@bonifartius Yup, its hard for them to say no when you take on all the risk, for sure :)

@kilroy_was_here

feel free to discuss/debate/share on any aspects youd like in more detail. They are there to spark conversation.

@freemo

I have a flipped view of welfare and UBI, I think there should be a UBI and that welfare programs should be eliminated and their funding directed towards a UBI. Primarily because the administrative bloat of many disparate programs could be greatly reduced with a single program.

I'm not hard-set on any particular conception of a UBI, however I do like the concept of a negative income tax.

@kilroy_was_here Ahh ok.

Yea I disagree because in my years of helping people I have found that people who need the most help are hurt rather than helped by unconditional money. It is only when the money carries with it the restriction of the person actively gathering skills to get out of poverty it will harm people more than help.

Since the goal should be to help society and not cause harm, and not simply to be cheap and give away free stuff, I strongly oppose UBI. The extra costs of welfare is worth the reward of doing actual good.

That said welfare programs need to be significantly redesigned to live up to that ideal, they dont currently.

@freemo

See, I think a UBI would help more people. Look at what happened during Covid where there was kind of a semi-UBI. Many people broke off and started their own businesses, started doing their own thing.

I want to see an explosion of local business rather than having all our eggs in one big corporate basket. We'd see some actual capitalism happening! Making it so people can try new ideas without going destitute would support this goal and we'd all be on a more solid economic footing.

@kilroy_was_here

Except thats not how it happens. Few people if any will start a business because of UBI. Even if they did it will have a high rate of going under. When people dont have to earn the money they usually neglect it and waste it.

Every company i helped fund thaat wasnt earned quickly failed.. i learned early on that that is the best way to destroy wealth, to give it to someone who didnt earn it.

@kilroy_was_here

Also lets keep in mind that there is an avenue for people to fund their ideas. It just requires their ideas be well thought out and can show a good case for it. Like there are whole investor networks a poor person can take a well developed business plan and get investment.

The thing is without that check people will just waste money on tons of nonsensical ideas. I cant tell you how many people ive seen come into lump sums of money by good fortune, sometimes millions, and they were bankrupt within the year.

@freemo @kilroy_was_here This reminds me of the operations that lend small amounts to women in Africa. It's often used to start micro businesses and usually paid back. Whereas giving large amounts of money to Africa just results in high living among the already corrupt.

Most people do not know how to access those investor networks and would not know where to start.

@mike805

> Most people do not know how to access those investor networks and would not know where to start.

If you can not be successful at raising money then you wont be successful running a business. Learning how to access those networks (its real easy with a little time on google or taking a class) is a good test to prove you are competent enough to run a business. Running a business is a lot harder than learning about investor networks.

@kilroy_was_here

@kilroy_was_here @freemo ‘means testing’ was a neoliberal invention paraded in the oligarch press as a means to break post WWII social cohesion that resulted from interdependency necessitated by war - so brought back divide and rule. UBI is more efficient and cheaper.

@DaveFernig

Effecient and cheaper is not what we need to care about here.

First we care about what gets people out of poverty, not what is cheapest. Ubi doesnt do that, quite the opposite it enables bad behavior

Second, UBI leads to wealth destruction and is bad for the economy due to the above reason and will ultimately cause harm, not good.

@kilroy_was_here

@freemo @DaveFernig @kilroy_was_here

> Effecient and cheaper is not what we need to care about here.

No dude, that's literally what we care about - helping poor people and spending as little money and resources as possible so that the money saved can be spent on helping more people.

A fun thing that ubi was tested several times, we have an empirical evidence that it works, in different economic landscapes. Yet people still think it will break the economy and turn everyone in lazy bastards

https://www.businessinsider.com/ubi-cash-payments-reduced-homelessness-increased-employment-denver-2023-10?op=1

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/02/the-results-finlands-universal-basic-income-experiment-are-in-is-it-working/

https://www.vox.com/2018/9/10/17827836/cash-basic-income-uganda-study-blattman-charity

No one says it's a magic thing that solve everything, it's just better than the usual crappy conditional benefits. But it looks like it's what people are expecting from it, "either your ubi will solve EVERYTHING or it useless" 🤷‍♀️

@lonelyowl

> No dude, that's literally what we care about - helping poor people and spending as little money and resources as possible so that the money saved can be spent on helping more people.

Right we want to actually **help** poor people, that is the priority over effiency. UBI **harms** poor people by enabling them (giving them money and fueling bad habbits with no conditions placed on it). Since helping poor people is the priority UBI is a solid no.

Also the fact that it fuels wealth destruction it has the secondary effect of not just negating any perceived effiency but also harming the overall economy significantly compared to incentive based welfare.

> A fun thing that ubi was tested several times, we have an empirical evidence that it works, in different economic landscapes. Yet people still think it will break the economy and turn everyone in lazy bastards

No I have talked in depth about how most of the studies suggesting UBI is a net positive is easily debunked. When I have time ill dig up my old posts on it where I debunk these sorts of claims in detail. I dont have the bandwidth for that level of engagement right now.

@kilroy_was_here @DaveFernig

@lonelyowl

Ok do have a few minutes afterall so I'll give some quick pointed.

1) none of these are peer-reviewed studies

2) The first 2 studies are survey based, and not objectively measured. In other words, people can lie, and their feelings are less important than tangable results anyway. 2nd study as the study says didnt even show long term improvements.

3) None of the studies look at economic effects overall. The first one was too small, second one only cared about how people felt,

4) None of the studies address if their actual lifestyle and behaviors were improved or if bad behaviors enabled, which was the focus of what I stated

5) None of the studies showed UBI **Actually** helped, as in, that the people were able to earn more money as a result of the UBI rather than becoming dependent on the UBI (and thus causing wealth destruction).

@kilroy_was_here @DaveFernig

@lonelyowl

Oh and also the results even if we take the studies at face value even prove my point.

In Denver for example the group given a whopping 1000$ still had 1/3 of them waste the money on drugs and not get a home. Compare that to welfare where it would be conditional an incentive based, thus it would provide the home directly, thus not having this problem, 100% of people would therefore have homes if the home was provided instead of the cash.

@kilroy_was_here @DaveFernig

@freemo @lonelyowl @kilroy_was_here why is it that only poor people have bad habits are lazy etc?

@DaveFernig

No one said its only them. The others just dont need help, so they **can** be lazy (since they did enough work to not need help and now can be lazy)... in some cases its just luck too, which again is find since they dont need help so they can be lazy.

Its not that poor people are the only ones lazy, its just that the poor people who are lazy is a problem when you want to get people out of needing help.

@lonelyowl @kilroy_was_here

@freemo @lonelyowl @kilroy_was_here did they do enough work or inherited? 1st gen College students and PhDs for examples have a large handicap - despite parents working themselves to the bone to get them there.

@DaveFernig

A bit of both. How is that relevant to a poor person who happens to be lazy and thus stuck in poverty?

@lonelyowl @kilroy_was_here

@robryk I mean to say there should be no laws which infringe on access to guns. In other words there should be a path to ownership for **all** guns, and that should not give preferential treatment to any class of person (which also means not putting up financial barriers).

@freemo and presumably on carrying them? (For example in CH access to guns is pretty open, albeit in most cases carries a registration requirement, but carrying them other than to move them between places is mostly illegal.)

Many European people will find what you are saying confusing or misunderstand it. I'd rather phrase it as "unrestricted access and unrestricted carry".

@KarunaX Usually someone on either side finds something in there to equate me with being a radical fromt he other side... Its usually either my stance of limited time-frame for abortions (as I tend to lean rather aggressive and say within the first 2-months but only with free access to pregnancy tests), or my stance on guns... at least from the left. The right will usually take issue with everything else.