I think UBI needs to be higher than what you've stated
Ha, sure. Whatever floats your boat. Now you just have to find some way to pay for it.
But... why does it need to pay out more? What's the purpose you're aiming for?
Marginal income tax thresholds are lowered slightly,
. . . You mean, hella increased? Because you want UBI to PAY OUT more, you're going to have to TAKE IN more.
You'd need to look at what deductions are claimable - we've got a lot of issues right now with that in Au.
Yeah, here too. That's an overall true statement regardless of UBI. But nobody likes getting rid of their loopholes, everyone agrees there are too many loopholes, but take a look at any specific one and it's hard to argue for it to be removed and you get an army of people defending it. Like in the midwest, everyone gets a homesteader deduction because 100 years ago someone developed some land. Utter bullshit. But good luck getting rid of it, and it'd just be a "fuck you" to middle class. Political suicide and unneeded. Doing anything with rich people's money and the capital gains loophole would likewise kill your donations. Axing loopholes with non-profits has a real hard time with taking food from orphans and such. Personally, I'd like to see the oil subsidies go away.
Removal of all health related care sounds weird - thought that should be covered by universal health cover.
Me too. But if you take that out of the UBI budget (and... probably MORE if you want a single-payer system) then the UBI checks are only $400/mo. You just said you wanted UBI to be more. Like, ok, but you've got to choose what you send the money on. This is budgeting 101, if money goes towards this, it can't go towards that.
Oh, don't forget the disruption when you make a few million public servants redundant - no need for a bunch of agencies working out who to give some money too when everyone gets UBI.
First off, there's not that many people all things considered. Second, managing UBI would definitely take a small army of clerks and bureaucrats. And welcome to the clusterfuck of immigration if having a birth on US soil entitles the child to a $600 check every month. But yes, those services would be streamlined and we could cut loose some government employees. The savings there is OMG minuscule compared to the trillions they'd be slinging about.
UBI DOES need a lot more modelling. But not even "modelling". The proponents just need to sit down and do some REAL basic math to figure out just how much money is on the table and realize how small UBI checks would be. Anyone claiming people will get $1000/mo is just delusional.
Truth. I did some napkin math and it's more like $7500/year or $620/mo. And that is a HELL of a lot less than some welfare recipients are getting. None of them would be able to afford to live in big cities. In a real city, that's not even rent. In Iowa that's an apartment (by yourself) plus groceries.
The cost is grievously steep though. No more social security, no more medicare, no more medicaid, no more unemployment, no more disability. It'd be a REAL kick in the pants to a lot of disadvantaged people and those down on their luck. But it'd be more fair.
Any sort of real attempt at this would have to be phased in over years to decades. As for mechanisms of implementation, I think a standard credit that works like the standard deduction on your tax form would suffice. But some system of monthly payouts for the tax rebate rather than one lump. Because, you know... idiots and money.
and maybe trim the military a little of their $584B to make up whatever isn't welfare from the "various" category.
You get $2.5 trillion/year. In welfare. This is what the nation is ALREADY paying all those freeloading bums. Divide that among the 325.7 million (2017) people we've got, and everyone gets $7,500 a year. Or ~$620 month.
If doing away with EVERY AND ALL safety nets and replacing them with a $620 check every month sounds like a good idea to you, then you'd be for UBI. Old people out of work, the disabled, sick grandmas, the recently laid off, those on food stamps, all these people would be screwed by UBI. They would be given a check like everyone else and that's that. Let the free market decide how do deal with them.
If you flipped that on immediately, there would be mass exodus from the cities into cheaper rural living. $600/mo gets you an apartment and groceries in Iowa. This would be sheer chaos that nobody wants and in the grand tradition of legislature it would be "phased in". How fast they do it, and how exactly would be a really big issue and there'd be lots of arguing. Whenever they turned it on, the payout would be REAL small initially. But fundamentally, the numbers and effects remain.
Personally, I don't like those numbers. But then again, I've got a cooshy job and I don't receive welfare.
Oh man, sorry for missing this one. I'm off my game apparently.
the only way UBI works is if the top subsidize the bottom. So it's a different form of progressive tax.
That is LITERALLY the definition of a progressive tax structure. It would certainly be paid through a progressive tax structure... just like we have now.
How can you possibly hold that level of pessimism in the first paragraph simultaneously with the optimism of the second?
That sort of change would take a constitutional amendment of EPIC proportions fundamentally changing our government. Or a rebellion. Are you rebel scum?
I view UBI as just another fad in the recent trend of America's liberal thinking
Remember those good old fads like separating kings from their crown? Sometimes a few inches lower? It was real popular in it's day. But to an extent, limiting the power of monarchies and dictators is STILL in fashion. The political climate in China is concerning to nearly everyone.
Or how about that crazy fad where we nationalize retirement savings and have welfare programs? Now universally popular, but... again... they're still around.
If you want to call them fads, whatever floats your goat, but they're facets of our society as much as a runaway military industrial complex, gun culture, the Fed, and racism.
(which, by the way, has been taken over by almost teenage-/child-like levels of logic)
Ahhh, like that little cry baby Roosevelt. What a little kiddo, amiright? Him and his silly "pillars of society". What a cad.
that seeks to equalize all outcomes for all people. [and eliminate inequity at every stage of life.]
mmmm, no. I see where you're coming from, and it's certainly something we want to safeguard against. But it's more like people see the current and looming waves of automation destroying people's livelyhoods and collapsing the job market for the next generation. At some point it's more fair to recognize that this is effecting EVERYBODY and replace all the patchwork welfare programs with something that doesn't fuck over anyone that doesn't qualify for the myriad of programs designed to try and help.
Imagine an economy that doesn't need people, only robots and AI. All the wealth goes to the owners. And the question is, who runs this gin-joint? Is this or is this not, a democracy? Who run Bartertown?
end suffering,
Yep. Bingo. Or at least help.
[end] poverty
Yep. At least working towards that goal. I mean, let's not get TOO optimistic here. Even today, there are programs out there to help the needy and there are people too fucked up to even accept the handout. No matter what we do, there will always be societal drop-outs.
Damn anyone who thinks otherwise or wonders about how it will work (and be accused of spouting hate speech if you disagree).
It's not quite that bad when it comes to UBI. Plenty of people understand that's a good question and there are a variety of answers. But I've been seeing this trend to. Simply uttering the words "free speech" will get you labelled as NAZI these days. Sad times. The party really has changed.
And mind you, I'm generally liberal myself.
Sure you are grandpa. Are you pining for the political climate of yore? When the hippies were protesting war and demanding people be treated equally and have rights? Perhaps you wish you could have... conserved... that sort of setting? hmm? Get where I'm going with this?
Anyway, if you cut all other welfare programs including social security and healthcare, and chop down the military to sub-ludicrous proportions, you could probably hand out around $10K to everyone every year. People will instantly knee-jerk themselves into a fit and complain "that's not enough to live on" and yeah... it's not. But that's not the goal of UBI. We still want you to try and go get work. We're NOWHERE near a complete lights-out-economy. You want to live on UBI exclusively, move to Detroit or somewhere and learn to cook potatoes in a thousand different ways. A flat-rate across the board would do wonders with dying rural America.
There's a big problem with paying people to have kids though.... and frankly, I haven't heard any good solutions for it.
Sadly it's too late for him to be the next president. I'm pretty sure the upcoming impeachment process won't go all the way down to tech entrepreneurs.
Ba-dum-tish. Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all night. Try the veal.
these aren't ideal because HDMI can't provide power. This means you need a separate receiver box and power cable going into the box, but cables are what you're trying to get away from with wireless video!
No? Well... not personally. All my desires for wireless video have stemmed from wanting a real-computer interface with a phone. Instead of thumbing shit into a 3 inch screen, I want to walk up to a desk and have the devices wake up and connect, simply becoming part of my computer by my proximity. Ideally. But even ideally, the screen (and even mouse and keyboard) can be plugged into wall power and I don't have to worry about batteries. Yeah, worrying about ONE battery is enough of a headache. Keyboards and mice draw so very little it's moot, but screens are going to be hungry no matter what*. What the market has to offer is a couple docking stations, all of which are niche, proprietary as hell, and you'd really have to go out of your way to make it happen.
The only place you'd want the screen to be wireless and run on battery would be..... a tablet. Specifically splitting the processor from the front display. Meh. If both are mobile, just... carry both together.
What I'd like to see in the future is a screen in a restaurant or bar you could direct your phone to stream to. Some sort of time-sharing or juke-box queue system....And then some system for dealing with assholes.....How does chromecast handle multiple people fighting for the resource?
(*Although I think an exception would be that low power screen that they made for the OLPC X0.)
I think you're a bit hyperbolic, but you've got a point. The hyperbole really isn't helpful. It makes you look like an asshole, it gives people the knee-jerk retaliatory attack response. Worse it makes you look like a delusional conspiracy theorist and that really subtracts from your argument.
But there IS an argument here. Too many people I would typically consider on my side of the debate have been fighting against free speech simply because someone they don't like has been saying stuff they don't like. That's not cool. I remember when this party was all about putting power to the people and letting them protest. And people have come out and attacked me just for saying such things. They assume I'm a support NAZIs literally just because I had nice things to say about free speech. And the media (and reality) really does have a well known liberal bias. The point you're trying to make about downplaying people's ethnicity when it comes to negative news is overblown. They're countering the definitely real racists and bigots, but they're going too far. Brigading is real, and it sucks, from both sides. Calling it a massive conspiracy is a bit much. Plenty of people are openly against giving free speech to NAZIs. So all that is... yeah, a kernel of truth, but wrapped in enough exaggeration to make it come off as crazy asshole. The one thing I think you're just plain wrong about is that it's NOT "invasions" into slashdot. It goes deeper. It's cultural. Slashdot users that have been here forever have espoused some of these sort of ideas.
As for why?
Enforcing PC speech to the point of censoring all others really is in opposition to free speech. Personally, I'd be fine with enforcement of PC speech at work and such. But some crazy nutters are trying to get people fired and kicked off of projects for what they say on their own time. I don't think I like that sort of stickiness. If your job is on the line for what you say in the public square... you're not free.
And yeah, I'd whole-heartedly agree that the majority of communication is done over the privately owned Internet these days.
"Demonizing" is going too far. But yeah, it's socially acceptable to laugh at abused husbands these days. How many jokes out there would get you prosecuted if you reversed the genders?
And.... I don't see any reason to exclusively blame Silicon Valley. It's bigger than that. Just like the liberals have to accept that about half the nation, EVERYWHERE, leans conservative, you have to accept that about half the nation leans liberal.
The bigger question is what do we do about it?
I'm all for clear calm rational debate about the merits of free speech. How the act of defending asshat's right to sends a message also defends your OWN rights. How simply laughing at them and pointing out their flaws is more effective than martyring them. If the soap-box fails, the nation is going to fail. We don't want to become the bad guys.
Avoiding those private entities that don't believe in free speech, democracy, and are generally biased fucks. I'm looking at you foxnews and facebook. While I like free speech, trying to force big sites into hosting shitty material through legislation, and making it compelled speech... man, that's just bound to go side-ways.
Active efforts to encourage people to step outside of their bubble and to see the world as it really is. And typically, it's more diverse than they realize. No, not everyone cares about your pet topic of choice.
Finding and prosecuting astro-turfers, foreign agent-provocateurs, and shills. Turning Internet trolling into a business and national foreign policy is bullshit. This is the sort of shit that NSA should be working on. As a matter of national security.
And generally ease up with the knee-jerk reactions and hyperbole flamebait. Chill dudes.
Oh dear, oh dear, everyone is out to get you. The truth is much simpler: people just don't want to waste their time listening to your drivel.
Free speech prevents you from going to prison for complaining about your government and it's leaders.
You're thinking of the first amendment. That limits the government. It's a good thing. And it protects you from WAY more than being thrown in jail. If any portion of the government can be viewed in any way as infringing free speech, that shit gets shut down. Hard.
Free speech is a broader topic that came out of the age of Enlightenment along with democracy, open markets, equality, and chopping up kings and such. It's older than our government and isn't just something for other people to worry about.
It does not entitle you to say whatever you want in someone else's house without being kicked out.
Eh, sort of. We're not really entitled to much, but there's been a lot said about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Free speech falls under the liberty portion. If someone kicks you out of their house for speaking your mind, they're asshats that don't believe in free speech. And yeah, there are reasonable limits. Duh.
It does not entitle you to say whatever you want without being called an asshole for your views.
Correct. But ideally it protects you from uncivilized retaliation, least we start encouraging some sort of thought-crime.
oh yeah? Last time you said something political, out loud, that didn't go over the Internet.... how many people heard you? How many people do you think read your last comment?
And flip it around. How much political news and commentary do you receive in person, via speech? And how much do you get over the Internet in some fashion?
I dunno, maybe you're really chatty and attend rally's or something. Personally though, I might as well live online.
Of course any political group is going to have variance and people who don't entirely agree. We're not all lock-step brainwashed souless automatons. And I assume at least of few on the right aren't either. And moreso than just those TEA-party folks who nearly split off. Or the rural hicks voting. Or the wealthy fat-cats. Or the "libertarians". Or nationalists.
Liberals area likewise a collection of peace-mongers, social progressive who don't think gays are demons, social progressive who are fucked in the head when it comes to the definition of sex, economic progressives that want handouts, economic progressives that are concerned about the current and coming wave of automation, the sort of people that pushed the "occupy" movement, or libertarians that can't afford to pay for their own police force.
The fact that ALL political groups of people have to congeal together under two camps is a product of how our voting system was set up. "First past the post". Other systems have their merits and flaws, but if we had something like Austrailia's system where we got to pick our top 5 candidates, we'd see a lot more than 2 parties show up and actually have a chance at getting into congress.
also, pft, "lefts". What a shibboleth. Please make an effort to step out of your bubble. It'll do wonders.
If someone walks into your pizza parlor [or Reddit, Slashdot, Facebook, online forum, game chat, or comment section] and accusing you of running a child sex trafficking ring, you can ask them to leave -- and that's not censorship -- any more than it is a bar kicking out a rowdy patron.
Right. And that's true. But these days, where is the so-called "public square" where people DO have the right to say things? If it doesn't include the most common medium for communication, the Internet, then do we really have a right to free speech?
I'm a fan of free speech and I'm REALLY not a fan of compelling people to support a message one way or another. But I'd like to see the big players online at least give some lip service to the ideals that came out of the enlightenment. Free speech, democracy, the right to assemble... that sort of stuff.
And.... while it might not be censorship ANY MORE THAN kicking people out of your bar, it's still certainly censorship.
Do you want me to go find a single example of a conservative abusing their power to punish people he doesn't like? Can I use that to bash all "conservatives" as power-mad authoritarian douchbags? Come on man, in a story about how the Internet is toxic is this really the angle you want to push?
The CEO wrote a script that redirected insults to him towards prominent members of a group.
Does anyone not see how these two statements don't jive with each other?
Let's say you're a real city slicker, and you're travelling between cities and you stop in at a rural diner for a bite to eat. Or you're some other sort of outsider. Any sort of scenario where a bunch of people are going to see how "people like you" are going to behave. This is going to form stereotypes. To an extent, you are representing the group. Now.... do you spit on the trucker, throw your drink at the waitress, scream wildly, and run away from the bill? Do you purposely antagonize them?
Now, these guys are douchbags, sure. They're certainly not initiating a calm and rational debate. And you know what? I can excuse a bit of tomfoolery and funny shenanigans. But as far as "detoxifying the Internet".... I have to agree, manipulating the words of your users because they said mean things to you is pretty fucked, and it's really not helping.
Yeah, that feedback loop is brutal when it comes to crowd-sourcing. Herd mentality is pretty stupid in certain ways. Like AI, it's smart at some things, but falls into pitfalls (and over ledges) where individuals would not. It's a different sort of intelligence. And you're going to have to deal with that any time you depend upon large groups of people to make decisions or vote for things one way or another. But Youtube takes it a step further by pigeon-holing you into a genre and making assumptions about what you want to see. It strives to give you what you want, but Log out of youtube or otherwise make it forget about you with incognito mode. Then search for and watch that Jordon Peterson interview. After that, try and go research lgbt issues and you'll find yourself having a hard time breaking out of the bubble that Youtube put you in. It was an eye-opener for me.
The only way out of that is to hand curate the algorithm.
Or they could simply stop recommending videos based on popularity. Provide a random sampling rather than "the creme of the crop".
They could VERY easily remove their specific pigeon-holing and provide a button for "Stop making assumptions about me and ignore my history". Or how about a "Break the Bubble" button? That would simply give globally popular suggestions rather than the radicalised ones.
A very keen an pertinent lifestyle choice when it comes to garbage on youtube. One that could even be extend past rap.
Most rap I've seen is heavily redacted for sex, drugs, violence, affiliations, etc. Perhaps YT isnt doing this,
. . . No. No youtube isn't bleeping out swear words and adding black bars to videos. This is not a service that Youtube provides. Are you familiar with the platform? This might be a good first step when commenting on an article about their policies.
No, they precisely do not have a right to be on YouTube.
AS. MUCH. AS. WE. DO.
Don't bloody well chop off half the sentence, that's altering what I said and sticking words in my mouth. How rude.
Youtube let's people upload videos. You, me, and NAZIs. If they put up hate fill bullshit, that's a violation of their policy and youtube is well withing their rights to take it down and I won't throw a fuss.
YouTube is a private enterprise. There is no free speech on someone else's platform at their cost.
oh ho ho! I think you're confusing "free speech", and ideal born out of the age of enlightenment that's far older than our nation and constitution, with the first amendment, which regulates the government and not private enterprise. They can most certainly run afoul of free speech issues, regardless of the first amendment. Free speech is not something for other people to worry about. Free speech does not magically go away when it's someone you don't like talking.
that itself is offensive to the very democracy which seeks to protect rights of self expression and speech
Yes. It IS offensive. So?
Offending the King of Thailand is irrelevant. YouTube is an American enterprise.
Yes, exactly. Same with german laws about NAZIs.
Its only duty is to abide by US Law. Everything else is a courtesy.
....Unless they operate in Thailand, where it's illegal. But yes, we're mostly on the same page here. Thailand can go pound sand and block youtube if they really want. On the other hand.... Do you know how CDN's operate? If they DO have servers in Thailand or Germany or Egypt...
And what's at issue here isn't videos by people who merely express their opinions; it's the videos where people call for violence with some vagueness.
. . . And "American standards" as dictated by American law says that's legal. But it's against Youtube's policy. Which is fine....Did you make it all the way to the end of my post before commenting?
When so many on the left refer to anyone who disagrees with them as a Nazi the term has becoming meaningless.
So, basically, you're a neo-nazi/white supremacist/right-wing-militant/neo-fascist/racist sympathizer?
OH MY GOD! At least TRY to to play directly into his fucking hand. Listen man, you're not helping our side. You're making us look bad. I understand it's important to you, and yes there are real actual honest-to-god nazis out there and they've been emboldened by recent politics. But immediately jumping out and accusing this guy of being all those terrible things is EXACTLY what he's talking about, and it just reinforces his point. Get your shit together Rick.
Is this staged? Is it rigged? Are Nacho and Rick actually friends and coordinating this level of face-palming?
If you think the half of the country that didn't vote for, and don't support Trump,
And get your stats right. 80.5% of America didn't vote for Trump. 80.2% didn't vote for Hilary.
"protected speech" Don't play word games. The specific term "freedom of speech" goes back at least to 1689 and the idea goes all the way back to 600 BC in old Athens. If you feel the need to invent new terms to try and replace what everyone is already using and understands, you're likely full of shit.
Calls to specific violence is a conspiracy to murder and that's illegal. "Let's go give a wet willie to Locke2005 (849178) next monday after work". That's trying to form a mob for an act of violence (of the most heinous of sorts). Generally advocating violence, like suggesting we tar and feather anyone who doesn't comment their code, that's not illegal. And yeah, these asshats really walk that line don't they? And it sucks that this shit gets down to technicalities. But it's IMPOSSIBLE to keep people from FEELING threatened. Hell, your post makes me feel threatened that my personal rights are going to get taken away and that my political party no longer supports the ideas born out of the age of enlightenment. That winds have changed and times are dark. It sucks. But I'm not advocating we ban you from Slashdot.
They may be asshats, delusional, and crazy, but they have a right* to be on Youtube just as much as we do. This is a disturbing trend I've been seeing in my party of late. Just because the other guy is using "free speech" as a defense and talking point doesn't mean he's wrong or that we should start tearing it down. If we seriously only supported Hippy's right to free speech when it was convenient, then we're the exact sort of person the hippies were protesting again. If our views and political ideas and civilization are so shaky that some nut on youtube has a legitimate chance to bring it all tumbling down, we've got bigger problems. And "cracking down" on them often only serves to legitimize their complaints. Like if they're calling you authoritarian jack-boot thugs trying to silence the voice of the people. And yes, yes, I too understand the hypocrisy of a skin-head in literal jack-boots whining about personal rights.
*Offer not available in Germany, where NAZIs are specifically banned. And this brings up another point. Youtube is global. It has to straddle a dozen different law sets. Do we want Youtube banning everything that violates Sharia law? Any criticism of the king of Thailand? Because I think that'd be bullshit. If someone can find this material in Germany, well that's an issue for Germans and... however Youtube deals with that. If they expect their law to govern me, it sounds like we need to export a little more freedom their way.
But hey, calling for specific acts of violence, premeditating violence... that's illegal. That's planning a murder right there. Call the cops. I'm ok with that shit getting shut down.
And calling for generic violence and general hate really is against Youtube's policy. Although I don't want just anyone to have a veto button on what they consider "hateful" and I'd protest if they just start banning anyone with a particular ideology. Yes, even if the ideas are repugnant. Because I want enough personal freedom to suggest we take all you dirty tabbers and string you up. 2-space tabs for life! It's up to Youtube to walk that tightrope of trying to to piss off too many people. Ha, good luck.
Slashdot Mirror
I think UBI needs to be higher than what you've stated
Ha, sure. Whatever floats your boat. Now you just have to find some way to pay for it.
But... why does it need to pay out more? What's the purpose you're aiming for?
Marginal income tax thresholds are lowered slightly,
. . . You mean, hella increased? Because you want UBI to PAY OUT more, you're going to have to TAKE IN more.
You'd need to look at what deductions are claimable - we've got a lot of issues right now with that in Au.
Yeah, here too. That's an overall true statement regardless of UBI. But nobody likes getting rid of their loopholes, everyone agrees there are too many loopholes, but take a look at any specific one and it's hard to argue for it to be removed and you get an army of people defending it. Like in the midwest, everyone gets a homesteader deduction because 100 years ago someone developed some land. Utter bullshit. But good luck getting rid of it, and it'd just be a "fuck you" to middle class. Political suicide and unneeded. Doing anything with rich people's money and the capital gains loophole would likewise kill your donations. Axing loopholes with non-profits has a real hard time with taking food from orphans and such. Personally, I'd like to see the oil subsidies go away.
Removal of all health related care sounds weird - thought that should be covered by universal health cover.
Me too. But if you take that out of the UBI budget (and... probably MORE if you want a single-payer system) then the UBI checks are only $400/mo. You just said you wanted UBI to be more. Like, ok, but you've got to choose what you send the money on. This is budgeting 101, if money goes towards this, it can't go towards that.
Oh, don't forget the disruption when you make a few million public servants redundant - no need for a bunch of agencies working out who to give some money too when everyone gets UBI.
First off, there's not that many people all things considered. Second, managing UBI would definitely take a small army of clerks and bureaucrats. And welcome to the clusterfuck of immigration if having a birth on US soil entitles the child to a $600 check every month. But yes, those services would be streamlined and we could cut loose some government employees. The savings there is OMG minuscule compared to the trillions they'd be slinging about.
UBI DOES need a lot more modelling. But not even "modelling". The proponents just need to sit down and do some REAL basic math to figure out just how much money is on the table and realize how small UBI checks would be. Anyone claiming people will get $1000/mo is just delusional.
Truth. I did some napkin math and it's more like $7500/year or $620/mo. And that is a HELL of a lot less than some welfare recipients are getting. None of them would be able to afford to live in big cities. In a real city, that's not even rent. In Iowa that's an apartment (by yourself) plus groceries.
The cost is grievously steep though. No more social security, no more medicare, no more medicaid, no more unemployment, no more disability. It'd be a REAL kick in the pants to a lot of disadvantaged people and those down on their luck. But it'd be more fair.
Any sort of real attempt at this would have to be phased in over years to decades. As for mechanisms of implementation, I think a standard credit that works like the standard deduction on your tax form would suffice. But some system of monthly payouts for the tax rebate rather than one lump. Because, you know... idiots and money.
It wouldn't necessarily bankrupt us. It could simply pay out a laughably small amount instead.
If you see it as a replacement to all the various welfare programs, and take the
You get $2.5 trillion/year. In welfare. This is what the nation is ALREADY paying all those freeloading bums. Divide that among the 325.7 million (2017) people we've got, and everyone gets $7,500 a year. Or ~$620 month.
If doing away with EVERY AND ALL safety nets and replacing them with a $620 check every month sounds like a good idea to you, then you'd be for UBI. Old people out of work, the disabled, sick grandmas, the recently laid off, those on food stamps, all these people would be screwed by UBI. They would be given a check like everyone else and that's that. Let the free market decide how do deal with them.
If you flipped that on immediately, there would be mass exodus from the cities into cheaper rural living. $600/mo gets you an apartment and groceries in Iowa. This would be sheer chaos that nobody wants and in the grand tradition of legislature it would be "phased in". How fast they do it, and how exactly would be a really big issue and there'd be lots of arguing. Whenever they turned it on, the payout would be REAL small initially. But fundamentally, the numbers and effects remain.
Personally, I don't like those numbers. But then again, I've got a cooshy job and I don't receive welfare.
Electile
ok, as much as that hurts, it's pretty damn funny.
Oh man, sorry for missing this one. I'm off my game apparently.
the only way UBI works is if the top subsidize the bottom. So it's a different form of progressive tax.
That is LITERALLY the definition of a progressive tax structure. It would certainly be paid through a progressive tax structure... just like we have now.
I don't remember a SINGLE slashdot article about Ron Paul. No sirree. (Although that might be due to heavy drinking)
How can you possibly hold that level of pessimism in the first paragraph simultaneously with the optimism of the second?
That sort of change would take a constitutional amendment of EPIC proportions fundamentally changing our government. Or a rebellion. Are you rebel scum?
I view UBI as just another fad in the recent trend of America's liberal thinking
Remember those good old fads like separating kings from their crown? Sometimes a few inches lower? It was real popular in it's day. But to an extent, limiting the power of monarchies and dictators is STILL in fashion. The political climate in China is concerning to nearly everyone.
Or how about that crazy fad where we nationalize retirement savings and have welfare programs? Now universally popular, but... again... they're still around.
If you want to call them fads, whatever floats your goat, but they're facets of our society as much as a runaway military industrial complex, gun culture, the Fed, and racism.
(which, by the way, has been taken over by almost teenage-/child-like levels of logic)
Ahhh, like that little cry baby Roosevelt. What a little kiddo, amiright? Him and his silly "pillars of society". What a cad.
that seeks to equalize all outcomes for all people. [and eliminate inequity at every stage of life.]
mmmm, no. I see where you're coming from, and it's certainly something we want to safeguard against. But it's more like people see the current and looming waves of automation destroying people's livelyhoods and collapsing the job market for the next generation. At some point it's more fair to recognize that this is effecting EVERYBODY and replace all the patchwork welfare programs with something that doesn't fuck over anyone that doesn't qualify for the myriad of programs designed to try and help.
Imagine an economy that doesn't need people, only robots and AI. All the wealth goes to the owners. And the question is, who runs this gin-joint? Is this or is this not, a democracy? Who run Bartertown?
end suffering,
Yep. Bingo. Or at least help.
[end] poverty
Yep. At least working towards that goal. I mean, let's not get TOO optimistic here. Even today, there are programs out there to help the needy and there are people too fucked up to even accept the handout. No matter what we do, there will always be societal drop-outs.
Damn anyone who thinks otherwise or wonders about how it will work (and be accused of spouting hate speech if you disagree).
It's not quite that bad when it comes to UBI. Plenty of people understand that's a good question and there are a variety of answers. But I've been seeing this trend to. Simply uttering the words "free speech" will get you labelled as NAZI these days. Sad times. The party really has changed.
And mind you, I'm generally liberal myself.
Sure you are grandpa. Are you pining for the political climate of yore? When the hippies were protesting war and demanding people be treated equally and have rights? Perhaps you wish you could have... conserved... that sort of setting? hmm? Get where I'm going with this?
Anyway, if you cut all other welfare programs including social security and healthcare, and chop down the military to sub-ludicrous proportions, you could probably hand out around $10K to everyone every year. People will instantly knee-jerk themselves into a fit and complain "that's not enough to live on" and yeah... it's not. But that's not the goal of UBI. We still want you to try and go get work. We're NOWHERE near a complete lights-out-economy. You want to live on UBI exclusively, move to Detroit or somewhere and learn to cook potatoes in a thousand different ways. A flat-rate across the board would do wonders with dying rural America.
There's a big problem with paying people to have kids though.... and frankly, I haven't heard any good solutions for it.
Sadly it's too late for him to be the next president. I'm pretty sure the upcoming impeachment process won't go all the way down to tech entrepreneurs.
Ba-dum-tish. Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all night. Try the veal.
Chromecast.
This is an askSlashdot?
these aren't ideal because HDMI can't provide power. This means you need a separate receiver box and power cable going into the box, but cables are what you're trying to get away from with wireless video!
No? Well... not personally. All my desires for wireless video have stemmed from wanting a real-computer interface with a phone. Instead of thumbing shit into a 3 inch screen, I want to walk up to a desk and have the devices wake up and connect, simply becoming part of my computer by my proximity. Ideally. But even ideally, the screen (and even mouse and keyboard) can be plugged into wall power and I don't have to worry about batteries. Yeah, worrying about ONE battery is enough of a headache. Keyboards and mice draw so very little it's moot, but screens are going to be hungry no matter what*. What the market has to offer is a couple docking stations, all of which are niche, proprietary as hell, and you'd really have to go out of your way to make it happen.
The only place you'd want the screen to be wireless and run on battery would be..... a tablet. Specifically splitting the processor from the front display. Meh. If both are mobile, just... carry both together.
What I'd like to see in the future is a screen in a restaurant or bar you could direct your phone to stream to. Some sort of time-sharing or juke-box queue system. ...And then some system for dealing with assholes. ....How does chromecast handle multiple people fighting for the resource?
(*Although I think an exception would be that low power screen that they made for the OLPC X0.)
I think you're a bit hyperbolic, but you've got a point. The hyperbole really isn't helpful. It makes you look like an asshole, it gives people the knee-jerk retaliatory attack response. Worse it makes you look like a delusional conspiracy theorist and that really subtracts from your argument.
But there IS an argument here. Too many people I would typically consider on my side of the debate have been fighting against free speech simply because someone they don't like has been saying stuff they don't like. That's not cool. I remember when this party was all about putting power to the people and letting them protest. And people have come out and attacked me just for saying such things. They assume I'm a support NAZIs literally just because I had nice things to say about free speech. And the media (and reality) really does have a well known liberal bias. The point you're trying to make about downplaying people's ethnicity when it comes to negative news is overblown. They're countering the definitely real racists and bigots, but they're going too far. Brigading is real, and it sucks, from both sides. Calling it a massive conspiracy is a bit much. Plenty of people are openly against giving free speech to NAZIs. So all that is... yeah, a kernel of truth, but wrapped in enough exaggeration to make it come off as crazy asshole. The one thing I think you're just plain wrong about is that it's NOT "invasions" into slashdot. It goes deeper. It's cultural. Slashdot users that have been here forever have espoused some of these sort of ideas.
As for why?
Enforcing PC speech to the point of censoring all others really is in opposition to free speech. Personally, I'd be fine with enforcement of PC speech at work and such. But some crazy nutters are trying to get people fired and kicked off of projects for what they say on their own time. I don't think I like that sort of stickiness. If your job is on the line for what you say in the public square... you're not free.
And yeah, I'd whole-heartedly agree that the majority of communication is done over the privately owned Internet these days.
"Demonizing" is going too far. But yeah, it's socially acceptable to laugh at abused husbands these days. How many jokes out there would get you prosecuted if you reversed the genders?
And.... I don't see any reason to exclusively blame Silicon Valley. It's bigger than that. Just like the liberals have to accept that about half the nation, EVERYWHERE, leans conservative, you have to accept that about half the nation leans liberal.
The bigger question is what do we do about it?
I'm all for clear calm rational debate about the merits of free speech. How the act of defending asshat's right to sends a message also defends your OWN rights. How simply laughing at them and pointing out their flaws is more effective than martyring them. If the soap-box fails, the nation is going to fail. We don't want to become the bad guys.
Avoiding those private entities that don't believe in free speech, democracy, and are generally biased fucks. I'm looking at you foxnews and facebook. While I like free speech, trying to force big sites into hosting shitty material through legislation, and making it compelled speech... man, that's just bound to go side-ways.
Active efforts to encourage people to step outside of their bubble and to see the world as it really is. And typically, it's more diverse than they realize. No, not everyone cares about your pet topic of choice.
Finding and prosecuting astro-turfers, foreign agent-provocateurs, and shills. Turning Internet trolling into a business and national foreign policy is bullshit. This is the sort of shit that NSA should be working on. As a matter of national security.
And generally ease up with the knee-jerk reactions and hyperbole flamebait. Chill dudes.
Oh dear, oh dear, everyone is out to get you. The truth is much simpler: people just don't want to waste their time listening to your drivel.
Free speech prevents you from going to prison for complaining about your government and it's leaders.
You're thinking of the first amendment. That limits the government. It's a good thing. And it protects you from WAY more than being thrown in jail. If any portion of the government can be viewed in any way as infringing free speech, that shit gets shut down. Hard.
Free speech is a broader topic that came out of the age of Enlightenment along with democracy, open markets, equality, and chopping up kings and such. It's older than our government and isn't just something for other people to worry about.
It does not entitle you to say whatever you want in someone else's house without being kicked out.
Eh, sort of. We're not really entitled to much, but there's been a lot said about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Free speech falls under the liberty portion. If someone kicks you out of their house for speaking your mind, they're asshats that don't believe in free speech. And yeah, there are reasonable limits. Duh.
It does not entitle you to say whatever you want without being called an asshole for your views.
Correct. But ideally it protects you from uncivilized retaliation, least we start encouraging some sort of thought-crime.
oh yeah? Last time you said something political, out loud, that didn't go over the Internet.... how many people heard you? How many people do you think read your last comment?
And flip it around. How much political news and commentary do you receive in person, via speech? And how much do you get over the Internet in some fashion?
I dunno, maybe you're really chatty and attend rally's or something. Personally though, I might as well live online.
the idea that there can be a few lefts.
Of course any political group is going to have variance and people who don't entirely agree. We're not all lock-step brainwashed souless automatons. And I assume at least of few on the right aren't either. And moreso than just those TEA-party folks who nearly split off. Or the rural hicks voting. Or the wealthy fat-cats. Or the "libertarians". Or nationalists.
Liberals area likewise a collection of peace-mongers, social progressive who don't think gays are demons, social progressive who are fucked in the head when it comes to the definition of sex, economic progressives that want handouts, economic progressives that are concerned about the current and coming wave of automation, the sort of people that pushed the "occupy" movement, or libertarians that can't afford to pay for their own police force.
The fact that ALL political groups of people have to congeal together under two camps is a product of how our voting system was set up. "First past the post". Other systems have their merits and flaws, but if we had something like Austrailia's system where we got to pick our top 5 candidates, we'd see a lot more than 2 parties show up and actually have a chance at getting into congress.
also, pft, "lefts". What a shibboleth. Please make an effort to step out of your bubble. It'll do wonders.
If someone walks into your pizza parlor [or Reddit, Slashdot, Facebook, online forum, game chat, or comment section] and accusing you of running a child sex trafficking ring, you can ask them to leave -- and that's not censorship -- any more than it is a bar kicking out a rowdy patron.
Right. And that's true. But these days, where is the so-called "public square" where people DO have the right to say things? If it doesn't include the most common medium for communication, the Internet, then do we really have a right to free speech?
I'm a fan of free speech and I'm REALLY not a fan of compelling people to support a message one way or another. But I'd like to see the big players online at least give some lip service to the ideals that came out of the enlightenment. Free speech, democracy, the right to assemble... that sort of stuff.
And.... while it might not be censorship ANY MORE THAN kicking people out of your bar, it's still certainly censorship.
Do you want me to go find a single example of a conservative abusing their power to punish people he doesn't like? Can I use that to bash all "conservatives" as power-mad authoritarian douchbags? Come on man, in a story about how the Internet is toxic is this really the angle you want to push?
Reddit and the Struggle To Detoxify the Internet
The CEO wrote a script that redirected insults to him towards prominent members of a group.
Does anyone not see how these two statements don't jive with each other?
Let's say you're a real city slicker, and you're travelling between cities and you stop in at a rural diner for a bite to eat. Or you're some other sort of outsider. Any sort of scenario where a bunch of people are going to see how "people like you" are going to behave. This is going to form stereotypes. To an extent, you are representing the group. Now.... do you spit on the trucker, throw your drink at the waitress, scream wildly, and run away from the bill? Do you purposely antagonize them?
Now, these guys are douchbags, sure. They're certainly not initiating a calm and rational debate. And you know what? I can excuse a bit of tomfoolery and funny shenanigans. But as far as "detoxifying the Internet".... I have to agree, manipulating the words of your users because they said mean things to you is pretty fucked, and it's really not helping.
Yeah, that feedback loop is brutal when it comes to crowd-sourcing. Herd mentality is pretty stupid in certain ways. Like AI, it's smart at some things, but falls into pitfalls (and over ledges) where individuals would not. It's a different sort of intelligence. And you're going to have to deal with that any time you depend upon large groups of people to make decisions or vote for things one way or another. But Youtube takes it a step further by pigeon-holing you into a genre and making assumptions about what you want to see. It strives to give you what you want, but Log out of youtube or otherwise make it forget about you with incognito mode. Then search for and watch that Jordon Peterson interview. After that, try and go research lgbt issues and you'll find yourself having a hard time breaking out of the bubble that Youtube put you in. It was an eye-opener for me.
The only way out of that is to hand curate the algorithm.
Or they could simply stop recommending videos based on popularity. Provide a random sampling rather than "the creme of the crop".
They could VERY easily remove their specific pigeon-holing and provide a button for "Stop making assumptions about me and ignore my history". Or how about a "Break the Bubble" button? That would simply give globally popular suggestions rather than the radicalised ones.
I dont watch much gangsta rap,
A very keen an pertinent lifestyle choice when it comes to garbage on youtube. One that could even be extend past rap.
Most rap I've seen is heavily redacted for sex, drugs, violence, affiliations, etc. Perhaps YT isnt doing this,
. . . No. No youtube isn't bleeping out swear words and adding black bars to videos. This is not a service that Youtube provides. Are you familiar with the platform? This might be a good first step when commenting on an article about their policies.
No, they precisely do not have a right to be on YouTube.
AS. MUCH. AS. WE. DO.
Don't bloody well chop off half the sentence, that's altering what I said and sticking words in my mouth. How rude.
Youtube let's people upload videos. You, me, and NAZIs. If they put up hate fill bullshit, that's a violation of their policy and youtube is well withing their rights to take it down and I won't throw a fuss.
YouTube is a private enterprise. There is no free speech on someone else's platform at their cost.
oh ho ho! I think you're confusing "free speech", and ideal born out of the age of enlightenment that's far older than our nation and constitution, with the first amendment, which regulates the government and not private enterprise. They can most certainly run afoul of free speech issues, regardless of the first amendment. Free speech is not something for other people to worry about. Free speech does not magically go away when it's someone you don't like talking.
that itself is offensive to the very democracy which seeks to protect rights of self expression and speech
Yes. It IS offensive. So?
Offending the King of Thailand is irrelevant. YouTube is an American enterprise.
Yes, exactly. Same with german laws about NAZIs.
Its only duty is to abide by US Law. Everything else is a courtesy.
....Unless they operate in Thailand, where it's illegal. But yes, we're mostly on the same page here. Thailand can go pound sand and block youtube if they really want. On the other hand.... Do you know how CDN's operate? If they DO have servers in Thailand or Germany or Egypt...
And what's at issue here isn't videos by people who merely express their opinions; it's the videos where people call for violence with some vagueness.
. . . And "American standards" as dictated by American law says that's legal. But it's against Youtube's policy. Which is fine. ...Did you make it all the way to the end of my post before commenting?
When so many on the left refer to anyone who disagrees with them as a Nazi the term has becoming meaningless.
So, basically, you're a neo-nazi/white supremacist/right-wing-militant/neo-fascist/racist sympathizer?
OH MY GOD! At least TRY to to play directly into his fucking hand. Listen man, you're not helping our side. You're making us look bad. I understand it's important to you, and yes there are real actual honest-to-god nazis out there and they've been emboldened by recent politics. But immediately jumping out and accusing this guy of being all those terrible things is EXACTLY what he's talking about, and it just reinforces his point. Get your shit together Rick.
Is this staged? Is it rigged? Are Nacho and Rick actually friends and coordinating this level of face-palming?
If you think the half of the country that didn't vote for, and don't support Trump,
And get your stats right. 80.5% of America didn't vote for Trump. 80.2% didn't vote for Hilary.
"protected speech" Don't play word games. The specific term "freedom of speech" goes back at least to 1689 and the idea goes all the way back to 600 BC in old Athens. If you feel the need to invent new terms to try and replace what everyone is already using and understands, you're likely full of shit.
Calls to specific violence is a conspiracy to murder and that's illegal. "Let's go give a wet willie to Locke2005 (849178) next monday after work". That's trying to form a mob for an act of violence (of the most heinous of sorts). Generally advocating violence, like suggesting we tar and feather anyone who doesn't comment their code, that's not illegal. And yeah, these asshats really walk that line don't they? And it sucks that this shit gets down to technicalities. But it's IMPOSSIBLE to keep people from FEELING threatened. Hell, your post makes me feel threatened that my personal rights are going to get taken away and that my political party no longer supports the ideas born out of the age of enlightenment. That winds have changed and times are dark. It sucks. But I'm not advocating we ban you from Slashdot.
There is an implicit threat of violence and intimidation at that point.
Are you concerned about rap?
You know the sort of music videos I'm talking about. What do you think youtube should do with these rap videos?
They may be asshats, delusional, and crazy, but they have a right* to be on Youtube just as much as we do. This is a disturbing trend I've been seeing in my party of late. Just because the other guy is using "free speech" as a defense and talking point doesn't mean he's wrong or that we should start tearing it down. If we seriously only supported Hippy's right to free speech when it was convenient, then we're the exact sort of person the hippies were protesting again. If our views and political ideas and civilization are so shaky that some nut on youtube has a legitimate chance to bring it all tumbling down, we've got bigger problems. And "cracking down" on them often only serves to legitimize their complaints. Like if they're calling you authoritarian jack-boot thugs trying to silence the voice of the people. And yes, yes, I too understand the hypocrisy of a skin-head in literal jack-boots whining about personal rights.
*Offer not available in Germany, where NAZIs are specifically banned. And this brings up another point. Youtube is global. It has to straddle a dozen different law sets. Do we want Youtube banning everything that violates Sharia law? Any criticism of the king of Thailand? Because I think that'd be bullshit. If someone can find this material in Germany, well that's an issue for Germans and... however Youtube deals with that. If they expect their law to govern me, it sounds like we need to export a little more freedom their way.
But hey, calling for specific acts of violence, premeditating violence... that's illegal. That's planning a murder right there. Call the cops. I'm ok with that shit getting shut down.
And calling for generic violence and general hate really is against Youtube's policy. Although I don't want just anyone to have a veto button on what they consider "hateful" and I'd protest if they just start banning anyone with a particular ideology. Yes, even if the ideas are repugnant. Because I want enough personal freedom to suggest we take all you dirty tabbers and string you up. 2-space tabs for life! It's up to Youtube to walk that tightrope of trying to to piss off too many people. Ha, good luck.
Isn't that instinct?