pouët.net

Isn't she beautiful?

no no no, 60% would spend all their UBI on booze and drugs and die within 5 years.

Ha! And you forgot to add that 40% would go to Cuba to become bikini inspectors, as ringo suggested.

90%. Get it right ham!

Yes, and also you were extrapolating what you would have done to what everybody else would do if living was secured—and this is where you are wrong. Read above for examples of it, in Brazil and Namibia.

When UBI started being discussed here in Germany, most documentaries went out on the street and asked people a) what they would do and b) what they thought other people would do. The most prevalent answer was “oh, I would of course continue to work but everybody else would be slacking off.” Sound familiar?

That is also what I consider the biggest problem of the UBI: people refusing the concept that other people get money without working. Most people opposed to the idea don’t say “I’m sure it’s bad for me so I don’t want it,” they say, “I’m sure it’s good for other people so I don’t want it” (though most disguise it in a very condescending “I’m sure it’s bad for other people so I don’t want it”).

Holy crap, if that isn’t depressing, I don’t know what is. I want to curl up into a ball but unfortunately I have to go to work! :(

So. Where do those "other" people get their UBI? Do our governments somehow magic that money out of no-where? Do they take it out of their own bloated salaries? Or do they tax the people who actually work?

I'll give you a hint here - I don't think many politicians are prepared to take a paycut.

Yep 90%

You’re kidding, right? Taxes, of course. What else? What a darn stupid question.

Real numbers are of course hard to come by. You can try and use a country’s last year’s taxes (Germany raised more than 620 billion € last year which—ignoring everything else—would already allow a UBI of 645 € for every German citizen) to create a model but it really would all be speculation. A UBI would have a rather large influence on a lot of different taxes and costs. One proposed model is to remove all taxes on work and instead introduce a 50% VAT that is payed on goods. This way employing people will get even cheaper for the employer (because an employer only has to pay an additional amount on top of the UBI; holy hell, a UBI actually increases employment!), and the cost of producing goods will drop (because no more taxes on work). This in turn means that people can buy more stuff which in turn again means more VAT.

However, I don’t really see this question as a valid argument against a UBI, either. :) (No surprise there.) If there was no current welfare system you would have a hard time establishing one because, oh my, who’s going to pay for that? So, while of course the question has to be answered at some point I don’t think it’s valid to use it as an argument against the UBI as it is also an argument against the current system.

Meanwhile, isn't it hard to stomach that PewDiePie is making more money than the president of the USA? pewdiepie facts. Ok,. I know we get the jealous feeling "Come on, I could also be playing games instead of doing a 9-5 and getting average salary". Or when you see fart simulator or flappy bird and hear it makes 50000$ per day (an urban legend?) and you think wow I could do some simple android app and do. But you know what? I would like to do some good in android. I mean, with computers, one could easily make money if he is obsessed with how to make money. There are plenty of ways. But I am too lazy, I prefer to do demos at home (or just being more lazy and playing games) and have my job to allow me to have me economic independency from parents. PeDiwPe has no life, he has to constantly upload videos, I am curious how he even has a girlfriend. If I had so much money I would stop doing this and do something else. That's what poor(?) Flappy Bird guy did, he couldn's stand it he said, but he made his money for his whole life or? Go invest them now, make some software company, hire some sceners or good people. I would do this if I ever got money. But I am not motivated that's why I am like oh I don't care, I code for nothing. Code for nothing, bits for free.

ringo: You DO know that the point is that people actually _spend_ effectively all of the money they get as UBI? Nobody needs to "magic" anything out of anywhere. Unless of course there's people actively sucking capital out of the system and into their own pockets. But guess what - that'll be not the people depending on UBI to survive but, exactly like it is now, those who begrudge that other people might be happy. Like you.

There seriously isn't enough facepalm in the word to cover this topic now.

Just because both kebee and Bombe have trouble reading -


kebee - whether or not the rest of the world is happy or not is really of no concern to me and I fail to see other than you being inflammatory what that has to do with our discussion/argument here.

Bombe - are you paying those taxes? Are you happy for say an income tax increase when there is a shortfall due to all the spending on social services? Maybe the government should plunder the budgets for health and education instead - I mean no-one really uses schools and hospitals, right?
Trust me when I tell you NO government ever got elected promising tax increases. I know I'm generalising but I have to say I'm pretty confident on that one.

@ Opti - shitstirrer! ;P

And that, dear audience, is the textbook example of narrow-mindedness.

FWIW, I'm happy to contribute to society both through taxes and through charity. If one is cynical, one can also consider it as insurance: the tax money that goes to social service and welfare means less social problems that lead to people trying to rob you at gunpoint to stave off hunger.

One thing I've never understood is the envy that right wing people show towards the least well off. Practically no one will be able to live off well on social security, no matter what form of it takes, UBI or something more conventional.


You should look outside the Anglo-American world. That's happened plenty of times in Scandinavia, for example, and those places consistently rank as the top places in the world to live.

I’ll bite.

So you’re good with a BI if everybody who wants it has to beg some agency for it, prove all the time that they still need it (“no, my MS has not mysteriously disappeared over the last six months”), and they have to continuously degrade themselves by paying with foodstamps, visibly for all, right there in the supermarket. Did I get that right?

You, sir, are a horrible person. (We weren’t even testing for that.)

What was this thread all about?

empathy.

That project in that namibian village - which is ofcourse a good pick, because it compares so well to other developed economies like the western europe ones - meant every citizen received 9€/month. People were free to do whatever they wanted with that money and could freely pursue whatever activity they wanted.

At that level (or lets say: at ten times that level), there wouldn't be a big discussion about UBI. We could afford it even without touching the money of the top 1%.

I haven't followed this thread at all, but the last three posts alone seems to nail it. Ted wins, flawless victory. :)

Making judgments about and casting aspersions about a strangers character based upon comments posted on an internet forum.
And some of you are trying to suggest I lack empathy?

wat.

wat.

wat.

Definition of "lack of empathy"?



Calm down.

It was actually in response to kb's post -


Now I don't see how he extrapolated that I'm "narrow minded" and some "Horrible Person" as bombe put it. I don't really understand why either of them think I'm such a grouchy right-winger. I really don't get how me believing in some universal rights (rather than just handing out money) is me wanting people to be humiliated in supermarkets.
But I guess as with many topics of discussion people read and hear want they want and then often take things completely out of context.


So to am I. And I do, regularly.

Unless there is some well reasoned arguments or some peer based research anyone has and since others have taken to making insults and name calling I think I'll be as polite as possible and say that there are a few people here who I disagree with on this topic. Rather than fall into a slanging match which really doesn't benefit anyone I'll agree to disagree.