Coronavirus Is Making Universal Basic Income Look Better - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-05-15/coronavirus-is-making-universal-basic-income-look-better <comment><USER3> I've still never come across a decent answer to this question, so maybe someone can help: why is Basic Income (in the US) preferable to a Great Depression-style Works Progress Administration?

 _The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency, employing millions of job- seekers (mostly unskilled men) to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads._

 _Headed by Harry Hopkins, the WPA provided jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression in the United States, while developing infrastructure to support the current and future society._

 _Above all, the WPA hired workers and craftsmen who were mainly employed in building streets. Thus, under the leadership of the WPA, more than 1 million km of streets and over 10,000 bridges were built, in addition to many airports and much housing._

Much of the infrastructure in the US is crumbling and needs to be replaced or fixed in the coming decades. Wouldn't society benefit more from training and hiring people to clean streets, rebuild infrastructure, beautify urban areas, etc. than simply sending everyone a check?

I know that Basic Income isn't simply to replace jobs lost to automation, but I don't see how _paying people to improve aspects of civilization_ is not obviously better than _paying people with no expectations._

<comment><USER4> Maybe we shouldn't be presupposing that governments are better at resource allocation than their citizens. People will still work with UBI, but they are much better positioned to choose the kind of work they personally do best.

<comment><USER5> This opinion is pretty flawed. When will aggregations of individuals making $24k per year get together and build a hydroelectric dam or nuclear power plant, or assemble themselves to form a genomics research institute or space agency?

There are things that individuals, left to their own preferences and entrepreneurial habits, will never create.

<comment><USER6> Weird opinion to see on HN. People who forsee and can execute on building a nuclear power startup can get outside investment. Fusion research is moving to the small and cheap entrepreneurial projects.

You prefer to have nuclear physicists digging ditches like parent poster..?

<comment><USER7> There was a story my undergraduate advisor told me about a guy who built a particle accelerator at his home. Got him a job at Fermi.

There's plenty of people doing stuff at home, even on crazy projects. Zhang solved the twin prime conjecture while he worked at subway because he couldn't get an academic job[0]. I think many also know Grigori Perelman[1] turning down the Fields Medal. There's the nuclear boy scout. Michio Kaku built an accelerator as a teenager. How many SV startups came out of garages? It is so weird to hear the GP comment on a site where we glorify those that rose from shoestring budgets. In fact, what is more American than that kind of story? Maybe the dream died, but maybe it shouldn't have.

[0] [https://gizmodo.com/a-former-subway-worker-made-a- breakthrou...](https://gizmodo.com/a-former-subway-worker-made-a-breakthrough- discovery-in-508987652)

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

<comment><USER6> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Laberge](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Laberge)

Michel started a prototype fusion reactor in a shed that turned into General Fusion. Einstein was of course a patent clerk. It all starts somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Another positive sign for UBI is that most Americans seem keen to return to > their workplaces. One fear has been that UBI would lead to a couch-potato > culture, with people choosing to stay at home even when they're finally able > to leave.

This is an old take that has very rarely (if at all) seen tangible evidence. The Guardian reported on this [0] and so did QZ [1] Even if UBI pushes a small percentage of people to quit their jobs, those people will either move into different jobs that they enjoy more, free to pursue a career they like thanks to financial security, or contribute to society in other ways: creating art, volunteering, etc.

[0]: [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/12/univer...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/12/universal- basic-income-work-finland-experiment-payments)

[1]: [https://qz.com/765902/ubi-wouldnt-mean-everyone-quits- workin...](https://qz.com/765902/ubi-wouldnt-mean-everyone-quits-working/)

<comment><USER9> > This is an old take that has very rarely (if at all) seen tangible evidence.

It's literally what we face in Germany. Our unemployable are getting housing, health care, TVs etc + cash and they do _not_ move on to jobs they enjoy more, they do _not_ volunteer more, they do _not_ start companies etc.

If you don't see evidence of that in the US, it's because you don't have anything that comes close to unlimited perpetual income with no requirements to work. If you have an economic shut down for a month or two and people expect the "free money" to run out eventually, they'll be eager to get back to work. The situation changes very much if they do not expect it to run out and adapt to the new circumstances where work is optional and considered a hobby.

<comment><USER10> Germany doesn't have a UBI. When people start earning they lose many of those benefits quickly. That's the difference.

<comment><USER9> As far as I understand, most UBI-proposals would essentially be the same. If you work, you pay more taxes on your income to fund the UBI. You'll still get the UBI, but you'll pay significantly more taxes which will leave you pretty much even.

<comment><USER11> No. The whole point of UBI is to remove the cliffs and high marginal tax rates that the working poor face; people in low-income jobs would benefit the most, approximately doubling their income (someone on minimum wage would instead get the equivalent of minimum wage + unemployment). Also it becomes more practical to ease into work, since if you work e.g. 5 hours/week you get full pay for those 5 hours rather than losing more in lost benefits than you gain. Of course this has to be balanced by higher earners paying more tax.

<comment><USER9> We have some of this already included. If you work in so called Mini-Jobs (up to 450€/month, employers do not need to pay into social security, reduced bureaucracy and public health insurance premiums), 100€ won't change your benefits and 20% of whatever more you make will also not affect your benefits. This is primarily meant to be exactly that: low-threshold ways to work for a few hours and have extra benefits.

Imho the primary issue remains: it's not required to work, you won't get a massive improvement if you're okay with the current situation and you have to expend energy and do stuff you don't love. Open source projects that rely on donations often face similar issues. Donations are not mandatory, so few people will donate, as they can still use the software without contributing. I don't believe that "donating is difficult" is the issue there either, most accept paypal, github sponsors etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think the 2nd/3rd+ order effects of UBI needs to be understood better. Most arguments for or against UBI look no further than first order effects, and get most of the 1st order effects wrong because they don't take into account the cascading ripples of the more indirect unknowns.

A collection of second order effect questions that people don't really have a strong cohesive argument for or against:

1) What are the impacts of UBI on cost of labor, and how will businesses react or adapt? (will UBI ultimately lower cost of labor for businesses or will it raise it? Will it cause businesses to seek out investment into AI instead to replace manpower? etc)

2) Are there any situations where UBI's cost will spiral out of control? (Do we have smart enough people modeling out long term costs of UBI in a comprehensive, risk accounting way so it doesn't become another social security)

3) What is the change in percentage of people who will couch potato with UBI? How about percent change in entrepreneurial activity with UBI? (at the very least, is it in the single digits, double digits? A fraction of 1%?)

3rd order effects:

1) What will the economy look like 20 years from now with UBI? How will the structure of society change?

2) How will UBI change how the majority of people grow up and what they end up pursuing?

3) How will UBI impact the global economic climate? (My sci-fi dystopian vision of UBI's butterfly effects, not that globalization hasn't already done this: UBI will spur one country to develop so much AI due to lack of people in the workforce, and that AI is so good that it gets exported to all countries over the world, centralizing most of the money in the world to that one country, making that one country able to afford UBI while the rest of the world is jobless and has no money to take care of their own people.)

I'm just scratching the surface of the complexity of the topic.

<comment><USER13> Your questions aren't hard.

1) People will exit the labor market, especially in cheaper jobs, since some folks currently only need to work in order to make up a small income disparity and will gladly quit their part-time jobs. Labor might get more expensive, but given how long minimum wage has been depressed, I wouldn't count on it.

2) No, UBI is as expensive to administer as the existing tax code. Also, the fuck are you talking about? Social Security has gotten cheaper to administer over time [0].

3) Who cares? Literally, it doesn't matter how many people "couch potato" or otherwise decide not to work when they already weren't in the labor market. Think about it for a bit.

4) Hopefully less wage slavery, less food insecurity, less homelessness, less wealth inequality. That is, UBI is hoped to do what it is marketed as doing.

5) In e.g. Sweden, the constant availability of funds from the government has enabled people to be more fully actualized, as they choose whether they want to go into secondary education, start a small business, buy a farm, or open an art studio. All of these are also subsidized in the USA, but poorly. UBI acts as an ideal prototype system for this sort of funding, without having to commit to a particular usage of funds.

6) Uh, we've had a global economy for _centuries_. All that has happened is that places with UBI and similar social programs have become well-known and globally visible. But UBI in Alaska exists [1] and does not draw people to move to Alaska, so I can easily conclude that it doesn't matter _that_ much to the global economy.

More generally, I think that you are afraid of nothing.

[0] [https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/admin.html](https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/admin.html)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Permanen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Permanent_Fund_Dividend)

<comment><USER12> most of your answers don't even address the questions.

1) impact on businesses?

2) not about administration, about the cost of UBI itself. cost of social security is ballooning, not administration of it

3) it's important to judge UBI's costs and impacts relative to other social programs

4) "Hopefully" it will end world hunger too and also discover the cure for cancer.

5) Sweden doesn't implement UBI though? How does looking at Sweden allow you to say how UBI will affect people growing up?

6) comparing Alaska, the 46th on the list when looking at the size of US state economies, with the US (#1 economy in the world) is not a good comparison.

It's not fear that are motivating these questions. The larger the investment, the more robust the plan needs to be and it's common sense for anyone to want to know more detail about a LTV ~100s of trillions of dollar investment.

<comment><USER13> Okay, I think I see the root of the misunderstanding. UBI can be fully paid for by taxes [0], and the resulting system is administered using existing tax authorities. In the USA, this would mean that the IRS, which already administers taxes, would incur a one-time cost of setup but no additional ongoing costs.

This means that we can analyze the impact of UBI as if it were a tax adjustment. The impact on businesses will be that, since laborers will have more job mobility, businesses will have less negotiating leverage over employees. This is a good thing.

Because cash can pay for anything, UBI is cheaper than any equivalent social program which purchases goods on behalf of recipients. When combined with the overall lower cost of administration, this makes UBI _definitionally_ less costly and more impactful than other social programs, dollar by dollar.

Sweden is worth mentioning because, for basically any reasonable path in society that one can imagine, there is government money available to motivated citizens. This is the vaunted alternative listing of "other social programs" that your perspective values so much. Similarly, Alaska is worth mentioning because they really do send no-strings-attached money to every resident. This demonstrates that UBI does not have to disrupt the social and economic fabric of our society.

UBI is not an investment. UBI is a reassessment of taxation principles. You are not an investor, but a member of society.

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

<comment><USER12> > The impact on businesses will be that, since laborers will have more job > mobility, businesses will have less negotiating leverage over employees. > This is a good thing.

Again, 2nd order effects. Businesses will rely on employees less too. It might make businesses more capital reliant, lowering the entrepreneurship rate further. It might not, but the point is that saying it will be good because of labor mobility is like looking 1 move deep in a chess game.

> Because cash can pay for anything, UBI is cheaper than any equivalent social > program which purchases goods on behalf of recipients. When combined with > the overall lower cost of administration, this makes UBI definitionally less > costly and more impactful than other social programs, dollar by dollar.

UBI is 3 times as much as our current social programs. It doesn't matter how cheap it is to administer if the actual allocation amount is so different. It's 15% of GDP, and yearly, not a one time cost.

I strongly disagree that increasing the budget for social programs from 800b to 2.3t is not worth thinking about the potential 2nd order effects, which was my original point.

> Sweden is worth mentioning because, for basically any reasonable path in > society that one can imagine, there is government money available to > motivated citizens. This is the vaunted alternative listing of "other social > programs" that your perspective values so much.

I don't think Sweden avails government money the same way UBI does. If you could buy weed, alcohol, video games, vacations, travel, pets, furniture, sports equipment, or any other recreational activity in Sweden with their social programs then I would take this point more seriously.

> Similarly, Alaska is worth mentioning because they really do send no- > strings-attached money to every resident. This demonstrates that UBI does > not have to disrupt the social and economic fabric of our society.

Alaska's UBI is literally a dividend from an investment fund. 25% of oil's profits would be put into the fund and payed out as a dividend, and the fund was well managed, leading to around $1000 a year in peak years. This is a very different structure, both in quantity of money payed out as a dividend as well as how the money is being taken from, to what is proposed in many UBI policy implementations.

Alaska's money doesn't come as a re-distribution of tax, it's literally an investment fund. Alaska's amount is also 10x lower than most UBI proposals. When we have a $60 trillion dollar fund that we can draw 5.25% every year to pay for UBI, then I'll agree that Alaska is an example that UBI doesn't disrupt the economic fabric of our society.

<comment><USER13> Businesses are not inherently desirable; they are a concession that we haven't agreed as a society how to distribute capital. Lowering their ability to dominate laborers is morally good for basic utilitarian reasons. If it gets a little harder to run a business, oh well; I don't really have a problem with that. However, the prospect of ending the massive exploitation of the impoverished and raising some 40% of the population out of financial purgatory is far more important than any business-oriented metrics.

Looking at actual models for UBI costs [0], there is a solid argument that GDP will grow. Keeping in mind that we are currently seeing trillions of dollars in bailout money being pulled out of nowhere, I feel that complaints about the sources of money are a little facile; there are clearly enough money sinks to handle all of the wealth not currently trickling down. We can pay for it. More importantly, there's a clear gaping hole in tax revenue where corporations are not paying taxes that they could clearly afford, and this has gotten worse over time [1][2]. Going back to Obama-era corporate tax rates of 35% would be worth $473b; going back to Eisenhower-era rates of 50% would be worth $676b. Combine that with the idea that social programs wouldn't allow double-dipping into both e.g. Social Security and the Freedom Dividend [3] and everything is now paid for.

Sure, we don't have to talk about Sweden or Alaska. But it's really hard to take the core counter-argument here, the idea that giving money to folks is so harmful, without pointing out all of the places around the world where giving money to folks is not only not harmful, but positive.

[0] [https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/08/Mo...](https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/08/Modeling-the-Macroeconomic-Effects-of-a-Universal- Basic-Income.pdf)

[1] [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Share_of_Federal_Rev...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Share_of_Federal_Revenue_from_Different_Tax_Sources_\(Individual,_Payroll,_and_Corporate\)_1950_-_2010.gif)

[2] [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Effective_Corpora...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Effective_Corporate_Tax_Rate_1947-2011_v2.jpg)

[3] [https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-freedom-dividend- faq/](https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-freedom-dividend-faq/)

<comment><USER12> judt pointing out - there's a lot of other threads you can talk about your own inspiration and topic of choice. My specific post was about the difficulty of understanding 2nd and 3rd order effects of a UBI at scale because no one studies it enough. I think you can do well to stick to topic if you are going to respond. still havent heard from you a clear a counter argument why making policy on UBI is easy or why you shouldnt look into 2nd or 3rd order effects.

i have nowhere claimed that giving money to people is harmful. in fact I love andrew yang's work on UBI and am a huge fan. He's done incredible work on the narrative on why we need it. just no one has done the work on actually creating a policy that has a sound investment thesis because its hard work. andrew yangs proposal on how we will pay for it "data is the new oil" is paper thin, especially if you dig into how Alaska pays for it. he even uses Alaska as an examole of it being affordable - again, excellent narrative, very poor policy.

you claim it isnt hard to answer these questions, and then waive off that we dont need to care about businesses, how the policy is implemented, or any second or third order effects of a massive 15% shift of economic value, and then fundamentally misrepresent my point that i am anti UBI.

you probably would grow some if you spend more time listening to other people and engaging in their arguments, not dismissing their points and putting forth your own idealogical narrative.

feel free to call me out on your own threads if i do the same to you

<comment><USER13> Honestly, you got three replies, when you deserved zero. I discussed your original questions with real people offline, and everybody else was unable to get through your first three questions without making personal attacks against you; your opinion is just that odious.

I've tried to help you see how UBI proponents have not only anticipated your line of reasoning, but have long finished figuring out things like impact on business. Quoting from the summary of the Roosevelt Institute's study:

> When paying for the policy by increasing taxes on households, the Levy model > forecasts no effect on the economy. In effect, it gives to households with > one hand what it is takes away with the other.

> However, when the model is adapted to include distributional effects, the > economy grows, even in the tax-financed scenarios. This occurs because the > distributional model incorporates the idea that an extra dollar in the hands > of lower income households leads to higher spending. In other words, the > households that pay more in taxes than they receive in cash assistance have > a low propensity to consume, and those that receive more in assistance than > they pay in taxes have a high propensity to consume.

As long as you are predisposed to look down on so many people for supposed moral failings, and look at people as "couch potatoes", you are going to have a blind spot where you don't recognize how essential cheap labor is to our way of life.

<comment><USER12> quote from the article:

> Another positive sign for UBI is that most Americans seem keen to return to > their workplaces. One fear has been that UBI would lead to a couch-potato > culture, with people choosing to stay at home even when they're finally able > to leave. But blue-collar service workers are continuing to brave the front > lines even when faced with reasonably high risks of infection. They are not > trying to get fired so they can collect unemployment. White-collar workers, > meanwhile, are feeling restless and unproductive. Working from home may > become more common, but most people seem eager to get back to the office — > especially if the alternative is a combination workplace/schoolhouse.

I have no idea why you think I'm predisposed to look down on people as couch potatoes. The article used the term, that's why I put it in quotes. My intention with the question was actually, "great, the article says there's evidence anecdotally that it won't happen, anything more concrete?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've always had this question when UBI comes up, maybe now will have a chance to have an answer.

Total US budget income for 2019: $3.422 trillion. US population: 328 million.

Assuming that we simply divide the entire budget amongst everyone, we get:

>>> 3.422e12 / 328e6 / 12 = $870 per month

Minumum wage in US is $7.25, so assuming usual 40-hour work week minimum income is about $1300 per month.

So even if US just drops all other concerns - healthcare, military, infrastructure - and just distributes money among the population, then it's still less than 70% than minimum wage. If we assume that only 50% of the budget is spent on UBI (still unsustainable in my opinion) then the number will get even lower.

And that's US, arguably the richest and most powerful country. For other countries this calculation is even worse.

Maybe there's an error in my calculations? How is UBI even supposed to work, where the money should come from?

<comment><USER15> Couple of problems with your calculation . Not everyone of the 328 million will be covered by UBI , definitely not children for example .

UBI is not meant to be full replacement of a minimum wage salary , like you said we don't yet live in a resource rich utopia were people only work when they want to, not because they need to.

sensible UBI proposals posit that it is efficient to directly disburse money without all the bureaucracy in programs for the economically affected , it also means trusting the recipients to make better judgements on how to spend that money than the government.

They could be wrong , while early studies have shown positive indicators, they are small and long term impact is not really well understood.

Personally I don't think it is a good idea for a country. From what I have seen in the Middle East when you don't have to work a shitty job because everyone gets minimum money every month, nobody does those jobs. This has been solved in ME by bringing in immigrants as effectively slave labour. Either you end up with nobody doing that work or you have to import labour who don't enjoy the same benefits creating a classist society.

<comment><USER16> > From what I have seen in the Middle East when you don't have to work a > shitty job because everyone gets minimum money every month, nobody does > those jobs.

That's because those jobs are shitty to begin with.

From where I'm standing, it's clear that the problem is the inherited shittyness of those jobs, not UBI.

Perhaps it's worth a shot investing some work making those jobs less shitty?

I mean, FAANGs felt the need to invest heavily in job satisfaction to reduce attrition and improve their public image. Why are some companies, and even government entities, complicit in perpetuating the shitty nature of the occupations they expect others to have?

<comment><USER15> Well some jobs are shitty but some one needs to do them . Economic incentives help in making sure someone does them.

Richer a country becomes lesser people in that country want to do those jobs, it is true even here in the U.S. most of the jobs illegal immigrants do, have few takers in the legal job market .

FAANG outsource the ugly work to other companies , for example watching flagged video content is one worst jobs out there , most of this is not done in-house . Many of the service jobs in their campuses are done by staff not on their payroll, who don't enjoy the same benefits . Even for pure tech roles they use contract staff in good amounts who don't necessarily get the same benefits .

There are good reasons for this Facebook is not expert at say building a good team of security guards and they should perhaps leave it to experts

The point remains someone got to do these jobs , it does not mean UBI should not happen. Localised implementations mean these problems have to studied and solved for .

The drive to automate jobs increases when average pay is higher , for example you will find a lot more cooks, maids and security (gatekeepers) in developing countries in wealthier economies you will find more roombas, more home automation etc.

There is no incentive for self driving in say India , economically it won't make sense given cheap availability of labour . Self driving is going to replace millions of jobs in the U.S. the upfront investment all the big companies are doing will not make economic sense if labour was cheaper.

UBI will increase the standard of living which in turn drives the need to automate making UBI more needed as lesser jobs are out there etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In Talking Politics this week, Helen Thompson pointed out that UBI is a solution for every crisis - it does not diminish the potential upside for UBI (or Land Tax reform also mentioned in the podcast) but UBI and Land Tax are such disruptive changes to our social contract that it can be brought up in context of every crisis - I guess like Covid it affects everything.

The point being if you think UBI will be positive, it will be positive across its whole range of impacts, and that range of impacts is soo huge it can be brought up in almost any context.

Edit: UBI and Land Tax are big enough we should consider them on their own merits, not look for "opportunities" to bring them into the conversation.

<comment><USER18> I'm strong supporter of UBI in my home country (Finland) and I think it would work in in Nordics and likely in EU too. I don't think it would work in the US because it's sold in completely different premise. US has the least developed welfare system and the plan seems to be just replace it with small sum of money.

In Nordics UBI would be in addition to free healthcare, education etc. and funding it would not be a problem. Unemployed already get benefits. Even small housing allowance would probably remain to discourage segregation due to income differences. It's the combination of welfare that low income workers get that creates high effective marginal tax rate that UBI neatly solves. It would create incentives for working and reduce bureaucracy.

<comment><USER19> > In Nordics UBI would be in addition to free healthcare, education etc. and > funding it would not be a problem

I was interested to see some numbers on this, so I did some quick and dirty googling.

It looks like Finland has about 4.5 million people, and currently spends around 4,491,000,000 EUR/year on around 370,000 people - around 13,500 EUR/person. I'd guess that would be a reasonable amount for a UBI program.

Scaling that up to 4.5M people means a _huge_ number, 60,750,000,000 EUR/year - which I believe is larger than the entire yearly budget for Finland. Sounds like funding UBI would actually be a pretty big problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Basic Income is Utopianism. Every generation thinks they can solve the ills of society with this "one simple trick." Like the failed Utopias of the 20th century, it would fail when confronted with the reality of human nature.

</comment><comment><USER21> I am not sure about whether UBI would work or not. I am mostly against the idea of just giving people free money without having to work for it. But leaving my political views out of this:

1) Do we all absolutely get it? That would be fine, unless it starts like that and then it is decided that only some people should get it. I see this as a strong possibility: the rich already have enough, why give them more? This then falls under the usual debate about whether the rich should pay for everyone else.

2) I would be more open to it if it was run as a one year experiment. A problem with a policy like this is that once approved, it is very hard to take it back if it does not work at scale or unforeseen problems arise. What politician in his right mind would tell the population that they are cancelling the $500 check everyone gets once a month?

3) It takes away the need for work. I don't but the "flipping burgers at McDonalds is no better" argument. If UBI solves this problem, then there won't be any more people flipping burgers at McDonalds? That is bad because a lot of businesses will go under. For fast food restaurants to work, someone has to be willing to do that work. The idea that now everyone will be "free to explore more meaningful work" seems far-fetched to me. If everyone gets money, then prices will increase accordingly.

<comment><USER11> > 1) Do we all absolutely get it? That would be fine, unless it starts like > that and then it is decided that only some people should get it. I see this > as a strong possibility: the rich already have enough, why give them more? > This then falls under the usual debate about whether the rich should pay for > everyone else.

The whole point is to avoid all the problems of means-testing, application and so on, and just give every citizen the money.

> 2) I would be more open to it if it was run as a one year experiment. A > problem with a policy like this is that once approved, it is very hard to > take it back if it does not work at scale or unforeseen problems arise. What > politician in his right mind would tell the population that they are > cancelling the $500 check everyone gets once a month?

Well, if you believe in democracy then democracy should be able to solve difficult problems. If UBI were disastrous, surely a democratic majority could be found to vote against it; to the extent that it remains popular, it can't be going that badly.

> 3) It takes away the need for work. I don't but the "flipping burgers at > McDonalds is no better" argument. If UBI solves this problem, then there > won't be any more people flipping burgers at McDonalds? That is bad because > a lot of businesses will go under. For fast food restaurants to work, > someone has to be willing to do that work. The idea that now everyone will > be "free to explore more meaningful work" seems far-fetched to me. If > everyone gets money, then prices will increase accordingly.

Businesses that rely on a supply of people doing really crappy jobs for very low money will go under, yes. If no-one is forced to flip burgers in order to eat, then if you want a burger you'll have to pay enough to make it worth someone's while to make it for you, or figure out a way to automate it, or do it yourself. The end result would probably be fewer atomised person-as-robot jobs and more people doing their own cooking / cleaning / repairs / childcare / etc.. Would that be so bad?

<comment><USER22> OT but it also means less burgers eaten overall, leading to a smaller burden on the healthcare system. Sounds like a win to me :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> US really seems to have a problem with black-white thinking. There are gray areas you know.

You don't need to choose between no social support vs UBI. You can actually just have a proper unemployment and healthcare support system (like EU).

Same goes for guns. There seems to be a thought that either everyone has the right to buy guns, or you outlaw guns. There is a middle ground where people get a license for a gun (proven with a blank criminal record, sanity confirmation from doctor and theoretical/practical examination), like EU you know.

So why don't you first try something like giving people that need support, better support. That would be a good start without going all in with UBI.

Maybe that would already help the many homeless people that are living on your streets.

</comment><comment><USER24> But US government is adding 3+ trillion dollars debt to pay for it.

If anything, the current way of implementing UBI is not sustainable.

</comment><comment><USER25> Interesting at least to me: one of the article co-authors is Garry Kasparov (I imagine THE Garry Kasparov?).

<comment><USER26> He is a political activist now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think Elon Musk summed up the counter argument to this pretty well on Joe Rogan's podcast:

"If you don't make stuff, there's no stuff. Obviously."

<comment><USER28> I would think we, as hackers, on hacker news, would have some unique insight into this.

The software world is built on the back of stuff that was made, not for money, but out of a labor of love, or to impress others, or to scratch our own itch. Our servers run linux, but linux was mostly just linus hacking around. The free software community is about helping each other and building cool things. Most programming languages were birthed not for money, but because the person building them cared about it a lot and wanted to solve a problem for themselves.

UBI would let people who wanted to make stuff actually make stuff, not have to flip burgers 9-5 just to go home and feel too drained to code or write or do whatever it is they really want to do.

There are countless examples throughout history of people building great things and advancing science, not for money, but for recognition or passion.

<comment><USER29> That's a bit too idealistic. Maybe some of the stuff was started this way but by and large all hobby projects that are now widely used depend on paid people working on it full time/a lot. The Linux kernel is a great example.

But I agree with your overall point. Software has a good chance of "leading the way" mostly because of the lack of required starting capital to get first traction for an idea (a person and a laptop) and the theoretical high mobility of the workforce (a lot can be written basically everywhere, local is only required for customer contact).

<comment><USER30> Software also has a good chance of being the exception to the rule, not just because of the lack of capital and coordination needed to start writing it but also because the open source software movement is pretty unusual in creating stuff people would happily pay for for fun. Most people's hobbies aren't that useful

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> To be eligible to basic income you need to first work for 5 years, then you will experience how its like to be stuck in the hamster wheel, if you're lucky you will also save up a buffer and enough to buy your own living quarter, and will have enough experience so that it will be easier to come back to the workforce, and be more likely to succeed if you do your own venture.

</comment><comment><USER32> Is it only me who worries that UBI is a precursor to a dystopian slavery?

<comment><USER6> I worry its a crutch for an upcoming period of hardship. The longer it takes to get manufacturing off the ground and self sufficiency in place for most people, the more likely any shocks to the system will need more and more UBI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The article rises a good point that emergency universal income is better than paying companies to keep people at work as done in many European companies. Post COVID world will require different jobs and many companies will cease to exist so paying them now is just waste of money and delays inevitable while locking people at doomed jobs.

</comment><comment><USER34> Worst thing about UBI is that when you introduce it, the rents will just go up by its amount and all the money will end up in pocket of landlords not the poor people you were intending to support.

You'd have to shake up real estate market too for example by introducing progressive real estate tax to counter that.

<comment><USER35> I'm not sure. It would need to be funded so I would assume that for the average person the income would be offset by taxes. There would be no extra money to inflate housing costs.

<comment><USER36> There won't be for the average person, but there will be for the average person with below-average income.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> UBI gives money to everyone equally, those that really need it don't get enough. For example - I can get a a $500 (or X amount in your country) check every month that I don't need as I can work just fine from home, but someone who might be laid off can barely pay for his rent, food and other necessities.

There is not enough wealth to redistribute in any country (except maybe the Gulf states) so that both anyone in a job or health emergency has enough and also give the same amount to everyone else.

So you have to deliver smaller sums - a patch to this system is to have everyone pay for insurance, proportionally to their income and need, but this the current welfare scheme UBI is supposed to replace.

Covid-19 exactly how disproportionate and random a crisis can be, so a one- size fits all solution doesn't fit anyone.

<comment><USER38> _> There is not enough wealth to redistribute in any country (except maybe the Gulf states) so that both anyone in a job or health emergency has enough and also give the same amount to everyone else._

[Citation needed]

The global population grew from about 1.6 billion to about 6 billion in the span of a hundred years (1900-2000). Before the pandemic, over twice as many people were considered part of the "global middle class" than there were people alive in 1900. In that time, quality of life indicators have skyrocketed for all except the most isolated tribes.

Humanity has known that "wealth" isn't a zero sum game since the fall of mercantilism. Universal basic income is just the next phase of that realization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> And yet I still see people arguing either:

* for social darwinism or survival of the fittest, trying to say inequality is normal

* that labor is necessary despite the great advances in technology. Those people would rather see people working as servants, in fast food, uber, cashiers, etc, than have those people educating themselves or lead more fulfilling lives.

The level of pedanticism I read from people arguing about "basic economics", is just a problem of politics.

</comment><comment><USER40> The virus crisis makes UBI look worse. We are ~2.5 months into lockdowns in the United States and all people got so far has been a check for $1200.

People who support UBI need to provide a compelling justification for how it can be paid for, especially given how hard it has been, politically and financially, to give a one-time $1200 payment to American households. If it's so hard to do it even one time, how can we do it forever?

<comment><USER41> I think the usual solution is to increase income tax? So basically the introduction of UBI is neutral for the average household, the extra money from UBI being equivalent to the extra money lost on taxes

<comment><USER30> Except that it won't be fiscally neutral, because you've also got to pay for all the people who don't work enough to pay [non-trivial amounts of] income tax but also don't receive any form of benefit under the existing system. The usual unemployment rate hovers around the 4% mark. The usual working age economic inactivity rate hovers around the 25% mark. At least some people are going to have to be worse off to subsidise those people who are neither employed nor looking for employment.

<comment><USER41> > At least some people are going to have to be worse off to subsidise those > people who are neither employed nor looking for employment

Yes, those in the upper tax brackets will pay more than they do today, to cover the situation you describe

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Since time is our enemy at this point, perhaps a better idea is to suspend all rents and mortgages and put landlords and banks on a modest subsidy, for the duration of the lockdown. That would give a lot of financial room to a lot of people (also companies like restaurants), while I bet that the costs are overseeable.

</comment><comment><USER43> Article is behind paywall. Does it explain how to pay for UBI in a sustainable way?

Taking the USA as an example, UBI costs trillions per year. How will this get paid for, even taking into account that some of the money gets taxed?

</comment><comment><USER44> Not surprised this article says the economy needs to be more productive before using UBI, after all Bloomberg is owned by a billionaire.

There isn't much point in hanging around, it should start now.

</comment><comment><USER45> In a time of plague, with a healthcare system not designed to treat everyone who needs it during the best of times, bloomberg publishes an article about the benefits of ubi.

</comment><comment><USER46> I have read pretty much all the comments. Many European countries have some form of basic income. I don't think Americans commenting here realizes how unsustainable that is. You can't mix high growth that US enjoys (look at disposable income and strength of USD) with UBI.

If the choice is low/no growth where population sustain itself than UBI is the way.

But what happens if for e.g. a country A moves to UBI but country B remains high growth? Country B will continue to invent new things and country A will be forced to inflate and moan and sacrifice its children and grandchildren to debt. That's pretty much what will happen.

<comment><USER20> No European country has implemented any form of UBI, nor do they intend to.

<comment><USER46> Large welfare states are very basic income like. Have you checked the numbers on how many people get some form of government support in France? Many European countries' have their 30%+ budget for welfare

<comment><USER20> Welfare state and UBI are completely different things.

<comment><USER46> The whole argument for UBI is that "the last failure didn't do socialism right".

<comment><USER10> UBI is not socialism. Compared to jobs programs, welfare and almost anything else the government does, it is less centrally managed.

That's why many of the 20th century supporters were libertarians.

<comment><USER46> It's a similar evil that sounds good on paper as the other evil

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I believe universal income, along with every other manifestation of the social democratic welfare state, is a civilizational dead end, and any society that adopts it is putting itself on the path to irrelevance and national extinction.

My thought is that if you value your own life, and the lives of your descendants, you must make the drastic decision to escape any society that embarks on the path to UBI.

</comment><comment><USER48> UBI is making Bitcoin Look Better

This is not UBI though. UBI is forever, this is exceptional, and people are aware that they 'll lose their jobs if they quit. The premise behind this article is false, hard to believe it came from exceptionally intelligent people.

Tell hospital workers that they 're guaranteed UBI for 5 years if they quit and watch what happens.

</comment><comment><USER49> Alternative title: People not allowed to work need money more than ever.

<comment><USER50> This is such a cold take. There's a on-going international health crisis so don't understate it. You can't have workers either if everyone is sick... Or dead. People need to both stay home AND put food on the table and this is precisely where UBI, even temporarily, helps.

<comment><USER51> There's an argument that can be had that lockdown measures will be much more deadly than COVID in the long run. Increased suicides due to disemployment, poverty, more cancers and other illnesses gone untreated because of health service mis-prioritization. There's a compound effect where businesses going bust can have a domino effect on others. Hospitals could go bankrupt. Everyone is going to be paying more for basic goods due to inevitable price inflation.

If it saves one life, it's worth ending the lockdown, right?

Why is there nobody running computer models estimating how many people are going to die _as a result_ of the lockdown?

Because it contradicts the narrative. COVID is unknown and the government is as clueless as you are. They're in hysteria and are not thinking rationally.

What people need is the freedom to make their own choices. If people are scared of the virus and think staying couped up in a confined home is going to keep them from getting sick - I have nothing wrong with them doing that. Please stop forcing everyone else to live that way.

<comment><USER50> Good idea. Government healthcare should cover mental health patients as well during this crisis. Structurally, at least in the US, too much of one's identity is tied to career and this is the same existential issue society will be facing in the coming age of automation.

Now if you think your 'right' to put your own body at risk, you've failed to understand how contagious the virus is and how much you put others at risk by thinking you matter more. This will only prolong the quarantine, and this is why everyone is super concerned about the second wave and pandemic history repeating itself because some people are so arrogant and don't see their privilege compared to the at risk.

<comment><USER51> > Now if you think your 'right' to put your own body at risk, you've failed to > understand how contagious the virus is and how much you put others at risk > by thinking you matter more. This will only prolong the quarantine, and this > is why everyone is super concerned about the second wave and pandemic > history repeating itself because some people are so arrogant and don't see > their privilege compared to the at risk.

I'm arguing that people who accept the risk upon themselves should be free to do what they want to do - and those who are afraid of the virus keep themselves "quarantined".

If you are in quarantine, you are not being put at risk.

Why do you think that some people's livelihoods are more important than others that you can justify locking them up in their homes to protect those others, who have elected upon themselves to live a life of fear?

You are putting lives at risk by enforcing a lockdown. This is not a one-way street. Why is your justification any better than mine?

I'm suggesting that far more people are going to die _because_ of the lockdown and its secondary effects than the combined waves of COVID. The rational conclusion is that the cure is worse than the disease. The position of the lockdown should be reversed in order to spare the greater number of lives.

"There are no solutions, only trade-offs." \- Thomas Sowell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> If you want hyperinflation, that's the route to take. The more government is injecting money to businesses, society and people, the more expensive everything is getting.

At the same time this dilutes the wealth of people and companies who have actually saved money.

Countries need LESS socialism and government control - not more.

<comment><USER53> >The more government is injecting money to businesses, society and people, the more expensive everything is getting.

It only matters to people who have lot of cash saved up. Value of their money might decrease.

But vast majority of population does not have cash saved up, they do not care about money losing its value as long as they are able to get more money today and buy the stuff they need.

<comment><USER52> UBI benefits are quickly nullified because prices start to go up. Inflation effects everyone - not just people with cash reserves. It just radically increases government spending and debt which eventually leads to crash of currency value.

<comment><USER53> If prices will go up, some of the UBI receivers might want to capture that price increase by launching new businesses.

I think more serious threat comes from existence of global market. It means, the local supply does not need to react to local increase in demand but people elsewhere can capture that demand by shipping cheaper goods.

To make UBI work you possibly need to become an island or already have huge exports to offset whatever your population might be interested in buying from other countries.

This is not a fact/experiment based, it's merely a hypothesis.

<comment><USER52> If country X introduces UBI, the prices WILL go up (it's not a question of "if" \- it's guaranteed). UBI will nullify itself quickly. And if everyone gets UBI, then we are at the starting point. Anyone can start new businesses even today.

Government spending goes through the roof (due to money printing) OR they have to raise taxes ridiculously high. This will make working even less appealing and people start to downshift - until they quickly realize that they can't. If you raise taxes, many companies simply move their operations to some other country -> loss of jobs.

What's worse is that due to prices going up, the businesses become non- competitive in the global market. Why would you buy product Y from country X if the price is a lot higher than in any other country?

When the export business dies, companies start to die and people are out of jobs. It's a ripple effect that goes through the entire economy.

Then it doesn't matter how much money the government is giving you because prices are high and as jobless you are quickly dead broke.

If due to introducing UBI all other social welfare support is removed, sick and disabled people start getting homeless and dying left and right because UBI simply isn't enough for them.

The final nail to the coffin is that other nations tell country X: "We don't accept your currency anymore. Pay with something else or you don't get the goods."

Frankly I'm surprised that this hasn't already happened on larger scale - <USER2> or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> What a garbage article. Poorly thought out and researched.

<comment><USER10> That's what you should expect from Bloomberg.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> The economy is crashing, the inflation is rising and _that_ makes UBI look better? How?

<comment><USER56> Where can we check inflation rates? I thought it was something that was calculated in retrospect.

<comment><USER57> Yeah - someone said the same comment. Me not knowing anything researched it and what I seen trending indicated the opposite. How is this reliably checked ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> The value of money is linked to how much tax revenue can be raised.

UBI means lower taxes = value of money diminishes.

Jobs guarantee is how you implement UBI.

Jobs given out by the state doesn't have to awful.

</comment><comment><USER59> I tried to explain in this comment: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23033922](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23033922) ...a number of separate reasons why a UBI at the US _federal_ level takes away freedom to try better ideas to do good at other levels, is harmful and wrong, and that we can do much more good with persuasion, fundraising, letting states handle it (or smaller scopes), etc etc. States are like nations in some ways, and can learn from each other and find the best ways to do things, even forming alliances between them, without violating the constitutional limits on federal power. :)

(If down-voting, a thoughtful comment is appreciated; thanks.)

</comment><comment><USER60> Didn't read the article but this is the worst possible idea ever. With UBI you reduce the number of working people and shift all the responsibility to an even smaller group of individuals. Based on human nature, with UBI one would have an even larger lazy population who would end up just sitting around, doing nothing within the first 20 years of this wonderful idea. Now back to the reduced group of responsibility bearing individuals; these are the entrepreneurs, motivated workers, the ones that can't just sit around and do nothing, the ones who get bored on a hotel vacation. These are the people who would profit the most from UBI, since they are usually the ones capable of strategic thinking. They would end up with all the surplus generated from UBI because most people are just mindless consumers spending money as quickly as they get hands on it. How i see it, this would lead to massive inflation in value of products and in the end the government would have to raise UBI which soon would get into an endless loop.

Also, there are so many downsides, that it's not even worth digging into the few upsides.</comment>


How To Safely Store A Password - <AUTHOR> http://www.codahale.com/how-to-safely-store-a-password/ <comment><USER2> No offense, but hasn't this been reposted many times?

Reddit even had this about 10 months ago: [http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/ektaw/after_the...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/ektaw/after_the_gawker_hack_this_is_the_one_thing_most/)

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBKDF2>

use PBKDF2 (plus a SHA-family hash function.) use PBKDF2. use PBKDF2. use PBKDF2. use PBKDF2. use PBKDF2. use PBKDF2. use PBKDF2. use PBKDF2. use PBKDF2.</comment>


For Stanford grads, Jobs's commencement speech in 2005 was life-changing - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/health/ci_19076067 <comment><USER2> While I totally agree with this speech, it also seemed a bit odd coming from Steve Jobs. Sure, he lived his life that way, but it took thousands of Apple employees doing exactly what he wanted to fulfill his vision. His success came from being an uncompromising task-master as much as being an uncompromising visionary. Take away either of those factors and he wouldn't have made the impact he did.

As far as I can tell, this advice only applied to people who weren't in the same room as him.

(I'm hesitating to hit submit on this comment - please regard this as a criticism of Steve Jobs the force of nature not Steve Jobs the person.)

<comment><USER3> There's a quote I can't find now but it goes something like: "A good leader convinces the people to fulfill his vision, a great leader guides the people to fulfill their vision". Steve was very much the later.

I started working for Apple at the Apple store. I later moved to Server Engineering. When I first arrived in Cupertino, the one thing that struck me was that the engineers at Apple were leveling harsher criticism at OS X and the rest of Apple's software than I had ever heard before. Even the most ardent Windows or Linux fanboys couldn't hit as hard as these engineers.

So many people seem to talk about "Steve the task-master". In reality, his true talent was picking people that would be as obsessed with perfection as he was. I suspect that the random report you hear from a "former Apple employee" complaining about Steve as some sort of tyrant were the result of the handful of times that the hiring process didn't go according to plan (it happens). My experience was largely that, as you went up the chain of command at Apple, managers weren't demanding more work from their underlings, but less. In other words, it was much more common to hear "if you're not happy with that feature then cut it and move on" than "I'm not happy with this feature, you need to refine it some more"...

<comment><USER2> Touche, jballanc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does Stanford really own the copyright to the words Steve spoke on that day? I can understand them owning the video itself, but the words too?

<comment><USER5> [IANAL] He was invited for what was effectively a performance. Stanford probably has a standard copyright agreement for performances at the venue (i.e. the stadium), much like a football game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> it's weird that everyone they spoke to seems to have "found it", six years later. or at least, not one said they were "still looking, haven't settled".

<comment><USER7> well, that's the author filtering reality.

In real life, there are people still lost and others who think they've found it, but who won't find out until later that something else is what they were meant to do. And some who never will find it.

But none of that makes for an article that puts everything in a pretty box and ties it up with a shiny ribbon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great speech.

Learning to trust your gut and your self is critical.

Or perhaps, it is learning not to trust it is probably why people get lost.

We start out in life trusting ourselves. But we are taught and conditioned to not trust it.

Please avoid doing that if you're raising a child. Allow your child to explore and make mistakes, to train their own gut with experience.

That doesn't mean you never make demands upon them. Life makes demands and you can't prepare them for it without doing the same.

But you can't make every decision for them and spare them of consequences of mistakes. You have to protect them from permanently hurting themselves to a degree while they develop, but at some point, you have to push them out of the nest and let them fly.

</comment><comment><USER8> True story. That speech was a major factor in my decisions to leave legal practice and later to found my own startup. Jobs' words that day have had a major effect on my career.

</comment><comment><USER9> Transcript and video here: <http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html>

</comment><comment><USER10> Great speech. I graduated in 2005 from rival school Berkeley and we had Eric Schmidt. It was fascinating to see how the two of them would duke it out in the 6 years following my graduation. Eric was also a great commencement speaker.

</comment><comment><USER11> Is there anyway to get this in audio format so I can listen to it in my automobile?

<comment><USER12> [http://www.archive.org/details/SteveJobsSpeechAtStanfordUniv...](http://www.archive.org/details/SteveJobsSpeechAtStanfordUniversity)

<comment><USER7> Thanks for that.</comment></comment></comment>


Mac App Store is making apps cheaper and life easier - <AUTHOR> http://sanziro.com/2011/01/mac-app-store-is-making-apps-cheaper-and-life-easier.html <comment><USER2> I'm not sure that making 'apps' cheaper is a good thing, long term, unless sales are so much higher that developers make it up in volume and still be able to invest in development of decent software.

<comment><USER3> I honestly think selling the product for less money, however spending _tons_ less marketing the software, could be a good exchange for many of these companies.

Also, the forced move to perperson licenses will help many backwards companies with their machine locked bias.</comment></comment>


San Francisco will require new buildings to install solar panels - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/665574/san-francisco-will-require-new-buildings-to-install-solar-panels/ <comment><USER2> I realize I'm an outlier -- but I'm not fond of solar. Though when I was younger, I was an enthusiastic supporter. But now I realize that a 30 year life-span for solar panels means that there will be a huge recurring cost associated with solar. That is a huge cost to our society. And the more we use solar then the larger that cost will be. In contrast, Wind Turbines and their blades can be repaired and continue to work for much longer. On top of that, I understand that in some countries there are neighborhoods who share ownership of wind turbines - largely eliminating the Big Utility middleman who might extort profit (as is so common here in the United States.) The role of the utility becomes power transmission rather than monopoly sourcing of energy.

</comment><comment><USER3> How will this affect housing costs?</comment>


Beyond Bitcoin: Decentralize Everything on the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/04/08/beyond-bitcoin-crypto-ownership-companies-hope-youre-ready-to-decentralize-everything-on-the-internet/

<comment><AUTHOR> There's already a thread about Maidsafe, 2 months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8080736](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8080736)

Lots of pessimistic / optimistic statements, but at the end I'm not sure about what I should think about this project.

Question on top of my mind: how about the speed of this network? How is the data replicated? How many times? Etc.</comment>


Why a New Browser From Microsoft Matters - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/why-a-new-browser-from-microsoft-matters/index.html?ref=technology

<comment><USER2> I'll believe it when I see it!</comment>


Ask HN: Idea Management App - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I run a startup (we are a 3 people team) and one of the challenges we face is not having a tool to record/share/discuss ideas. Tools like basecamp/trac are very task driven but lot of times we have an idea that we want to brainstorm a bit before assigning it to someone.
I would basically love to see an app where I can record an idea using web/iphone and then share it with the team. There should be an easy workflow to discuss and then accept/reject the idea. At this point, probably the accepted ones can be imported into your project management tool of choice.
I wanted to know if there are others who feel the need for a tool like this too? What if I go ahead and make it. Will people pay a monthly fee for this? <comment><USER2> Well, sorry to be so low-tech and all, but I tackle this problem in a couple of ways:

1\. A (private) blog - person with the idea posts it, discussion happens in the comments. Pluses: Easy, clients for everything under the sun, easy mail gateways etc. Minuses: Someone has to cull the important stuff into an actionable request.

2\. Our fault tracking system (homebrew but think bugzilla) - someone posts something (severity=wishlist) - you can close it if the discussion goes nowhere, or turn it into an active item if there is a conclusion. Pluses: very searchable, keeps all know-how about the project in one place. Minuses: Not the friendliest UI on the planet.

Seeing the words "startup" and "3-person team", my gut reaction is "don't ovethink this".

</comment><comment><USER3> There was a web app that purported to do this kind of thing at Intuit. There was even talk of Brad Smith managing to convince some CEO folks in other companies to license this. So there does seem to be some need for this.

(In my opinion this was crapware and rarely produced any useful results. There were a lot of shiny pages and features though and management loved it.

But that may have been a result of it being deployed at Intuit - which is a typical dysfunctional Big Company- vs any problem with the tool (or idea) itself)

If I were you I would just go ahead and make it for myself and then see if other people wanted it.

</comment><comment><USER4> We've recently started using google wave. I saw a post here not too long ago (i wish i could find a link). Its pretty handy. You can start a wave, and start threads and build off of it.

Another tool ive tinkered around with was mindmapping tools. There are a few out there where you can share and collaborate mindmaps. I really liked the UX www.mindmeister.com. Check it out!

</comment><comment><USER5> Neat, straightforward idea management. <http://www.kindlingapp.com/>

Iphone feature, bit more commercial. <http://www.ideascale.com/>

And of course probably the best option: <http://www.evernote.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Evernote looks cool. However, can you use it to discuss ideas with co-workers easily? From what I saw it looks like a personal note taking app rather than a 'discuss ideas and arrive at actionable items' app. Just trying to get your perspective on this.

Kindling also looks pretty neat but they don't mention their pricing anywhere

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> We work on something for this, there will be a non public web app service for teams and a public "justshareyourideas" space. LVP launch alpha version in the next three months.

If you like I can send you an alpha invite when we are ready, I would love to have your feedback (real need always makes better feedback)

</comment><comment><USER7> I would have thought google wave might be a good fit for this. Or even a wave plugin if you require something more specific, like the 'accept/reject' feature?

Concept Draw Office also offers something like it.. integrating brainstorming, mindmapping and project management in one suite.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you're co-located, a whiteboard does wonders. I haven't seen a webapp that even comes close.

<comment><USER6> We are working on a web app, but still aneesh is 100% right. Nothing can beat a whiteboard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hey Ideahacker, I work at Kindling (<http://www.kindlingapp.com>) - if you want a free 30 day trial I can set you up with one. Let me know.

</comment><comment><USER10> You might also have a look at the ZoneIdeas project on <http://zoneideas.org>

</comment><comment><USER11> Pivotal tracker can work for this to some degree. Tho not custom built for your defined need.

I would venture to guess there's a fair bit of functionality that lies under the iceberg tip and this is harder to nail one might expect.

It would have to be exceptional imho to be something people would pay for vs using existing tools. However if done well ...certainly has potential.

</comment><comment><USER12> That could be really interesting, but I think the implementation could be tricky. I'd love to see something like that if it was done right.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool .. what challenges do you see? I think getting the flow right can be a little tricky. Let me know if you have any ideas on how to do this right.

Once I have a MVP ready I will ping you for feedback

<comment><USER12> In my view, a good idea is generally the merging of one or more crappy ideas and so-so ideas into something that's workable. Because of this, I think you need to provide some mechanism for the cream to rise to the top. For the use case I'm envisioning, sharing ideas with a small number of users, I don't think a traditional voting system would work.

I think this could be an interesting space to employ some sort of visualization. I'm thinking something like [http://www.archimuse.com/mw2006/papers/lowndes/lowndes- fig2-...](http://www.archimuse.com/mw2006/papers/lowndes/lowndes- fig2-400px.gif) for ideas.

Technically, I'd want something like this to be real time, shouldn't be too hard with ajax. There would also probably need to be supporting collaboration features, like chat.

<comment><USER9> jcnnghm, you should check out Kindling. (Disclaimer, I'm the founder - but I still find this problem very interesting.)

What we've done is provided each user with a set number of votes - by default 10 per room - and each user can put as many votes into one idea as they'd like. This forces them to make hard choices about which ideas are the most valuable to them.

This economy of votes has worked out surprisingly well for us in practice, and people become very thoughtful about how many votes they want to expend on an idea. I'd be curious your thoughts.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Time Warner, AT&T want Kansas City to give them Google Fiber-style deal - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/time-warner-att-want-kansas-city-to-give-them-google-fiber-style-deal/ <comment><USER2> The typical "me too" entitlement attitude displayed by the incumbent telecommunications companies is not a huge surprise. They might be able to get a parity deal with enough complaining, but I really hope the government makes them offer an extremely competitive (relative to Google) service for it. If they want an even playing field, they'll have to offer an even deal -- simple as that.</comment>


Building an 8-bit Game Over Telnet - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/remore/burn <comment><USER2> I thought for a moment you'd "stolen" my idea. (stolen in quotes, because I never told anyone, and ideas can be arrived at independantly, why not?)

The idea I had was extending ansi codes to contain specific instructions for NES graphics hardware, along with a special NES rom that could decode them from say, some audio signal via the microphone port, or controller port 2 keys, or whatever input is most convenient.

Such an ansi protocol extension would include things like sprite graphics, tile graphics, sprite positions, in addition to the normal character mode telnet stuff that maps naturally to the NES's tile based background graphics.

That would be pretty neat.

It would let you put a modem attachment on an NES and dial into a server to play games remotely. Such games could even be multiplayer by nature, with a centralised server infrastructure kind of thing.

You can steal it now if you want. I'm not likely to act on it any time soon.

</comment><comment><USER3> I just wanted to point out that compiling ruby code to .nes has to be the single coolest thing I've seen all year. I mean it. I would _love_ to either fork or contribute to this and provide support for GB/GBC/GBA games.

Amazing work!

</comment><comment><USER4> Very very cool stuff. I look forward to experimenting with this in the near future (read: after i get some free time and before the singularity occurs)

</comment><comment><USER5> Does ssh make sense for this sort of thing?

<comment><USER6> The benefit of telnet is its ability to operate without authentication, or thin application based authentication. This project doesn't appear to be concerned with a secure remote connection, rather it's a useful toy with low barrier to entry.</comment></comment>


The Cost of Cryptography - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/7/waste/the-cost-of-cryptography?utm_source=tss&utm_medium=desktop&utm_campaign=linkfrom

<comment><USER2> In other news, a lot of recent effort in cryptography has gone toward the study of so-called "indistinguishability obfuscation." The idea is much what you'd think from the word obfuscation: you want a scheme that garbles a program in such a way that you can still run it but can't read the source code.

The technical conditions are a bit more specific (that an attacker can't distinguish between the encryptions of two functionally equivalent programs), but the study of indistinguishability obfuscation (abbreviated iO), has been called a "watershed" in cryptography.

</comment><comment><USER3> Perhaps an even better introduction to these and related issues is Moxie's famous "changing threats to privacy" talk from 2010/2011--especially the first half hour: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxz7r4E2li8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxz7r4E2li8)

I have pointed many friends--technical and non-technical alike--to Moxie's talk because in addition to some basics of how crypto works, it helps people understand _why_ cryptography is essential to open societies in historical context. The linked essay points out some important basics, but it doesn't really explain _why_ things like the deniability properties of OTR, trust agility for CAs, or perfect forward secrecy are so vital in today's world.

</comment><comment><USER4> Really great article that summarizes modern cryptography. I'm excited about the potential of fully homomorphic encryption and it's applications in search and health care. Or pretty much anything where sensitive data is involved. Whomever figures that out is going to be very wealthy.

<comment><USER5> There's HELib for those that want to get a head start: [https://github.com/shaih/HElib](https://github.com/shaih/HElib)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> An interesting point on the article is how we are dependant to centralized CA. If the notion of CA was also linked to Web-of-trust, it will make it less prone to governmental intervention. Because of the actual legal system, it is possible for court to obtain by secret warrant a copy of the main key of a website. Why they don't request a copy of the main CA key and fake a new upgraded key after an event like heartbleed?

</comment><comment><USER7> A pretty good explanation for laypeople, featuring:

* One Time Pad (OTP)

* symmetric ciphers

* asymmetric cryptography (minus signatures)

* homomorphic encryption (at least, the overall principle)

* side-channels attack

Giving more practical examples could have helped though (e.g. HTTPS, GPG, etc)

</comment><comment><USER8> Apart from the article, nautil.us is such a great platform that provides great content all the time. I'd read anything published on it even if I have no clue about the topic.</comment>


Clever bike lane hack - <AUTHOR> http://dustbowl.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/light-lane-concept-from-altitudes-alex-tee-and-evan-gant/

<comment><USER3> ::Ponders tying system to speedometer so that the bike lane logo stays fixed to a point on the ground and then repeats::

Thankfully I'm now living in Amsterdam where the problem virtually doesn't exist due to a heavily funded, well-maintained bicycle network (where lanes are generally separated from cars). This would be a godsend back in the bay area, though.

Until then you can use the almost-as-effective strategy of not wearing a bicycle helmet: <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article636281.ece>

<comment><USER4> Similar to your idea, if the laser wasn't rotationally stabilized, the image on the ground would jitter around as slight angular tilts of the bike frame would be exaggerated the further the distance the image was projected. Imagine standing to pedal hard up a hill - the lanes would swing wildly left and right.

How about a lighted fog beneath the bike (like those under some hotted up street cars), giving it the same visual footprint, and territory, as a car?

<comment><USER5> Or even just a spoke POV system[1], so there is quite a bit more light visible from the sides?

[1]: <http://www.ladyada.net/make/spokepov/>

<comment><USER4> hey, that's really cool. I like your point that it's lateral visibility that matters. But I think in practice, the side of the bike is visible only for a very short time (as a car passes it), and the driver is looking forwards (not to the side). The bike needs to be visible from behind.

Another projection idea is a downward-facing rear light - perhaps angled so that the light reflected from the road hits the eyes of the drivers behind?

<comment><USER5> I've biked as primary transportation for five years (including through Michigan winters), and in my experience ensuring that other drivers see you _at intersections_ is most important. They're often unclear about intent, who has right of way, etc., when they see you at all, and that's where paths cross.

Being visible from behind is also important, but doesn't take anything extravagant: A five-red-LED blinker on your bike and a blinker on your helmet or large reflective strips on your bag is almost certainly sufficient. As long as you're not weaving from lane to lane and not terribly unlucky (e.g. being followed by a drunk or a car full of reckless teenagers), it's unlikely you'll get hit from behind.

(Fog/glow under the bike would be awesome, though.)

<comment><USER4> OK, your empiricism beats my theorism.

Thinking of my own experience (I've ridden daily for a couple of years), the only two close-calls I've had are from a car that's in front of me, when it suddenly sees a parking spot, and swerves across, almost side-swiping me.

I could probably avoid this by riding in a full car lane, instead of to the left of it (between the lane and parking spaces), but it seems wasteful to take up a whole car lane (and I can't pass cars then). Also, what I'm doing may be illegal, as it's not marked as a bike lane.

(Bonus: fog/glow is more visible when raining.)

<comment><USER5> 1\. I don't know why I didn't check Instructables sooner. :) [http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Glow:-Ground-Effects- Lig...](http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Glow:-Ground-Effects-Lights-For- Your-Bike!/)

2\. Barring unusual state laws, taking the lane is usually legal. IIRC, in Michigan the law says something handwavey about riding as far to the right as is safe and practical. I will generally take the lane (right lane if there's two, or a wide shoulder), but try to be cognizant of traffic buildup behind me. Riding in a manner that seems predictable to drivers contributes more to safety than following the law to the letter, anyway. Route choice probably also makes a big difference.

<comment><USER4> 1\. That glow ground effect is pretty much what I was thinking, except, for the glow source to not be visible itself - you just see a mysterious glow from under the bike.

Easy enough to shade the sides (perhaps with a reflective surface, so as to not waste the light). Of course, being more visible makes it better - <USER2> doesn't look as cool (IMO).

But also, it doesn't give a sense of the space around the bike. That was the main idea I got from the original article, of a projected "lane" - it's not to make the bike more visible, but to display a cushion of space around it (a territory), so cars don't drive too close.

2\. I meant it was illegal what I do (which is to ride between the parked cars and single lane of the road. Also a danger of a parked car's doors opening). I agree with your other points (esp route taken!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That has to be illegal. Projecting unauthorized lane markers on the road is a hazard. That could easily cause accidents. Drowsy driver at night suddenly sees a bike lane appear out of nowhere, and he's straddling it or about to be, swerves...

<comment><USER7> I agree that it's probably illegal, and definitely causes trouble for drivers, but if they're straddling the lane, that means they have a lot more to worry about--they're about to hit a biker.

<comment><USER6> That's a lot less for the driver to worry about than swerving into other lanes or oncoming traffic.

<comment><USER8> So this straw man driver swerves for unexpected road markings but not for unexpected cyclists? Not only is he drowsy but insane too?

<comment><USER6> Well, if he's made of straw and he's driving a car, he's probably possessed, in which case it doesn't really matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like the out-of-the-box spirit.

But what if the biker is not biking on the right edge of the road? (Like when he wants to make a left turn from the left lane.) This will be confusing and distracting for the driver behind.

</comment><comment><USER5> _Yet, only a small fraction of streets have dedicated bike lanes, and with an installation cost of $5,000 to $50,000 per mile, we shouldn't expect to find them everywhere anytime soon._

Why are they so expensive? Adding a bike lane consists of painting a stripe down the side of the road and adding a little icon of a cyclist. The latter could just be painted with a stencil. Keeping the line parallel to the others means a road maintenance truck would probably do it, but is there really _that_ much bureaucratic overhead? That's $1-10 per foot of bike lane.

I saw a system that attached a paint roller to the back wheel for a "DIY bike lane", for something that uses paint rather than lasers. (I can't find the link.) I still don't think it's a good idea, but paint of any kind is probably an improvement over lasers.

Is adding bike lanes even approaching the problem from the right angle, though? They arguably help prevent a driver from hitting you from behind, but they don't improve misunderstandings about intent/right-of-way at intersections, which is where more collisions actually occur.

<comment><USER10> It can't possibly cost that much to actually do the painting. The hard part probably has to do with the width of the road. All the bike lanes that I know of are on rather wide streets where there is enough width for the standard car lane and the bike lane beside it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This isn't a hack. It's a blog post about someone coming up with an interesting but ill-thought out concept.

</comment><comment><USER12> How much money does it costs to maintain a laser based system over time? How much does it cost to maintain paint on the ground over time? Where are the lasers coming from? Are they safe? This articles raises more questions than it does solve problems.

<comment><USER13> Good points. Powerful battery operated lasers have a duty cycle of 30 to 60 seconds before you should turn them off so they don't overheat immediately.

The lasers (or a laser with a pattern to shine through) were mounted on the bike. They are probably safe as long as you don't ride over any mirrors or use overly powerful laser sources: <http://www.wickedlasers.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I haven't been able to find anything about a functional prototype. Is there one?

I'm dubious that light projected onto a rough-surfaced road from in front will be very visible from behind. Maybe when it's rainy?</comment>


How to change the course of human history - <AUTHOR> https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-david-wengrow-how-to-change-the-course-of-human-history <comment><USER2> I love theanarchistlibrary.org.</comment>


Ask HN: How should I get more development experience? - <AUTHOR>

My current situation is I have been doing hobby programming off and on for the last 14 years (the last 3 being more consistently on). I have a bachelors degree but it is not in any way related to computer science. I've done a few small projects (https://github.com/flounders), but have had no users besides myself. I would like to get a job doing programming, but I don't feel that I have enough experience for that. I am thinking about going back to school for a second bachelors in computer science, but some people I have talked with or things that I have read say that is not necessary while others say a degree is necessary. What is your advice? <comment><USER2> You seem like a great candidate for a coding bootcamp.

Take a look at Dev Bootcamp or Hack Reactor.</comment>


Salto – UC Berkeley's Agile Jumping Robot - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/uc-berkeley-salto-is-the-most-agile-jumping-robot-ever <comment><USER2> Hey it's my robot! I can field some questions if people are curious about anything in particular.

<comment><USER3> What happens if you take one, put it in a shock-absorbent coating (bubble wrap?) so it can take a bit of a fall, add a tiny low-res camera and hook it up to a neural network with the goal to maximize distance moved per second... then leave it alone in a room overnight?

Or can it not get up on its own yet?

[edit] If you add a thin piece of string to the top and connect it to the top of the room, I bet you can make a mechanism to set it upright when it falls over. Then it has all the time in the world to learn to land on its feet.

<comment><USER4> See Animats' answer [1] to a similar NN suggestion in this thread.

There are some research groups trying robotic control with black box neural networks (pixels in, control commands out), afaik with limited success so far, particularly with this many degrees of freedom.

Deep learning has yielded some really incredible results the last 5+ years, but those results have been concentrated in a few areas (computer vision, speech recognition, game decision, ...). So there is a tendency to think NNs can do anything, but really a) setting up a NN to work with a problem is non- trivial (architecture design, data collection, data labeling, feature selection) and b) very much an open research topic for many problems, ie not guaranteed to work at all.

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13121158](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13121158)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I question the benefit of any jumping robot that is designed for continuous hops if there is no evidence that it can land.

<comment><USER2> I'm honestly surprised about how much interest there has been in a landing controller. I always thought it was a bit less interesting than getting the robot bouncing around doing new things.

I could see how being able to stop gracefully could be useful in some scenarios, but there are some other jumping tasks in the queue before I work on that.

<comment><USER6> I'm honestly surprised that you're surprised - it's hard to judge what makes the problem difficult if you don't include landing. There's lots of ways to get something to 'jump' (like these toys [1]) that aren't too useful.

This isn't meant to be a criticism of your work, but an explanation of the impression it made in me. If it had been presented as "here's a new approach to jumping with these advantages", I'd have been impressed. Billing it as "the most agile jumping robot ever" while not being able to land it is setting your audience up for disappointment. My touchstone for jumping robots is that Boston Dynamics robot that can jump onto a building, and then I saw yours needing safety nets to jump a meter - you just don't want to set me up for that comparison. On the other hand, your video did get me excited to see where you go in the next few years - I definitely do want to see chain jumps exectued, even in controlled evironments.

[1] [https://s-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com/originals/2e/87/10/2e87...](https://s-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com/originals/2e/87/10/2e8710fe2ee3b60b262f9e4e66a4751d.jpg)

<comment><USER2> OK, I see where you're coming from. The sandflea is a very practical, application-driven platform, and our robot is just a simple scientific tool meant to test new ideas about jumping. We were interested in the science of the new modes of locomotion so there wasn't much value in developing the landing for this work. We'll try to stick the landing next time.

<comment><USER5> That makes more sense; I, too originally read the post with a different type of robot in mind. After re-watching the video and re-reading the article (and of course reading these HN discussions), I'm appreciating Salto more for what it is: an excellent example of well-engineered biomimicry with a lot of potential for future robots.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Salto means "I jump", or just "jump" in Spanish.

<comment><USER8> More akin to backflip in Russian. :)

<comment><USER2> Ha. Neat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love the nod to biomimicry in the video - inspiration from animal strategies and adaptations is an unfair advantage in robotics design.

<comment><USER10> I realized this many years ago when I was working with underwater robotics. I learned that fish swim in a pattern that looks like a sine wave, and so I started to design robots to fit that pattern. Anyway, biomimicry is a fascinating field -- it's one of those things I wish I even knew existed before I had to pick a major in college.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a clever novel design and shows lots of potential. The next step would be attaining the ability to right itself and land on its foot. Some kind of machine learning (NN) would probably work well.

<comment><USER12> > Some kind of machine learning (NN) would probably work well.

This isn't exactly a constructive criticism, but that is essentially the most useless comment you could possibly make here. "This very general class of algorithms that I've heard about a lot would probably work here.". That is true! It's sort of like saying "Some kind of processor (Intel) would probably work well". It's completely incidental to the problem at hand, and most likely not worth saying.

It's also just a bad suggestion, because you almost certainly don't need to resort to the "high-interest credit card of technical debt" for what is a control and kinematics problem. Even if there's not a nice closed-form solution, there are 100 other approaches that are more appropriate for this sort of thing than just jumping straight to a neural network. I'm not going to go into an explanation of control theory, but "use a neural network" is not the universal answer to every problem in engineering and computer science. /rant

<comment><USER13> You can set up landing from a jump as a two-point boundary value problem. It's like orbital rendezvous - there are both position and velocity goals, and more degrees of freedom in the goal than actuators. This is called an under- actuated system. So you have to exert changing forces and torques during the period of control. This is rocket science, which is good, because rocket science has been well-studied.

I used to work on this stuff.[1] Raibert's insight was that balance dominates gait. My insight was that slip control dominates balance. On flat surfaces, slip control isn't a big issue, but on hills, it dominates the problem.

Here's a simple example of a two-point boundary value problem. Suppose you want to accelerate an stationary object so that at time T1 it has velocity V1 and position P1. Your only controllable variable is acceleration, but you can change that over time. No constant acceleration will do this. You're going to need a changing acceleration. For this particular problem, there are closed- form solutions. Look up "shooting method" for how to solve this in general.

An appropriate use of machine learning here would be to correct for small errors. You can calculate an idealized solution from the dynamics, and when you use it on a real robot, it will probably be somewhat off. That's when it's appropriate to use machine learning, or at least hill-climbing, to tweak the tuning parameters until it's on target.

Obligatory Freefall: [2]

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc5n0iTw- NU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc5n0iTw-NU) [2] [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2900/fc02895.htm](http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2900/fc02895.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is the third time I've read this title and the third time I got the meaning of "agile" wrong... HN is doing things to my brain.

</comment><comment><USER15> Very cool little robot, and a great article.</comment>


Command-line search add-on for Firefox - <AUTHOR> http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/instantfox/ lightning-fast instant search and suggest for almost every searchengine... <comment><AUTHOR> » 30 second demo: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-BvOGf0kaM>

</comment><comment><USER2> like chrome but for wikipedia, maps and youtube, too - awesome!</comment>


Ask HN: Terms of Service and Privacy Policy - <AUTHOR>

Hi Everyone !
I need to create a privacy policy and a terms of service for my web app. I googled the issue and discovered that there are some free online tools that will generate those for you. I was wondering if someone has any experience with those. At the same time I would appreciate if someone can recommend a good template for those two documents. General thoughts and inpput on the subject is welcomed as well.
Thank you. <comment><USER2> Model it after Tarsnap: <http://www.tarsnap.com/legal.html>

Tarsnap has the best legal pages I've ever seen.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Anyone else? To all the founders, how did you compile your privacy and tos ? Did everyone turn to lawyers for this?</comment>