aesthetics

the good life

I'll all down with that. I'm coming from the assumption that the poor are unhappy with their lot and would like the success levels that poor Asians achieve in a generation.

But if the lower classes don't want that, then great. The world is as it should be. gg social revolution, there's nothing to see here, move along.

Then we're left with is the question of whether richer more responsible people should have their taxes spent on the lazy and the hopeless, who refuse to sacrifice to provide for themselves. And whether we should have "affirmative action" to privilege people who aren't willing to work as hard as poor destitute Asians are.

If your position is that UBI will be create a happy but powerless subclass of former proles, living out their life, then great. It's my belief that these people will be no different than now, still resentful, still in suburbs full of social problems, just with no path out any more.
Sure, for some. For many people "the good life" is lived right now, and involves avoiding work, and avoiding responsibility:



Welfare helps them live this "good life'. It pays for their children. It pays for their aimlessness. It's a heck of a lot more fun having kids and leaving them than building a family and being stuck. This is part of what we're talking about when we talk about the dangers of UBI. For many, without necessity, purpose drifts into dysfunction.

Scars make men out of them. A few stabbings and bullet holes and they will never rely on anyone else again.

You're looking at a truncated distribution because the ones who come to the US and Europe tend to be smarter and more independent already. It's a whole different ballgame back in Asia. So you're essentially comparing the best of one ethnicity to the whole of another.

Of course. I mostly like UBI as a replacement for existing welfare programs. Honestly I'd be for any plan that removed the existing welfare system which reduces social mobility for the poors drastically.

What's interesting in this example is how you don't speculate on what would have happened if he went the other way. Would be have been better off?

I think not.

He's got some flaws he needs to work on, who doesn't? But all in all he's probably better off than being a resentful, hate-filled person who blames everyone else for where he wound up.

first of all, I don't think "stuck in the suburbs" is the problem for most of the people on social assistance

second, I don't think it is wealth that the social dissidents demand - it is influence, or more precisely, franchise. they want to feel like they have a share of political power, and they resent that money appears to be the guarantor of political relevance

third, you continue to assert that UBI results in people having "no path out anymore", when the income would putatively be used, for those who want "out", to get out


as for single-parent households, the situation is of course much more complicated than lazy dead-beat dads. sure there are some, but how many of those households have otherwise well-intentioned (towards the family) parents who are in jail, or abroad, or who want to be with their kids but their wives left them for whatever reason, or ....

what is the relevance of that chart you keep reposting in the context of this discussion? what does single-parent house-holding have to do with the impact of UBI on individual happiness or utility?

going the other way would be having a bunch of money and free time and then becoming both more poor and more busy?

yes, that sounds like it would be pretty sour

the comparison for this thread's purposes would be against one who sees that he doesn't need to keep working all the time, because robots, and allows himself to spend more time showing his favorite movies to his children and teaching them how to tie different knots

Oh, I beg to differ. I've experienced it myself and I can tell you it's not nearly as grand as you think it is. I say home for 6 months while being paid full salary. I was a mess within 90 days. My best friend said he was worried about me and encouraged me to get a damn job.

We are humans and we are complex. Being handed money is easy and takes away your desire for many of us. There's no telling how these things will shake out. Maybe it won't be a complete disaster but I'd bet there would be unintended consequences everywhere, in places we never thought. Maybe the birthrate would skyrocket? Who knows.

I'm not into social engineering, society is too complex for me to understand. I don't know how my car works but you don't see me opening the hood and taking a piss in one of the reservoirs hoping for a good result. That's what happens when we mess with societies. We just don't know what will happen because there are too many variables. How will people who think one way react vs people who think another way? We have no idea.

I mean, look at Indian Americans and their total dominance in the national spelling bee. That essentially happened because someone made a silly movie about a spelling bee (or at least, was a big part of it). If we can't understand the consequences of something that benign, how do you think we can change an aspect of human nature and get a positive result, much less one that isn't a complete and total disaster of epic proportions that may take generations to fix?

Look at what liberals have done to African Americans. It's completely unforgivable and something I'm positive will take generstions to fix. Look at TS chart. There's a reason why single motherhood skyrocketed in one group especially. And now we don't know how to fix it. The problem is in a negative feedback loop that is out of our control. And we are stuck with it.

Venezuela didn't turn into a dump overnight. Forces were unleashed that slowly choked it to death. And now fixing it will take an enormous amount of effort, if it's even possible.

What would these "favorite movies" even be about? How can there be art if life was not filled with struggle, tragedy, and fear, where the protagonist must defeat, overcome, and triumph over?

Why does the world have to be a utopia for some people? it's a child-like worldview that is hypocritical and against your own human nature.

Humans will always form status hierarchies. Within all of these status hiarchies is never-ending competition for dominance .

The most fair world creates the ability for each individual to compete without being restrained. It's not about eliminating competition altogether. Eliminating competition would be pointless and goes against your own biological and emotional drives.

How many movies can you make where everybody gets along and says nice things to each other for 2 hours without saying anything offensive to someone.

Kids want to watch movies like "Rocky" not movies like "Barney"

What happened after that 90 days? Weren't you ultimately motivated to go do something despite having access to the free money?

What do you think happens when everyone gets say, $15K a year? Do more desirable parts of the country suddenly become cheaper?

If you have fewer jobs and less opportunity for hard work, you create a permanent underclass.

For the bolded, taking the cohort with the highest jail percentage you get 7.7% in jail + < 1% abroad = say 9%. The 62% left either deadbeats or or their wives left them. And why did they leave them? Often because they could get welfare.

Some reading for you: a Yale student's study on American welfare and its effects on families. Very interesting data. Welfare is probably responsible for people taking easier, more selfish choices, because they can, at the expense of society. It's a mini test of UBI. Single mothers are basically the first complete class of UBI recipients.

http://aida.econ.yale.edu/~cmm54/ame...elfare1004.pdf

people will still want to win their games, will still fall in and out of love, etc

and people will still work - on projects they Want to work on, as opposed to projects they Have to work on


I used to play on a MUD. It was maintained by coders who just wanted to make something fun for others - no ads, no pay-to-play. Just a community of dorks and the heroes bringing them together.

There are lots of great things around that people create and maintain just because they like doing that sort of thing.

You do realize that "love" and relationships is a competition right? It's the biggest competition there is. Civilized society needs "civilized ways" to carry out this competition. Men play this game by getting higher paying jobs, wearing nicer clothes, going on nice vacations, etc.

If you remove status symbols and opportunities of upward mobility, competition will not go away. It will just become less civilized. Higher crime rates, more violence, increased sexual assault, etc.

The best thing a poor person can do is simply accept the fact that life is a competition and try to win. Look at yourself and find your weaknesses.

If you're skinny, go to the gym. If you're dumb, read more and get smarter. If you're dorky, socialize more and get cooler. Once you improve yourself and start to see results you're going to be happy with the fact that the opposite-sex is rewarding you for your hard work. The b*tching from the losers will sound like whining sobs from a baby. I'm sorry, but it's true.

Another things is, you're not going to give a sh*t that people like Lebron James or Bill Gates have more than you, because you've carved out a nice little piece of the pie yourself.

Are liberals responsible for the mass incarceration of the black community? Were liberals responsible for Jim Crow laws? What have liberals done to African Americans?

Venezuela was duped into electing a self-serving narcissist who plundered the nation's resources, alienated its allies, and then refused to relinquish power through a combined propaganda and military campaign. So yes, I am a bit worried.

You're skirting around the problem that people vary greatly. Like we said early on, the impact of UBI is irrelevant for the top XX% in terms of intellectual curiosity and mental health. They'll thrive in any world. They are self organizing and positive and don't need rules or structures or necessity to urge them on and keep them functional.

I agree that it will not go away

my point is that people don't need to work ****ty, dead-end jobs to satisfy their natural competitiveness

I nearly choked on my coffee. wil can handle this one, but lol.

I'm reading this study.

Perhaps it is important to note that women did not have many opportunities for employment income during the relevant period, which may explain why public assistance enabled/encouraged women to divorce unwanted marriages.

Sure. The same as someone else paying for their kids allows 60+% of black fathers to simply abscond. Welfare makes such choices easier. You don't have to make hard choices or sacrifice as an individual for the good of others when someone else will pick up the bill and the pieces, and even give your kids affirmative action so they can suck at academia but still beat out the poorer, harder working, more successful Asian candidate.

Maybe that's a good thing that society allows parents more freedom to make selfish choices. Maybe people are happier. But there are some ugly side effects. In the black community, in condemns kids to poverty and lack of structure, with terrible side effects.

A lot of our so-called morality is/was actually done out of pure necessity. Take away necessity and you break down that order as well. It's not all roses being given money.

You already said about this experience that because there was an end in sight (6 months), you didn't do the work necessary to give your life meaning, you just waited for the 6 months to end. Ofcourse that's not going to lead to happiness. Giving your life meaning and structure when it's not presented to you on a work-platter takes effort.

I've been home with the equivalent of a full salary for 16 months now and while it's not without it's pitfalls it's been good overall and I'm not definitely not planning to find a job. So have a ton of (early) retired people, while some of them hate it a lot, most of them seem active, happy and fulfilled.

I never said my experience was valid for everyone, yours isn't either - especially when it clearly has little relevance to a UBI-world.

TS keeps saying things would be different for everyone not in the top-xx%, but keeps completely ignoring my remark that the great masses went from 70hrs of work to 35hrs of work and seem to be better off. Does somebody in the middle of the pack spend their leisure time in a worse way now then they did 100 years ago? 50 years ago? If not, why would this change when number of hours worked goes even lower?

(Also, if wil couldn't handle it, does that mean he's not in the top xx%? )

you forgot to bold the second sentence

are you familiar with child abandonment laws?

there is no "unless they qualify for welfare" exception.

Leaving your kids behind puts you in personal jeopardy.



Also, you are suggesting that a black dad says "it's fine for me to leave this kid behind fatherless because the mom will get a check"?

Bro, why do you have such an attitude problem?

These sh*tty jobs can lead to better opportunities in the long-run. I'm sitting at a Panera right now where the GM is African-American and he comes off more professional than any other restaraunt GM I've seen. I wouldn't be surprised if he started as a line-cook or cashier or some other entry level position and worked his way up. I guarantee he didn't get promoted up the ladder by b*tching all day long.

Of course they are. Their policies directly destroyed the black family. That's why I said look at the chart TS keeps posting. The single motherhood rate is at 72%! Why do you think we keep talking about Parenthood and single motherhood in the thread? It's the root problem!

Single mother homes produce less optimal men. That's not an opinion it is a fact. Look at the statistics and the difference in rates of criminality in the men from each type of household. It's obvious why, boys need their fathers for discipline, guidance, and love. Why do you think gangs are full of boys from single mother homes? There are many factors but it boils down to boys looking for that sense of comraderie and love with other men they never had at home. Do you think boys from strong, dual parent households are less likely to join gangs? Of course. They have what they need at home and joining a gang actually puts that at risk.

Ever wonder why this is mostly only affecting black men and not black women? That's more complicated and we don't have data but it's an interesting thought.

Boys need their fathers. They need them as much as women need their mothers. Children need love and support and when they don't have that it manifests in very, very bad ways. Liberals may not have intended these consequences but they absolutely caused it.