Oddbean

why do you not think it will just lead to chronic underemployment and violation of the property rights of the productive? i've seen a pervasive welfare system in australia and it ruined my life because i was on the margin and i was on the margin because i wasn't obedient not only could i not get a job because of the lax competition and absurdly high tertiary education requirements the constant pressure of the shame of being a "dole bludger" was unbearable especially because for 10 years i was doing everything i could to try and make my own business people think it's great but look behind the presentation and learn about what life is actually like on basically permanent welfare in all the former commonwealth nations, australia, canada, new zealand, indeed the UK itself, ireland it's toxic, and i think you just don't really know what it creates in people

Yeah - look, I didn't say that it was an easy, one and done solution. It would be a major shift in how society thinks about what the meaning of "work" actually is. What I said is that I am bullish on humans being productive and wanting to do meaningful things with their time. Like everything, the devil is in the details, you can't just apply some new law and expect things to work. There would need to be cultural change and there would be lots and lots of 2nd and 3rd order consequences that would be unpredictable, especially with something as big as UBI (if you even could find a way to make it function monetarily). All I'm saying is, I'm bullish on human creativity and I don't think about society leaves much room for it anymore.

And you're taking to get what in return? If governments want to UBI, I can't stop them, but as long as I can opt-out thats cool with me. Everyone who believes in it can support it and see how far they get

If they can pay for it and those that are paying are willing to accept that cost even if its a net negative, everyone participating was willingly went along with it so I don't see the issue there But that's not likley how it would work, it would be inflation and taxes that fund it and many would disagree. Even if you are saving in Bitcoin, you're still going to part of it in one way or another, unless you leave that country

if someone has to suffer for others then you are literally promoting the idea of throwing out the driver of a train after tying one person to one side and two people to the other side of a fork and then demanding someone decide who is more valuable if you profit from crime you are an accomplice, and there is no more to it than that criminals use ignorant and innocent bystanders all the time as shields to hide and deflect from their wrongdoing aside from the clean hands doctrine (you cannot claim innocence to prosecute if you also have profited) there is also the problem of character - another old principle of law, sacrifice is the measure of credibility if you take away people's incentives to strive for better by handing them freebies you will wind up with a crowd of fat, lazy people with their hands out and the only way to enable sloth is to steal from those who work

This is the only way it would possibly be funded. Let's say governments were honest and never debased currency. All the productivity improvements would have accrued to the populous, giving individuals more wealth and free time. In a bitcoin world this would be how it would work. Think of all the technological improvements in the last 50 years; that has all been harvested (read stolen through inflation) by governments for their own interests. If we had a normal economy everyone would be working 20 hours a week. But we don't because our value is stolen from us. In short we don't need UBI it's an insulting proposal to begin with. It basically says a portion of the population is not worth any value to society. We need hard money and people would live comfortably and create value for the world.

Yeah, I tend to agree on most of those points. The Iain M Banks culture books come to mind here though. Most of the society is post-money / post-work because AI has reached the level of being basically sentient. The concept of "a job" doesn't exist. Again, I'm not having a "how can we make this work now" discussion, which everyone keeps wanting to bring this back to. I'm simply thinking aloud about what it would mean to have a world where humans didn't "work" but rather did things they were good at and enjoyed and created value for the world. UBI, in an odd twist, is one of the first times this discussion has reached mainstream in any meaningful way. Yes, right now, it's unimplementable BUT the question of how we can get to a world where human flourishing is more important than "work" or "being rich" or "being famous" is, to me at least, the only real question that matters.

It's an interesting thought. Inflation keeps us working, even if it's in a job that's not useful to soceity. What was providing you a comfortable living 5 years ago is now sub standard. The problem is there is no way to get off the inflation hamster wheel ex #Bitcoin. I think global wealth will have to be close to evenly distributed before we get to a time where human flourishing is of peak importance. Everyone will hold enough wealth where they don't *have* to work. Bitcoin will start that process.

I don't see that happening really, it's also about the impact, you're obviously taking from one to give to the other, what would that other person have done with that extra purchasing power they worked for? Why should they be the scapegoat? I think that creativity is bred through problem-sloving, not through handouts, how many people who chose welfare programs are really using it to go out and be productive? Is those that leave the program enough to compensate for those who just milk it? While I always believe humans can come up with solutions, I don't see how UBI solves anything apart from buying votes

...and you left before the NDIS. Its noticably worse now. The most expensive class of the unproductive are the bureaucrats who administer these things, and the well-connected private middlemen who provide political cover.