Re:A decentralised Universal Basic Income platform based on ...
by WorldMaker on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @12:23PM
(#15907401)
> In some sense, people depend on society to maintain their quality of life and provide for a subset of their needs; people also contribute to society and maintain it in turn. You're talking about cutting out the latter and keeping the former without replacing it with anything to support yourself with, which makes you completely dependent on society to provide everything for you, not just some things.
Sorry, no, that's not what I'm talking about.
I am saying that I'd like to see the notion of "contributes to the labor market" entirely disentangled from the notion of "contributes to society". Those are very separate concepts, but today everyone talks about the morality of the first as if it is the morality of the second.
Consider it moral relativism if you will, but I think "contributes to society" is and should be a very low bar. Existing as a law abiding member of a society alone is a contribution.
Child care is extremely undervalued by the labor market, but hugely valuable to society. Child care raises the next generation of that society, after all.
In the case of the "town drunk", making transactions to buy a legal vice is a contribution, keeping the money circulating in that town. That "town drunk" may even contribute directly to the well being of people directly in the way that they brighten people's days.
The lower the bar we set as a society, the greater the safety net, the larger the trampoline. Yes, that's a bit selfish to want, but a large safety net, a giant trampoline lets you take huge risks in the labor market, lets you take huge risks undervalued by the labor market.
I got laid off in a terrible state once, where to collect the unemployment insurance money to which I contributed, almost all of which came out of my premiums, I was treated as a guilty, negligent individual that needed constant supervision to keep from a life of crime, I was micro-managed in how I could use my money, and my unemployed time. Every form was designed to infantilize me, and possibly also designed to humiliate and judge me and guilt me, for daring to make use of the insurance product for which I had greatly contributed in a time when it was decided it would be nice to "cut overhead this quarter to bring shareholder value up for a buyout". That's not a society I want to live in.
We are post-scarcity in the labor market for all unskilled and easily trainable jobs. We are dangerously close to post-scarcity for a lot of skilled labor. That scares me. I want to selfishly redefine what "contributes to society" means because I fear we need to do that sooner rather than later. We don't all want to be standing in lines in government offices, for the rest of our days, filling out forms demanding us to prove our worth as people. It would be better if we could assume people are worth something as a baseline.
Sorry, no, that's not what I'm talking about.
I am saying that I'd like to see the notion of "contributes to the labor market" entirely disentangled from the notion of "contributes to society". Those are very separate concepts, but today everyone talks about the morality of the first as if it is the morality of the second.
Consider it moral relativism if you will, but I think "contributes to society" is and should be a very low bar. Existing as a law abiding member of a society alone is a contribution.
Child care is extremely undervalued by the labor market, but hugely valuable to society. Child care raises the next generation of that society, after all.
In the case of the "town drunk", making transactions to buy a legal vice is a contribution, keeping the money circulating in that town. That "town drunk" may even contribute directly to the well being of people directly in the way that they brighten people's days.
The lower the bar we set as a society, the greater the safety net, the larger the trampoline. Yes, that's a bit selfish to want, but a large safety net, a giant trampoline lets you take huge risks in the labor market, lets you take huge risks undervalued by the labor market.
I got laid off in a terrible state once, where to collect the unemployment insurance money to which I contributed, almost all of which came out of my premiums, I was treated as a guilty, negligent individual that needed constant supervision to keep from a life of crime, I was micro-managed in how I could use my money, and my unemployed time. Every form was designed to infantilize me, and possibly also designed to humiliate and judge me and guilt me, for daring to make use of the insurance product for which I had greatly contributed in a time when it was decided it would be nice to "cut overhead this quarter to bring shareholder value up for a buyout". That's not a society I want to live in.
We are post-scarcity in the labor market for all unskilled and easily trainable jobs. We are dangerously close to post-scarcity for a lot of skilled labor. That scares me. I want to selfishly redefine what "contributes to society" means because I fear we need to do that sooner rather than later. We don't all want to be standing in lines in government offices, for the rest of our days, filling out forms demanding us to prove our worth as people. It would be better if we could assume people are worth something as a baseline.