If prostitution were legalized, do you think people on UBI could be required to go around blowing people to get it? Like, if 'dig hole for no reason' is a silly example, why would 'go around blowing people if it's legal' also be a silly example?

Ok I think I agree, I guess one extra reason for me not to be soft on free will/moral responsibility here is I could see some people being self aware enough to concede that they were born on third base in terms of favorable circumstances, but when they cross home plate they still want credit for the last 90 feet. These kind of people might be like 'give UBI to uneducated poors because they never had a chance' but 'don't give UBI to middle class college graduates who simply failed to turn into a productive human being'.

Yeah I understand the motivation to push back on the moral responsibility thing on consequentialist grounds but then I think there's room for moral responsibility on consequentialist grounds it's the nature of such to be kinda complicated.

I agree though that desert is a really difficult concept to justify and generally entails people justifying their deserts.

Really... those millions swarming our borders looking for work and mostly finding it disagree.

Neglecting the obvious like where are we going to find the wealth to fund such a plan, but you really like the UAE model as a model for society and the advancement of humanity?

Alot of Nobel winners come from UAE and Kuwait?

But robots are strong

Nixon hasn't come up in this thread yet?

http://www.remappingdebate.org/artic...t-sun?page=0,2

Likewise ignoring the obvious like that the reducing value of labour coincides with an overall increase in wealth so finding the wealth can't be some big problem:

Yes I really like the idea. A society where no-one has to do a soul crushing, dirty, dangerous jobs (or put up with abuse) just to survive sounds great. Lets see what humanity can come up with when companies can pay less but have to provide something worthwhile to their workers in terms of job satisfaction or they wont have any - that's making great use of market forces. Where youth culture can flourish in unimagined ways. etc etc

It sounds brilliant to me.

gtfo with this ****. i should shut up and let someone else with better writing skills respond but w/e.

50+ years ago joe blow without a HIGHSCHOOL degree could get a good paying job- enough to support a family of 6+.

fastforward to present day- a person with a highschool degree can't even find a job that pays enough to support one person (without the govs help mind you) let alone a family.

technology has reduced the need for manual labor. present needs idk 1/10 (pulling a number out of my ass here) of the manual labor force it needed 50+ years ago. keep in mind the population has exploded.

now, some ****ing dweeb who hasn't left the classroom is led to believe that all markets are efficient since all people think rationally etc etc. and that the number of displaced manual labor can be found in other areas- which is false on so many levels especially considering the amount of education and money needed to get to a base level imo

the us gov doesn't want to send its youth (ITS FUTURE) to college. and it doesn't want to stop big corporations from paying **** wages and literally sucking out all the money from communities and giving very little back. its problem.

ubi is a step in the right direction

here np, ill give you another example, one that should be easier to understand considering we are on a poker forum.

look at online poker- for years people have been saying what a bad idea poker HUDS, scripts and other software and multitabling is the state of online poker. for years they've been saying this.

and for years the average joe has been getting cleaned out. no chance. and for years online poker has been in a continual state of decline. now everyone with half a brain (including the sites themselves) is waking up and realizing that MAYBE protecting the average joe from the big mean super tech crushers would be a good idea. too late.

but there still guys specifically new guys and also from developing countries who say how great online poker still is and how much money there is still to be made (LOL you made this point yourself when brought up the millions of illegal immigrants working for $4 an hour or w/e who send most of that money back home btw).

Doesn't the UAE run on virtual slave labor though?

Indeed, and the slaves vastly outnumber the citizens.

I think looking through the veil of ignorance is the best argument for a basic income. If I happened to be born a short ugly black man to a poor single mother in a white neighborhood I would hope there was some kind of minimum income as no one is going to give that guy a job, just based on his genetics. Most people can't objectively look through the veil of ignorance as they refuse to even imagine what it might be like to be a short hideously ugly black man that must survive by begging at freeway off ramps.

It is possible we may have to have some other laws as well as a basic income.

Also, no one's mentioned Alaska?

I loved how he called his proposal the FAP.

Does anyone think that the introduction of a UBI would raise the cost of a "survival wage" by close or equal to the amount of the UBI? Someone show me why this would actually do something good and not just result in massive inflation (as more $$ would be chasing the same goods/services than now)?

why would it require more $$$?

The bums would probably try to tell you that there is a glut of goods and services due to automation and not enough money. And this is why Japan is desperately fighting deflation and the American Fed can't even hit their desired 2% annual inflation goals.

But for that to be he case you would have to accept their premise that cost effective robots are putting everyone out of jobs. Now I don't know of a single person IRL that has actually lost their job to a robot, do you? I know people are losing their jobs to cheaper foreign labor, but robots? LOL.

Redistribution schemes can very well be inflationary, but there is no reason to think it would raise survival wage by an equal amount.

Use quantitative easing to gradually buy up all corporate debt and common stock. Hold those assets in trust for the people and pay the people dividends from the corporate profits.


PairTheBoard

Use eminent domain to confiscate all land holding over 10 acres for $1. Then confiscate all 2nd or more homes for $1. Otherwise reinstate the draft and send them to Iraq. Capitalism says you can always go to any business and get a job. The government can hire firefighters for $5 per hour, they would get millions to get their foot in the door. The average Los Angeles Department employee makes over 120K a year and it takes 6 months to get approval to put a solar system on your home, another 3 months to have them inspect it, and 6 months for it to show up on your bill.

They have been doing this for years, and in the end it makes society poorer. Cheap debt does not help the economy it only helps government and the rich.

Lot of opposition from the left also

I agree. Just imagine how much farther civilization would be if everyone was allowed to reach their full potential. Often, a child that grows up poor has no choice but to go straight to work.

In all fairness, it costs more to eat healthy. Lack of money can also lead to a more sedentary lifestyle.

Fair point. But even if it ends up in a wash, I believe it's worth trying.

Yeah. QE was just another version of trickle down economics. Funny how the latter receives it's fair share of criticism while the former hardly gets any

QE is just the method of funding these purchases. The idea is that the central bank ends up owning all corporate common stock and debt. So all corporate profits end up getting paid to the central bank as dividends or interest and can be distributed to the people as a people's dividend, i.e. a UBI. QE is just the method to accomplish this without taxation or confiscation.

What QE has shown up until now is that QE can be done without fanning inflation if it's done gradually in a deflationary environment. That's exactly the kind of environment a trend toward job killing automation produces. It's not that the QE itself necessarily does much good, but if it's used to buy up the major profit and wealth producing entities in the private markets, i.e. corporations, we end up with the means to fund UBI without taxation or deficit spending. We don't have to tax corporate profits because we now own them.


PairTheBoard

^^^^OK. Fair enough. Do you have any thoughts on shorn7's post that a UBI might cause massive inflation basically making it neutral.