Jack Dorsey is giving Andrew Yang $5M to build the case for a basic income - <AUTHOR> https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/twitter-jack-dorsey-giving-andrew-090025479.html <comment><USER2> UBI should cover government-regulated and government-provided essentials to living.

Ex.:

* Government housing: $500

* Government basic food package - daily (1500kcal): $300

* x kJ electricity, x m3 water, x m3 gas, x bps internet connection: $500

* Clothing, hygiene, cleaning supplies: $50

* Universal healthcare: free (and free condoms)

* Free education (from abc to PHD)

This is not a comprehensive list, or even the right values, however you can guarantee a base-level of what is "living with dignity" and apt to participate in the democracy.

I doubt you'd have too many people deciding to live without a job. It's not the best life, but you can survive with some human dignity. Many around the world live with much less.

UBI isn't the American Dream, it's the safety net.

<comment><USER3> I think the idea here is that UBI replaces all of the other government welfare programs, no?

What happens when someone spends all their UBI on whiskey or oxy and consumes it all and is then hungry? Should we keep food stamps around? Why can't we do that part (universal food stamps) by itself?

I don't think the all-or-nothing approach of UBI makes a ton of sense. We can do things today like more free or subsidized food that would work exactly the same way as it would under UBI, with potentially more buy-in.

<comment><USER4> So what if someone spends it all on whiskey or oxy? They're maximising their own preferences. If they were addicted to alcohol, sudden withdrawal can kill.

One of the big reasons for UBI is the belief that an individual can better assess their own needs and wants, and procure them more cheaply than the government.

This is partly a moral/philosphical stand - the tension is between giving individual freedom in the form of money, or giving freedom via paternalistic methods where the government decides what is best for you. It can be argued either way.

I do agree it would be wise to have systems in place to trickle the money in daily instead of monthly - this would help your concern of people blowing all their money at once (but not prevent them spending on what was most important to them).

I also think that just UBI will never be enough - there is a place for targeted government support - healthcare, addiction (part of healthcare), mental health (also part of healthcare).

<comment><USER5> I agree very strongly with you, but I don't think that's where the parent poster was going.

Imagine we have a UBI, and we do all kinds of other smart things -- end the War on Drugs, establish Bismarck-style national healthcare[1], all that.

Let's do a thought experiment.

What happens when Alice blows all of her UBI on Lady Lee Vodka and Oxy. Nothing left for rent, food, the rest. Nobody else in the picture to help: no relatives, nada.

If we look at UBI as the _only_ social assistance program, Alice dies on the street.

That's the reality, and we need to accept that.

Alternatively, we would need some sort of "backup" reserved for people that are not capable of caring for themselves.

Maybe something like restarting the mental hospitals that Reagan closed in the 80's after Geraldo -- and the rest of Our Friends In The News -- ran wild with the scandal of how awful those government-run mental hospitals were, with the end result being that a bunch of mentally ill folks got chucked out on the street.

Now, I don't know what the answer is. I really don't.

My concern is that I see a lot of people talking up only the benefits, and not in any way addressing the failure cases.

[1] Yields better results than single-payer, and is better at controlling costs.

<comment><USER6> Alice could get a job and then lose it all on vodka and oxy. I don't see why UBI needs to ensure that she doesn't do foolish things with her money.

People are going to make bad decisions, unfortunately. You can't live in a free society if you don't let people make unfortunate, bad decisions that harm themselves.

If you think all people should be protected from their bad decisions then you're basically sliding straight down the slope into totalitarianism.

In a free society, some people will make bad decisions and their lives will be miserable but hopefully many more will make better decisions.

<comment><USER7> In the course of their self-harm though they also tend to damage society. The starving addict doesn't just lay down in the street and die. They beg and they steal because they're desperate. They rip copper out of buildings while just harming themselves. And maybe eventually they're arrested and live off the state anyways (at much increased prison rates).

How far do you let them sink before you need to step in.

<comment><USER8> > How far do you let them sink before you need to step in.

Look no further than Skid row or Silicon Valley, specifically the San Francisco area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Years ago, proponents of UBI claimed that it was a replacement for all other forms of social welfare. Now it appears by most proposals to be yet another means-tested add-on.

What happened?

<comment><USER10> People studied the UBI idea and recognized the costs of giving money to everyone are so enormous that it's unworkable. That's there the means testing has come in to try to limit that.

Something more like a "guaranteed minimum income" where you can't have less money than what is required to have a good standard of living is a cheaper and more effective idea that accomplishes the same goals of ending poverty.

<comment><USER11> UBI is _indirectly_ means-tested; if you make too much money, you end up giving back as much or more in taxes and/or partial UBI clawbacks than what you would get via UBI. This actually ends up working better and being cheaper than most alternatives (including the "guaranteed minimum"), because it's comparatively easy to structure a comprehensive tax system so that it minimizes distortions on people's behavior, and hard to design a means-testing policy to the same effect. The latter is especially true given the patchwork of social-insurance programs that currently exists. Giving cash can replace many of these programs, and making the policy a 'universal' one reduces administrative costs.

<comment><USER10> It's actually a big bureaucratic problem to give people several thousand dollars and then demand most of it back later. Most people don't notice income taxes since it comes out of their paycheque. It would genuinely be tough problem to educate people to not spend their basic income, or to design a system where it's clawed back through paycheques.

<comment><USER11> > or to design a system where it's clawed back through paycheques.

It would be no different than e.g. the existing payroll tax, or income tax withholding. You'd just notice it as a reduction in your paycheck. And if your income is high enough, the UBI can simply be a tax credit.

<comment><USER12> I agree, payroll tax could just take the ubi into account and take more depending on ur expected income

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> UBI only makes sense in the science fiction world that Andrew Yang and other non-technical journalists think is somehow imminent. We still need people to make things. There are still guys hanging off the side of garbage trucks every day and people still pick fruits by hand. If no one does these things, you will starve and die. We cannot survive forever on financial engineering by bureaucrats and importing all our necessities from other countries that actually make things.

<comment><USER14> This is anecdotal but I haven't seen guys hanging off garbage trucks in a long time. Around here it's just one guy with a hydraulic arm on the truck that picks up the cans and dumps out garbage, and he does it very very efficiently. Pretty soon it should be possible to even replace the driver with a self driving truck that goes around pre determined paths in the neighborhood.

<comment><USER15> That may be true in populated areas. But, what about areas that lag behind? Rural america that is too poor to afford robot trucks. I see people hanging off garbage trucks all the time in the midwestern low pop and rural areas.

<comment><USER16> > But, what about areas that lag behind? Rural america that is too poor to > afford robot trucks.

The robot trucks are cheaper than the humans that operate the non-robot trucks, so your argument doesn't make much sense here.

<comment><USER17> >> The robot trucks are cheaper than the humans that operate the non-robot trucks

not if you understand accounting. I can hire a guy today at <$20/hr operating cost to do it manually. That robot truck is a much more significant capital investment that will amortize over 10+ years.

<comment><USER16> 1\. Loans: it seems you've forgotten these exist.

2\. Private garbage collection companies: just because a municipality doesn't have money to buy a robot truck in cash, doesn't mean the private garbage collection company that serves most of the surrounding municipalities doesn't.

3\. If you actually look up the prices, the numbers are so skewed in the favor of automation that even without loans or private companies, I very much doubt there are any cases where this would take 10+ years to amortize. Your $20/hour collector translates to $30K/year if they works 30 hours/week, or $300K in 10 years. Is it your claim that robot trucks cost $300K more than non-robot trucks?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't think there is any good way to _test_ UBI at any small scale, I think there needs to be a critical mass of people who can pay their housing and food costs how society and economic activity would be reshaped under such a system.

<comment><USER19> US centric opinion:

Social Security and Medicare are already UBI at large scale, but age tested (62 is the minimum age, 70 the max for social security benefits, age 65 qualified you for Medicare, US universal healthcare for seniors). Caveat: you needed to have worked and earned certain amounts to qualify for Medicare and your benefits level.

To test at small scale, you'd need an endowment that would use the investment returns to pay folks their UBI, and then payroll taxes that would include OSDI so they'd gracefully land onto Social Security and Medicare when they reach the age that qualified them. Pick small cohorts: students in their early 20s, some middle age folks mid career, and folks near the end of their career in dead end industries (ie coal). Observe and report.

If you can "cross the chasm" (see: companies going remote first after being forced to see if it can be done with COVID), it then becomes PR getting an audience with the Fed and Congress to rejigger monetary and fiscal policy to print and distribute accordingly. Can't see we can't print, money printer is running exceedingly fast right now [1], but can we put that money in the pockets of average citizens instead of simply inflating asset values of the richest Americans? That's the question.

[1] [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL)

<comment><USER20> Seems like nonsense to me to say 'this is universal income just except it's not universal.' If you take away the 'universal' then you're missing the _entire_ point.

<comment><USER19> This is policy and PR hacking in lieu of having incredibly deep pockets. Sorry to tell you that real life is messy. Think of it as growth hacking. This is a sales endeavor. You must sell that the current form of capitalism is fundamentally broken.

This is no different than contributing to the "right" Congressional candidates with few dollars so they control hundreds of billions of dollars of policy (or in this case, trillions of dollars). This isn't anything new or weird. NGOs face this issue all the time, having to prove out models before they'll get gov or foundation funding.

<comment><USER20> But you can't prove anything about universal income without the universal part. As without it it's not the same thing and we don't know if it'll have the same effects.

<comment><USER19> You can approximate. Close enough. It's going to be impossible to implement without testing the concept.

I'm not here to convince you, and if you're not a policymaker or the Fed, I don't have to.

<comment><USER20> But the 'universal' part is the main thing people including policy makers have an issue with, and that's the bit not being tested.

<comment><USER19> Ehh, India is dipping their toes in without going full monty. It can be done progressively.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23258277](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23258277) (HN: Indian farmers to get direct cash benefits)

<comment><USER19> And now in Spain.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23351708](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23351708) (HN: Spain approves national minimum income scheme)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Trickle up, baby. Man I love Andrew Yang and what his mission is with Humanity Forward. Good move, Jack.

<comment><USER22> Same here but I really wish he wouldn't kowtow every time some wackjob group is screaming at him. He took a very moderate and reasonable stance on a lot of contentious topics during his campaign then rolled them back within a day of getting lit up by twitter trolls. I think he lost a large section of centrist voters by appearing spineless.

He took the best policies from the left and right, but also seemed obligated to tow party lines a lot of the time rather than offer up better alternatives. I wish he would have run third party, he could have taken a lot of moderate votes from President Trump. The democrats didn't stand a chance of winning this election, at the very least he would have sent a message to the next generation that there are other options.

<comment><USER21> Yang definitely waffled on MFA and appeared to not support it towards the end. That was something of him that I was disappointed - I couldn't understand why he didn't realize that MFA is the way to go. I do wonder if he waffled on it to retain support from people further to the right.

That said, I actually think Yang's ideas are going to reverberate throughout political discourse over the next decade. Similar to how Bernie pushed the base range of the Democratic party to the left, Yang shed light on some great issues that will plague us. For example, what are going to do about the massive loss of employment due to automation? Are we going to attempt to retrain these people? That's historically not been very successful.

<comment><USER23> Retraining is not the answer (and I don't know what is). Many of the jobs killed by automation were things people could command a reasonably high salary to do, but did not need extensive training for (these are referred to as "good jobs"). Offering the same salary (or even more), but requiring multiple years of training, just isn't going to fly with these people.

<comment><USER24> Retraining is part of the answer. For professional jobs (in the classic sense) continuous training is a core tenant of remaining current in the field and if applicable maintaining licensure. The faster technology moves, the more everyone should be thinking about how careers will be in a constant state a flux. Not just retraining from a factory job to some service job, but every few years basically having a role that has morphed into something new. We need institutions, practices, and norms that reflect the new normal of high- technical change.

Many historical blue-collar jobs that have been automated (or even things like farming before it) were much higher-skill than most people give credit for. It is just that the training and general knowledge available to perform well were more ambiently available. An example today is working with standard business software. You don't get trained in office and excel, you get trained on how they are used in the company's specific workflows. Companies also had more on the job training and apprenticeships.

So I also don't know what do with the wave of truckers that will be automated away with self-driving big-rigs (presuming that happens) but I think the future is one where we don't actually have as many folks dedicated to one line-of-work where such a jarring transition is necessary. Or perhaps the corollary, that we should aim for that more dynamic approach to prevent further disruption of big discontinuities

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I could see UBI as an alternative to federal government spend.

E.g. every time I hear about the U.S. sending billions to the middle east, I wonder how much more effectively it could be spent in the hands of thousands upon thousands of americans.

It's almost like implementing something closer to direct democracy instead of representative republic democracy in regards to spending...

<comment><USER26> As Eisenhower put it

 _Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed._

 _This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children..._

 _This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron._

<comment><USER27> Beautiful quote. Thanks for sharing.

<comment><USER26> It's a heck of a speech, made after Stalin died

[https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential- speeche...](https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential- speeches/april-16-1953-chance-peace)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If the government starts giving me enough money each month to subsist while drastically raising taxes on my earnings from employment then I'll simply stop working. I would imagine most people would do the same.

<comment><USER29> Every experiment in UBI says otherwise. Direct cash grants usually lead people to do more work, because now they can do the work they enjoy.

Also, look around groups of wealthy people. The ones who don't have to work anymore. Sure, some of them live a life of leisure, but many of them still work, because they get bored otherwise.

<comment><USER30> There are lots of jobs people don't enjoy. Who's going to do those?

If they raise the salaries and start getting applicants, who's going to buy the much more expensive produce? They'd have to increase the amount of ubi, and there you have inflation.

<comment><USER31> You are assuming a business and industry is a god given right. If a business fails to get applicants, they need to raise wages or relocate to where there is labor. If they need more income to pay for these workers then they will charge more. If the price they charge for their goods or services is too high for the given level of demand, the business will just fold.

And that's OK, there area a lot of parasitic zombie companies around that could use a culling, wasting peoples working years doing inane tasks rather than starting a project of their own and innovating. As they say, imagine if Mozart never held a violin but was busy working double shifts flipping burgers for 30 years instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> UBI is meant to be a gambit to distract us from seeing that the playing field is so heavily tilted against everyone but the very rich and fortunate. the rich buy this diversion by periodically sliding some pennies down to the rest of us on the other end, while patting themselves on the back for doing such a magnanimous thing.

what we really need to do is bring transparency and fairness to labor markets, and squeeze rentiers and financiers, so that we can start to tilt that playing field back to where innovators can innovate in all sorts of directions, not just in the ones deigned to make the rich even richer.

<comment><USER33> This argument gets made over and over, never with any logic attached to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> While I think UBI is one of the better solutions to the poverty problem in the US, I think almost any solution to poverty will fall prey to inflation if we don't address income inequality.

One way to do this is pay ratio caps at companies. It's pretty hard to argue against this: if you really believe that wealth trickles down, then you should have no problem trusting but verifying that.

<comment><USER34> > While I think UBI is one of the better solutions to the poverty problem in > the US, I think almost any solution to poverty will fall prey to inflation > if we don't address income inequality.

Please define the "poverty problem" in the US.

How is an increase in the money supply related to income inequality?

<comment><USER35> > How is an increase in the money supply related to income inequality?

Go read about whose asses were saved with printed the money during the 2008 financial crisis. Or the 7 trillion bailout fund for corporations that just passed.

<comment><USER34> Corporate bailouts are bullshit, I agree. But even without bailouts there would still be massive inequality (which I think is fine).

Cut spending and abolish the Fed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> UBI (in the U.S.) would be like printing more shares of a publicly-traded stock and giving all of the new stock to the employees of the company.

USD is the reserve currency, so foreign interests (or large corps) w/ stockpiles of USD will be the losers due to inflation.

Foreign interests can change which reserve currency they use at-will, so wouldn't this be like a direct-fee/dividend U.S. citizens (or any UBI-country citizens) could charge those that use the currency of the country but don't live there?

<comment><USER37> So overall dilution of the currency. Then, increase UBI some more to make up for it. Then, dilute the currency some more. Over a few cycles become the new Venezuela as most entrepreneurs leave for greener fields.

<comment><USER38> Easy solution -- we stop the process of QE and replace it with a UBI. Why is dilution OK in the name of big corps but the next incarnation of Hitler when it's for you and I?

<comment><USER37> Because supply-side is what provides the country with the best economy in the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I have difficulty believing that UBI will ever work, unless you get the basic problems solved first.

Namely, housing.

The problem actually boils down to democracy itself, where people vote for laws that favors themselves, and excludes outsiders, specifically the NIMBY crowd. These are the people that vote in housing regulations, environmental review injunctions to prevent construction, etc.

Regardless of whether UBI is given freely like welfare, these NIMBYs will continue to exist, and they will act as a corruption on society. They got theirs already, and they will prevent others from getting it too.

For all other things, technology should be able to help make things plentiful. Food can come from mechanized and automated mass farming. Medicine can come from mechanized and automated mass production. Clothing, cars, consumer goods, well, I guess there are factories in China that can mass produce that.

But either way, unless you solve the core problems first, then UBI is dead in the water.

Otherwise, with the low interest rates, and massive corporate stock buybacks, then this will just continue to inflate the stock market, and property bubble, and other asset prices.

Then, what is the end result? The rents will continue to rise, and it will just eat away at your UBI. Now, we're back at square one.

<comment><USER40> Agreed that housing needs to be fixed.

In the short term it would eat away at any income but it won't be 100% of it, and it will also vary by location. Some housing markets are more supply constrained than others.

Also a portable source of income would reduce demand for housing in cities too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> UBI is inevitable. Like software development, whoever makes it first will win and bring us closer to our Star Trekian furute.

<comment><USER42> Are you sure were are not heading towards The Expanse ;P

Here's one counter argument for UBI. Who will do all the boring work needed for building a dam / apartment ? If we are honest about it, most of this boring, physically harmful and repetitive infrastructure work is only done by the working class that chooses to do it because the alternative is begging. It's because of the threat of extreme poverty and unemployment that the working class works. If they are able to sustain themselves with UBI why would they work ?

Who will do the boring data entry work in our industry ?

<comment><USER43> Perhaps it's time that this kind of work is recognised as being more valuable than it is today, precisely because not many people want to do it.

<comment><USER42> Because people will be paid well to do it, they might as well put more effort into it. You get what you pay for in that way!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Announced on [https://open.spotify.com/episode/1xb2GYUPxoGAprDj3G4Idz?si=A...](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1xb2GYUPxoGAprDj3G4Idz?si=Ay6Nl12GRqWjLs6mLXx- ig)

I've got to say, I've moved almost entirely to consuming information via podcasts and Yang Speaks is one of my top ones.

1\. Find some smart people/organizations you trust 2\. Listen to them daily

<comment><USER45> You can also directly listen or subscribe to his podcast here: [https://yangspeaks.com/](https://yangspeaks.com/)

I refuse to support what Spotify is trying to do to the podcast market.

<comment><USER44> > I refuse to support what Spotify is trying to do to the podcast market.

What are they trying to do?

<comment><USER46> Replace a standard you can use with any client with... Spotify.

[EDIT] incidentally, I'm about 90% sure they're gonna succeed and open podcasts are doomed to decline, though they'll not go away immediately. Though I do have non-computer-nerd friends who are refusing to follow their podcasts as they move, one by one, to closed platforms, usually Spotify. Still, I don't think it'll be enough to stop it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> The narrative for UBI is strong enough, the details on its policy and implementation isn't. I think there's a couple of major initiatives that people need to take:

1) Give UBI to a small county / city for 1 year and study its economic and social impact.

Do the full 12k, $1000 a year grant to a small city. With a 30k population, that's around $500m dollars with research overhead?

One goal (among others) is to show how the money improves the local economy and gets earned back by the government / taxes, since that is a significant part of UBI's way of paying for itself.

2) Create a more robust policy for paying for it.

I want a document that is 50-300 pages long and covers EVERYTHING I can think of, like, 1) what exactly is excluded in the VAT tax? 2) Charts of consumption levels and how much you'll end up paying, with examples of actors at each level. 3) How much does Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc, actually pay for UBI? 4) What is the breakdown of where UBI money comes from in the economy? 5) What are contingency plans for if we have a deficit? Print money? Loan? 6) What are the contingency plans for if we have a permanent deficit, year over year? Inflation?

3) Find out the answer to the harder questions truthfully. The easy questions are things like, "will poor people be grateful for extra money?" The answer is obviously yes. The harder questions are things like "What % of people will spend their UBI on drugs and alcohol?"

You don't want to just brush aside the hard questions and treat them like roadblocks. If it turns out that UBI becomes people's weed stash, you have to look yourself in the eye and say "did we mess up". Of course, we could create policy to limit that behavior, but that comes from addressing the hard questions.

4) I would love personas that detail what the "average" US citizen's economic situation looks like with the population representation. Even if this is more fiction than fact, I think knowing about a Bob Smith who makes X amount of money, spends X on the following, has the following monetary problems, and by the way, is emblematic of another 2-5 million people in the US, would be really helpful for me to understand what the point of UBI is, since I'm not one of the primary users. 15+ of these kinds of profiles would be really cool to read especially if they cover the 70% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck.

</comment><comment><USER48> If interested, this provides a brief historical perspective, with the pros and cons of UBI: [https://news.stanford.edu/2020/03/24/moment-universal- basic-...](https://news.stanford.edu/2020/03/24/moment-universal-basic- income/)

<comment><USER49> This doesn't provide any view into pros/cons tho. Mostly statements about what happened and is happening. Not very useful from that perspective.

<comment><USER48> Please note that there's a box down on the left of that page, which is called "Stanford scholar explores pros, cons of 'basic income'", with the info and may be useful. This is the box link: [https://news.stanford.edu/2018/08/08/stanford-scholar- explor...](https://news.stanford.edu/2018/08/08/stanford-scholar-explores- pros-cons-basic-income/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> >> Yang says Humanity Forward plans to immediately distribute Dorsey's contribution in the form of small cash grants of $250 to nearly 20,000 people who've lost their jobs or taken an economic hit as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic

So money based on certain non-universal conditions?

Isn't this one of the root problems? People cannot accept a truly universal system - you've already got too much; that guy lives in the wrong part of the country; you have too much education; they're not citizens...

Bill Gates has stated he doesn't have enough money to tackle all major areas and make significant advances; then guys like Yang want to use far less money for even bigger mandates. This just looks like a way for rich guys to pick very specific winners.

UBI seems like it would be the most powerful vote-buying weapon ever created in the hands of any government given the opportunity to implement it.

<comment><USER7> Even universal has winners and losers. How do you deal with different cost of livings between Bay Area and Mississippi?

If the UBI is not adjusted and covers living expenses in cheap areas but not expensive areas, then people might decide to live cheaply without a job. That risks creating slums.

If it's adjusted to locality, then areas will grow and dwindle based on accuracy of those adjustment tables. Which would turn those tables overtly political.

<comment><USER50> If you're treating people wanting to live cheaply without a job as a negative situation that should be avoided, then I don't think you're in a mindset to be evaluating UBI specifics correctly. You should just be wholesale against it. The whole point is to free people from wage slavery. You're worried that it will work!

On an even broader level though, location caused cost of living differences being taken in to account in anything like this seems odd. I read it as the equivalent of "but what about people who want Ferrari's not Honda's!?" When it seems like others see it as "what about people who have expensive to treat medical conditions?"

COL differences aren't some arbitrary accident. You're paying more to live somewhere more desirable.

<comment><USER51> "wage slavery" is such a disingenuous weasel word term. There's no slavery involved at all. Involvement is purely voluntary and you're free to leave at any time.

<comment><USER52> Here we go again. People are not always in a position to leave a job. People are living paycheck to paycheck and not able to get other jobs. You're being disingenuous.

<comment><USER51> "Slavery is any system in which principles of property law are applied to people, allowing individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals, as a de jure form of property."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery)

Living paycheck-to-paycheck or hand-to-mouth like most humans lived for most of human history does not make one a slave. To state otherwise is to compare mere existence to slavery.

Unless someone is an actual slave under bondage or with threat of coercion from another person, they are always in a position to leave a job. Doesn't mean they are free of consequences, like no longer getting money because they are no longer willfully trading their labor for compensation, the same way that someone farming the land will stop reaping the benefits of their labor once they stop engaging in farming behavior or if someone living as a hunter/gatherer will stop collecting sustenance when they stop hunting and gathering. At no point are any of those people slaves because no coercion is involved.

<comment><USER52> Literalism does nothing here because the concept of wage-slavery is more like the concept of serfdom than slavery. But language is malleable over time and it's commonly understood what it means, especially to people familiar with the struggle to survive in the modern economy.

<comment><USER51> Then call it wage-serfdom then. It's not slavery.

> But language is malleable over time

If the liberty someone is taking with the language is intentionally trying to manipulate how people think about something by abusing what words are commonly accepted as meaning, it's completely fair to call out that manipulation.

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them." ― Philip K. Dick

<comment><USER52> It happens all the time that people chose their language precisely and in ways that clearly have more impact on another party's perception. Being pedantic over the definition of a word only distracts from what that word(s) is trying to do. I sense that you are really uncomfortable over what the word "wage- slavery" implies about the society you are participating in and are trying to cheapen it.

<comment><USER51> You're cheapening what slavery is. It's honestly pretty disgusting to equate serfdom to slavery. They aren't even in the same league.

Go read more about modern day slavery and then come back and try to justify comparing the circumstance of these people to those who are actually being treated as property by others.

[https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/modern- slavery/](https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/modern-slavery/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century)

<comment><USER52> Red badges not treating you kingly enough?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I think developed countries will adopt a "Work on Demand" model that allows workers to order work and have it delivered and picked up (anywhere in their state, county or city) using the advancements of self driving vehicles. It compliments the trends currently underway with WFH/WHA and the same-day delivery aspirations of a few e-tailers.

UBI might be a transition to WoD, but the infrastructure, education and political models should go ahead and calibrate to the flexibility of the labor market(s).

The COL argument should revolve around someone only having to work 20 hours a week to maintain their lifestyle vs someone who has to work 40 hours for the same thing.

</comment><comment><USER54> This is totally unrelated to the article but I keep thinking about this lately: does anyone know what happened to Noah Glass who was a part of the original founding team?

<comment><USER55> I watched an interesting, somewhat, kind of related video on this today. Although it doesn't quite answer your question about what happened to him, interesting watch nonetheless and quite informative. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8N0xN0ihMA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8N0xN0ihMA)

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> As soon as I read the headline my first thought was "what can $5M tell you about the efficacy of UBI?" and the article quickly confirmed my suspicions: "nothing." From the article:

> Yang says Humanity Forward plans to immediately distribute Dorsey's > contribution in the form of small cash grants of $250 to nearly 20,000 > people who've lost their jobs or taken an economic hit as a result of the > COVID-19 pandemic.

What is this supposed to prove? People who are in a terrible economic position will benefit from getting $250? We don't need to run an "experiment" to know that the answer is "yes." And this isn't even "experiment," as there is neither a response variable being measured, nor a control group.

What's happening right now is terrible, and it is good that Dorsey and Yang for making this donation. It is bad, however, that they are trying to spin this as a scientific investigation into the efficacy of UBI. I think that we need to start experimenting with UBI sooner rather than later. But when I see stuff like this, I worry that a lot of UBI advocates are less interested in raising the poverty line than they are in creating excuses to gut the welfare state.

</comment><comment><USER57> Even if there is a case for universal basic income these are not the droids you seek when it comes to endorsing it as a concept in fact my instinct tells me they'll fumble it and end up causing it to fall out of favour even if it could've been implemented

The reason is these two lead with their egos rather than engendering true community belonging

</comment><comment><USER58> Article is light on details, I hope this is an ongoing $250 to the same individuals, otherwise I don't think it is a good UBI experiment.

You could give 66 people $250 a month forever[1]. 20,000 individuals spends all of the endowment immediately.

[1] Assuming 3% inflation, 7% investment returns, and the foundation is spending 4% on payouts.

</comment><comment><USER59> What is stopping companies that make money (to pay for UBI through tax increases) from leaving the country to elsewhere with lower taxation? Where would this money come from then?

If things do get automated it means labor is no longer needed to be sourced locally, making it much easier to uproot and go elsewhere.

<comment> cool-guy-69 Where would they go? Every other country has a VAT tax and to pay for the version of UBI that Yang proposes would be a VAT tax at half the European rate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> If you're trying to build a case for UBI in general, it seems odd to do your experiment during a very non-standard time. What works or doesn't work in a pandemic may yield very different results in more normal times.

</comment><comment><USER61> And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

</comment><comment><USER62> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income#Pilot_programs_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income#Pilot_programs_and_experiments)

</comment><comment><USER63> I seriously don't know why people believe this will work and unlock the latent poet or artist within the average joe. As far as I have read most experiments have had mixed results, and we don't really know what the full impact will be if implemented in a nation of 350MM people. My suspicion is in a couple years people will notice that housing, food, and transportation has gone up commensurate with their "basic income". Then we will find ourselves in a vicious battle to justify raising or lowering it every couple years. And forget about ever putting the genie back into the bottle. The risks are huge.

<comment><USER64> I agree, there is just no way for it to work. We'd be better off with less overhead versions of existing programs and higher tax breaks for the poor, maybe no federal taxes under 200% of poverty. Add in Medicare for all in the same bracket and we meet most of the "upside" in a simpler and sustainable plan.

I've spent some time trying to envision the goals of UBI from the other side. Could you supplement volunteers and artists using a closed loop rewards program? My thinking caused me to create The Good Loop, [http://thegoodloop.org](http://thegoodloop.org), it isn't implemented yet but hopefully someday.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> how about access to health care first

no, we can't do both at the same time, we can't even get half the population to wear a simple mask in the middle of a pandemic

<comment><USER66> This is what has me not liking UBI. It makes zero sense to figure out how to pay a monthly stipend that comes at an astronomical cost but not healthcare.

Free healthcare would make the country smarter, more productive, healthier, better economy, etc.

UBI looks to me like a very bad idea that takes away power from citizens over the long term. I think it would be very ugly 50 years later. Get convicted of a felony? Lose your UBI. Born in an enemy country? Lose your UBI. Late on your credit card payment? We'll just take it out of your UBI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Oh boy. No this is not what we need to prove UBI. A lot can be done with $5M besides just giving a one time payment to some random folks.

</comment><comment><USER68> Technically speaking , many European countries already have "Basic Income". ( France , Sweden , Norway...)

They are reserved for individuals "Not Active" though ( Unemployed and not looking for a Job ) over a certain age.

Those "BI" massively lower poverty , which usually massively reduce crime-rate , drugs related usage etc...

With 700€/Month you aren't gonna far anyway, you have enaugh for food and rent , and that's it...

For America it's different, America cannot technically afford "BI" because the entirety of the US economy has been built on having 20% of the population living under the poverty line in order for good & services to be cheap and consumed in mass.

Having "UBI" in US would create a skyrocket inflation because worker who are paid 10$/Hour would drop their work and stay at home and do something that is more profitable for them.

Hence , the American culture revolve almost entirely around production of good and services for happiness.

In France few workers drop off the "Industrial" economy , they buy a Farm and live of "BI" and their own agriculture and go back to the city to buy commodities ( Gas , Cosmetic etc... ), it's common in Italy and Spain as well IIRC.

<comment><USER29> People keep forgetting that a UBI won't cover immigrants. Immigrants would end up doing all the jobs that citizens don't want to do.

That's the biggest problem with UBI. It creates a default class system.

<comment><USER69> I don't know what immigrants mean here. Like migrant workers or illegal immigrants?

Otherwise, we are a country full of immigrants who have become citizens or legal residents and would benefit from UBI.

<comment><USER29> Immigrants means anyone in the US that isn't a citizen.

Legal residents would not get UBI until they become citizens.

<comment><USER69> Why wouldn't we allow legal residents to receive it?

<comment><USER29> Politics mainly. It's already hard to convince people to give up part of their wealth for their fellow citizens. Good luck convincing them to give it up for non-citizens.

Also, logistics. If immigrants can get the UBI, then people would flood in from all over the world just to get UBI. You'd either have a ton of expense, or you'd have to make legal immigration nearly impossible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Covering for the impact of Twitter on society?

</comment><comment><USER71> A one time payment of $250 is not UBI. I don't understand how anything will be learned about UBI from this.

</comment><comment><USER72> I certainly don't want to be mean and I don't think that money should be how we measure people's value but I find it a bit odd that Andrew Yang claim to fame is being some kind of successful entrepreneur and yet his net worth is around 1 million USD. Much less than Obama for example.

I'm also talking as a non-us resident that doesn't know much about him except I've googled him a few times.

<comment><USER73> Looks like he made his million on his successful startup (making him a successful entrepreneur) and then proceeded to start a non-profit, which by definition should not make him exponentially richer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> So literally a solution in search of a problem.

A living income guarantee has my blessing, but UBI doesn't. It's either too low, and there's still need for welfare, unemployment benefit, etc., or so high that the (unpredictable) consequences can completely overwhelm the advantages.

<comment><USER75> That's a strong claim. What makes you think so?

<comment><USER74> I suppose the "too low" bit is obvious.

If UBI becomes too high, people will stop working, inflation will rise, and there won't be a safety net of subsidies and welfare left to help. So if e.g. the price of housing rises, the UBI will be eaten up more and more by rent and mortgage, and people with only UBI will be as poor as before, and people will be forced into very low paying jobs.

Furthermore, I've never seen a convincing source of funding for UBI; at the first sight of an economic crisis, UBI will be lowered. At that point, there's no way to revert the UBI, leading to a new poverty trap.

And reality is going to be wilder than my imagination.

If the problem you're fighting is poverty, then provide welfare for poor people, stimulate work for them, make schools accessible (in backwards countries where that isn't the case), etc., but don't try to restructure society. That's just ego.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Why doesn't he just fund this experiment himself ?

From wikipedia:

"Originally a corporate lawyer, Yang began working in various startups and early stage growth companies as a founder or executive from 2000 to 2009."

Maybe this a matching donation from Dorsey ?

<comment><USER40> Yang cashed out and ran a nonprofit for the past decade, his net worth is nothing like Dorsey's.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2019/11/19/andrew-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2019/11/19/andrew- yang-is-not-nearly-as-rich-as-youd-think/#124d22d04fdd)

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> Given everything that is going on, the case should be fairly straight forward to build. In fact, Yang has bene on top of it since Covid19 took hold in America.

I truly hope UBI gains more popularity and strength going forward.

<comment><USER78> UBI has a lot of practical problems. Why not start at universal health care or wider affordability of affordable housing and education? Without that any UBI will immediately be eaten up by rising prices in these areas.

<comment><USER79> That's a common urban legend. The free market drives prices down, when demand goes up for flexible markets.

It's easy to throw one or two economic terms around, but its a lot more complicated than 'people have more money == prices rise'.

<comment><USER80> I am really curious to learn more about why UBI will not drive the prices up. Could you indicate any articles that elaborate on this?

<comment><USER79> Better question: why would it? Economics is complicated.

In a free market there's no way to distinguish 'UBI money' from any other kind. Try jacking your price up - somebody else will have a sale and eat your lunch.

<comment><USER81> But if everyone has more liquidity access, that drives prices up. You don't have to do something like distinguish UBI money for this to be true.

<comment><USER79> Again, more buying means more production and reduced costs due to volume. Driving prices down. This happens too. As well a a dozen other things.

Economics is complicated. Playing dot-to-dot across the space with cherry- picked examples is not very useful.

<comment><USER78> "more buying means more production and reduced costs due to volume. "

Not in housing, not in health care and not in education. In other sectors, yes.

<comment><USER79> Not clear. They build new houses. Health care hires and expands. New schools open all the time. And volume decreases cost in those areas too.

Now they may be over-regulated and broken; no argument there.

<comment><USER78> Are you saying that housing, education and health care haven't seen massive price increases over the last few decades?

<comment><USER82> He didn't say that at all

He alluded to how those systems being over-regulated and broken prevent the usual economic factors from working. E.g. if you don't allow people to build new houses in certain places then that makes it quite easy for housing prices to go up in those areas

<comment><USER78> Then let's fix those first before talking about UBI.

<comment><USER82> There's no reason we can't implement UBI asynchronously

For what it's worth, of all of these solutions, UBI is the one that requires the least overhead, by far. Housing requires actually building houses. Education means making broad structural changes to many different levels of the whole system

UBI, as it has been mainstreamed, is literally just playing a trick within the money/accounting/tax system to lift people out of poverty. This will have a positive spill-over effect into other stuff

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> Stephanie Kelton and MMT should be part of the basic income discussion so that Yang doesn't create an ideologically tinted version that kills social security making it politically appealing to libertarian free market wing nuts.

</comment><comment><USER84> Maybe the could just not take the money out of my paycheck in the first place? Why do I need management fees and inefficiencies to get money that was already coming to me?

</comment><comment><USER85> Which is incredibly charitable! Opponents to UBI only oppose the income source being tax; which is a forced wealth transfer (opposite of my money my choice).

<comment><USER86> I'm a leftist person who isn't an opponent of ubi, but is an opponent of Yang's ubi. I have no problem with raising taxes, but I do have other concerns.

Namely, if everyone got $x,xxx a month, how do we ensure that rents don't just go up by that amount or wages don't go down by that amount? I worry that without a well thought out plan, UBI just ends up funneling money directly back to the wealthy (eg, landlords and business owners).

I'm not convinced yet that Yang has a thorough enough plan here.

<comment><USER87> >how do we ensure that rents don't just go up by that amount or wages don't go down by that amount?

Two ways to answer this:

1) If you're printing money, then yes, prices will rise, and if price controls are implemented it will lead to shortages (e.g. Venezuela)

2) If you're not printing money, then competition will simply lower the cost. It's the same as today - outside of terrible policies like rent-control, why don't landlords just raise rents by $5000? Because the renters will leave and rent from a landlord that undercuts the crazy landlord. In the market, profits tend to 0 and if profits are too high more supply will come in to get a cut of the profits. It's not magic.

>BI just ends up funneling money directly back to the wealthy (eg, landlords and business owners).

Your view on reality is skewed. I mean, yes, people will buy products and services from landlords and business owners. That's not 'funnelling money' anywhere, that's just buying products and services. What do you think people will do with that money, if not to buy things they want and/or need.

>I'm not convinced yet that Yang has a thorough enough plan here.

For sure. UBI does not solve anything and is unworkable, but not for the reasons you stated.

<comment><USER86> You have a lot more faith in markets than I do. I don't believe that we've been particularly well served by the housing or health care markets. It's been demonstrated, again and again, that 'more supply will come in' just isn't working for housing.

I think we fundamentally disagree, though, which is ok. I see rent control as one mechanism to attempt to decommodify housing (which I'm strongly in favor of). I'm not sure we're going to find much common ground via internet forum.

<comment><USER40> > 'more supply will come in' just isn't working for housing

Curious where you live because in Seattle this has definitely kept the rent prices from growing as fast as in the SFBA.

Admittedly these are apartments on the expensive side though, affordable housing is not a priority for developers because it's not as profitable per square foot. Blame {wealth inequality | zoning}, depending on your outlook.

<comment><USER86> Seattle. And housing prices here are astronomical. My home has nearly tripled in value over seven years.

<comment><USER87> So why wouldn't developers simply build higher-density housing to maximize this crazy profit per square foot? Why not buy your single-family home, demolish it, and build a multi-family/multi-storey apartment building and maximize the profit from that high-value land? Do they hate money? ... or are there regulatory barriers preventing them from doing that - barriers that are supported by existing property owners, who like their house prices tripling every 7 years.

It must be that they hate money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> Is this a solution in search of a problem? I'm not trolling, but asking this honestly.

This is actually the article's tldr:

Exactly what is the problem? Precisely how does UBI solve this specific problem?

There are examples of focused government programs achieving specific goals, and there are examples of programs with non-specific goals which merely become self-perpetuating.

I think from the shear scale of the federal government's power, it should be turning a profit and paying dividends to citizens. That would be UBI. But that is a way bigger issue and off topic.

</comment><comment><USER89> Maybe he can use it to endorse another moderate Democrat who would never dream of enacting such a policy.

</comment><comment><USER90> My biggest concern with UBI is the massive inflation that it will cause.

</comment><comment><USER91> i'll help. can i get paid too?

</comment><comment><USER87> What is the actual case for Basic Income? I hear that it 'solves' the problem of automation ... except that it doesn't actually solve it AT ALL. If automation will lead to high unemployment, basic income will do nothing for that. It will send cash to people who aren't working so they can provide for basic necessities, but our welfare state already does that. And we know that segments of society that are wholly dependent on government suffer despair, drug/alcohol abuse and crime - UBI does nothing to solve that either.

And of course, UBI in rich nations does nothing for the third world, which will be hit HARDER by automation and doesn't have the wealth to give every citizen cash.

There are also major structural ambiguities with Basic Income that are glossed over by supporters, namely the libertarian-types think that it will replace the welfare state, and progressives/leftists AT BEST think that it will complement the welfare state (i.e. that segment will NOT allow UBI to replace any of their cherished social programs). So if UBI has any chance of broad support, it will not save a dime, but rather add a tremendous amount to government spending.

In the end, UBI solves nothings and comes with its own set of baggage.

<comment><USER92> For one, it removes pathological situations where people are disincentivised to work because it would mean they lose means-tested support.

The great unknown is whether it also disincentivises work itself in a way that would be a negative overall.

The general idea is that it removes the threat of poverty, which potentially allows people to make more rational decisions, and negates the need for cruder solutions like minimum wage, regulations, unions etc.

<comment><USER87> >it removes pathological situations where people are disincentivised to work because it would mean they lose means-tested support.

That's a problem with how welfare is structured, that can be fixed with changing welfare.

>The great unknown is whether it also disincentivises work itself in a way that would be a negative overall

Why would you think it wouldn't?

>which potentially allows people to make more rational decisions, and negates the need for cruder solutions like minimum wage, regulations, unions etc

If you think you can get leftist/progressive support for UBI by cutting ANY social program, you are in for quite an awakening. Welfare state employes hundreds of thousands of people, they will not support UBI either. The libertarian view of UBI replacing social programs has ZERO chance of passing. So what's left is UBI being just another expense of top of the huge welfare state costs.

<comment><USER92> > "That's a problem with how welfare is structured, that can be fixed with > changing welfare."

That's what UBI is...? UBI is changing welfare to not be means-tested.

> "Why would you think it wouldn't?"

There are many reasons to think it wouldn't. For example, lots of people work two jobs. People work full time when they could work part time. Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos etc all still work. The vast majority of people in a modern economy work more than they need to in order to earn what a UBI would pay.

The rest of your post is not relevant to the question you originally asked ("What is the actual case for Basic Income?")

<comment><USER93> > There are many reasons to think it wouldn't. For example, lots of people > work two jobs. People work full time when they could work part time. Bill > Gates, Jeff Bezos etc all still work. The vast majority of people in a > modern economy work more than they need to in order to earn what a UBI would > pay.

Bill Gates works, but he doesn't work as a janitor. Who is going to scrub the toilets for a meager supplement to a guaranteed living wage?

<comment><USER33> You almost understand.

They'll have to raise the wage to get anyone to scrub those toilets, and that's the whole point. UBI reduces the power asymmetry between employer and employee, and gives the employee more leverage to negotiate better wages and conditions.

<comment><USER93> Ok, and if they raise wages, they'll need to raise prices.

The price level at which it's economical to pay someone wages that incentive them to work as a janitor rather than investing in themselves is the price level at which the janitor cannot afford to invest in themselves without work.

I'd buy that the janitor might be a bit better off in this situation, but you haven't solved any critical problems. Your basic income quickly becomes insufficient. Without controls for rent, debt, medical, schooling, etc. it's not hard to imagine that in real terms the poor become poorer.

<comment><USER92> > Ok, and if they raise wages, they'll need to raise prices.

No, not necessarily. In fact if they were able raise prices, surely they would have done so already? What they would actually do is either go without a janitor, or go without something else - a coffee machine, or computer upgrades or something.

The point is, unskilled labour is currently priced against desperation on the part of the worker. With a UBI it's priced against the actual benefit to the consumer.

The question is, what value is having clean toilets? If a company in an office block doesn't value clean toilets more than anyone is willing to clean the toilets for, then they will just be dirty. In actual fact they are likely to value clean toilets highly - more than what someone is willing to clean them for.

<comment><USER93> > No, not necessarily. In fact if they were able raise prices, surely they > would have done so already? What they would actually do is either go without > a janitor, or go without something else - a coffee machine, or computer > upgrades or something.

I think you're underestimating the necessity of janitors, but for the sake of arguments, let's switch to another low paid shitty job that's definitely necessary. Say... slaughterhouse workers. A lot of food products are extremely competitive and run on super thin margins. An increase to gross costs means prices must rise or you'll be running a loss on each one. You can't just hand wave that off with coffee machines. Most businesses that aren't fancy tech companies are really cheap when it comes to employee benefits to begin with.

> The point is, unskilled labour is currently priced against desperation on > the part of the worker. With a UBI it's priced against the actual benefit to > the consumer.

I get that's the point. I contest that this strategy makes any sense. A lot the economy is premised on people doing unpleasant jobs because they require a paycheck to live. Current prices cannot pay for premium blue collar labor. The jobs that can't be moved will need to pay more and raise prices. Anything that can be moved will have massively increased incentive to outsource to another country.

And then you have a real trap. If everyone has a UBI, but prices rise, your UBI is no longer sufficient, but your doubly f __*ed because there 's fewer jobs in your country because labor is way cheaper elsewhere. So your would-be factory workers don't have a less than basic wage and no factory to work at.

More simply, however, if you recognize that we need these jobs to be done (we do), then you have a much easier option available to you than implementing ubi: raising the minimum wage.

<comment><USER92> Why wouldn't raising the minimum wage have the same effect?

<comment><USER93> Raising the minimum wage:

* Only affects those at the very bottom

* Does not require more new government spending than any project ever before

* Doesn't create any incentives for people, especially low skilled, low wage, but necessary labor

The last point is perhaps the most important. All the low skilled workers are still going to do their jobs. Prices might rise a bit, some companies might choose to layoff some workers, and at scale globalization may still take a toll; but you don't have the terrifying risk that half of your low level workforce decides they're ok to just relax or acquire more skills.

It's not as impactful as the lofty goals of UBI for sure... but the only way society is going to work with poor people not requiring a job to survive is if they agree, wholly in spite of their best interests, to work the shitty jobs anyway.

There's plenty of middle-ground with similarly minded goals, like paying people to stay at home and raise their kids that make plenty of sense. UBI is cool if we don't need poor people... but we do, and we probably always will. The ideal strategy recognizes this and instead tries to minimize harm done to poor people as a result of poverty

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> UBI can have a place if the payout is controlled by the federal reserve as a means to enact inflation.

Taking it from other people's earnings and spending it through a committee of politicians sounds pretty dystopian to me though.

<comment><USER40> > Taking it from other people's earnings and spending it through a committee > of politicians sounds pretty dystopian to me though.

That sounds exactly like how social services work today, with the extra bonus of high administration costs.

At least with cash, the government can't decide for you what to spend it on. In effect you end up relying on businesses to spring up to provide the things you want (which may be different than what I want). This is either a feature or a drawback depending on who you talk to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> I see why a government would want to to make as many people as possible dependent on them.

I fail to see why any normal people would argue for it, though--and perhaps even why Jack Dorsey would.

I hope it won't happen while I'm still alive, but I definitely see a lot of countries becoming totalitarian nightmares in the next decades, with these genius ideas being dreamed up more and more often.

</comment><comment><USER96> I really don't understand the hype behind ubi as a new concept. If one wants to explore it's effect or anything like so - it is just enough to see Arab countries and other places who have been doing it already. Other than that it should be obvious to anyone that this is not scalable and it doesn't work. in the end basic income will translate into an artificially induced inflation.

<comment><USER97> > in the end basic income will translate into an artificially induced > inflation.

Citation needed. Presumably this has been happening in the Arab countries that you claim have already instituted UBI, so I'm assuming you have sources...

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> Why can't we outsource basic income to the private sector? Like VCs who give money to people who want to sit at home instead of lighting money on fire to exploit taxi drivers?

<comment><USER99> VCs primarily care about outsized monetary returns and you don't get that from giving money to people.

Tax-deductible charitable donations are probably the closest way to incentivize the private sector but VCs was more, not just to stay flat and most businesses don't make decisions for "the greater good" over more $$.

Can you think of a way to incentivize private experiments in UBI?

<comment><USER100> > Can you think of a way to incentivize private experiments in UBI?

Contracts that guarantee the recipient will pay X% of their income to the UBI source over the next Y years. Claims are that people's creative and productive power will be unleashed. If true, their income will rise dramatically, and they'll pay lots of "taxes" back to the UBI source.

<comment><USER81> So.. loans, but with way shittier terms for the borrower?

<comment><USER100> Loans that automatically disappear after X years with interest payments that only apply if you make more than $Y (Y = UBI paid out).

It wouldn't be the person asking for a loan that speculates on them earning enough to pay it back. It would be the entity giving the loan speculating on the person earning so much more in the next few years that the income- percentage makes them lots of money.

Of course, for it to test UBI, the giving entity must not be allowed to decide whether they accept someone or not, that would lead to them picking and choosing, like insurance companies with pre-existing conditions.

However, if the claims about UBI are true, they won't need to, as even the odd slacker will be more than offset by the exploding productivity of the overwhelming majority.

I'm sure Dorsey could fund it, the question is whether he actually believes in the claims of giant benefits and virtually no slackers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> When the pipes in your house malfunction causing gallons of water and feces to spray out of the toilet onto the nice wood floor you just installed in your newly government granted free time. But, you can't call a plumber because they're all on UBI watching Bob Ross howto videos and painting beautiful landscapes, remember the name Andrew Yang.

<comment><USER102> Man, you're so right! Plumbers are all lazy pieces of shit that would all stop working immediately if they could feed their family.

<comment><USER101> It's not about lazyness. It is a matter of having all your needs and wants fulfilled and not needing to work. Where you can finally simply pursue hobbies. Why do any kind of labor if everything is met. Especially janitorial, plumbing, heavy lifting, dredging in miserable conditions, or any other number of difficult thankless jobs.

Go watch dirty jobs the tv show, it's an eye opener. There are even people who climb down in sewers and scrap our feces off the walls in big cities. Who would want to do that if they could just get on UBI and build gokarts in their spare time instead.

You know those wind turbines the power grid relies on? Dirty jobs had an episode that showed how they have to climb up inside them, crawl into really tight spaces, and clean out debris to keep the turbines functioning. It's a tough, harrowing, frightening and claustrophobic experience.

<comment><USER103> I think it's very likely that a UBI would make salaries for those types of jobs go up quite a bit. People wouldn't feel like they "had" to do them just to make rent. I don't have a problem with those people making more money for the jobs they do. I think they've earned that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER104> I don't understand the optimism around UBI. UBI is a band-aid and a sign that a system is actually failing. I get why some people, especially intellectuals, want UBI, but they seem to believe that UBI is free of consequence. If society "needs" UBI, that means that not enough people can build wealth or that the welfare system isn't effective. Handing people money isn't going to change the fact that too much of the economy is bolstered by massive amounts of debt. UBI may just perpetuate the problem and encourage more debt to be taken out. One argument for UBI I've heard is that places like Alaska give their residents a "dividend" of something between a few hundred to a few thousand bucks. But the reason Alaska can do this is because they effectively own their oil industry, and their GDP far exceeds their debt, whereas the United States federal government(as well as many states) have debt that exceeds their GDP.

UBI will be needed when automation actually destroys enough jobs where it makes sense. I don't know that we're quite there yet, but it will happen soon. Wanting UBI before its time seems like an admission of failure oh the system.

<comment><USER105> > because they effectively own their oil industry

Why can't we, as a society, come together and take ownership of our data, and sell it back to the companies using our data for profit?

<comment><USER106> It's not really your data though, how can you control / monetize it?

<comment><USER105> Are Google, Amazon and Facebook selling ads to robots?

I'm pretty sure we are the product, not the customer.

Think about what that means... advertisers spend money to get in front of people based on the data they think is important for their business, right?

It's derived from all of our data, which we are not getting paid for. Do you think these companies would be worth trillions if they weren't profiting off data we give them for free?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


US Bases are clearly identifiable and mappable in Strava's global GPS heatmap - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/Nrg8000/status/957318498102865920 <comment><USER2> Earlier discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16249955](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16249955)

</comment><comment><USER3> Map seems to use webgl which doesn't currently work on any browser in linux :(</comment>


Using QuadTree for 2d collision detection - <AUTHOR> http://www.kyleschouviller.com/wsuxna/quadtree-source-included/ <comment><USER2> There is a follow-up article linked[1] from the OP article, I almost missed it -- the combination of the two actually makes a really good explanation.

This is a pretty cool algorithm and data-structure set. Thanks for the link, and keep these types of articles coming :)

[1] for easy reference: <http://www.kyleschouviller.com/xna/quadtree-code- design/></comment>


Git is dangerous - anand-s http://blog.codehate.com/post/125348235274/git-is-dangerous

<comment><AUTHOR> Doesn't explain why it's dangerous.

Unless you provide a PUT access to it.

I explicitely leave .git on http, so that people may also clone it from there in addition to ssh and gitlab and github.

Seems to be of the same cagetory as [http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html](http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html)

<comment><USER2> The article seems to be following the recent bunch of articles about web pages (that use git to deploy) leaving .git accessible and exposing source code or secrets.

So not about access to public git repositories via HTTP, but accidentally exposing private repos by not protecting .git.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Using git as a deployment tool is dangerous.

Although if I were to suggest just using SFTP to move everything but the .git file and not even have it on the remote server at all, I would probably just seem like a drooling neanderthal.

Although actually not having the repo be web accessible is probably the second best option.</comment>


Should I Use a Carousel? - <AUTHOR> http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> This was discussed previously[1] but that was 5 years ago and the problem still exists, so time for a refresh.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6018316](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6018316)</comment>


Show HN: "Kestrels, Quirky Birds, and Hopeless Egocentricity," free online - <AUTHOR> http://combinators.info/ <comment><USER2> John Tromp's paper "Binary Lambda Calculus and Combinatory Logic" (<http://homepages.cwi.nl/~tromp/cl/LC.pdf>) is a genuine classic.

Henk Barendregdt's "Juggling With Combinators" (<http://repository.ubn.ru.nl/handle/2066/17290>) shows you a lot of interesting things you can do with Combinatory Logic.

Barendregdt's "Reflection and its use" (ftp://ftp.cs.kun.nl/pub/CompMath.Found/biologen.pdf) has a small, but interesting section on Combinatory Logic. The exercizes include finding a CL term that Barendregdt calls an "Ogre", same as Smullyan's Hopelessly Egocentric bird.

Jan Willem Klop's "Cycles in Combinatory Logic" ([http://web.mac.com/janwillemklop/Site/Bibliography_files/10....](http://web.mac.com/janwillemklop/Site/Bibliography_files/10.RCCL.PDF)) does a lot of neat things in a proof that is very hard to understand. It has a section at the end about CL bases other than SKI that's very interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've included these, thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> For the Haskellers in the room, the "K" combinator is "const", and the "S" combinator is "ap" in the Reader monad. Combinators encode common patterns; for example, you can use the fact that Sxyz = xz(yz) to write functions that split some input in two, do a computation on both parts, then join the results:

        capitalize = (:) . toUpper . head <*> map toLower . tail

Of course, combinators rapidly become unwieldy for anything nontrivial, since they are the essence of point-free style. And most SK calculus terms aren't typeable in Haskell anyway.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> If you have any suggestions for links to blog posts or other resources related to combinatory logic, please post them, Id like to expand the list of related links. Thanks in advance...

</comment><comment><USER4> Buy this! It will expand your mind and your toolset. Excellent writing, love the github site.</comment>


Planet Labs spots a wildfire from space 10 minutes after it started - <AUTHOR> http://www.planet.com/pulse/where-theres-smoke/

<comment><USER2> So can Planet Labs tell us where MH370 has gone?</comment>


Netflix CEO Hastings faces SEC action over Facebook post - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-12-06/netflix-ceo-hastings-faces-sec-action-over-facebook-post <comment><USER2> If the government wants to get you they will get you. Thats true on all levels.

The Charlie Moore quote, claiming a facebook post is basically a press release and saying the SEC may need to play catch up is what catches my attention here. I would suggest to play it safe and release a press release as well, but my guess is Hastings knew what he was doing.

<comment><USER3> Maybe he just wanted to shake the "press/government" duopoly. Let's face it, a press release these days may actually reach fewer people than a Facebook posting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't see how hours viewed is material at all. It doesn't even reflect the number of users, just usage. If 1,000 users watch 24 hours per day non stop, it doesn't mean more money for Netflix.

There is a lot of serious stuff going on out there that SEC should be pursuing, not nonsense like this.

<comment><USER5> It matters because it a) determines the companies costs which directly affect profits, and b) indicates engagement and the likelihood that subscribers will quit.

<comment><USER6> Remember when McDonalds got in trouble for putting "Over a million served." on their signs? Or the scads of other businesses that the SEC routinely cracks down on for similar announcements? The criminals at Netflix should hang for this crime.

<comment><USER7> I think you're being sarcastic, but I can't tell. Please remember that this is the Internet and someone has probably misjudged your intent with this statement.

<comment><USER6> It's obvious, and you can too tell. I'm not worried about the comment being misunderstood, there are thick people everywhere and the Internet is no exception. Besides, this is just a friendly discussion forum, it's not like I'm Jonathan Swift.

<comment><USER8> It was only obvious in the last sentence. It's impossible to read tone over the internet, and there are enough legitimate crackpots that you need to label sarcasm or risk being taken at face value. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law>

<comment><USER6> Technically it was irony, and the only sentence that wasn't obvious was the second. In this situation there is no risk to being taken at face value so Poe's Law is _meh_.

However, this does tell me that my phrasing needs work. Ever notice how some people's writing perfectly conveys intended tone while some (myself) are misunderstood? I think improving in this area is valuable so I do appreciate the feedback from you and the GP, even if there were plenty of upvotes on my comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "May face" is the key word here. The SEC is likely investigating the issue to see if he was using Facebook to give material information preferentially to a subset of investors. An investigation is quite far away from being an actual lawsuit.

As for people asking why the SEC goes after stuff like this--the SEC's authority is pretty narrow. We use a very free-market regulatory model for public companies. Instead of telling them what to do, we basically police the information they put out to the public, and depend on the markets to act on that information to punish bad corporate governance and reward good corporate governance. Pretty much the whole authority of the SEC revolves around disclosure.

</comment><comment><USER10> If the post was available to non-Facebook users (and I assume it was, as that's the default "Public" category behaviour), then the SEC is _really_ picking at straws here.

<comment> shawn-butler Hmm, when I go to <https://www.facebook.com/reed1960> I am presented with a login screen. When I click the "CLOSE" button I see no information.

How is that information available to the public exactly? Am I missing something?

<comment><USER11> The direct link to the post is publicly accessible. A Facebook account is necessary to subscribe to posts, but you used to have to _pay_ for a newspaper to see press releases.

<https://www.facebook.com/reed1960/posts/10150955446914584>

<comment> shawn-butler Sounds like an opportunity. Gather posts by executives and add to an activity stream with other relevant data available to the public?

<comment><USER12> There's probably no technical barrier preventing it, but I can almost guarantee that it would violate Facebook's terms of service. They're decidedly unfriendly to bots.

<comment><USER13> And Data Protection issues in some places.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> While I have a lot of respect for the SEC's increased crackdown on financial wrongdoing such as insider trading, this really seems like a stretch. Considering how quickly "internal" company memos are publicly disseminated, I don't see how a Facebook post to 200K fans can be considered anything but public.

<comment><USER15> "While I have a lot of respect for the SEC's increased crackdown on financial wrongdoing"

Really? I honestly find it hard to imagine how they could possibly do less in terms of enforcement. There appears to have been _huge_ amounts of fraud going on during both the bubble of the late 90's and the more recent crisis. The the best the SEC has managed is to nab a few people for insider trading.

<comment> shawn-butler Have they even investigated the selective disclosure that was widely reported to have gone on during the facebook fiasco? Someone should have been charged for that.

<comment><USER16> It still hasn't been very long since Facebook's IPO, I expect investigations like that take longer than a few months. Patience is virtue, especially when dealing with cases like the Facebook IPO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think alot of people are missing the point here.

There are specified channels for disclosing "material" information.

These have been designed and vetted so that everyone at least has the chance of getting the same information at the same time.

The SEC may be a bit dated but I think everyone agrees that you can't have CEO's passing out information in private or non sanctioned forums that people can trade on.

Otherwise everyone would have to watch Facebook feeds and twitter and Google+ and every blog in addition to the sanctioned channels.

I don't see any way in which the Netflix CEO didn't do the wrong thing here.

I do agree that the SEC has bigger fish to fry

</comment><comment><USER18> Can someone explain, simply, how this is a problem? I mean isn't '1 billion hours' simply a statistic, a fact, a nice tidbit you might say?

Like Apple announcing how many iphones they have sold? Or how many apps have been downloaded to date?

What do I misunderstand?

<comment><USER19> Yes. That's not the problem.

The problem is that the SEC cracks down hard on "insider information." The point being, if in a private meeting with you, the CEO told you they did something über cool and you used that to buy stocks, then you had info someone outside the company didn't, and that is a violation of SEC rules.

The question here is whether or not posting on a facebook page is a "private" matter. If they posted this in a PR release (or, recently, on their website) for all to see, it would be one thing. But posting it on a facebook page where by default only the subscribers to that page would see it, the SEC suspects it is an unfair disclosure.

<comment><USER13> To expand: Imagine if the CEO of the company didn't use Facebook publically, but only had friends, family etc. on there, maybe 200 people. And then posted there first. That might count as an insider trading / private.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Quoting a comment from the article:

What an idiot! Insider information is only for the very rich and people in the government!

</comment><comment><USER21> Is this the primary motivation for press-release services, to cover your ass with the SEC by pushing publication off on a third party? Or do they offer some other value I'm not aware of?

</comment><comment><USER22> Given the recent issues with Facebook not showing your updates to all your followers, but to merely a tiny fraction of them, I wonder how that would affect these things.

</comment><comment><USER23> Interesting given Musk's tweet yesterday about Tesla being cash flow positive for a week. Could we see SEC action there?

</comment><comment><USER24> Get on with the times SEC.

</comment><comment><USER25> So that's what the SEC does...

</comment><comment><USER26> I heard a story on NPR recently about how the SEC is dramatically underfunded, but I can't seem to find it now. If they're really that underfunded, I wonder if this is someone trying to make their career by finding a new and cheap way of bringing in revenue in fines.

</comment><comment><USER27> _Maybe_ he violated the letter of the law but I don't see a comment where everyone can read it, and broadcast to 200,000 people isn't public disclosure.

<comment><USER28> Are there specific news outlets that the SEC considers as official press release outlets? or is merely the act of releasing a press release? My point is, what if they issued a press release in some Podunk town ( with say 1,000 people) instead of on facebook?</comment></comment>