comment><comment><USER9> Go to shoutcast.com. I like the Alternative genre with 181.fm (the buzz) being my usual choice.

</comment><comment><USER10> hypem.com</comment>


Build a $35 Time Capsule – Raspberry Pi Time Machine Backup Server - <AUTHOR> https://raymii.org/s/articles/Build_a_35_dollar_Time_Capsule_-_Raspberry_Pi_Time_Machine.html

<comment><USER2> I've tried to make homebrew Time Machine backup targets (once with a NAS and with a VM running Ubuntu) and both times they initially worked great but then failed when the disk filled up. Even with the "delete old backups" setting enabled, Time Machine on the clients would still complain that the disk couldn't be written to and would fail. The only way to fix it was to delete the volume completely (losing all backups) and start from scratch.

Maybe I did something wrong somewhere but it was frustrating and not worth the trouble. I'll just go with a real Time Capsule and call it a day.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem I have with the "just go with a real TimeCapsule" solution is that it doesn't scale. I've got a 3TB iMac, and a couple Apple laptops. The largest TimeCapsule available is 3TB. They don't provide a way to increase your storage without buying multiple TimeCapsules, and the economics of that are already way out of whack with what storage costs are these days.

<comment><USER2> I agree completely that the price is steep and the capacity limiting, but if it's a choice between no backups and one or more Time Capsules, I'm going to pick the latter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Also I'd probably suggest one uses xfs, or some other file system that won't run out of inodes :)

</comment><comment><USER3> "USB Hard Disk / Big USB Dick"

Typo?</comment>


Ask HN: Emacs-like Incremental Search? - <AUTHOR> Is there a native macOS text editor that supports emacs-like incremental search, meaning that upon completion of the search, the cursor is left at the beginning of the match? If I search for "apple" and type "ap", the cursor should be left before/on "a" when I end the search; "ap" should not be highlighted. <comment><USER2> That's funny. I've used the original ITS Emacs, Zmacs (the Lisp Machine editor), MINCE, Coral Common Lisp's FRED, GNU Emacs, XEmacs, and probably a couple more Emacs clones I've forgotten, and I don't recall any of them having that behavior when searching forward. (They do leave the cursor at the beginning of the match when searching backward.)

Anyway, you can get Aquamacs and customize its behavior to your liking.

<comment><USER3> To save a google search, here's an emacs customization to leave cursor at the start of the match.

From [http://endlessparentheses.com/leave-the-cursor-at-start- of-m...](http://endlessparentheses.com/leave-the-cursor-at-start-of-match- after-isearch.html)

        (add-hook 'isearch-mode-end-hook
                  #'endless/goto-match-beginning)
        (defun endless/goto-match-beginning ()
          "Go to the start of current isearch match.
        Use in `isearch-mode-end-hook'."
          (when (and isearch-forward
                     (number-or-marker-p isearch-other-end)
                     (not mark-active)
                     (not isearch-mode-end-hook-quit))
            (goto-char isearch-other-end)))

<comment><USER3> >> Is there a native macOS text editor that supports emacs-like...

Nothing more "emacs-like" than emacs. Turn on CUA mode if common key binds is what you're after.</comment></comment></comment>


Debian package management, the Arch way - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/LaPingvino/jogurto/

<comment><USER2> So what's the point of this project? I mean does it provide anything more than straight mapping "-S" -> "install", "-Su" -> "dist-upgrade", etc. ?

<comment><AUTHOR> What you see there is very early, I wrote that in a day, the point is to build on it and provide more shortcuts for things that suck to do/type in Debian. One thing I am planning to tackle on the long run is building packages, as in creating an option to install efemeral packages like you can with the AUR in Arch. Other than that, it's mostly a mapping with combined commands (`jogurto -Syu aptitude` updates, then upgrades, then installs aptitude). See it as a kind of alias file.

I wrote it because I love Arch package management, but I don't like the fragility of it, found that out the hard way... I try to bring most of the bliss over via this tool.</comment></comment>


Photos from the Korean War - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/07/remembering-the-korean-war/493235/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I lived by the DMZ for a couple of years in the mid-90s, and being an outdoorsy type, I did some hiking in the hills around Soyo-San, Inchon, and other spots. It's amazing how much the war changed the landscape, even decades later. At the time you couldn't find a single tree more than five or six inches wide, and all of the hills are crisscrosses with old trenches, etc. Inside the DMZ is supposedly a little bit more wild, and there are supposed to be some actual old-growth trees on the north side, but I doubt any westerner could get there to see them. If the North Korean government ever folds, it's right near the top of my bucket list to go take a look, though.

<comment><USER3> I just recently had the pleasure of visiting Seoul, but was sad to see JSA tours booked about 3 weeks in advance so I did not get to do the DMZ tour.

My grandfather was in the CIA during the Korean War and has quite an interesting perspective. Apparently it wasn't until Eisenhower was elected that North Korea finally was more willing to sign an armstice because, unlike Truman, Eisenhower was happy to drop hints that he was OK with using the atomic bomb to end the war.

Gives an interesting dimension as to why North Korea is so gung-ho about obtaining one. They did not like being bullied with one.

<comment><USER4> Ah, Korea, the first "Rules of Engagement" war. I wonder what would have actually happened if MacArthur had expanded the war as he planned, before Truman clapped the muzzle on him.

Similar to Vietnam, the suggestion that the US military is ready to take the gloves off and actually fight a real war is usually enough to bring anything less than a first-rate military power to the negotiating table. Well, assuming that the enemy is anything like an actual government with real responsibilities to its people, rather than a decentralized rabble of Islamic thugs.

<comment><USER5> "I wonder what would have actually happened if MacArthur had expanded the war as he planned, before Truman clapped the muzzle on him."

I like MacArthur, and he is an amazing general. Inchon landing was a remarkable gamble that proves MacArthur is a tactical genius. In my South Korean heart, I want to believe that MacArthur was right. But when I think more about the issue and the historical context behind the war, I think Truman made the prudent choice.

WWII is still very much fresh in everyone's mind. People know even the smallest spark can trail-blaze its way to start the biggest war at an unimaginable. The Korean war should have stayed as a proxy war and ended as a proxy war. I am glad that the war had not spilt itself to becoming full scale war between communist side vs capitalist side. Also US's use of atomic bomb in Japan during WWII was viable because Japan did not have an atomic bomb. USSR did. If US used an atomic bomb against North Korea, that would be an open invitation for USSR to use it. So yeah, I think Truman was right in the end.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> These photos bring up a lot of family history for me. Thanks for sharing them.

My mother's family lived in Seoul when the war broken out. During my mother's first birthday party, her aunt and her children came through the door looking half dead. My aunt lived further north and made the few days trek with her children and only the clothes on her back. Her husband was an engineer on a power plant, when the communist party took over. He was taken away by soldiers never to be seen again. My mother's family eventually had to flee as well, losing all their possessions and farmland.

Though my mother was too young for a first hand account of the war, we still have a single photograph of my mother's first birthday party. You can see her sitting in front of all the celebratory food. What you can't see in the picture is my aunt and her children on the other side of the room on the verge of death.

</comment><comment><USER7> Not surprisingly, the hospital photo looks eerily like a set from MASH. I even squinted and saw Henry Blake in the back. I grew up watching the show and it was my earliest exposure to art that was explicitly (and powerfully) anti-war.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/07/remembering-the- kor...](http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/07/remembering-the-korean- war/493235/#img15)

</comment><comment><USER8> Absolutely wonderful gallery, first one on the web from a major organization that made the experience enjoyable!

Also try adding scroll-behavior: smooth; to the body or :root

<comment><USER9> I agree. Hiding half the image captions was a weird choice though. I'm on mobile so that might be part of it.

<comment><USER10> We only truncate the captions on mobile and only if the are longer than a set number of characters. If I recall, the thinking was that the captions might be pretty long on some galleries and we didn't want to detract too much from the visual experience for readers who just wanted to scroll through the gallery without reading 100% of the text.

I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the gallery even on a phone. Making an image heavy page work well like these is always tricky for mobile, but it's an experience we care about and plan on improving in the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My father fought in this war, came in with the main U.N. invasion, fought in North Korea before being shot a couple times and sitting out the rest in a hospital in Japan trying to beat a new found morphine addiction. He very rarely talks about his time there, but pictures of modern South Korea make him stop in his tracks.

My wife is Korean, and her father and his brother were the only surviving family members from their side. Orphaned at 8 or 9, my father-in-law remembers very fondly American soldiers volunteering time to come to the orphanage and play with the kids, bring them candy, whatever.

It's not entirely impossible that my father may have been one of those soldiers giving my father-in-law chocolate. When my wife and I announced our engagement, my father-in-law felt it was deeply appropriate for the son of one of those soldiers who may have saved his life to marry one of his daughters.

If you want to better understand that kind of bond, I recommend watching this documentary on a reunion between a Korean orphan and her Turkish soldier guardian (the Allies were a U.N. force and Turkey was a major contributor of troops). [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98KBGvZymMA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98KBGvZymMA)

Sometime during the war, in order to slow the southward advancing Communist forces, all of the bridges crossing the numerous rivers in South Korea were destroyed, leaving hundreds of thousands of fleeing refugees to crawl over wreckage and ford rivers on foot. [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dc/Flight_of_Ref...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dc/Flight_of_Refugees_Across_Wrecked_Bridge_1950.jpg)

So rapidly and completely displaced were people, and so decimated the country had been, that families who were separated in the rush away from the war often never found their relatives again. In the 1980s a short run of shows trying to reconnect families swept the nation as people desperately tried to remember the names and faces of their long-lost, hopefully still living, relatives. At one point the show ran for 13 hours a day. Over 10,000 families were reunited -- decades after the war had ceased.

[http://www.nytimes.com/1983/08/18/world/war-scattered- korean...](http://www.nytimes.com/1983/08/18/world/war-scattered-korean-kin- find-their-kin-at-last.html)

[http://www.koreabang.com/2013/pictures/photos-in-1983-all- of...](http://www.koreabang.com/2013/pictures/photos-in-1983-all-of-korea-was- crying.html)

<comment><USER5> That's an amazing story. Thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If it weren't for the US's gracious intervention, S. Korea would have been swallowed by N. Korea and China. Unfortunately some pro-communism, pro-N. Korea activists hate the US. These people have forgotten the grace of the US. Without US support, S. Korea would still be dirt poor, just like current South Eastern countries.

<comment><USER13> ROK was as poor as and just as crazy as DPRK for a lot of it's history too.

<comment><USER14> Indeed. It's surprising to me that the Atlantic chooses not to document the Bodo League massacre. Rhee was a butcher, and our support of him is one of the great moral failings of the Truman administration.</comment></comment></comment>