Anonymous asked:
UBI will be disastrous if implemented. Long-term idleness, which is what UBI enables, the explicit reason that UBI exists, is disastrous to the human spirit, and it will inevitable reduce a large fraction of the population to a near sub-human existence.
My preferred solution to the problem (if it is a problem) is a guaranteed jobs program.
I am somewhat inclined to agree with the second sentence, not quite as much with the first. I have a fair amount of hope for such a project, just not very much optimism.
(FALC and UBI-plus-heavy-automation combination worries me much more)
What about a guaranteed capital program? Jobs mitigate some of the long-term idleness issues but hardly attack the source.
Makework feels to me like it might not be that much better than idleness, in that it teaches you, at least on a system-1 level, that work isn’t something that’s *really necessary*, and that it’s just a pointless obligation imposed by authority figures.
Seconded, and maybe it doesn’t even go far enough. Make-work is awful. I can’t overemphasize how much resentment is generated when you’re forced to bust your ass for work that you know for a fact has no point. And to be honest, since a lot of labor in our current economy, even for the employed, is bullshit make-work and the malaise is already obvious, I’m confused as to how someone could think it’s the solution.
At least in idleness you could be playing video games. (I’ve seen the hypothesis floating around that, in utter seriousness, video games are the other half of the UBI puzzle. I don’t know if I believe it, but it’s a delightfully subversive take.)
“idleness” can also involve creating works of beauty that might not be financially sustainable in the current economic environment.
think of all the scientific discoveries and works of art and literature created by aristocrats who were technically “idle”, coasting on inherited wealth.
sure, some people may choose to spend their lives cock fighting or whatever instead, but so what.
“Idleness” can involve creating works of beauty, but honestly argumate, how many people would do that? “Somebody could paint the Mona Lisa in their UBI time” is not a serious argument, because only a tiny, tiny fraction of the population has the inclination and the skills to do that.
The people who already live entirely on gov’t support, what do they do? Does it look like “scientific discovery and works of art and literature”? Do you want to dramatically expand the number of people living under those conditions?
I appreciate this concern, tho I don’t myself care about it beyond practical considerations, but I’d expect that an analogy to the people on government support that you have in mind would be misleading because those are people who are economically useless in an environment where most of the population isn’t. There is a really strong selection effect at work there.
yeah, i think enough people are natural aristocrat types stuck plowing most of their waking hours into if not grunt shit then at least like, making pages load a few milliseconds faster, that the benefit of UBI from freeing up their time would dramatically outweigh the costs of subsidizing orcs
That would just result in an increased orc tax that makes natural aristocracy harder to attain though.
At any rate, periodic reminder that technological unemployment is fake news and UBI is a trap.
@mailadreapta: I’m guessing you’re not opposed to women staying at home to be housewives and mothers?
If so, then it seems like you already accept that a large fraction of the population can opt out of working within the capitalist system and still engage in fulfilling and productive labor, and we’re just haggling over the details.