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Lumifer comments on Stupid questions thread, October 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: philh 13 October 2015 07:39PM

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Comment author: Lumifer 15 October 2015 02:51:11PM *  -1 points [-]

Would UBI be a government program?

What other alternatives are there?

I was taking your overbroad and incorrect claim--that no one in Western countries starves

Nothing like adding a bit of straw to, erm, fill out the opponent's argument :-P I, of course, did not say "no one". I said "there is no starvation" which, given that we're discussing social programs in the context of society-wide policy proposals like the UBI, means that there is no starvation as a social issue in the West, in particular one which the UBI might fix.

In the same sense I feel justified in saying that there is no slavery in the West, even though I'm sure some individuals are effectively slaves. The social-policy context and the nit-picking context are different.

So, I'll stick with my claim and continue to consider it narrow enough to be correct. Constructing straw extensions to make it incorrect is, of course, always possible.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 15 October 2015 10:56:59PM 0 points [-]

What other alternatives are there?

Certain altcoins, like uCoin, purport to be a kind of currency with built in nongovernmental UBI.

Comment author: Lumifer 16 October 2015 02:49:03PM -2 points [-]

Huh? UBI is, basically, an unconditional grant of economic value. Moreover, it's guaranteed to be there next month. You don't get to create economic value out of thin air (and guarantee it will be there next month) just by making another altcoin.