Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway People’

Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by Mikushi on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @04:25AM (#14399750)

> Everyone seems to be discussing UBI and largely ignoring the fact that even if you cut everyone a check for some kind of basic income, if we don't solve some of our housing issues, you will still see growing numbers of people either homeless or crammed together like sardines in a space not intended to hold that many people.

And you seem to miss the fact that with UBI you have no incentive to live and stay in an expensive area.

For the deposit amount on an average house where I live I would cover 80% of the cash price of a bigger house country side. But you know, I'd have no work.

The problem is not housing, the problem is cramming all the work in cities. My last 3 jobs could've been done remotely, I asked and was always denied even while offering to take a pay cut.

I and many like me despise living in cities, we do not live there by choice. I've slightly moved out of a big one (London) but still live/work in the outer rim where housing is a dream far away, even on a way above average salary.

Give me UBI and I quit my job to settle country side tomorrow, so would my wife. So would a few of my colleagues.

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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by flexie on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @05:27AM (#14399951)

> And you seem to miss the fact that with UBI you have no incentive to live and stay in an expensive area.

Like many people here on HN, I can work from anywhere with electricity, Internet and decent cell phone coverage. But I still strongly prefer a bigger city, and I even prefer to be close to the city center, not out in suburbia. The reasons are many:

- close to the city center I can chose between some of the best schools in the country for my kids. Outside the city center, I would have to chose a mediocre school. In the cuntryside, I would have to have to go with whatever is there

- I like going out with my wife. In the city we can chose between all kinds of cuisines, cafes and bars. In a village, we would be lucky to find a pub with fries. In suburbia that would be a strip mall.

- Shopping in easy in the city center. Whether you like it or not, you need to do groceries on a daily basis and to buy clothes etc every now and then, and this is far easier when you live in the city.

- I like to walk for things (walk my kids to school, walk to do groceries, or just walk for the sake of it). Curiously, I find that this is easier in the city center with sidewalks and parks than in the countryside, where I would walk in the side of a highway or road.

- In the city center I can do sports (tennis, soccer). Yes, I might find that option in the countryside or in suburbia, but in the city I can chose between 10 different teams, venues etc.

- I like people. There are many more people in the cities, especially younger people.

- I like to travel. I can take the metro to the airport in the city and visit hundreds of places within a a few hours of flight. Driving 2 hours to the nearest local airport to transfer to a bigger airport would kill that. I live far from my family and friends. They would visit much less if I didn't live near an international airport.

What I am trying to say is that I think nowadays people live in the city for many other reasons than work.

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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by ghaff on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @07:42AM (#14400410)

The numbers suggest that the supposed urbanization trend is the product of a narrow demographic--relatively wealthy childless younger people. (Of course, there are exceptions.)

See https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/01/the-s... for one example.

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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by Mikushi on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @06:22AM (#14400137)

> What I am trying to say is that I think nowadays people live in the city for many other reasons than work.

I think we both agree there.

From my own limited sample I see the opposite trend as well, people who would rather live country side.

What I was getting at is that even if people like me are a small sample (20%? more, less, who knows. If anyone has got numbers I'm interested), if you free us to go live country side suddenly there's more space and housing available for people like you.

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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by kwhitefoot on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @06:19AM (#14400120)

I think Mikushi's point would be that UBI gives both of you greater freedom to choose. It would probably reduce inner city housing costs a little as some of the people who currently are there only because they have no other way of getting an income decide to take their labour elsewhere where they can get more value for their contribution..

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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by wickawic on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @07:16AM (#14400314)

> take their labour elsewhere

If we are talking about a UBI, we might as well start treating people like people again instead of job-executing machines!

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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by nojvek on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @10:42AM (#14401629)

People are essentially job executing machines for corporations. That's the basis of capitalism. Telling yourself otherwise is just lying to yourself.

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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by malandrew on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @12:21PM (#14402532)

Those corporations provide the goods and services that makes life liveable for 7.3 billion people on this planet. I'm curious what other alternatives to capitalism and firms (to use Ronald Coase's term) would have been able to achieve and sustain a quality of life equal to or better than what these 7.3 billion currently enjoy. Capitalism is the basis of the quality of life for 7.3 billion humans on Earth. Telling yourself otherwise is just lying to yourself.

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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by Mikushi on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @04:03PM (#14404763)

And telling yourself that on such a small sample (200years) Captialism is a success is lying to yourself. We're already facing the hard consequences of capitalism and consumerisms, and with no real change in sight all the QOL improvement in the world will not matter when this planet is mostly destroyed.

But who cares, we'll go trash Mars with Elon.

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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by sokoloff on Wednesday May 24, 2017 @06:56AM (#14409030)

It may only be 200 years, but that's the largest sample we have of a system scaling to support 7+ billion people.

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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by kwhitefoot on Wednesday May 24, 2017 @02:00AM (#14407889)

> might as well start treating people like people

That's probably too radical!

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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by Mz on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @02:28PM (#14403821)

And you seem to miss the fact that with UBI you have no incentive to live and stay in an expensive area.

I am homeless. I also have portable income. I have already used that fact to move someplace cheaper. That failed to get me back into housing. I plan to move again in the near future to move someplace even cheaper.

So, no, I am not missing anything. You are just LA LA LA not listening to the fact that if you cannot find housing cheap enough that your pathetic low income will cover rent, fuck you. So, I stand by my statement that UBI won't really do shit all if we don't solve the affordable housing issue.

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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by dagw on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @04:30AM (#14399760)

Give me UBI and I quit my job to settle country side tomorrow, so would my wife. So would a few of my colleagues.

If you're a halfway skilled programmer you can scrape together the equivalent of what you'd get on any sort of realistic UBI doing small freelance jobs while living in the country side.

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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by geon on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @05:20AM (#14399928)

And going freelance is scary without some kind of economical safety net. Like ubi.

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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by bicubic on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @07:05AM (#14400277)

Bingo. All of these 'but you can work remotely' suggestions are non starters to anyone who isn't already relatively wealthy, because they carry immense risk.

If there was a serious safety net that guaranteed a decent quality of life, a significant portion of people would be taking on those options and leave the city centers.

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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by pnutjam on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @12:17PM (#14402495)

True, it's one thing to convince your employer to let you work remotely. It's a totally different thing to convince a new employer to hire you remotely. I'm leaving the midwest because there are too few opportunities for the work I do. I'll be fighting it out in NY soon.

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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by Pica_soO on Thursday May 25, 2017 @10:43AM (#14417602)

Not worth the people you have to put up with.

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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by driverdan on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @09:40AM (#14401054)

> Give me UBI and I quit my job to settle country side tomorrow, so would my wife. So would a few of my colleagues.

That's one of the problems with UBI. It has a negative impact on productivity which is bad for society.

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Re:Alone on the Open Road: Truckers Feel Like ‘Throwaway Peo... by wishinghand on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @10:20AM (#14401370)

They didn't explicitly say it but since earlier in the comment they mentioned looking for remote work, I imagine they'd still search for it after they move. The key here is they wouldn't have to wait for the job first.

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