The kind of sentimentality that permits that to work is outright dangerous in an adult. By the time you're past your teens that should be either ignored or annoying... but for it legitimately pull on heart strings?...
If a machine can do that consider how a human being could exploit that to get you to do all sorts of things?
Small children are very vulnerable to that sort of thing... but adults should have grown out of it.
And yet the criticisms come from the experts you say are beyond me and echo what I said before I even read it.
Look, you have nothing productive to contribute to the discussion. All you're going to do with ANYONE is say "I AMZ SMARTS!" and then throw out insults without really explaining anything or conceding that there are problems with your simplistic evaluation.
Seriously, if you behave this way... you have nothing to contribute to anyone. Not just me. Anyone.
You have a hilariously inflated notion of your own knowledge and intelligence.
The criticism of these arguments are well developed and all over the place.
The wiki page for this thing lays out someone else saying more or less the same thing I said above:
"" Related theorems
Because of welfare economics' close ties to social choice theory, Arrow's impossibility theorem is sometimes listed as a third fundamental theorem.[4]
The ideal conditions of the theorems, however are an abstraction. The Greenwald-Stiglitz theorem, for example, states that in the presence of either imperfect information, or incomplete markets, markets are not Pareto efficient. Thus, in real world economies, the degree of these variations from ideal conditions must factor into policy choices.[5] Further, even if these ideal conditions hold, the First Welfare Theorem fails in an overlapping generations model. ""
You WANT a knock out punch because you don't have the intelligence to have a real discussion. So you look for something that no-platforms your opposition.
Sadly you're incompetent at even finding your knock out punch so you've simply made a fool of yourself.
Your theorems require a series of assumptions which don't happen in practice and all of it is dramatically more complex than you math would indicate.
Again, a time variable is required if you want to track growth and change. How you confused yourself into thinking measuring change over time didn't require a time variable is beyond me. That's just retarded.
The test of which of us is right will be proven by whether or not gun control against 3d printed guns turns into another law enforcement quagmire like the drug war.
Let us just put a pin in this discussion and the universe will prove one of us right and one of us wrong.
staffing at universities has expanded exponentially for non-academic positions.
there is some graft in evidence
a lot of money is going into endowment wealth funds... basically the mattress...
campus beautification is a thing... the cost of that construction is also pretty high if you look at the numbers and what they're building... possibly skimming is occurring there...
Lots of scholarships... basically moving money around from people that pay including people that are just borrowing from the government to people that are being given the money without having to take out loans etc.
It is an open secret that colleges are abusing the good will of the government and the students.
College professors are paid no better or worse than they were in the 1950s.
Tuition adjusted for inflation, the cost of tuition is well over ten times what it was then.
So, if the professors are not being paid more, the students are not using 10 times as many professors... where is the money going?
Well, I'm not going to get into that because everyone has short attention spans. It doesn't matter. The point is that the costs can come down dramatically if you squeeze the universities. A lot of administrators and non-essential spending can be cut without impacting the quality of education for the students.
We can see this in other countries that didn't permit this to happen by writing blank checks to the universities. Education pretty much anywhere but the US is dramatically cheaper without being any worse for quality.
The solution is not to increase financial aid. In fact, that is a large part of what caused this to get out of control in the first place. The Feds really need to stop throwing around money. It fucked up the housing market, it fucked up US health care which has gone through the same radical inflation in cost, and it has fucked up college education.
It is a financial feed back loop. Write the colleges a blank check and they'll just get a little bolder every year seeing how far they can push it. You can either put your foot down and do some solid accounting or let it bankrupt you. It is a feed back loop. It doesn't matter how much money you have. Eventually, it will beggar anything as it increases infinitely.
that is the range of native american tribes pre-colonization. You can see the nomatic tribes have a range of at least a thousand miles which was a largely seasonal pattern. They'd follow a herd of animals as it migrated.
there are other examples such as the various east asian steppe tribes that would roam over much of the interior.
Indifferent to whether you like my number, it doesn't really matter. The point you're making that humans are biologically sedentary is not supportable. We are bound to land historically due to technological limitations largely involving agriculture. Historically humans moved. And in recent United States history, modern populations moved with great frequency generation on generation. It is a matter of record.
As to numbers, 3 mph seems reasonable... I'd restrict walking time to 5 hours instead of 10... ten does not sound sustainable. For reference, the Romans marched only slightly faster than that at a sustained pace... but again only did so for five hours per day. The rest of the time involved fortifications, camp making, food gathering, food preparation, sleeping, equipment maintenance, personal hygiene... etc.
Okay, so roughly 16 to 17 miles per day. A year has 365 days. Half of that to reflect the change in seasons from summer to winter is about 182 days. That times the daily sustained distance covered = 2920~3094 miles ONE WAY per year possible assuming there wouldn't be stopping anywhere. Naturally there would. Often a couple months at least would be spent at given destinations before they'd leave for the other place as the seasons changed.
That is just a recurring pattern due to seasons. You also have to take into consideration population displacements as a result of environmental issues or even hostility with other tribes. In either case this would frequently involve an exodus from one region to another which could easily involve a thousand miles or more.
They live predominantly in europe to which they migrated to ages ago... and they are believed to have originated in India. To this day, they are known to wander. They often have mobile homes and squat on land for a week or a month and then move on.
To this day.
Now, to suggest that humans are sedentary... genetically... in our "nature"... it requires that you ignore our history and our nature. It is NOT supportable.
Sure, just like you were able to control heroin and marjuana.
You won't give it up just as the last generation won't give up the drug war.
I not only understand but anticipate that behavior. It doesn't matter.
You can't stop an internet file like that. The technology to turn that into a gun cannot be stopped. The CNC and additive manufacturing machines are maturing in sophistication and falling in cost geometrically. The people pining for a post scarcity society in the UBI thread are counting on this technology. Whatever its impact on economics or politics, it will be developed and broadly available.
There was a ring of gun makers in Hollywood recently that were making AR-15 for gang members out of hotel rooms.
By all means, throw DEA levels of force at the problem. Deploy your agents and your dogs and your guns and investigators... Currently the DEA is getting their asses handed to them by the Mexican cartels. Look at what happened with alcohol. The US government got its ass handed to it by bootleggers. It only ended because the government reversed course and re-legalized alcohol.
You're making the same mistake with guns. And here you might say "but I don't like guns for reasons"... past generation felt the same about drugs. And enough Americans felt that way about alcohol to make that illegal for a time.
All you'll do is enrich criminal organizations, waste resources, shed moral and ethical authority as objecting citizens side with criminal organizations over the government.
You do appreciate how fragile government authority is don't you? You can pass laws if the overwhelming majority of the population agrees with you. If you pass laws that are controversial, you get large portions of society disobeying and then lying about it. Government power relies heavily on pervasive cooperation with the governed. You're not going to get that on this issue any more than cooperation was obtained on drugs and alcohol.
It is already over.
The stages of grief... the advocates of pervasive gun control are going to go through them for decades until in their dotage... they finally sigh... and realize it is hopeless. And if not... mortality will solve that and the subsequent generation will invest resources more productively.
Just like drugs etc... this isn't failing just in the US. The gun control regime is going to fail in Europe, East Asia, South America... etc. The technology makes the policy futile.
And the child porn comment, the problem with that is that the overwhelming majority of the population feels abuse of and sexual objectification of children is abhorrent. You can't compare that to guns. Perhaps you imagine some vast social engineering and propaganda program that will give you that outcome. It was tried with alcohol and drugs as well. You're making the same mistake three times in a row.
It really doesn't matter. It just is a question of how many resources and how much time you want to waste before the inevitable happens.
Seriously, given what I've said, how do you really think you're going to stop this? The child porn comment doesn't work as I said above for the above cited reason. Let us be real here... this is check mate in four moves.
Numbers based on US tax revenue, welfare spending, population numbers... based on nothing apparently.
You clearly were caught out of your depth and are throwing out insults to cover for your incompetence. So deep is this incompetence that you don't realize how transparent it is... pitiful.
the American population was less sedentary in previous generations. It was a trope of the culture that we moved great distances every generation.
Arguing that you can't move because human is not supportable. We have done it in the past and our ancient past had us as hunter gatherers that ranged over thousands of miles.
There's no naturalistic argument for that.
You've been informed.
Regardless, if we accept that things have to be inefficient then you're creating pressure to address the problem in other ways. And I really don't think you want to do that if you care for the welfare and health of people. Because things can take a very dark direction. It happens all the time. Don't think it can't.
If you think you can get rid of the existing welfare system, fire most of the government employees, and control graft and corruption all in one sweep...
And I'm not even addressing whether your idea will work... I'm just saying for the sake of argument even if it would... it still wouldn't happen.
Then you must be a literal god. Turn some water into wine with the snap of your hands.
It won't happen. These ideas are idealistic. They're not practical. I can say nice things about them if I want but we do our nation no service by being childish and naive about things. It won't happen. This is idle silly stuff.
This is one of the primary criticisms Hayek threw at Keynesian economics. If you think you can model growth without time then you don't understand what the term "growth" means... there is a time value built into it. If you eliminate time then you are not modeling growth.
You can triple the number and it still won't change anything.
Take 9 grand and triple it. 27 thousand. Some people need more than that and currently get more than that.
You're going to have a bureaucracy. People that currently get more or need more are going to cry fowl and say they're getting killed/murdered by the UBI.
The politics are intractable. And your efficiencies won't happen because Washington will still hire a million people to administer it.
As to poverty lines, I was looking at people that got welfare benefits. The numbers are between 30 and 50 percent depending on how you want to define things.
The problem is a lot worse than I think the UBI argument appreciates. Perhaps when Nixon proposed it, it might have been possible then. Now... the cancer is so much more advanced. It is non-viable.
I'm telling you... nothing short of a nasty war is going to deal with this... lots of blood and screaming.
I already addressed this very clearly here: "" Total US welfare spending is about 1 trillion dollars which includes the bureaucratic overhead. That is about "3076 dollars"... assuming 325 million people. Now if we limit this to 30 percent of the current US population which receives some kind of welfare benefit... I can increase that to 9000ish dollars per person understanding that the other 60ish percent of the population will get nothing.
Now that runs into problems because many people use well in excess of 9000 dollars. You have people that have children... you have disabled people with very expensive medical needs. You have all sorts of other things which will increase their demands.
Some people consume well over a 100,000 dollars per year in benefits. That is unusual but it happens.
Point is that right off the bat we created two tiers... those who get benefits and those that don't. That gave us 9000 vs zero. But we're actually going to have to subdivide this benefiting group many times leaving a group that gets a lot and lots of groups that get very little.
This is unavoidable given the amount of money you have to work with... this is just math. ""
So for example if something has an effect now and a later consequence later... your equation won't capture that. Given that the history of economics has been one of investment and change leading to often explosive growth later when those investments mature... how do your equation address that?
Throwing out equations you don't understand and then refusing to debate the issue is pretty typical of internet arguments. I get this with communists with some frequency. They'll ask me to read Engles... I'll prove that I actually read from the book they're saying I need to read... and I will subsequently prove they didn't read it.
I'm not even vaguely intimidated by your citation of this fairly obscure equation.
And I know... you probably don't fully realize how completely busted you are... so I'm going to repeat... TIME. You need a time variable to measure growth and change. Change without time is presumed to be instant and instant economic changes don't really happen. A company or economy can be fairly bankrupt for example and still operate as if it isn't if that state is recent. Instant economic changes are simplifications made for a mathematical convenience. But when you take such short cuts to this extent you trend into a counterproductive amount of inaccuracy.
Defense distributed could lose every single court case and they still won't stop 3d printed guns.
The gun control movement has turned into the drug war. You're trying to ban marijuana and backyard booze again.
All gun control regimes rely on controlling industrial production choke points. When those choke points don't exist those regimes are impotent.
The whole gun debate is as over at this point as the drug control debate. I suspect the advocates will have to die of old age just as with the drug control advocates. But once that happens... and unless they're immortal it will... there won't even be an argument anymore.
It is game over.
And to make it all the funnier... who said "get on the right side of history" as if they had a time machines or the ability to predict the future? Well, the gun control advocates did. And who is on the wrong side of history? They are.
Okay, then what are you criticizing in the existing system? How would you identify it?
Appreciate, that I'm merely going to show the impossibility of the standard by applying it outside of your desired context.
I mean, if the UBI is "X"... or hasn't been proven to be "X"... and I can't associate it with "X" without going through that process... then what is it arguing against that can be identified more clearly by the same standard?
As to logistical efficiency, that isn't supportable unless you kill all the other welfare programs and then restrict the UBI to costing no more than those programs. Since neither option is being promised... that entire concept can't be taken seriously.
As to proponents using one line of rhetoric or another to persuade people to agree with them, that isn't really the issue. The issue is what do they want to do and why do they consider it to be a good idea.
There are many superior logistical positions that are not considered by these people. Logistically, we should be favoring things that increase production. UBI doesn't do that. So its not logistically useful unless it more efficiently does something we're already paying for at the moment. Thus... to be more logistically efficient you'd have to operate it on a zero sum basis. That is... it can have any money it can take from the existing welfare system. And if it does that it won't even be able to claim to be more efficient unless it takes LESS than what the welfare system was taking. At that moment, it will be more efficient.
Again, this was the Richard Nixon gambit. Given that the concept is not being pushed by hard eyed political pragmatists like Nixon but instead by people that tend to be very ideologically idealistic and ascribe to utopian economic systems... I don't think this is about logistics.
I think it is about some shining city on a hill shit. Which would be fine if it had a snowball's chance in hell of working. But if I had to bet, I'd sooner bet on the snowball.
I say this because you're not going to be able to do as much with this as I think you think you will.
Total US welfare spending is about 1 trillion dollars which includes the bureaucratic overhead. That is about "3076 dollars"... assuming 325 million people. Now if we limit this to 30 percent of the current US population which receives some kind of welfare benefit... I can increase that to 9000ish dollars per person understanding that the other 60ish percent of the population will get nothing.
Now that runs into problems because many people use well in excess of 9000 dollars. You have people that have children... you have disabled people with very expensive medical needs. You have all sorts of other things which will increase their demands.
Some people consume well over a 100,000 dollars per year in benefits. That is unusual but it happens.
Point is that right off the bat we created two tiers... those who get benefits and those that don't. That gave us 9000 vs zero. But we're actually going to have to subdivide this benefiting group many times leaving a group that gets a lot and lots of groups that get very little.
This is unavoidable given the amount of money you have to work with... this is just math.
And it gets worse because now we need a bureaucracy to determine which group people fit into. So the efficiency of firing the bureaucracy is gone.
Keep in mind, I would like to reign in the welfare state if that is your bias. If that is your position, I agree. However, the UBI won't do it.
At BEST the UBI will be in ADDITION to the existing welfare spending which will mean it increases the welfare which means it cannot claim to be logistically more efficient since it is not improving the economy, increasing production, or leading to any logistical improvement.
Now, you can give up the pretense of it being about logistics and admit it is a moral argument. But... whatever you do... this is pretty transparent.
Its slavery to not pay people when they don't work but also not fire them?
Let us say you didn't come into work on Tuesday. And I say "well, I'm not paying you for that day because you didn't show up but I'm not firing you"... Is THAT slavery? I kind of think you're reaching for a hyperbolic moral argument that is sadly making you seem silly.
That or you simply misunderstood. I was very clear in my original post but if people are inclined to cherry pick sentences and take them out of context... what can I do?:)
As to mindless economic activity, it is only mindless in that YOU don't want to do it. It is not mindless in that it serves no purpose. Many menial jobs must be done. That you don't want to do it doesn't mean it doesn't have to be done by someone.
Listen, comrade, come your silly revolution... which I am cruel enough to wish upon you... you're going to be worked like a dog by the oh so politically correct commissars of your great moral society.
You have utopian dreams of unicorns and fairies? Super. Enjoy eating dreams and being warmed by rainbows.
Slashdot Mirror
Adults grow out of it. Otherwise we wouldn't eat lamb.
You conflated not being manipulated by a computer program with not having compassion.
You will be a good slave. Your logic is weak and you lack the control to defend yourself from manipulation.
You will serve well.
The kind of sentimentality that permits that to work is outright dangerous in an adult. By the time you're past your teens that should be either ignored or annoying... but for it legitimately pull on heart strings?...
If a machine can do that consider how a human being could exploit that to get you to do all sorts of things?
Small children are very vulnerable to that sort of thing... but adults should have grown out of it.
I'm not going to argue with you. The costs have gone up radically. Where did the money go?
There have been studies done of the issue that have shown what I said.
You want to point at the Sun and say it isn't there?
Cool.
This is a massive bubble that is going to pop and your willingness to acknowledge that is utterly irrelevant to the matter.
Good day, sir.
I'll concede the thousands of miles comment was hyperbole if you'll concede the sedentary comment was completely wrong.
that done, we return to the original discussion where you have to remake your position and I don't.
And yet the criticisms come from the experts you say are beyond me and echo what I said before I even read it.
Look, you have nothing productive to contribute to the discussion. All you're going to do with ANYONE is say "I AMZ SMARTS!" and then throw out insults without really explaining anything or conceding that there are problems with your simplistic evaluation.
Seriously, if you behave this way... you have nothing to contribute to anyone. Not just me. Anyone.
You have a hilariously inflated notion of your own knowledge and intelligence.
The criticism of these arguments are well developed and all over the place.
The wiki page for this thing lays out someone else saying more or less the same thing I said above:
""
Related theorems
Because of welfare economics' close ties to social choice theory, Arrow's impossibility theorem is sometimes listed as a third fundamental theorem.[4]
The ideal conditions of the theorems, however are an abstraction. The Greenwald-Stiglitz theorem, for example, states that in the presence of either imperfect information, or incomplete markets, markets are not Pareto efficient. Thus, in real world economies, the degree of these variations from ideal conditions must factor into policy choices.[5] Further, even if these ideal conditions hold, the First Welfare Theorem fails in an overlapping generations model. ""
You WANT a knock out punch because you don't have the intelligence to have a real discussion. So you look for something that no-platforms your opposition.
Sadly you're incompetent at even finding your knock out punch so you've simply made a fool of yourself.
Your theorems require a series of assumptions which don't happen in practice and all of it is dramatically more complex than you math would indicate.
Again, a time variable is required if you want to track growth and change. How you confused yourself into thinking measuring change over time didn't require a time variable is beyond me. That's just retarded.
Try again.
The test of which of us is right will be proven by whether or not gun control against 3d printed guns turns into another law enforcement quagmire like the drug war.
Let us just put a pin in this discussion and the universe will prove one of us right and one of us wrong.
Deal? Good day, sir.
none of which supports your claim that humans are genetically sedentary creatures...
I said, GOOD DAY, SIR.
staffing at universities has expanded exponentially for non-academic positions.
there is some graft in evidence
a lot of money is going into endowment wealth funds... basically the mattress...
campus beautification is a thing... the cost of that construction is also pretty high if you look at the numbers and what they're building... possibly skimming is occurring there...
Lots of scholarships... basically moving money around from people that pay including people that are just borrowing from the government to people that are being given the money without having to take out loans etc.
long list of things...
It is an open secret that colleges are abusing the good will of the government and the students.
College professors are paid no better or worse than they were in the 1950s.
Tuition adjusted for inflation, the cost of tuition is well over ten times what it was then.
So, if the professors are not being paid more, the students are not using 10 times as many professors... where is the money going?
Well, I'm not going to get into that because everyone has short attention spans. It doesn't matter. The point is that the costs can come down dramatically if you squeeze the universities. A lot of administrators and non-essential spending can be cut without impacting the quality of education for the students.
We can see this in other countries that didn't permit this to happen by writing blank checks to the universities. Education pretty much anywhere but the US is dramatically cheaper without being any worse for quality.
The solution is not to increase financial aid. In fact, that is a large part of what caused this to get out of control in the first place. The Feds really need to stop throwing around money. It fucked up the housing market, it fucked up US health care which has gone through the same radical inflation in cost, and it has fucked up college education.
It is a financial feed back loop. Write the colleges a blank check and they'll just get a little bolder every year seeing how far they can push it. You can either put your foot down and do some solid accounting or let it bankrupt you. It is a feed back loop. It doesn't matter how much money you have. Eventually, it will beggar anything as it increases infinitely.
http://www.emersonkent.com/ima...
that is the range of native american tribes pre-colonization. You can see the nomatic tribes have a range of at least a thousand miles which was a largely seasonal pattern. They'd follow a herd of animals as it migrated.
there are other examples such as the various east asian steppe tribes that would roam over much of the interior.
Indifferent to whether you like my number, it doesn't really matter. The point you're making that humans are biologically sedentary is not supportable. We are bound to land historically due to technological limitations largely involving agriculture. Historically humans moved. And in recent United States history, modern populations moved with great frequency generation on generation. It is a matter of record.
As to numbers, 3 mph seems reasonable... I'd restrict walking time to 5 hours instead of 10... ten does not sound sustainable. For reference, the Romans marched only slightly faster than that at a sustained pace... but again only did so for five hours per day. The rest of the time involved fortifications, camp making, food gathering, food preparation, sleeping, equipment maintenance, personal hygiene... etc.
Okay, so roughly 16 to 17 miles per day. A year has 365 days. Half of that to reflect the change in seasons from summer to winter is about 182 days. That times the daily sustained distance covered = 2920~3094 miles ONE WAY per year possible assuming there wouldn't be stopping anywhere. Naturally there would. Often a couple months at least would be spent at given destinations before they'd leave for the other place as the seasons changed.
That is just a recurring pattern due to seasons. You also have to take into consideration population displacements as a result of environmental issues or even hostility with other tribes. In either case this would frequently involve an exodus from one region to another which could easily involve a thousand miles or more.
An example of this evident in modern times is the Romani people:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
They live predominantly in europe to which they migrated to ages ago... and they are believed to have originated in India. To this day, they are known to wander. They often have mobile homes and squat on land for a week or a month and then move on.
To this day.
Now, to suggest that humans are sedentary... genetically... in our "nature"... it requires that you ignore our history and our nature. It is NOT supportable.
Good day, sir.
Sure, just like you were able to control heroin and marjuana.
You won't give it up just as the last generation won't give up the drug war.
I not only understand but anticipate that behavior. It doesn't matter.
You can't stop an internet file like that. The technology to turn that into a gun cannot be stopped. The CNC and additive manufacturing machines are maturing in sophistication and falling in cost geometrically. The people pining for a post scarcity society in the UBI thread are counting on this technology. Whatever its impact on economics or politics, it will be developed and broadly available.
There was a ring of gun makers in Hollywood recently that were making AR-15 for gang members out of hotel rooms.
By all means, throw DEA levels of force at the problem. Deploy your agents and your dogs and your guns and investigators... Currently the DEA is getting their asses handed to them by the Mexican cartels. Look at what happened with alcohol. The US government got its ass handed to it by bootleggers. It only ended because the government reversed course and re-legalized alcohol.
You're making the same mistake with guns. And here you might say "but I don't like guns for reasons"... past generation felt the same about drugs. And enough Americans felt that way about alcohol to make that illegal for a time.
All you'll do is enrich criminal organizations, waste resources, shed moral and ethical authority as objecting citizens side with criminal organizations over the government.
You do appreciate how fragile government authority is don't you? You can pass laws if the overwhelming majority of the population agrees with you. If you pass laws that are controversial, you get large portions of society disobeying and then lying about it. Government power relies heavily on pervasive cooperation with the governed. You're not going to get that on this issue any more than cooperation was obtained on drugs and alcohol.
It is already over.
The stages of grief... the advocates of pervasive gun control are going to go through them for decades until in their dotage... they finally sigh... and realize it is hopeless. And if not... mortality will solve that and the subsequent generation will invest resources more productively.
Just like drugs etc... this isn't failing just in the US. The gun control regime is going to fail in Europe, East Asia, South America... etc. The technology makes the policy futile.
And the child porn comment, the problem with that is that the overwhelming majority of the population feels abuse of and sexual objectification of children is abhorrent. You can't compare that to guns. Perhaps you imagine some vast social engineering and propaganda program that will give you that outcome. It was tried with alcohol and drugs as well. You're making the same mistake three times in a row.
It really doesn't matter. It just is a question of how many resources and how much time you want to waste before the inevitable happens.
Seriously, given what I've said, how do you really think you're going to stop this? The child porn comment doesn't work as I said above for the above cited reason. Let us be real here... this is check mate in four moves.
Numbers based on US tax revenue, welfare spending, population numbers... based on nothing apparently.
You clearly were caught out of your depth and are throwing out insults to cover for your incompetence. So deep is this incompetence that you don't realize how transparent it is... pitiful.
We are done. Good day, sir.
you didn't address the argument... I did. I broke down the numbers... you didn't.
Your default surrender is accepted.
It doesn't matter... you can't stop it. This is the drug war all over again.
The current generation will tire themselves to the grave trying to stop it and the next generation will adjust policy to accept it as a reality.
the American population was less sedentary in previous generations. It was a trope of the culture that we moved great distances every generation.
Arguing that you can't move because human is not supportable. We have done it in the past and our ancient past had us as hunter gatherers that ranged over thousands of miles.
There's no naturalistic argument for that.
You've been informed.
Regardless, if we accept that things have to be inefficient then you're creating pressure to address the problem in other ways. And I really don't think you want to do that if you care for the welfare and health of people. Because things can take a very dark direction. It happens all the time. Don't think it can't.
Total US budget is about 4 trillion.
If you think you can get rid of the existing welfare system, fire most of the government employees, and control graft and corruption all in one sweep...
And I'm not even addressing whether your idea will work... I'm just saying for the sake of argument even if it would... it still wouldn't happen.
Then you must be a literal god. Turn some water into wine with the snap of your hands.
It won't happen. These ideas are idealistic. They're not practical. I can say nice things about them if I want but we do our nation no service by being childish and naive about things. It won't happen. This is idle silly stuff.
nope, you can't measure growth without time.
This is one of the primary criticisms Hayek threw at Keynesian economics. If you think you can model growth without time then you don't understand what the term "growth" means... there is a time value built into it. If you eliminate time then you are not modeling growth.
You can triple the number and it still won't change anything.
Take 9 grand and triple it. 27 thousand. Some people need more than that and currently get more than that.
You're going to have a bureaucracy. People that currently get more or need more are going to cry fowl and say they're getting killed/murdered by the UBI.
The politics are intractable. And your efficiencies won't happen because Washington will still hire a million people to administer it.
As to poverty lines, I was looking at people that got welfare benefits. The numbers are between 30 and 50 percent depending on how you want to define things.
The problem is a lot worse than I think the UBI argument appreciates. Perhaps when Nixon proposed it, it might have been possible then. Now... the cancer is so much more advanced. It is non-viable.
I'm telling you... nothing short of a nasty war is going to deal with this... lots of blood and screaming.
I already addressed this very clearly here:
""
Total US welfare spending is about 1 trillion dollars which includes the bureaucratic overhead. That is about "3076 dollars"... assuming 325 million people. Now if we limit this to 30 percent of the current US population which receives some kind of welfare benefit... I can increase that to 9000ish dollars per person understanding that the other 60ish percent of the population will get nothing.
Now that runs into problems because many people use well in excess of 9000 dollars. You have people that have children... you have disabled people with very expensive medical needs. You have all sorts of other things which will increase their demands.
Some people consume well over a 100,000 dollars per year in benefits. That is unusual but it happens.
Point is that right off the bat we created two tiers... those who get benefits and those that don't. That gave us 9000 vs zero. But we're actually going to have to subdivide this benefiting group many times leaving a group that gets a lot and lots of groups that get very little.
This is unavoidable given the amount of money you have to work with... this is just math.
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You want to measure growth and change in a system without a time variable.
Instant fail.
Here is your equation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
There's no time variable.
So for example if something has an effect now and a later consequence later... your equation won't capture that. Given that the history of economics has been one of investment and change leading to often explosive growth later when those investments mature... how do your equation address that?
Throwing out equations you don't understand and then refusing to debate the issue is pretty typical of internet arguments. I get this with communists with some frequency. They'll ask me to read Engles... I'll prove that I actually read from the book they're saying I need to read... and I will subsequently prove they didn't read it.
I'm not even vaguely intimidated by your citation of this fairly obscure equation.
And I know... you probably don't fully realize how completely busted you are... so I'm going to repeat... TIME. You need a time variable to measure growth and change. Change without time is presumed to be instant and instant economic changes don't really happen. A company or economy can be fairly bankrupt for example and still operate as if it isn't if that state is recent. Instant economic changes are simplifications made for a mathematical convenience. But when you take such short cuts to this extent you trend into a counterproductive amount of inaccuracy.
Again... Time variable. Remember that.
Defense distributed could lose every single court case and they still won't stop 3d printed guns.
The gun control movement has turned into the drug war. You're trying to ban marijuana and backyard booze again.
All gun control regimes rely on controlling industrial production choke points. When those choke points don't exist those regimes are impotent.
The whole gun debate is as over at this point as the drug control debate. I suspect the advocates will have to die of old age just as with the drug control advocates. But once that happens... and unless they're immortal it will... there won't even be an argument anymore.
It is game over.
And to make it all the funnier... who said "get on the right side of history" as if they had a time machines or the ability to predict the future? Well, the gun control advocates did. And who is on the wrong side of history? They are.
Okay, then what are you criticizing in the existing system? How would you identify it?
Appreciate, that I'm merely going to show the impossibility of the standard by applying it outside of your desired context.
I mean, if the UBI is "X"... or hasn't been proven to be "X"... and I can't associate it with "X" without going through that process... then what is it arguing against that can be identified more clearly by the same standard?
As to logistical efficiency, that isn't supportable unless you kill all the other welfare programs and then restrict the UBI to costing no more than those programs. Since neither option is being promised... that entire concept can't be taken seriously.
As to proponents using one line of rhetoric or another to persuade people to agree with them, that isn't really the issue. The issue is what do they want to do and why do they consider it to be a good idea.
There are many superior logistical positions that are not considered by these people. Logistically, we should be favoring things that increase production. UBI doesn't do that. So its not logistically useful unless it more efficiently does something we're already paying for at the moment. Thus... to be more logistically efficient you'd have to operate it on a zero sum basis. That is... it can have any money it can take from the existing welfare system. And if it does that it won't even be able to claim to be more efficient unless it takes LESS than what the welfare system was taking. At that moment, it will be more efficient.
Again, this was the Richard Nixon gambit. Given that the concept is not being pushed by hard eyed political pragmatists like Nixon but instead by people that tend to be very ideologically idealistic and ascribe to utopian economic systems... I don't think this is about logistics.
I think it is about some shining city on a hill shit. Which would be fine if it had a snowball's chance in hell of working. But if I had to bet, I'd sooner bet on the snowball.
I say this because you're not going to be able to do as much with this as I think you think you will.
Total US welfare spending is about 1 trillion dollars which includes the bureaucratic overhead. That is about "3076 dollars"... assuming 325 million people. Now if we limit this to 30 percent of the current US population which receives some kind of welfare benefit... I can increase that to 9000ish dollars per person understanding that the other 60ish percent of the population will get nothing.
Now that runs into problems because many people use well in excess of 9000 dollars. You have people that have children... you have disabled people with very expensive medical needs. You have all sorts of other things which will increase their demands.
Some people consume well over a 100,000 dollars per year in benefits. That is unusual but it happens.
Point is that right off the bat we created two tiers... those who get benefits and those that don't. That gave us 9000 vs zero. But we're actually going to have to subdivide this benefiting group many times leaving a group that gets a lot and lots of groups that get very little.
This is unavoidable given the amount of money you have to work with... this is just math.
And it gets worse because now we need a bureaucracy to determine which group people fit into. So the efficiency of firing the bureaucracy is gone.
Keep in mind, I would like to reign in the welfare state if that is your bias. If that is your position, I agree. However, the UBI won't do it.
At BEST the UBI will be in ADDITION to the existing welfare spending which will mean it increases the welfare which means it cannot claim to be logistically more efficient since it is not improving the economy, increasing production, or leading to any logistical improvement.
Now, you can give up the pretense of it being about logistics and admit it is a moral argument. But... whatever you do... this is pretty transparent.
Its slavery to not pay people when they don't work but also not fire them?
Let us say you didn't come into work on Tuesday. And I say "well, I'm not paying you for that day because you didn't show up but I'm not firing you"... Is THAT slavery? I kind of think you're reaching for a hyperbolic moral argument that is sadly making you seem silly.
That or you simply misunderstood. I was very clear in my original post but if people are inclined to cherry pick sentences and take them out of context... what can I do? :)
As to mindless economic activity, it is only mindless in that YOU don't want to do it. It is not mindless in that it serves no purpose. Many menial jobs must be done. That you don't want to do it doesn't mean it doesn't have to be done by someone.
Listen, comrade, come your silly revolution... which I am cruel enough to wish upon you... you're going to be worked like a dog by the oh so politically correct commissars of your great moral society.
You have utopian dreams of unicorns and fairies? Super. Enjoy eating dreams and being warmed by rainbows.