Comment by simonsarris
9 years ago
> I’d like feedback on the following idea.
> I think that every adult US citizen should get an annual share of the US GDP.
Sure thing, sama. I hope you saw it[1]: https://medium.com/@simon.sarris/after-universal-basic-incom...
Without addressing these issues, UBI could look like a nightmare even if we're all on board.
I think he's committing the usual assumptions:
1. That what people struggling and suffering in the US need is money, and not some other thing that they've also lost, that may be more important.
> imagine a world in which every American would have their basic needs guaranteed
2. That those struggling would be content if they had the $ part figured out.
3. That such disbursements would ultimately lead to less inequality, and not more.
etc
Just as you can find Silicon Valley techies who think Soylent is the only sustenance a person will need, intellectuals tend to think everyone could be as content as they would be living life in their heads or inventing their own destiny. Most people need to be doing something to feel satisfied and UBI addresses this just as poorly as disability checks. Cue drug epidemics.
> And we should consider eventually replacing some of our current aid programs, which distort incentives and are needlessly complicated and inefficient, with something like this.
Tread very carefully, Sam. As I mention in the anti-UBI article, thinking you can replace case workers who do very real, inefficient, difficult tasks like getting medicaid patients to just sign up and show up at a doctor at all is not easy. You will not eliminate poverty just by giving everyone money, especially if you do it by eliminating the pesky overhead of case workers at the same time. UBI looks great because its easy to explain, but we probably need a basket of hodge podge solutions to meet the needs of the poor. The poor and their needs, I promise you, are much more diverse than the Silicon Valley rich and theirs. Be very careful not to think the poor think precisely like you, just minus money. E.g. what works for a top 1% IQ engineer who lost his job will not work for a senior citizen drug addict who has had trouble holding a conversation with another human for the last 5 years due to his isolation.
[1] Because dang messaged me about it being re-upped on HN so I assume somebody at YC eyeballed it.
There's lots of food for thought in your essay. There are aspects of UBI that appeal deeply to me, since I could happily spend the rest of my life reading, making music, and writing software that scratches my own itches, and I've never been very status conscious. If I think about it, most vocal UBI proponents I've been exposed to probably have a similar personality, but as you say, it's not clear that the long tail of the population operates this way.
> Because dang messaged me about it being re-upped on HN so I assume somebody at YC
There's no reason to assume that anyone at YC sees the posts we re-up. That's just routine moderation. The only reason they'd know about it is if they ran across it on Hacker News like anyone else.
I'm loosely conflating YC and HN, which may be a mistake.
How do you decide which stories are re-upped and which are not?
That essay was incredible, thank you.