On Universal Basic Income

I was working on the Blizzard video last night but my mind kept drifting to this topic. Figured I had something to say about it.

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#UBI #YangGang

[SuperLlama]

tfw people reacting to horrifying shit on the internet with "God is dead and we killed him" are closer to Nieztche's actual meaning than anyone else.

[samhammich]

God may be dead, but he certainly didn't kill himself.

[Erbsenbrei]

Nietzsche for all intents and purposes has also never been a literal nihilist worshipping nothingness and blandness. He wasn't some late 1900s edgelord. Quite the opposite in my experience, he's been all about self-empowerment and finding a meaningful life (which post god's death proposes a challenge, individually as well as collectively of course). He was actually pro life and not some propagator of depression or chaos (if all is meaningless then hedonism, psychopathy, sociopathy and depression fall onto (very) fertile grounds)

I've always been surprised how the guy wound up being as grossly misinterpreted as he is across a multiutude of different subjects.

[BigMantis__]

This reminds me of a criticism of religious sports players who, when they lose say “the other guys worked harder” but when they win say “God was with us.” I always saw this proclamation of God as a humbling statement one that covers for the chances that were given to them to win.

[Wafflemage]

When I hear of an automated machine future where humans have no jobs and live a life of decadence, I think of WALL-E.

[maycontainnuts]

Some have money without a purpose, others have purpose without money.

And then there is me, without either.

[anthonylipira]

I oughta learn how to read. Kinda feel like I'm missing out.

[CynicalNaivety]

Paraphrased: "Is UBI really the solution to people unable to care for themselves?"

yes, if the ability to take care of oneself without a monetary income has been made impossible by government.
Not allowed to hunt without permits, not allowed to fish without permits, not allowed to keep animals without paying taxes, not allowed to sell or trade things without paying taxes, etc.
Jobs being made more scarce through legislation put forward for environmental or economical reasons, and other such problems.

If even people without an income are expected to pay taxes and spend money to fulfill their basic needs in ways they could theoretically manage with just their body and wits, and doesn't infringe on others' freedoms? Government is gonna have to be at least partially responsible for paying for their basic needs.

[aketchupman]

You don’t understand that UBI isn’t there to provide meaning. It’s to provide life in a world where employment is not possible.

[XZ]

The thing is, and this is something people who want to implement a UBI need to pay attention to, a UBI isn't the solution, it's a stopgap measure to prevent economic collapse and combat the rising economic inequality. The simultaneous issues presented about the degradation of the moral foundation and the desire to find purpose in life will still need to be answered with or without a UBI, but I'd argue that based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, if people don't solve the lower foundation of survival on that hierarchy before trying to answer that, they simply won't and then you'll have both a loss of that answer for "what do i do with my life?" AND the loss of the life itself as it won't be able to survive.

So if the technological unemployment issue reaches a critical juncture, a UBI would be there to bridge the gap while people find the way to answer those questions.

And if we can't find an answer, then we're all truly f-ed.

[E_Platypus_Unum]

Mankind can not take another "great leap forward"

[Tarik]

Go to space, mine asteroids, always have a new frontier and we'll learn more.

[arcanefeline]

If God can be killed, who's to say he cannot be brought back?

We know that history is not an unstoppable march towards "progress". It is cyclical.

[nomoturtle]

I thought the argument for UBI wasn't as short sighted as giving the hungry man fish instead of a fishing rod. The idea is that the man can use the money to buy a fishing rod that they couldn't otherwise afford. With capital one can for example, start a business, and become free to choose the path they think themselves to be most proficient and happy in.

[Zach]

Nietzsche's answer to the death of God was that we make our own values, which, after Jung's body of work came forth, looks more and more impossible.

[tgheretford]

Here's the problem with purpose having more importance than money. Purpose is not an accepted form of payment that keeps a roof over your head, puts food on the table to keep you alive and prevents you going to prison for non-payment of tax. Only after the physiological needs are dealt with can your life start to have meaning and purpose, but to get there you need money to survive. And in future, we have a problem. Automation is inevitable. UBI has either failed and been abandoned where it has been trialled (Finland for one example) or rejected outright through the ballot box (Swiss referendum). And employers have no obligation whatsoever to employ anyone and provide them a living. When automation kicks in (any country that bans automation will find its economy decimated when companies pull investment out of that country), wages will plummet as people can not simply compete with robots (who don't need a wage but also breaks, annual leave, pension, workers rights, etc.) but prices will continue to rise as companies focus more on average revenue per user and maintain profitability from consumers who can still afford their goods and shed the unprofitable ones. Because businesses have no obligation to provide you with a service either.


We can all become sole traders but when everyone becomes a sole trader in a world where they can not compete with huge global corporations who can easily and brutally out-earn, out-work and out-compete with them using automation and artificial intelligence to shed the unskilled and skilled alike and free itself from the tyranny of wages and employment rights, I would dread to think of the outcome. It's bad enough now with the cabal of tech firms we have now for upstarts, imagine that on a global scale in real life.

[Zach]

To me, UBI has similar problems to Student Loan Forgiveness.

It is a possibly great thing that opens the door to a generation devoid of personal responsibility, perspective on important things such as finances and debt, and increased strain on national resources due to mismanagement.

[merc]

I miss reading Nietzche. I used to have an amazing grasp on the subject matter 6, maybe 7 years ago. It's refreshing. God is dead, and we have killed him. What do we do, and where do we go from here? This is the stuff that keeps me up at night.

[dinobot]

Dev, I think you're looking at UBI through the wrong lens. You can actually make a conservative/libertarian argument for UBI, essentially it would shrink most of the government welfare apparatus as most of the existing programs would be made obsolete (food stamps, public housing, an even some regulations like minimum wage). The idea is that you get $1000 to do with what you please without any other government intervention. The money used also gets directly injected into the economy as the lower classes spend almost all of their income, so it increases demand for services that now have to compete with UBI, driving up wages. Also it being universal removes most of the bureaucracy as no one has to constantly report everything going on in their lives to the state to keep receiving it, also it removes the incentive to not work, as often people on welfare would lose all benefits after getting a job and in the end have less income.

[justiceforjoggers]

I remember thinking nihilism was edgy and cool.

Now, I'm ashamed, toxic, and wondering how the hell I can escape my mentality of a 14 year old