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0 pointsmcny10mo ago0 comments

> You’re talking about 3-5 trillion dollars per year just for the USA

I just want to point out that's about a fifth of our GDP and we spend about this much for healthcare in the US. We badly need a way to reduce this to at least half.

> There is a reason we all pay for our own food and housing.

The main reason I support UBI is I don't want need based or need aware distribution. I want everyone to get benefits equally regardless of income or wealth. That's my entire motivation to support UBI. If you can come up with another something that guarantees no need based or need aware and does not have a benefit cliff, I support that too. I am not married to UBI.

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5 comments · 2 top-level

listenallyall10mo ago· 3 in thread

> I support UBI

Honestly, what type of housing do you envision under a UBI system? Houses? Modern apartment buildings? College dormitory-like buildings? Soviet-style complexes? Prison-style accommodations? B stands for basic, how basic?

ben_w10mo ago

(Not the person you're replying to)

I think a UBI system is only stable in conjunction with sufficient automation that work itself becomes redundant. Before that point, I don't think UBI can genuinely be sustained; and IMO even very close to that point the best I expect we will see, if we're lucky, is the state pension age going down. (That it's going up in many places suggests that many governments do not expect this level of automation any time soon).

Therefore, in all seriousness, I would anticipate a real UBI system to provide whatever housing you want, up to and including things that are currently unaffordable even to billionaires, e.g. 1:1 scale replicas of any of the ships called Enterprise including both aircraft carriers and also the fictional spaceships.

That said, I am a proponent of direct state involvement in the housing market, e.g. the UK council housing system as it used to be (but not as it now is, there're not building enough):

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_the_United_K...

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_house

oinfoalgo10mo ago

The bigger issue to me is that not all geography is anything close to equal.

I would much rather live on a beach front property than where I live right now. I don't because the cost trade off is too high.

To bring the real estate market into equilibrium with UBI you would have to turn rural Nebraska into a giant slab city like ghetto. Or every mid sized city would have a slab city ghetto an hour outside the city. It would be ultra cheap to live there but it would be a place everyone is trying to save up to move out of. It would create a completely new under class of people.

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listenallyall10mo ago

I appreciate your perspective but clearly most UBI advocates are talking about something much sooner. However my response to your vision is that even if "work" is totally automated or redundant, the resources (building materials) and the energy to power the robots or whatever, will be more expensive and tightly controlled than ever. Power and wealth simply wont allow everything to be accessible to everyone. The idea that people would be able to build enormous mansions (or personal aircraft carriers or spaceships) just sounds rather absurd, no offense, but come on.

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dbdblldwn10mo ago

Just want to point out that any abstract intrinsic value about the economy like GDP is a socialized illusion

Reduce costs by eliminating fiat ledgers that only have value if we believe and realize the real economy is physical statistics and ship resources where the people demand

But of course that simple solution violates the embedded training of Americans. So it's a non-starter and we'll continue to desperately seek some useless reformation of an antiquated social system.

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