= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Don't worry much about the downvotes; we have a local village idiot who automatically downvotes every single comment made by anyone whom he suspects of left-wing opinions -- I guess you were just added to his list. (He got already banned for this, but he just makes another account, and the tech support is too busy to deal with him effectively. Sigh. Long story I don't want to start here, it's just the explanation that seemed most likely to me at the moment.)
Oh I'm not worried. I was just saying I had assumed that it was that and missed the signal for the noise and might have picked up that I was making a mistake earlier if I hadn't. Though when "Thanks for your help" gets downvoted... maybe it's not zero effect :)
It's like when I waited tables. I don't think I'm alone here, but when I got a bad tip, as long as I didn't pour coffee on the customer's lap, there was only one reason for a bad tip. The customer was a cheap bastard of course. Might be why I never stopped being a very bad waiter until I stopped being a waiter :)
GiveDirectly and the direct transfer RCTs in Africa/Third World countries don't answer the question about First World poverty because almost everyone, including the industrious and drug-free and high functioning people, in those countries is dirt-poor; in the First World, there is a much stronger correlation of pathology and poverty. To give an example, the direct transfers in Africa work because people there really are in poverty traps where $100 can make a big difference in letting them buy a cow or a motorcycle, and this is why the direct transfer RCTs show benefits; no one in America will show big benefits from a few transfers of $100 because poor people there have problems which can't be solved by some cash.
The upcoming YC-funded experiment will help test the generalizability of basic income results, and the original American experiments decades ago suggest that a basic income wouldn't cause lots of self-destructive behavior (or at least, wouldn't make things noticeably worse), but on the other hand, the natural experiments of lotteries in the USA and elsewhere like Sweden show minimal benefits to random shocks of wealth (which could've been invested for income). So I wouldn't be totally pessimistic, but I also wouldn't be surprised if BI experiments in the USA do worse than one would predict from the earlier GiveDirectly results.
I hadn't thought of that, good point. It still rings of the best example I have, but maybe not by as much. I have zero experience with actual people dying on actual streets so I use what I've got.
Yeah, I hope if experiments are done they're done well. A half-baked experiment could easily do more harm than good.
I've had with poor people don't bear this out.
Are you talking about poor people, or the fellow dying in the street. There's a difference.
Poor people. We don't have people dying in the street where I live, but I would assume they'd be even less likely to "squander the money you give him on booze and drugs." I might be wrong, and I'm happy to entertain evidence to that effect.
In response to
2016 LessWrong Diaspora Survey Analysis: Part Two (LessWrong Use, Successorship, Diaspora)
Thanks again In; this definitely answers a question about which I was curious.
Money, same as now. I'm not waving a wand and declaring superabundance here, just saying if we're not ready as a society to let people die of want, let's not mess about and let's just give everybody money. I do not have a counterargument to "He who does not work shall not eat," except to say that that is a coherent view and a different set of values than I think most of America holds. If you're okay with a lazy fella dying on the street, I don't know how to bridge the gap in basic premises.
A basic income won't help here. The lazy fellow dying in the streets will squander the money you give him on booze and drugs and then still be dying in the streets.
Why do you think so? What I've seen from GiveDirectly and the conversations I've had with poor people don't bear this out. I'm not saying you're wrong, but do you have factual support for this I could see?
the output humanity will have anyway will run the world
Sure, but at which level? Hunter-gatherer societies have no "jobs" and "run the world" (or at least used to) -- would you like to go live in one?
if we're not ready as a society to let people die of want, let's not mess about and let's just give everybody money.
First, no one in America will die of starvation because of unwillingness to work. Right here, right now, no one.
Second, I don't see the need for the black-and-white approach: GBI or nothing. There are nuances and incentives matter.
Is it better to work five fewer hours a week to get to the moon a year later and keep the old iPhone an extra few months?
How about medical care?
In any case, if you want to discuss the issue it would help to get specific. For example, your main point is that GBI would be great. So specify how large ($/year) and what does "great" mean (what are you going to measure and what you will be willing to trade off for that).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Apologies for the digression and please feel free not to answer, but I'm curious: How were you able to retire at 33? Successful startup? Family money? Working in finance plus reasonable frugality?
Just genetic lottery. My family owns a chain of convenience stores in upstate NY, and after some time in banking I decided I'd prefer not to work any more. I am writing a book, but I don't feel comfortable calling myself an author until I publish it.
I'm comfortable talking about it as long as I don't feel like I'm being perceived as bragging about something over which I have no control (which is stupid, and which I see in other people all the time)
I propose that the amount of work people will do because they want to is more than enough to run society
That's classic Communist utopia straight out of Karl Marx. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". Why do you believe this to be true?
Another question, related to the role of the markets as conduits of information, is why do you think the work people will do is the work that other people need? As a first-order approximation I would expect that you won't have any problems having your portrait painted, but your clogged toilet will stay clogged for a long time.
if "jobs creation" did not occur as a political activity, the market would normalize below the level people would produce without, again using the provocative language descriptively not manipulatively, the lingering threat of dying of want.
First, that's not self-evident. Job creation policies mostly reallocate labour (from productive use to less productive). Getting rid of make-work jobs, in the absence of other regulations, will just free up these people to be employed in other areas where their talents can be utilized better. The net effect would be higher productivity but not necessarily a lower level of employment.
Besides, do you want this "below the level"? You interpret this a lots of leisure. I interpret this as a poor society.
1a. I don't think that follows. I'm not saying people should work according to their ability, but that on the whole, the output humanity will have anyway will run the world. As time goes by, we can and have gotten more inequality, and by some measure I saw once (citation needed, but I'm preparing to host a party soon. Delaying not deferring) the achievements of some group of say 100 people have done more than the rest of the world put together. I do not think most of them were in it to keep body and soul together, but more research is needed.
1b. Money, same as now. I'm not waving a wand and declaring superabundance here, just saying if we're not ready as a society to let people die of want, let's not mess about and let's just give everybody money. I do not have a counterargument to "He who does not work shall not eat," except to say that that is a coherent view and a different set of values than I think most of America holds. If you're okay with a lazy fella dying on the street, I don't know how to bridge the gap in basic premises.
2a. This is another "jury question" I'm afraid, and I don't have the data. Getting rid of make-work jobs (and fractional things in that vein) will free up people to not have to work for society not to collapse, but the big issue leads right into...
2b. This is really the bedrock question. Is it better to work five fewer hours a week to get to the moon a year later and keep the old iPhone an extra few months? What are the real numbers for that (those came straight from the rectal number generator)? I'm still working on that one, and as with most questions of value, it will likely vary, but it can still be clarified.
And OT, this right here is why I don't want LW to die. Every other venue of which I can think (apart from one friend, incidentally the one that introduced me to LW) would either say "that's dumb" or "Cool idea" with no further helpful commentary. Off to party setup if I don't reply it's not me being evasive.
there is absolutely nothing wrong with someone deciding to just live off the dole and not work
Within which framework? From an individual point of view, sure. From the point of view of the society, not so much -- someone has to produce value which this person will consume. Arguing that it's psychologically healthy to not work isn't a relevant argument here.
that people who don't have to work ... will have a better wheat/chaff ratio for what they do do
You know that the primary function of the markets is provide incentives for wheat and disincentives for chaff, right? They perform this function quite well. You will argue that without the guiding prod of the market people will produce more of better stuff all by themselves?
Well I have a much longer argument for this in the book, but I propose that the amount of work people will do because they want to is more than enough to run society. 40h per person per week (ish) is, in my view, largely makework.
Of course.
The markets have a major confound, imo, in the form of pro-job policy. I believe, and I have some support for this but not enough to prove the point yet, that if "jobs creation" did not occur as a political activity, the market would normalize below the level people would produce without, again using the provocative language descriptively not manipulatively, the lingering threat of dying of want.
= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d){kind=logo}
Imagine a homeless beggar with schizophrenia and alcohol addiction.
I suspect than at least half of homeless people are actually insane. Giving money to insane people doesn't fix their long-term problems. Might provide them food to survive the day, though. Even that would require to pay them the money daily... which should be technically achievable using ATMs, but then there is a risk of them losing / selling / getting stolen the debit card.
Another layer of the problem is that there are criminal organization preying on homeless people (the homeless pay them protection money from the money they get from begging, otherwise they will not be allowed to beg in "their territory"), so imagine where the basic income money would go.
tl;dr - it's complicated
Hmm, that's interesting data, thanks. None of that is true in my nearest city but that in no way proves it's not the norm. If a person is actually mentally incompetent you're probably quite right, and organized crime could be a wrench in a lot of systems if it's organized enough.
Though maybe economics should - if you'll forgive the allusion - remove the log from its own eye first, and maybe then if it has any spare juice move on to solving health care problems and law enforcement problems. I haven't given this enough thought to be sure about it, but it's a thought.