| It's not universal if only selected individuals get it. And you can't live on 325 euros in a place like Ireland. So it's not even basic income. But it's a nice temporary subsidy. Proper basic income has never really been tried. It would have to be universal (for the entire population) and be enough to live on. Most countries have non universal basic income in the form of benefits, state pensions, food stamps, and various social security insurance programs. One way or another people that can't or won't work still get enough to survive. Mostly, countries don't let their citizens starve. They mostly don't put them out on the streets. And if people get sick, generally hospitals/doctors will help. You won't necessarily get a very nice version of all that in most countries. If you think of basic income like that, UBI is actually not that much of a departure from that status quo. It just establishes that as a bare minimum that everybody gets one way or another. The reason that the idea gets a lot of push back is that people have a lot of morals about having to earn stuff which then results in complex rules to qualify for things only if you are unable to earn a living. Which then turns into a lot of complex schemes to establish non universal income that comes into a variety of forms and shapes. But it adds up to the same result: everybody is taken care off. A proper UBI would have to award it to anyone. That's what universal means. It would be a simplification of what we have now. If you are employed, you would get a chunk of income from UBI and the rest from your employer. Basically, you work to add income on top of your UBI and it's between you and your employer to sort out how much you work and how much you earn. If you get unemployed, you fall back to UBI. UBI would be untaxed. But if you work or earn income you pay taxes. Company earnings are taxed as well. And you pay VAT when you buy stuff. Those revenue streams are what already fund things today. People think of UBI as extra cost but it could actually be a cost saving if done properly. There's a lot of bureaucracy that's no longer needed. You could still layer insurances and benefits on top of course. But that would be more optional. And you could incentivize people to work that are currently actively incentivized to not work (e.g. to not lose benefits or get penalized on their pensions). People forget that the status quo is not free either and that it requires an enormous, convoluted bureaucracy that also costs money. UBI could end up being simpler and cheaper. The hard part with UBI is balancing fairness and financial viability and implementing it in a way that isn't massively disruptive and complicated. You'd need to incentivize most people to still want to work while making the system generous enough that people can opt not to. That's not a solved problem and the key show stopper. Many people that work object against anyone getting anything for free. But if you consider the status quo, we already have a lot of people not working anyway. And we all pay for that already. That is actually a rather large percentage of people that are allowed to vote in many countries. Mostly the moral arguments against UBI are what perpetuates the very inefficient and costly status quo. We just keep on making that harsher, more complicated, and more expensive. Effectively if you work, you are paying extra for all that inefficiency. Worse, you can work your ass off your whole life and still have to worry about having enough to retire, the affordability of housing, or being able to afford essential health care. |
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| ▲ | nradov 13 hours ago | parent [-] | | And "proper" UBI will never actually be tried, at least not on any significant scale. Because if you actually run the numbers you'll see that the level of taxation required plus the inflationary effects make the whole scheme unworkable. | | |
| ▲ | Legend2440 13 hours ago | parent [-] | | Taxation and inflation are 2nd order effects. There's a deeper underlying reason. The point of work is to produce the things we need to live. Somebody's gotta grow the crops, drive the trucks, mop the floors, crunch the numbers, process the paperwork, write the code, whatever. If you offer enough UBI for people to live without working... the work won't get done, and things we need won't get made. | | |
| ▲ | Jblx2 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Has anyone ever tried to look at the concept of a Universal Basic Job? If you can show up semi-sober, you get paid to paint over graffiti, or pick up trash along the road, or something. | | |
| ▲ | loeg 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | This is kinda what minimum wage jobs are? You could say depression era WPA/CCC programs were an example of a government providing this. | | |
| ▲ | Jblx2 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, minimum wage jobs are kind of the opposite. They push underqualified people to the side, since who wants to pay $15/hour for someone only capable of producing $5/hr of value. And most jobs generally come with more obligations, like "we need you here 2pm - 10pm, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday". |
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| ▲ | Legend2440 14 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The trouble is that paying a few people to not work is very very different from paying everyone to not work. We need people to work to produce the things they need to live. As long as this remains true, UBI can never happen. This fantasy of being able to live without working is out of touch with the cold hard reality. | | |
| ▲ | lostlogin 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > As long as this remains true, UBI can never happen. New Zealand pays a pension to everyone over 65, whether or not they are working. No means testing and little political will to move the age upward.
About 25% of those over 65 work, and the percentage is growing. There are multiple reasons this could be true (eg, limited savings forcing work).
The lack of means testing obviously saves money and shenanigans working out who is entitled, though the ‘universal’ nature limited how much a needy recipient can get. I argue this is a test case on UBI. | |
| ▲ | yawboakye 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > paying a few people to not work not in this case though. as explained elsewhere, the artist is a dying career choice in ireland owing to economic reasons. no artist == drub society therefore the incompetent government intervenes the only way incompetence approves: free money. making the state function is much harder, and that’s not what these politicians signed up for. reducing electricity bill by 50% is a herculean task so how about jacking up taxes in one place and giving it back as free money in another? this is the modus operandi of the irish government. | |
| ▲ | _DeadFred_ 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The problem is soon (and to some extent currently) there won't be enough work for everyone, and there definitely won't be enough to support them at a historical lifestyle level. I guess those people continuing to live (or live semi-well) would be fantasy to you. I'm not sure where society will go at that point. The western world has sold a 'we are improving your life' story to get buy in from the masses. What do you propose? Other options used in the past were typically state provided bread and circuses and/or waging war. | | |
| ▲ | Legend2440 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Your entire idea of economics is backwards. There is more than enough work for everyone right now, and (outside of recessions) we will not run out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy As more and more work is automated, the lifestyle level increases rather than decreases. Automation lets you produce more with the same amount of labor, increasing productivity and raising the standard of living. This is the sole reason we're not subsistence farmers right now. War does not help the masses; it is purely destructive and one of the worst things you can do for the economy in the long run. | | |
| ▲ | _DeadFred_ 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | And yet my kids standard of living is worse. Their optimism about their employment is worse. I never used to know people working multiple very menial part time jobs to survive other than people restarting their lives. When I was young people working second jobs were saving money for a vacation or using them to pay for a fancy car, not as part of their basic budget/means of earning an income. "Ray Dalio says America is developing a ‘dependency’ on the top 1% of workers, while the bottom 60% are struggling and unproductive" https://fortune.com/2025/10/27/ray-dalio-america-dependeny-t... "Millions of Americans Are Becoming Economically Invisible "
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45374779 War is unproductive and a destructive use of resources but that doesn't change that it has historically be an outlet for unused labor. My point was that if we don't approach things intelligently/intentionally we can end up with crappy unwanted/unintentional outcomes. |
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| ▲ | nradov 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | How soon is "soon"? I don't know about Ireland but the US unemployment rate remains near record lows. We still don't have robots that can snake out a plugged toilet. | | |
| ▲ | _DeadFred_ 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm not sure the exact trajectory but it's going pretty quickly now. "Ray Dalio says America is developing a ‘dependency’ on the top 1% of workers, while the bottom 60% are struggling and unproductive" https://fortune.com/2025/10/27/ray-dalio-america-dependeny-t... "Millions of Americans Are Becoming Economically Invisible " https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45374779 | | |
| ▲ | nradov 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Ray Dalio says a lot of things, only about half are correct. Where is the data? Employers are quick to fire unproductive workers and yet the unemployment rate remains low. | | |
| ▲ | TheOtherHobbes 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | The figures exclude workers who would like to work but have given up, and those who work part-time but would like a full-time job. The U-6 rate is nearly twice the rate of the official figures. | | |
| ▲ | bobthepanda 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Also, one major confounding factor is that in 2008, gig economy apps like Uber did not exist. The unemployment rate is measured by if someone has done an hour of paid work in the last week. Which is pretty easy to disqualify for if you do any gig economy work. And in a true slowdown the gig apps will probably stop being able to absorb people. |
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| ▲ | its_magic 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | baseballdork 14 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This is such a bad faith argument. Society has largely agreed that welfare is a valuable thing to do, from disability to social security. Calling taxation theft just says that you aren't able to be rational about this. | | |
| ▲ | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Calling taxation theft From reading their comments here, it seems to me that they are saying the theft occurs when labor is sold for a pittance in foreign markets so that things produced by said labor can be sold at a lower price (as compared to when more expensive labor is hired) in domestic markets. ("Basic income" = other people work as slaves in a factory somewhere so you can sit at home and "discover yourself.") The UBI would logically be an extension of that whereby the UBI program itself can only be funded by this disparity and therefore any beneficiary of such a program must be participating, however indirectly, in that theft. (Perhaps especially if one is a loud proponent of such a program.) Ostensibly, from this perspective, one might consider whether the laborers should benefit more from their labor, rather than the consumers of products which are produced by said labor. It doesn't seem a particularly disagreeable or irrational perspective, at least on its face, though the seemingly disparaging mention of Marxism looks out of place given this perspective is rather Marxist. Of course, whether one refers to that as "theft" is up to them; I'm just offering this alternate perspective since I didn't read it the way the parent did. | | |
| ▲ | baseballdork 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Not sure how you reconcile this take with "People don't like being robbed, PERIOD, especially not to pay for a bunch of weed smokers to sit at home relaxing on their dime. There will be blood." This person doesn't like taxation. Tough. | | |
| ▲ | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Ah, missed that. For what it's worth, I can kinda read that sentence both ways but it does seem easier to read as being anti-tax. Actually, taking the two quotes juxtaposed like this, their take reads quite a lot like "think of the third-world laborers" in defense of billionaires. Edit: Oh, and their reply. | | |
| ▲ | its_magic 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's a "he", not a "they", FYI. In case you were considering actually addressing its thoughts, rather than attacking some ridiculous strawman. | | |
| ▲ | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Do you think I did not address your thoughts in my initial reply? Do you think you are addressing others' thoughts and not attacking ridiculous men made of straw? You do not seem to be making a good case for yourself. | | |
| ▲ | its_magic 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | "You're not making a very good case for yourself," says the armed robber. |
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| ▲ | baseballdork 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I still cannot see how you get that impression. | | |
| ▲ | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't see much of a point in replying with this comment. It reads like your point is "I don't understand your perspective so it must be wrong", which is folly. If you're looking for a suggestion of how to gain such an understanding, I've certainly got one of those: put more effort into arguing in favor of perspectives you disagree with. Not only will it help you to understand the disagreeable point of view, it will additionally help you to strengthen your beliefs. I appreciate the added context nonetheless. | | |
| ▲ | baseballdork 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I’m looking for you to back up your perspective with context in this thread that gave you that perspective. | | |
| ▲ | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | You must have missed it but I already did that; it's in my initial comment. | | |
| ▲ | baseballdork 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | You're right, I completely forgot about what you put in that first comment because it seemed like extremely wishful thinking, bordering on gaslighting. Then, given all the comments since then that have been explicitly about taxation, I assumed that you had reassessed and had something new to contribute given how thoroughly those new comments debunked those original statements. Oh well. |
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| ▲ | its_magic 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Your perspective is you want to take my hard-earned money and give it to some pothead to sit at home and "do artwork." My perspective is I'd rather keep my weed money to myself. And that's exactly what I shall do. Want to fight about it? Your plans to rob society even more than your ilk already do are selfish, idiotic, and will end in ruin--deservedly so. I have spoken. |
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| ▲ | its_magic 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Jesus Christ didn't like taxation either. He preached that it was theft also. That's one big reason why they murdered him, then sent Paul (aka Saul) along to invent a new 'explanation' of the Parable of the Coin more favorable to the Roman viewpoint. Regardless of whatever pretense you put on, you are in fact a member of a gang of thieves plotting to rob your next victim, just as Lysander Spooner explained in the 1800s: "If any man's money can be taken by a so-called government, without his own personal consent, all his other rights are taken with it; for with his money the government can (and will) hire soldiers to stand over him, compel him to submit to its arbitrary will, and kill him if he resists." - Lysander Spooner
"If taxation without consent is robbery, the United States government has never had, has not now, and is never likely to have, an honest dollar in its treasury. If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized." - Lysander Spooner
"The Rothschilds, and that class of money-lenders of whom they are the representatives and agents -- men who never think of lending a shilling to their next-door neighbors for purposes of honest industry, unless upon the most ample security, and at the highest rate of interest -- stand ready at all times to lend money in unlimited amounts to those robbers and murderers who call themselves governments, to be expended in shooting down those who do not submit quietly to being robbed and enslaved." - Lysander Spooner
"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist." - Lysander Spooner
Hint: We are now in the "raising of the spirits of the dead" phase of prophecy; the above being an example of what is meant by that phrase. You Are Here. | | |
| ▲ | baseballdork 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | I guess I'm confused why I ought to care what Christ or Spooner think about taxation? | | |
| ▲ | its_magic 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | In time you will learn the importance of respecting the lives of others. | | |
| ▲ | baseballdork 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | I’m not sure why you believe I don’t | | |
| ▲ | its_magic 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | The subject of this conversation is your desire to rob me. | | |
| ▲ | baseballdork 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, it's about your viewpoint on taxation and how it's a pointless task to try and reason with a person that takes that stance. "Respecting the lives of others" doesn't preclude taxation to any rational person. | | |
| ▲ | its_magic 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Wrong. Theft or robbery is never justified, no matter what name you give it or how you paint and pretty it up and try to pretend that it's just. The fact of the matter is, you're sticking a gun in somebody's face and demanding money, to be used for your own selfish purposes, or under some pretense of "the public good." That's a crime. You are a criminal. Hear the words of a man much wiser and better than you: "If taxation without consent is robbery, the United States government has never had, has not now, and is never likely to have, an honest dollar in its treasury. If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized." - Lysander Spooner
The people you call "rational" are in fact slaves, just like you. That's what you were bred to be, for countless generations. Today you are capable of nothing else but blind, loyal obedience to your owners. You're a crab in a bucket, dragging any other crab back in who dares to attempt escape."Rationality" is not a concept your type is actually familiar with. You are incapable of any kind of independent life or thought. Every single "thought" you have was programmed into your mind. Real, actual freedom scares the shit out of you. The only purpose of your meager existence is to make your owners more wealthy and powerful. When you no longer serve this purpose, you will be discarded--tossed into the fire and forgotten, like a burnt out cigarette stub. That's not long off now. |
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| ▲ | ekidd 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > What is it about robbing one group of people to pay another that you would expect to "work"? Well, let's say we get one or two more breakthroughs in AI, and it succeeds in automating literally every job that can be done at a computer. And then it starts investing heavily in robotics. This would render human labor as uncompetitive as horse labor is today. At this point, you have two basic scenarios: something like UBI, or (if the machines are less cooperative) John Conner. This actually seems at least as likely these days as a warmed over libertarian argument that, "Taxes are really just slavery!" | | |
| ▲ | Schmerika 13 hours ago | parent [-] | | > At this point, you have two basic scenarios: something like UBI, or (if the machines are less cooperative) John Conner. Well, there is a third basic scenario; where the billionaires who control the AI use it to help get rid of all the poors once they're no longer necessary. If that were true though, we'd probably see them all frantically scrambling to control AI, buying private islands and blackmail networks, getting heavily involved in pandemic preparedness programs, genetic engineering, virus research, instigating massive wars, buying up all the media and politicians, creating massive surveillance programs and building deep underground bunkers. Stuff like that. So, nothing to worry about. |
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| ▲ | philipwhiuk 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > robbery: the action of taking property unlawfully from a person or place by force or threat of force. The language of Shakespeare and Seuss deserves better than this mindlessness. It is not robbery because it is not unlawful. | | |
| ▲ | its_magic 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | In fact theft is always unlawful, no matter what alternate name you give it or how many of your fellow thieves and vampires approve of the crime. |
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