wordshaper

wordshaper, 1 day ago

@davidho it makes a depressing amount of sense. Partly the political class has a zero sum mentality (they dont care if things get better, they just want control over what there is right now) but also science has this pesky habit of saying “that idea you want is impossible in six different ways and also trying for it would break all sorts of stuff”

The Brexit campaign demonstrated this — the analysis showed all the failures but some folks wanted their fantasy so actively squished reality

wordshaper, 1 day ago

@davidho it’s very toddler-like, to close your eyes and pretend the thing you don’t like doesn’t exist, but…

wordshaper, 1 day ago

@ovid I suspect, very cynically but also with some certainty, that the loss of what’s essentially slave labor and control over the serfs is a big motivator for the ultra wealthy to be against UBI.

wordshaper, 1 day ago

@ovid yeah, this is one of the core issues when using pricing as a method of changing people’s behavior. It works, but only if there’s a viable alternative. Raising gas taxes while expanding public transportation? That can work. Just raising gas prices? That doesn’t if there isn’t an alternative.

wordshaper, 1 day ago

@PRNE @ovid the different UBI schemes that have been tested around the world have demonstrated this just isn’t the case (it’s a valid concern, but doesn’t happen in ways that matter). UBI is also a net positive for the economy, since the lower down you are on the economic ladder the more effective your spending has. Give somebody making $10k/year some cash and we find that money goes through more hands than the same amount of cash in the hands of someone wealthy.

wordshaper, 1 day ago

@PRNE @ovid the rich are really economically inefficient, while the poor are extremely efficient. Which is weird but makes sense when you think about it and also is borne out by the research.

wordshaper, 1 day ago

@PRNE @ovid we’ve been running large scale welfare programs for a very long time. The effects of giving poor people money (in, to be fair, the least efficient and most abusive way possible) is pretty well known. UBI just removes a lot of the abuse and inefficiency.

It’s also basically a mathematical transform of “raise taxes on the rich a lot” and we also know how that works. (Rather well, it turns out, and it benefits folks who aren’t taxed higher even if they don’t get the tax money)

wordshaper, 1 day ago

@PRNE @ovid they won’t raise rents by $1000. They may raise it some, but less than the increase in income, and on the whole even if they do a fair percentage of the extra rent will stay in the local economy.

wordshaper, 1 day ago

@ovid yep. Sorry, I wasn’t clear—raising prices to alter people’s behavior is only useful when there’s a viable alternative or the behavior is optional. For things like raising gas prices there isn’t a good alternative in the short term for many people which makes them punitive rather than motivational.

I think that higher gs taxes are a good idea but there needs to be an alternative or help. (Which UBI can be, and I rather like UBI)

wordshaper, 3 days ago

@drahardja @gilduran frankly, if they used that image and billed this project as “we’re going to dig a giant pit and throw billionaires into it” the voters might actually approve it.

wordshaper, 5 days ago

@pdcawley @carnage4life you know what’s going to happen is that “AI safety” will go trinary—people to apply to, people to not apply to, and not person shaped. Then the MilAI people will grab those models and invert them for their shooty things.