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The Great American Share – Sam Altman Interview on Basic Income
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kavbojka 9y agoUBI is a thinly veiled attempt by elites to buy the consent of those of us who then can't just drug or satiate with cheap goods. I won't fall for it. Consume the rich!!
- kevin 9y agoWe did this interview with Sam a few weeks before he posted his recent essay on the topic. Not having to coordinate illustrations definitely helps with publishing speed. :) During the interview, we realized it was the first time I had heard him talk about the GDP idea as an answer to the branding problem of bringing UBI to America.
- elmar 9y agoKevin, I just love the graphical look of Spectacle, hope you and your team have the greatest success on this passion project. Regarding the UBI personally I think if someone manages to make it work without the government I am all for it. It's a hard problem in some ways similar to a working decentralized currency that seemed impossible and took forever to crack, maybe even cryptocurrencies/blockchain technologies are part of an elegant solution to this UBI implementation problem, maybe a Startup can make it work.
- matt_wulfeck 9y agoWhat astonishes me is how often I see a BI proponent is also a bitcoin proponent. The government can’t be trusted not to devalue our currency but at the same time we should introduce a system which makes our livelihoods dependent on the whims of bureaucrats.
- Suncho 9y ago> The government can’t be trusted not to devalue our currency Governments can often be trusted to maintain a stable value of currency. That's why fiat currency out-competed gold and why Bitcoin will never be able to compete with a well-managed fiat currency. > we should introduce a system which makes our livelihoods dependent on the whims of bureaucrats. There are robust ways to implement basic income that don't depend on "the whims of bureaucrats."
- whataretensors 9y ago> why Bitcoin will never be able to compete with a well-managed fiat currency I think you meant to post this in 2011
- sleighboy 9y agoWhen did a fiat currency win out over gold? It requires government manipulation by price fixing, outright debasement and mechanisms like legal tender laws for worthless tokens to win out over a precious metal such as gold.
- Suncho 9y ago> When did a fiat currency win out over gold? It happened gradually. But wars usually put stress on the gold system. They caused the fault lines to slip, so to speak. The US Dollar was the last major currency tied to gold and we finally severed that tie in 1972 when the Bretton Woods system ended. And the reason it happened is that in order for prices to remain stable, we needed to be able to adjust the amount of money flowing in the economy to an extent greater than gold would allow. > It requires government manipulation by price fixing, outright debasement and mechanisms like legal tender laws for worthless tokens to win out over a precious metal such as gold. Yup! With the rate of economic growth outstripping the rate at which we could mine gold or spend new gold certificates into the economy, gold just simply wasn't going to cut it anymore as a stable basis for a currency. In order for markets to function smoothly, we needed a currency that could be actively managed.
- AmericanOP 9y agoIn ancient Rome there were a few honest reformers who felt bread subsidies (classical UBI) were deserved by the people. It was an economic argument (as is Sam's) since Roman conquest generated massive wealth that did not reach the masses who made it possible. It was an honest attempt at economic reform by a few forward thinking leaders. Within a generation the movement was captured by politicians who used its popularity to further their ambitions. The fight against opponents self-perpetuated and wins became more important than change. The program morphed to the infamous bread and circuses, subsidizing a city of a million people that ultimately collapsed. I will aplaud the reformers but some things never change.
- Density 9y agoAh, the "I'll give you more free stuff than my political opponent" political model. This is a legitimate concern, but it's at minimum partially addressed by the "as a share of the gdp" part. We should also probably forbid Congress from increasing this share without a massively overwhelming vote.
- hyprCoin 9y agoInstead of accomplishing a collective objective, a few bad actors accomplished personal objectives. It points to an idea that we should remove counter party risk in these situations. One very popular attempt to mitigate counter party risk exists in crypto currencies. Here is a subreddit discussing UBI + crypto combinations https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoUBI/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoUBI/ Personally, I believe that collective human interests can be accurately modeled with crypto currencies. Things like UBI, health insurance, other new unrealized collaborative goals likely will be modeled in this way. For example, if I could help end homelessness by accepting a certain coin for my goods and services, I likely would.
- PatientTrades 9y agoNot much different than what the left in America is doing today, back then Roman politicians passed laws to keep the votes of poorer citizens, giving out cheap food and entertainment, "bread and circuses", was the most effective way to rise to power. Today free stuff is still the most effective way to power.
- Suncho 9y agoI largely agree with what's being said in this interview, except for a few comments: > "But in countless ways it’s much harder to convince lawmakers and politicians to give every person in the country cash gratis than it is to guide a start-up to a nine-figure valuation." You don't have to convince lawmakers to do it. It's possible to implement basic income without any direct government support. > "The question I’m interested in: How do we unlock maximum human potential?" This is almost the right question, but not exactly. The right question is "how do we unlock the economy's prosperity-maximizing capacity?" It's not about how how we get the most out of humans. It's about how we provide the most for humans. > "Obviously, there are a lot of people who could do great things that would benefit all of us. Create art, start companies and yet they can’t." This is true, but human labor is just one of many resources that we're not using to their full potential. By narrowly framing things just in terms of what we can get out of humans, we're limiting the possibilities of basic income. > "One of the things that people forget is that if the robots really do come, yes, they will eliminate or change a lot of jobs, but the cost of goods and services will just go down and down and down." Sort of. Monetary policy will prevent deflation. So the price of the things people need to buy will always remain stable. It's just that people might get more stuff for free. > "What I would propose is a model like a company where you get a share in U.S. Inc. And then, instead of getting a fixed fee, you get a percentage of the GDP every year." This is a mistake. The economy has the capacity to produce a certain amount of wealth for people. That amount is difficult to calculate ahead of time. Measures like GDP are probably not going to help. But the appropriate amount of basic income is always going to correspond to the amount of spending that the economy can productively respond to.
- Danihan 9y ago> It's possible to implement basic income without any direct government support. How's that? > The right question is "how do we unlock the economy's prosperity-maximizing capacity?" Asked and answered: free-market capitalism. Nothing has resulted in the sort of rapid prosperity we've seen recently with market capitalism spreading globally.
- Suncho 9y ago
- chevman 9y agoI think reinstituting a 2 year (or whatever length of time) national service requirement is a much more realistic, practical way of moving the country, and this general discussion, forward. UBI feels like a tactic with too many complications and opportunities to distort incentives, motivations, etc.
- Danihan 9y agoInstituting UBI is about as practical as simply ending all taxes.
- babaganoosh89 9y agoDoing some back of the envelope math, US gov revenue is 3.31 trillion and the population size is 323.1 million. Which leaves about $10244 per capita to play with. How would a BI work, give people $7k per year and save 3k for military and basic services? Seems like BI would need big tax increases to become viable.
- Danihan 9y agoThe math doesn't work and has never worked. UBI proponents will never talk math because it doesn't add up, even with the most casual analysis. $12k is the cited number that you see a lot in basic income discussions. That's just over the poverty level. That's not enough to live on and it's practically a bonus for some members of this site. It's not enough to do anything with. Even upon receiving that, many people would still work massive hours to obtain the best house on the block. But just to do that in the US you are talking about 3 trillion dollars (300 million x $10k for easy math) that you have to find in the budget. As you stated, that IS the entire budget. Now basic income advocates will say you can make up some if not most of that by cutting welfare programs, but given the nature of welfare programs - good luck. That UBI stipend is also not enough to pay for healthcare, so you can't cut that. How exactly do you convince a nation which already isn't willing to pay for healthcare to pay for basic income, too? I'd love to be wrong, but I've never seen any numbers that are workable, especially in a political climate anything like today. There could be a complete paradigm shift in the future, where machines literally take care of all needs in an automated way, but that's such a strange reality that welfare reform is honestly about the last problem we'd need to discuss.
- drb91 9y agoI mean, tax the hell out of wealth. The math has never been the problem; it's always been taxing the wealthy that causes the conversation to die.
- stcredzero 9y agoThe math has never been the problem; it's always been taxing the wealthy that causes the conversation to die. The problem with taxing the wealthy, is that they generally have an outsized share of the political power. I think that a better solution, from a political and psychological standpoint, would involve a voluntary system. If just rent could be covered, this would be the equivalent of $12k per year in many parts of the US: http://www.elledecor.com/life-culture/news/a7635/german-village-with-88-cent-rent/ http://www.elledecor.com/life-culture/news/a7635/german-vill...
- sedtrader 9y ago> America competitive in the world—lies in giving every citizen a regular allotment of money to cover basics like housing, food, and shelter. Out of curiosity don't we already do this? We have public/section 8 housing, food stamps, medical/dental, etc... If we are talking about handing out cold hard cash as basic income, as the statement implies, then that is a recipe for disaster. There would be no guarantee that people would use that money for basics like housing and food.
- jpindar 9y agoNot in the United States, no. All those things have restrictions, and in many cases waiting lists, and most of them are not literally money.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- vonnik 9y agoUBI is a direct cash transfer that the recipient can spend on anything. It's proven to be effective in international aid, and much more efficient that financing the enormous bureaucracies employed to decide whether someone is qualified. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-39038402 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-39038402
- mcguire 9y agoThe US social security administration spends ~0.7% of its total expenditures on administrative expenses. (Yes, it's more for the disability program, 1.9%.)
- rev_bird 9y ago>If we are talking about handing out cold hard cash as basic income, as the statement implies, then that is a recipe for disaster. I've tried and failed to figure out a less confrontational-sounding way to ask this, but do you have any data to back this claim up, or do you just not trust the poor?
- jpao79 9y ago"We’re still in our pilot. It turns out that giving money to people is much harder than you might imagine. We’ve had to work with state, local, federal governments so that people in our study don’t lose their housing eligibility, lose their food assistance just because we’re giving them money and raising their income level. And what we don’t want is to make anyone worse off." It feels like this statement is what would concern most skeptics of UBI, that is yet another layer of complexity on top of an already complex system. Isn't the main benefit of UBI to make it so everything is streamlined into a single program and administrative overhead is reduced?
- netinstructions 9y agoSure that could be the goal, but when you run a small pilot you can't just ignore the existing policies and laws... Also it's not the main benefit of UBI. It's just one benefit (or side effect) of UBI - when it's universal (not just a pilot) you can reduce the overhead of administrative costs.
- jerkstate 9y agoIf the benefit requires other subsidies for recipients to survive, does it actually fit the definition of UBI?
- Suncho 9y ago> If the benefit requires other subsidies for recipients to survive, does it actually fit the definition of UBI? Different people used different definitions of basic income. As far as I know, the most commonly accepted definition says nothing about the amount. But I have heard people say that it's not a "true" basic income if it's not above a certain level.
- jerkstate 9y agoI just looked up the "basic income" wikipedia page and you are right, "full" basic income is above subsistence/poverty level and "partial" basic income is below. So this would be a trial of partial, non-universal basic income.
- vonnik 9y agoI support some form of UBI. My concern is that UBI is a classic redistributive strategy, and redistributive strategies have done poorly in America's long and ongoing class war. The most recent tax plan is a good example the haves winning another battle in that war. So the basic question for anyone who believes in UBI and economic justice is: How do you convince the wealthy and powerful to give up some of their wealth and power? Almost by definition, they can't be forced to do it, because wealth and power are their own defense against redistribution.
- rev_bird 9y ago>wealth and power are their own defense against redistribution Right now, yes, that's definitely the case. But does it have to be? Our campaign finance system provides a direct and unlimited conduit between wealth and political power, but we can change that.
- Density 9y agoOh they can be forced to do it.
- pdfernhout 9y agoAn essay I wrote on that in 2009: "Basic income from a millionaire's perspective?" http://www.pdfernhout.net/basic-income-from-a-millionaires-perspective.html http://www.pdfernhout.net/basic-income-from-a-millionaires-p...
- pdonis 9y agoSam makes an interesting analogy with Y Combinator as providing a form of "basic income" to people trying to start startups. However, this analogy ignores a huge difference in the two cases: the people who are trying to start startups with Y Combinator's help are a highly self-selected group. Giving them "basic income" often turns out to be highly productive, yes. But that does not imply that giving basic income to everybody would turn out to be highly productive. To be fair, he does describe what he's attempting as an "experiment" and acknowledges that it might not work out the way he thinks.
- chrishacken 9y ago"Sam makes an interesting analogy with Y Combinator as providing a form of "basic income" to people trying to start startups. " These two things aren't even close to the same thing. If Y Combinator accepted every single applicant, than yes, it would be equivalent to UBI. They obviously do not.
- pdonis 9y ago> These two things aren't even close to the same thing. Tell that to Sam, not me. He made the analogy.
- chrishacken 9y agoI know, I was just agreeing with you.
- creaghpatr 9y agoAlso when a startup burns out their runway it dies and investors probably won't fund the same idea twice. What happens to the people who blow their UBI on drugs/gambling etc instead of healthcare and prosperity. Who will pay to re-fund them? (and fund them again?)
- skybrian 9y agoMy guess is that it would be handled the same as senior citizens who gamble or drink. Next month another check arrives, same as usual. But who worries about this, or would consider cutting social security due to drinking or gambling?
- CptJamesCook 9y agoReminder: Communism killed 100 million people in the 20th century.
- dang 9y agoPlease don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents, the very worst kind of tangents. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- tzakrajs 9y agoScrew human productivity, how about human happiness.
- pdonis 9y agoThe "share of GDP" thing has already been discussed on HN (in response to Sam's own blog post on the subject): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15789108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15789108 My comment on a basic flaw in the underlying analogy (that nothing like "shares in the US" corresponds to a share of GDP) is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15791054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15791054
- ucaetano 9y agoAfter deriding UBI for a long time, and believing it won't work, I came up with a trial model that, IMHO, would allow it to be tested out with minimal damage to the economy (even though I still don't think it would work): Take a country, US for example. Let's say that society determines that a reasonable UBI is $1000/month (ignore the number, this is about the process, not the amount). When I say "everyone", I mean "every US resident who has been a US citizen for at least X years". - Year 1: everyone begins receiving $10/month, conditioned to willing to have employment and spending tracked by researchers. Everyone who receives a payout and also receives social support funds, sees the social support funds reduced by $10 per month. - Year 5: if researches see no significant negative results and the economy continues to grow, etc. the payout is increased to $50/month. Otherwise, if there are significantly negative outcomes, the payout is eliminated. - Year 10: repeat, payout increased to $100/month. - Year 15: repeat, payout increased to $200/month. - Year 20: repeat, payout increased to $500/month. - Year 25: repeat, payout increased to $750/month. - Year 30: repeat, payout increased to $1000/month. All other social payouts are ended.
- Suncho 9y agoI agree with your plan of gradually ramping up the amount of the basic income to find the optimal amount. However, I would question a couple parts: > every US resident who has been a US citizen for at least X years Why limit it in this way? > conditioned to willing to have employment Why? Isn't one of the biggest benefits of basic income that it gives more people more of an option not to work? And what does "willing to have employment" mean? Every man has his price. If you pay people enough, they will work, no?
- ucaetano 9y ago> Why limit it in this way? X can be 0. I didn't set it to any specific number to avoid discussing it (some people would want a cool-down period, others don't). > conditioned to willing to have employment Why? "willing to have (employment and spending) tracked by researchers" :)
- romwell 9y agoI disagree with this model. A lot of positive externalities that UBI will bring simply won't kick in at low payout levels, whereas the negatives which will be brought in by diversion of funds will be apparent. The externalities I am talking about are of this form: -Increased benefits to public health as people are less stressed about losing jobs -Increased entrepreneurship and all the benefits that come from it -Increased cultural output and the increased geopolitical influence The whole point of UBI is that's it's not another handout. It's giving everyone an option to not have to work a day job to survive (something that moderately well-off people, or people with upper-middle-class parents already have). The impact of "what if most of the citizens didn't have to work to survive" can't be estimated with a small hand-out, because it will not achieve that. In other words, UBI is somewhat binary in nature: either you have it, or you don't. It doesn't scale down beyond a certain point.
- remarkEon 9y agoThere's two issues that I don't think have been adequately addressed, or that I missed, in the banter over this issue. 1) What would stop us from recreating the inefficient welfare state that already exists on top of this new one when some people inevitably blow their UBI on drugs/cheetos/whatever and don't have money for rent? It seems that for this to work we'd have to maintain some intestinal fortitude to say "no" - and that to me sounds like a serious culture change in this country...which gets me to my next, perhaps more contentious, point. 2) What role do immigrants play in this? Google's telling me there's 11m illegal immigrants in the US right now (though I've seen higher estimates from more hawkish folks). What about people on a visa who pay taxes? Would they both get UBI from Uncle Sam? My view for both would be no, but some of my peers who support UBI have argued that they should, pretty emphatically. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm detecting, at least in my circles, a lot of overlap between people who believe in the "global citizen" model and those who support this. Perhaps Altman's idea of basically just issuing shares of USG is meant to get around this, but that sounds still half-baked at this point, even if it is just a branding strategy. This, at its heart, is more of a rights question and I don't think we've been thinking about it that way.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago>1) What would stop us from recreating the inefficient welfare state that already exists on top of this new one when some people inevitably blow their UBI on drugs/cheetos/whatever and don't have money for rent? It seems that for this to work we'd have to maintain some intestinal fortitude to say "no" - and that to me sounds like a serious culture change in this country...which gets me to my next, perhaps more contentious, point. Exactly! UBI needs to go on top of our existing welfare system. It's a problem of freedom. Say I give you $300 and tell you that's what you live on this month. Well with $300 you can find a (crappy) shelter. You could buy food, pay your existing debt obligations, etc. But you can't do all of them. The money gives you freedom but not enough to do everything you need. Our existing welfare system is a god awful patchwork but the existence of all these separate systems makes sure that someone who is poor is still free to buy food AND pay for shelter AND pay off debt. UBI is adding another AND on to the list. We've progressed as a society, wealth is abundant but not shared so now you can buy food AND pay for shelter AND pay off debt AND ... whatever you can do with $12k a yr (or whatever the figure is.)
- mcguire 9y agoSam: "The millennials looked around and said, “Damn, I’ve got $200,000 of student debt. I have no job prospects that are gonna let me afford a house, or a car, or three trips a year to Europe. I better decide to shoot for something else.”" https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-typical-household-with-student-loan-debt/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-typical-household-wit... "The average balance of outstanding student loan debt for households with some debt was $25,700. The median debt was $13,000, and seventy-five percent of borrowers had less than $29,000. These burdens are relatively modest given the annual earnings of these households. The average annual wage earnings among this population was $71,700." Note: "for households with some debt".
- longerthoughts 9y ago> "a bunch of people have guessed my email address and emailed me saying, 'I heard that you’re doing this. I’ll be in the control group just because I think this is important. I don’t need any compensation, I just believe in this idea, and I want to be part of the study.'" This is hardly evidence that getting 2,000 control volunteers will be easy. Unlikely that the people who knew about the study and came forward are representative of the entire target test group on relevant criteria (e.g. income level). It's great to see support for the experiment and getting people to volunteer information without receiving money is a solvable problem, this answer just seemed evasive and promotional when a "you're right, it's going to be tough and we're working on it" would have been plenty justified.
- jpao79 9y agoIf I were Sam A. instead of (or in addition to) funding UBI, I would fund R&D projects which enable people to live as off grid and self-sufficiently as possible with all the comforts of urban/suburban living without all the costs. Basically strive to enable Amish style living but instead of trying to maintain an complete early 19th way of life, include elements which are near free due to automated manufacturing. You supply the land (lot in an exurban area near a major metro with a temperate climate) and labor and the rest is available at a minimal recurring cost. 1.) Housing - Permit ready Ikea like house with mail order pre-cut 2x4 and panels 2.) Energy - Solar charged battery/heating/cooling 3.) Transportation - 4 wheeled e-mountain bike 4.) Clothing - Target/Walmart 5.) Food - Self grown heirloom tomatoes, quinoa with store bought supplements such as cheap corn, meats, etc. 6.) Telecom - Long Range Wifi Receiver or Internet Cafe 7.) Education - Khan Academy, home schooling 8.) Entertainment - Youtube by DVD The first two minutes of this video are pretty interesting/inspiring (not that I'm ready to drop everything to start a farm or anything...yet): Urban Farmer Curtis Stone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHls2HEFudw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHls2HEFudw TLDR - Farming can teach you a lot about yourself.
- Suncho 9y ago> If I were Sam A. instead of (or in addition to) funding UBI, I would fund R&D projects which enable people to live as off grid and self-sufficiently as possible with all the comforts of urban/suburban living without all the costs. This would be a mistake. Self-sufficiency is very inefficient. By pooling our resources, we can live much more sustainably and prosperously. If everybody in the world tried to live like the Amish, we'd destroy the planet in no time. That lifestyle was only sustainable when there were far fewer humans.
- contingencies 9y agoSelf-sufficiency is very inefficient. By pooling our resources, we can live much more sustainably and prosperously. Let's draw a parallel to cloud computing versus standalone computing, for the sake of familiarity. While you sure can get reliable and scalable storage services for less money from a fat cloud provider, they're not equivalent to personally owned storage. For example access times and performance differ, mutually shared human language and the communications infrastructure become critical. Let's draw a parallel to a windmill for flour production or a castle for military defence within a small community. What you wind up with is a de-facto political hierarchy emerging from centralization with its own dangers and overheads. In summary perhaps nature has shown us that population-wide specialization is inefficient in the long term, and we should encourage diversity to survive black swan events... there is a middle ground between total self-sufficiency and totally shared infrastructure. The important thing is that we preserve a mix of approaches.
- blueyes 9y ago> And there’s some country where it was, like, referendum. It got totally crushed a year, two years ago, maybe it was Sweden. I don’t remember. Fwiw, the country that Sam is referring to here is Switzerland. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36454060 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36454060
- DoreenMichele 9y agoThe question I’m interested in: How do we unlock maximum human potential? Last I checked, welfare does the opposite of this. It helps people merely subsist, not strive for greatness. Then he goes on to compare YC to basic income. Seriously? They take a share in your company and help you develop it. That isn't money for nothing. If he weren't a millionaire and the current president of YC, would we keep seeing articles about his vision on the front page of HN? I don't think so. I don't believe his arguments are that cogent or compelling. I find it increasingly sad and frustrating to see yet another Sam Altman on UBI piece here. The mantra on HN is that ideas matter and that HN wants to deemphasize names and avoid promoting pieces being posted merely because they are about some celebrity. I think these articles fail that test. If you take Sam Altman out of this article, would we discuss it at all? If the answer to that is no, then why are we discussing it?
- mrob 9y agoWelfare discourages striving for greatness, because as soon as you show any sign of success it's taken away from you. The "universal" in UBI means it's paid to everybody, rich and poor. It lacks the weird breakpoints and perverse incentives of welfare. You are always better off working.
- DoreenMichele 9y agoPrior to Sam Altman re-envisioning YC as a form of UBI, Paul Graham talked a lot about the idea that the money they gave was insignificant. The real value was in connecting you with movers and shakers and educating you about business creation. Last I checked, UBI does not come with built in business education or introductions to movers and shakers. I was homeless for nearly six years and actively trying to make business connections on HN, largely to no avail. No one wanted to take me seriously. Unsurprisingly, my income grew extremely slowly. If I had a choice between UBI or connections, I would take connections in a heart beat. They are potentially worth millions.
- contingencies 9y agoFWIW I have noticed your posts and your arguments are lucid. A well-worn path to higher income as a communications professional is corporate PR and media management. You could consider developing an offering here for startups, either a course or a book or (preferably) a business, since we now see so many PR hacks for startups type articles yet as an actual founder I can tell you I don't have time to manually research hitlists for general PR nor source professional imagery, newswire services or upcoming conference/event/speaking/interview opportunities, etc. I think there is definitely room for a paid service in this space with a human touch and it won't take much to stand out, eg. professional translation and redistribution to specific language media of PR announcements as a default service. Good luck on your journey!
- tobbyb 9y agoThe UBI debate is fundamental to how we perceive society and what kind of society we want to build into the future. If one's idea of human society is people working to earn money. Fullstop. And those who are better at it are the be all and end alls of human civilization and progress and the ultimate aspiration. Then words like lazy, people will not do anything, arguments that are generic enough to block any action, and are actually red herrings enter the debate. This seems to be a pretty impoverished view of humanity. But one that our current capitalist system necessitates, The other way is thinking of the billions of brains wasted every generation just trying to survive, exactly what humans did 2000 years ago. Now imagine if all these brains could be freed and god knows how much innovation, progress and intellectual output can be unlocked into a completely different kind of society. That's a vision. But the reality is many will stick doggedly to the personal wealth and achievement mantra and because of the disproportionate influence of wealth and entrenched interests in our societies right from feudalism to now, and UBI or any such fanciful idea will be sabotaged and blocked.
- danenania 9y agoThe "laziness" issue is such a distraction. If some percentage of UBI recipients sit on their couches all day, that's perfectly fine. 1 - These weren't the people who were going to move our economy and society forward in the first place. 2 - It's better if they sit on the couch and have their needs met than having them turn to violence or fueling the rise of the next Hitler. That's what will happen if we take away a huge number of people's jobs via automation and give them nothing to fill the gap.
- tmh79 9y ago3) its much worse if they use their newfound free time and available resources to do things that actively harm society
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- jimmywanger 9y ago
- pwaai 9y agoIf you gave everybody a dollar, wouldn't businesses increase their prices, and consumers be okay with that price increase because they have more disposable income?
- Suncho 9y agoNo. And the reason is that by distributing the new money evenly, you're increasing the price elasticity of demand. Instead of increasing the amount of money people are willing to pay for goods, you're increasing the number of people who want to buy goods. So instead of having an incentive to raise their prices, producers will have more of an incentive to produce more. And as long as you're not coming up against resource limits, prices will stay low. If producers tried to raise their prices, they'd lose customers. Does that make sense?
- dahdum 9y agoSo non-resource limited prices may remain low, but couldn't most of it be captured by those items that are limited? Like rent or health care? People could move out of the cities to avoid the rent increases, but then cost of services / taxes per person rise in those areas.
- Suncho 9y ago> So non-resource limited prices may remain low, but couldn't most of it be captured by those items that are limited? Yes. And that's a very good point. For example, we might have the resources to feed the world, but we don't have the resources to feed the world meat 24/7. The price of meat would increase, so people would substitute other forms of food. > Like rent or health care? People could move out of the cities to avoid the rent increases, but then cost of services / taxes per person rise in those areas. Basic income allows people to move out of the cities because "proximity to jobs" is less of an incentive for them to live there. This causes the real estate prices in expensive cities like New York and San Francisco to drop as other areas become more desirable to live in. People wouldn't be moving out of the cities to avoid rent increases. They'd be moving out of the cities because it becomes more affordable to live outside of the cities. That, in turn, would cause rent prices in the cities to decrease. Health care prices are an issue that basic income doesn't solve. We need to address them regardless of whether we have a basic income.
- carapace 9y agoOkay, forgive me if this has been mentioned elsewhere here, I haven't read the whole thread. My take on UBI is that it only makes sense as a response to rampant automation that has marginalized a substantial (perhaps >75%) portion of the global human population. Meaning that most people cannot effectively enter the economy and provide for themselves because they just cannot compete against the machines, at some point in the near-future. In the limit, nanotech and fusion power will put almost all of us out of work (not to mention AI/ML et. al.) At that point, we have to figure out what to do with all these "surplus" people. The (gruesome) options are: enslave them (N. Korea), or kill them. One maybe-possible other solution is to just give them money and see what they do. From my POV any discussion of UBI as something other than a response to a "phase shift" in economic realities due to advancing automation is kind of missing the point. I actually would like to create a Universal Automation Inc. company and issue shares and get crackin', but I'm lazy and it seems to be happening anyway!
- jganetsk 9y agoUBI is inflationary and discourages people from working. Economists have moved on to better ideas than UBI, like the federal government providing a JG (Job Guarantee) or being an ELR (Employer of Last Resort): https://www.thenation.com/article/job-guarantee-government-plan-full-employment/# https://www.thenation.com/article/job-guarantee-government-p... The summary is: everyone who is willing and able to work should get a standard salary and benefits from the Federal Government. We could have a decentralized system for setting up/vetting/approving JG/ELR projects all across the country, but the Federal Government would pay JG/ELR participants directly. This could include all kinds of things, like Y Combinator. As for profit-sharing "United States, Inc" as Sam Altman proposes, we can do that too. We can set up a government program that says publicly traded companies in the USA will get a tax incentive if they promise to pay at least Y% of income in dividends. The government can take a small stake in these companies, and distribute the dividends equally to all citizens. It can try to track a broad stock-market index in its portfolio to make sure the investment passive (we don't want the government actively investing in companies, it shouldn't be picking winners and losers). Also, with a low-risk portfolio, the program would hopefully stay solvent, leaving the option of liquidating assets should we ever want to unwind this (for either political or economic reasons). Where do we get the money to do all this? Governments don't need to finance spending when they have sovereign control of their own currency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory
- Dylan16807 9y ago> UBI is inflationary and discourages people from working. Economists have moved on to better ideas than UBI, like the federal government providing a JG (Job Guarantee) or being an ELR (Employer of Last Resort) If by "discourages" you actually mean negative incentive to work, that would be awful. But I suspect you mean it lowers the incentive to work. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Productivity per hour keeps increasing. It's okay to let the average workweek get smaller. Minimum wage government labor is likely not the best use of a lot of people's time.
- sytelus 9y agoThe experiment Sam mentions is already heavily biased. They are giving away $1000-$2000 to few families in Oakland as basic income. The problem is that these families are already aware that some Silicon Valley billionaire is performing experiment on them and they know this life line would disappear in future. So they would be forced to make best out of it unlike if this was provided by government for rest of their lives unconditionally. Another counter point is that doing this at scale would have huge impact on pricing of services. A lot of people do monotonous boring repetitive work they absolutely hate even if it generates bare bone income. This can include everything from janitorial services to cashier at grocery store to construction sites. Once you get same amount of money for free, there is less incentive for anyone to do this sort of work. Consequently supply for workers would reduce while demand stays same. This would inflate prices of goods and services in general economy. My hunch is that price increase would be exactly such that to offset the basic income. So the net effect would be having no basic income at all. In countries like Finland things are different because of their sovereign funds, tax structure and external income sources.
- tom_mellior 9y ago> janitorial services to cashier at grocery store to construction sites. Once you get same amount of money for free, there is less incentive for anyone to do this sort of work Yes, the UBI will free the labor market to be an actual free market in which services are priced fairly. If you need a janitor, you will have to provide pay that the janitor is willing to work for, even if not threatened by starvation or homelessness.
- alva 9y agoWould like to hear Sam's thoughts on how this would impact on immigration. Could the system sustain the current or higher levels of immigration? If not, would Sam recommend cutting immigration drastically for this to be a viable option?
- mberning 9y agoEverybody knows that the numbers don’t add up (for long) when you allow unfettered immigration (legal or not). However, discussing strict immigration controls is highly impolitic these days.
- dragonwriter 9y agoWhile the whole point of the experiment that they are doing is to get a better idea of what BI could support, I can't see any reason why a UBI that was viable otherwise, with the obvious eligibility criteria (covered population is either citizens-only or citizens and legal permanent residents), would have any trouble with immigration at current levels. If UBI reduced minimum wages (say by $1/hr. for each $2000/yr. of UBI, from a pre-UBI target level that increases with inflation) and is not available to immigrants other than permanent residents, it might reduce immigration demand in categories that require a period of non-LPR status (and particularly attractiveness of resort to illegal immigration) by reducing both wages (but not total income, for citizens and LPRs) for unskilled workers directly in both open employment and, by indirect pressure, under-the-table employment.
- juicyfroot 9y agoThe level of taxation will lead to increased levels of Open Hypergamy.
- DLarsen 9y agoIt seems naive to think that the "universal" aspect would be maintained absolutely. At some point, the "bad people" don't deserve a share, and when it gets to the point that "happiness" can't be bought without UBI, you potentially have a very powerful means of near-universal coercion.
- partycoder 9y agoUniversal basic income is a complex issue. First, you need to see it as a part of the existing system: healthcare, education, law enforcement, prisons, etc. - A hospital cannot deny care to a patient in an emergency situation. Many medical emergencies occur due to poor living conditions. If you give money to people, their living conditions improve, improving their health and reducing their chances of getting in a medical emergency situation. - Law enforcement spends a lot of resources and time handling crime. Given money to people is a deterrent for crime. - Did you know that having a person in prison is more expensive than having them on a hotel? Since giving money to people deters crime, it also prevents them going to prison. So, in this respect, just by having people do absolutely nothing, you can end up saving money. This is unintuitive. Now, universal basic income can be bad in some cases. Many people in the economy do whatever it takes to have an income, however low. They will risk their lives, their health, do things they don't want to do. Universal basic income gives people an option to not engage in those activities.
- eaoliver 9y agoWhy does anyone care what Sam Altman thinks?
- phkahler 9y agoSam talked right over something very important. He points out that poor people have a hard time making rent and buying food. He then notes that it was difficult to give them money without affecting their subsidies. I've said before, if you give poor people money the first thing that will change is their rent. Every time the government make money for something more available the price of that something goes up - see housing (lower interest rates increase prices) and student loans (no explanation needed). IMHO the key is not to give people money, but to reduce the cost of their existence. Get rid of the mortgage deduction. Reduce or eliminate property taxes on homes. Heck, put a cap on what percentage of a home price can be borrowed. I agree that unlocking many peoples potential may require freeing them financially, but I don't agree that you do it by handing out money. While I'm ranting, I'd expect someone in tech to be able to model or simulate a hundred million person economy and figure out how to get desired outcomes rather than jump on some popular untested idea like BI. Kudos for trying to test it though, but it's not a real test unless it's economy-wide (rents won't really increase if 0.1 percent of the people get free money).
- maxxxxx 9y agoA nice experiment would be to start with universal health care. This probably needs to be part of UBI anyways. It would already free quite a few people of having to stay in a bad job and would allow people with families or who are older to be more entrepreneurial. Try this and see how the politics work out. The trend seems to go the other way though: taxes for upper incomes are being lowered, no estate tax and Obamacare is pretty much neglected until it falls apart. I think instead of UBI he should worry more about near term issues.
- staunch 9y agoHow can Sam Altman realize that YC is itself a potential solution and still do nothing? YC is still the same private club, that brags about funding just 3% of the founders that apply. If Elon Musk ran YC, he'd raise billions and fund thousands, and then use that success to fund tens of thousands, and then ...
- bobthechef 9y agoSentimentalizing about drinking tea around a candle resting on a table of nice wood is all fine and dandy, but let's put aside the images of upper middle class comforts and imagine your local butcher embedded in a family and a local community. He's providing a service people need and he's receiving money for his work which he uses to support his family and keep his business running. There is a network of interdependence in communities that also extends into the economic sphere of life. The butcher's trade, craft, and work are meaningful and the meaning exists in that web of relations. The butcher's motives are complex, but one motive is that his work is also for the sake of supporting himself and his family. His relationship with his family, his wife, his kids, is also complex, but part of it is the (at least partial) reliance on their husband and father in an economic sense. What does UBI do to the butcher and his relationship to his family and to his community?
- fulafel 9y agoAre you concerned that the butcher will stop butchering, because he doesn't like his job and would rather live frugally on just UBI without additional income from his job? And his partner would leave him, because the relationship was motivated only by financial dependence and also prefers a frugal UBI-only sustenance? After which progressives would cheer for both these developments and also because meat is unethical, and conservatives would have a case how it would destroy economy. I don't know, I'm sure there would be some decrease in economic activity from life changes by people who hate their jobs and have reluctant relationships held together by financial dependencies. But these would be probably be more than compensated by the productive impacts on people's lives.
- sriku 9y agoI find it interesting to read up on UBI schemes and the discussion here as well as Altman's is fascinating too. What particularly strikes me is how he points out that this already exists in cultures. Even in villages in India, you'd find people simply willing to do stuff for each other. If you have a wedding in your family, the village will come together to cook and serve meals, offer hospitality to your guests and generally work to make everyone happy on the occasion. If you happen to be mentally ill, someone would still feed and clothe you, include you at least in some small way in their social life, and so on. You won't be abandoned. UBI looks like a quantified version of this social capital. If we resist and think "why should someone else do nothing and get the benefits of my work?", the society has lost the practical generosities of village life and UBI might be a way to resurrect that. I personally find it pretty ridiculous that there are homeless and hungry people at all in the wealthiest of countries, and am certainly curious about what potentials UBI could unlock for them given they haven't yet fallen into antisocial ways despite their condition. Something is wrong if you see an old man in rags rummaging through a trash can for food scraps in a high GDP country.
- ryanx435 9y agoIt's ridiculous to extol the virtues of a society that values extended family, and then turn around and say it's a good sign for ubi in America, where our family unit has shrunk to minimal size. Ridiculous.
- joejerryronnie 9y agoThe reason a bunch of extremely wealthy people are huge proponents of UBI is because it is a way to create apathy in the general population. They hype up the great UBI enabled artist or entrepreneur trope while knowing full well the vast majority of UBI recipients will just buy more opioids and another pack of smokes. As the wealth gap continues to grow around the world, the UBI scenario is much more palatable to the ultra-wealthy than another French Revolution (nobody wants to end up as the Tech Titan equivalent of Louis and Marie).
- perilunar 9y agoI don't think people should view UBI as "giving away free money". Instead we should look at it from a geologist[1]/geolibertarian[2] perspective: as compensation for appropriation of land and natural resources that rightfully belong to everyone. UBI should be funded by land and resource taxes, not from income, sales or corporate taxes. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism
- akvadrako 9y agoHN has talked about funding UBI via a land value tax before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15264024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15264024 It makes a fair amount of sense, and puts the incentives in the right place.
- fuzzfactor 9y agoIt is easy for some of us to remember what it was like back in the '60's when SF rose to become the US center of non-capitalism at the time. The Grateful Dead were local musicians who gained more widespread popularity whether every one of them wanted it or not, especially once they got a record deal with a capitalist outfit that could advertise and promote in ways that the musicians could not or would not do on their own. As the purported "leader" of the band, Jerry Garcia for one indicated that he was soon earning more income than he really needed, and having a strong balance toward benevolence over greed, set out to give $1000 each to numerous individuals who without a doubt were truly in need of the funds. $1000 really would go a lot further then compared to a short 10 years later once the devastating devaluation of the US dollar was set into motion after it was unlinked to a universally appreciated natural resource (gold). Anyway, turns out that before too long it was determined that it was costing $1200 to give away each $1000, and the program ended up grinding to a halt.
- fuzzfactor 9y agoWell, here's a copy from memory of my post from hours ago that has now disappeared: Um, no need, it's in my comments but not in this message list any more, not necessary to use what's left of my feeble memory, I'll just copy & paste it back in :) Without the leading dollar sign for one of my run-on sentences, replaced by USD instead, just like you would do on a teletype machine. Quoting myself here: >It is easy for some of us to remember what it was like back in the '60's when SF rose to become the US center of non-capitalism at the time. >The Grateful Dead were local musicians who gained more widespread popularity whether every one of them wanted it or not, especially once they got a record deal with a capitalist outfit that could advertise and promote in ways that the musicians could not or would not do on their own. >As the purported "leader" of the band, Jerry Garcia for one indicated that he was soon earning more income than he really needed, and having a strong balance toward benevolence over greed, set out to give 1000USD each to numerous individuals who without a doubt were truly in need of the funds. >1000USD really would go a lot further then compared to a short 10 years later once the devastating devaluation of the US dollar was set into motion after it was unlinked to a universally appreciated natural resource (gold). >Anyway, turns out that before too long it was determined that it was costing 1200usd to give away each 1000USD, and the program ended up grinding to a halt.