Amen, and amen, and amen. I agree with everything you say here and consider none of it refutation.

Fresh eyes: I fell into a trap here. "Because I plan on doing some more serious campaigning for a more aggressive GBI (among other things) " was poorly phrased, and I fell into a pattern of defending it. I focused there because it seemed the nearest point of contact to this community. My intent was largely to dodge answering questions about my actual thesis because I'm not public with it yet.

In doing so, I sound like a bad parrot of all the other GBI plans that spend a lot of time talking about how pretty the island over there probably is and far less time on boat schematics. GBI is compatible and has a foothold, but is not my core thesis. And while I assumed the downvotes were just the social conservative faction doing what they do (I don't know anything specific I've done to tick them off, but I disagree more with them than any other LW faction and it's a documented tactic of theirs, so it was an easy out), I now think maybe some folks noticed this and didn't have time to type it up. Thanks guys, message worth hearing.

So I'll respond here and wrap up, unless you want more, because my question was already answered.

1. I think there are a variety of preferences on the issue, and that policy is skewed toward accomodating the work-hard-play-hard group. I'd like that rolled back a bit.

2. Golly that did read like a false dilemma didn't it? Sorry. My intent was to say that I have heard that argument a few times, and I can't beat it. I definitely agree there are compromise positions, and even though I'd love a non-means-based GBI with tax simplification, in practice I bet we end up with one in the best reasonable case. But 2a is a total strawman. It is uncontroversially true, nobody I've ever met denies it, and it has nothing to do with my argument. If I say "if you argue that gravity is a repulsive force originating from dark matter that only looks attractive because we're in gravity shadows I can't defeat that argument.," "nobody in America is being repelled by gravity under the current system" is not a rejoinder.

3. Yup, medical care is a tough one. We're not immortal yet, and that's a problem. It's a good point, and I hope it gets a good answer in actual policy.

Anyway, thanks for your patience.