Requiring people to work for their basic income sort of defeats the purpose of an *unconditional* basic income..
As for who pays, the taxpayers of course, just as they pay for the myriad of programs designed to keep people off the streets now. The added cost in Sweden at least would be pretty minor, it is a pretty small group of people who are completely left out in the cold, but they do exist. The reduced cost of the bureaucracy behind all of the means-testing going on in the various agencies would cover part of it.
Before you use the common argument of reduced incentive to work, studies have showed that this is quite minimal in pilot tests. And considering the high unemployment rate (even in a good economy, unemployment is rarely below 4%), a slightly reduced incentive to work is not necessarily a bad thing, slightly fewer hours per capita also means there is work for more people in order to make up the difference...
I second Basic Income, it would be a great way of not only encouraging creative activities, but new small business creation as some of the risk is taken away with an unconditional basic income no matter what. And it would guarantee that no one dependent on existing programs fall through the cracks and risk homelessness or even starvation for lack of money, while at the same time virtually eliminating the costly bureaucracy surrounding the existing programs. A basic income guarantee is unconditional, it is not dependent on any factors, not even income, you only have to make sure that each person gets one basic income and no more, thus reducing the need for bureaucracy greatly. I've read a lot about the matter. The movement doesn't have much steam here in Sweden (the Greens used to have it in their party platform, but never made an issue out of it, not sure if they do any more) but is apparently quite a bit stronger in Germany.
Schengen and the simplifications of moving goods between countries is really the greatest achievements of the EU IMO, most of everything else they've done I can live without, in many cases better than with. I like the idea of European cooperation, but I don't like the EU in its current form, lobbyists have far too much power and it's not nearly transparent enough. Our government uses EU directives as excuses to drive through unpopular laws ("oh but we have to implement it, it's a directive") like IPRED and data retention.
It should be noted that the abortion case was the European Court of Human Rights though, it's outside the purview of the EU and encompasses all countries that have signed the European Convention on Human Rights, not just EU members.
Or how about I read the comment and link before I comment.:P I retract my statement. I suppose the only way to get reasonably bias-free elections is to have use proportional elections...
How about simply requiring that all electoral districts be selected as a random coherent chunks of land containing as close to X amount of citizens as possible, no matter municipal borders, by a computer and without legislative interference. If it truly is random it shouldn't give a significant advantage to any party.
According to Wikipedia, the CR-V uses about 11 L/100 km. How is that better than most cars? I'm not sure I want to what kind of monster you're driving around in if you consider that good...
Regular commute outside the main train/bus routes?? Have you *ever* been to Paris?:P You'd be hard pressed to find a route not covered by metro or RER, not to mention buses..
I can see how it could work over here in Sweden (and Northern Europe in general I believe), we have extensive district heating networks in many cities. The question is how large of a server farm would be required to replace all the heat otherwise generated by burning biomass, etc.
Steam is not used in any modern installations btw, water is the most common medium nowadays. Steam can be pretty dangerous, and is generally less efficient. New York is an example of a US city that has an extensive district heating network, using steam, hence the steam coming out of the ground in Manhattan. It's also possible to use the same networks for district cooling..
I've been studying CS for over four years and will finish up my master's in about a year, and I've never come across an exam where you need to churn out "large quantities of functional but utterly boring code". I don't think I've ever had a computer-based exam. Labs, but they're generally not time-limited at my university at least, as long as you hand in the assignment on time and can explain the reasoning behind the code, you're fine. (with the only exception I've encountered being a course where we coded assembler on RISC-processors and a time limit was obviously necessary, but assembler is not very dependent on typing speed)
And usually not large quantities either, just code that accomplishes the task at hand, the less the better.
Enter vim, you rarely need to remove your fingers from the home row.;) But I don't think it matters much, maybe if all you're doing is copying someone elses code without thinking about it. In most cases thinking about the problem at hand takes a lot more time than actually typing the code..
So audit the compiler.;) And then audit the compiler that compiled the compiler. In the end I suppose you need to build a compiler by hand to make sure no backdoors are present.
I had a similar experience in high school (gymnasium), but I still wouldn't call that "computer science", more like "IT".. Actual computer science came first year of university (I'm now in my fifth year), when they introduced us to different algorithms, data structures, the concepts of time- and space-complexity, etc.
Like I said, I'm not much of a gamer any more, I just don't have the time. And for 99% of the other stuff I do with my computer, using Linux is a huge time-saver for me over using the archaic windows system. If I can launch into a game every now and then, I will, but if I have to reboot to play, I won't, because I won't be able to do anything else at the same time. (I use a dual screen setup and set the wine window to cover one of my screens, leaving the other screen for whatever else I need to have access to.)
Well the thing is the game works fine in wine, it's the completely unnecessary steam wrapper that kills it for me. Even the store-bought copy of Civ V requires the game to be launched through steam. That's insane, and it is what has caused me not to buy the game. Maybe there's a cracked version that removes the steam wrapper out there, if so that would great but I haven't checked.
Um, how about cutting that *massive* military budget and stop invading countries as you please? If there's one thing the US doesn't need, it's more enemies... How about investing all that money in basic research, healthcare, and making life better in general for your own citizens?
Ah yes, that would be socialism (which in the US is apparently defined as using government money to help the people rather than make war), can't have that...:P
I won't install Windows, but I can buy a non-free game every now and then. I'm not much of a gamer, I just don't have the time for it anymore, but I did buy StarCraft 2, and I would have bought Civ5 if it wasn't such a huge pain in the ass to get the demo to work with the pile of crap called Steam. I have no objections to non-free end-user software, but I do object to the underlying system and libraries being non-free...
The people who confuse Wikileaks and Wikipedia are the same people who have barely touched a computer in their lives, much less regularly browse Wikipedia. Not exactly the people most likely to donate...
The sad thing is how they always get off the hook so easily. SVT (public service tv) did a great documentary on this. The politicians involved of course claimed not to know anything about it. It made the news for a few days and then it went away with any demands for the justice minister's head evaporating. (that woman seriously has too many lives, I can't count how many controversies she's been involved in, not to mention that she is not actually qualified for the job, she doesn't have a law degree and pretty much had nothing to do with law prior to being appointed justice minister)
Only two parties wanted any actual investigation of the matter. The left party demanded a parliamentary investigation, the greens filed a report against the government with the constitutional committee (a parliamentary committee which is pretty much the closest thing we have to a constitutional court). The largest opposition party (the social democrats) made some statements regarding the matter but it was mostly just platitudes from a party that has been in government many times, and who's senior officials most likely knew full well this was going on..
Re:youre on /., a geek or a nerd, and you dont car
on
Today's WikiLeaks News
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· Score: 3, Insightful
So you're saying we should self-censor in order to not give the government an excuse to implement official censorship? If we don't even use our rights to free speech, why should we care in the first place? Our governments already have many, many bogus reasons to censor the Internet..
Russia moved to capitalism in a relatively blood- and revolution-free way, not freedom. Hence the economic freedoms of the wealthy has increased significantly, but political freedoms have barely improved. All the while the poor in Russia are much worse off than they were before the fall of the Soviet Union.
The oligarchs, mostly people formerly in the high ranks of the communist party, are the ones who have benefited..
What in the hell makes you think the guy on top should have everyone else's money? Bill Gates did not make money in a vacuum, he did not build Microsoft on his own and Microsoft could never have been the success that it is without the societal institutions and infrastructure that costs a lot of money. This includes includes money for those down on their luck, if we had full employment with decent wages for everyone working, sure, but that's not the case and probably never will be. Those without a job need to survive in order to get a new one and once again make a ton of money for those on top, they also need to be able to get an education without going bankrupt, same goes for health-care.
US media is very selective in what it publishes.. The NY Times for instance reported that Iran had obtained missiles from North Korea, but completely omitted the Russians completely refuting the notion and the complete lack of evidence. They see what they want to see...
I was actually considering buying a Kindle despite its nonstandard format, but this makes me reconsider.. If they cave this easy, how can I trust that they won't remotely remove any books the US government deems undesirable?
Slashdot Mirror
Requiring people to work for their basic income sort of defeats the purpose of an *unconditional* basic income..
As for who pays, the taxpayers of course, just as they pay for the myriad of programs designed to keep people off the streets now. The added cost in Sweden at least would be pretty minor, it is a pretty small group of people who are completely left out in the cold, but they do exist. The reduced cost of the bureaucracy behind all of the means-testing going on in the various agencies would cover part of it.
Before you use the common argument of reduced incentive to work, studies have showed that this is quite minimal in pilot tests. And considering the high unemployment rate (even in a good economy, unemployment is rarely below 4%), a slightly reduced incentive to work is not necessarily a bad thing, slightly fewer hours per capita also means there is work for more people in order to make up the difference...
I second Basic Income, it would be a great way of not only encouraging creative activities, but new small business creation as some of the risk is taken away with an unconditional basic income no matter what. And it would guarantee that no one dependent on existing programs fall through the cracks and risk homelessness or even starvation for lack of money, while at the same time virtually eliminating the costly bureaucracy surrounding the existing programs. A basic income guarantee is unconditional, it is not dependent on any factors, not even income, you only have to make sure that each person gets one basic income and no more, thus reducing the need for bureaucracy greatly.
I've read a lot about the matter. The movement doesn't have much steam here in Sweden (the Greens used to have it in their party platform, but never made an issue out of it, not sure if they do any more) but is apparently quite a bit stronger in Germany.
Schengen and the simplifications of moving goods between countries is really the greatest achievements of the EU IMO, most of everything else they've done I can live without, in many cases better than with. I like the idea of European cooperation, but I don't like the EU in its current form, lobbyists have far too much power and it's not nearly transparent enough. Our government uses EU directives as excuses to drive through unpopular laws ("oh but we have to implement it, it's a directive") like IPRED and data retention.
It should be noted that the abortion case was the European Court of Human Rights though, it's outside the purview of the EU and encompasses all countries that have signed the European Convention on Human Rights, not just EU members.
Or how about I read the comment and link before I comment. :P I retract my statement. I suppose the only way to get reasonably bias-free elections is to have use proportional elections...
How about simply requiring that all electoral districts be selected as a random coherent chunks of land containing as close to X amount of citizens as possible, no matter municipal borders, by a computer and without legislative interference. If it truly is random it shouldn't give a significant advantage to any party.
According to Wikipedia, the CR-V uses about 11 L/100 km. How is that better than most cars? I'm not sure I want to what kind of monster you're driving around in if you consider that good...
Regular commute outside the main train/bus routes?? Have you *ever* been to Paris? :P You'd be hard pressed to find a route not covered by metro or RER, not to mention buses..
I can see how it could work over here in Sweden (and Northern Europe in general I believe), we have extensive district heating networks in many cities. The question is how large of a server farm would be required to replace all the heat otherwise generated by burning biomass, etc.
Steam is not used in any modern installations btw, water is the most common medium nowadays. Steam can be pretty dangerous, and is generally less efficient. New York is an example of a US city that has an extensive district heating network, using steam, hence the steam coming out of the ground in Manhattan.
It's also possible to use the same networks for district cooling..
I've been studying CS for over four years and will finish up my master's in about a year, and I've never come across an exam where you need to churn out "large quantities of functional but utterly boring code".
I don't think I've ever had a computer-based exam. Labs, but they're generally not time-limited at my university at least, as long as you hand in the assignment on time and can explain the reasoning behind the code, you're fine. (with the only exception I've encountered being a course where we coded assembler on RISC-processors and a time limit was obviously necessary, but assembler is not very dependent on typing speed)
And usually not large quantities either, just code that accomplishes the task at hand, the less the better.
Enter vim, you rarely need to remove your fingers from the home row. ;)
But I don't think it matters much, maybe if all you're doing is copying someone elses code without thinking about it. In most cases thinking about the problem at hand takes a lot more time than actually typing the code..
So audit the compiler. ;) And then audit the compiler that compiled the compiler. In the end I suppose you need to build a compiler by hand to make sure no backdoors are present.
I had a similar experience in high school (gymnasium), but I still wouldn't call that "computer science", more like "IT"..
Actual computer science came first year of university (I'm now in my fifth year), when they introduced us to different algorithms, data structures, the concepts of time- and space-complexity, etc.
Like I said, I'm not much of a gamer any more, I just don't have the time. And for 99% of the other stuff I do with my computer, using Linux is a huge time-saver for me over using the archaic windows system.
If I can launch into a game every now and then, I will, but if I have to reboot to play, I won't, because I won't be able to do anything else at the same time. (I use a dual screen setup and set the wine window to cover one of my screens, leaving the other screen for whatever else I need to have access to.)
Well the thing is the game works fine in wine, it's the completely unnecessary steam wrapper that kills it for me. Even the store-bought copy of Civ V requires the game to be launched through steam. That's insane, and it is what has caused me not to buy the game. Maybe there's a cracked version that removes the steam wrapper out there, if so that would great but I haven't checked.
Um, how about cutting that *massive* military budget and stop invading countries as you please? If there's one thing the US doesn't need, it's more enemies...
How about investing all that money in basic research, healthcare, and making life better in general for your own citizens?
Ah yes, that would be socialism (which in the US is apparently defined as using government money to help the people rather than make war), can't have that... :P
I won't install Windows, but I can buy a non-free game every now and then. I'm not much of a gamer, I just don't have the time for it anymore, but I did buy StarCraft 2, and I would have bought Civ5 if it wasn't such a huge pain in the ass to get the demo to work with the pile of crap called Steam.
I have no objections to non-free end-user software, but I do object to the underlying system and libraries being non-free...
Besides which, any confusion would certainly make me more likely to donate..
The people who confuse Wikileaks and Wikipedia are the same people who have barely touched a computer in their lives, much less regularly browse Wikipedia. Not exactly the people most likely to donate...
The sad thing is how they always get off the hook so easily. SVT (public service tv) did a great documentary on this. The politicians involved of course claimed not to know anything about it. It made the news for a few days and then it went away with any demands for the justice minister's head evaporating. (that woman seriously has too many lives, I can't count how many controversies she's been involved in, not to mention that she is not actually qualified for the job, she doesn't have a law degree and pretty much had nothing to do with law prior to being appointed justice minister)
Only two parties wanted any actual investigation of the matter.
The left party demanded a parliamentary investigation, the greens filed a report against the government with the constitutional committee (a parliamentary committee which is pretty much the closest thing we have to a constitutional court).
The largest opposition party (the social democrats) made some statements regarding the matter but it was mostly just platitudes from a party that has been in government many times, and who's senior officials most likely knew full well this was going on..
So you're saying we should self-censor in order to not give the government an excuse to implement official censorship? If we don't even use our rights to free speech, why should we care in the first place?
Our governments already have many, many bogus reasons to censor the Internet..
Right, freedom in Russia..
Russia moved to capitalism in a relatively blood- and revolution-free way, not freedom. Hence the economic freedoms of the wealthy has increased significantly, but political freedoms have barely improved. All the while the poor in Russia are much worse off than they were before the fall of the Soviet Union.
The oligarchs, mostly people formerly in the high ranks of the communist party, are the ones who have benefited..
What in the hell makes you think the guy on top should have everyone else's money? Bill Gates did not make money in a vacuum, he did not build Microsoft on his own and Microsoft could never have been the success that it is without the societal institutions and infrastructure that costs a lot of money. This includes includes money for those down on their luck, if we had full employment with decent wages for everyone working, sure, but that's not the case and probably never will be. Those without a job need to survive in order to get a new one and once again make a ton of money for those on top, they also need to be able to get an education without going bankrupt, same goes for health-care.
US media is very selective in what it publishes.. The NY Times for instance reported that Iran had obtained missiles from North Korea, but completely omitted the Russians completely refuting the notion and the complete lack of evidence.
They see what they want to see...
The data wasn't hosted on Amazon, only the front page.. Which makes this even weirder, they weren't even hosting the leaked material on Amazon.
I was actually considering buying a Kindle despite its nonstandard format, but this makes me reconsider..
If they cave this easy, how can I trust that they won't remotely remove any books the US government deems undesirable?