It amazes me how many people think the world will just grind to a stop if 'everybody' becomes a pure consumer, with disposable income, but outright stops doing all the things they used to do.
Who's going to clean the sewers if they can live a decent life doing nothing?
If you pay enough, someone will do it. It's called a free market.
Anyway, your argument is based on the false assumption that the basic income will be high enough to make it pointless working at anything to earn any more money.
As long as it is enough to cover a small apartment and food this would be awesome. My love is reading and the library has all the books I want. I could finally quit my job, get a small place near the library and just read books all day everyday!
And.... you've just demonstrated why it can't possibly work. Few people will want to work if they've just given enough money to live a decent life without working.
But, hey, from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs, comrades!
Not really, because most people would want more money than this bare minimum. I would also quite happily spend more of my time sitting in a room reading, but I would still want to be able to go out drinking cocktails, eating at nice restaurants, buying tech toys, getting some new clothes, going on holidays in the sun, buying a decent car, and so on, and so I'd need a job,,aybe part time, but definitely some sort of work.
This is completely ignoring everyone with children or other responsibilities.
Everyone who wants stimulation or more money than is required for basic subsistence?
So, basically, you seem to agree that no-one will want to do any job that they currently do for pay rather than love? Hint: most people who aren't fighter pilots or astronauts don't actually love their jobs.
And there are tons of people who currently willingly work difficult jobs for mediocre pay.
Most of whom will quit those jobs once they're making that 'mediocre pay' for doing nothing.
Basic income wouldn't be "mediocre pay" it would be "survival pay".
I am married and have five kids (three adopted). I could quit and make almost as much money under that plan. Why work? Never mind that I have a masters degree in engineering.
You'd be earning a lot more if you worked on top of that income. OP was using round figures, but I imagine in reality the amounts wouldn't be so generous as to give families like yours $90K a year.
If this basic income is enough to feed, clothe, and house a person, then there will be no incentive for people to take jobs that traditionally pay a lower wage, since basic income will enough to take care of basic needs that 99% of a person's income went towards anyways when they were working such jobs.
If it is not enough to take care of basic needs, then it is really pointless because the people that *could* otherwise have benefited the most from something like this will still not have enough to get by.
If the basic income just about covers your food, utility bills, food and the rest, then each hour you work on top of that is fun money. Most people will still want some fun.
Uh, no, it's the Basic Income Nutters who think people are slaves to their jobs, and will keep working even if they don't have to.
No, Basic Income would not provide you with free cocaine, vintage clarets, kobe steak, hookers, Ferraris, yachts, luxury beachfront mansions, Carribean holidays, original Picassos, iPads or whatever other luxuries you currently spend your money on.
Unless you don't mind sharing a room in a crappy house and eating beans a lot, you'll probably still want a job.
Extrapolating from that, the best sort of welfare program would be to have a "work center," where anyone can go to earn money. Maybe they will clean up the litter on the highways, or maybe they will dig ditches and re-fill them afterwards, but they should be doing work. And then pay them a reasonable wage in return.
This is, I suppose, the logical conclusiion of the so-called Protestant work ethic. It shows how stupid it is.
Wow, if you think that Eighteenth Century Britain was some sort of socialist skiver's heaven with poor people living the life of riley, you clearly haven't read much history.
And if you could get a basic living from not working, why work? That would drive the GDP way down, and ruin the economy.
Why does anyone work as anything more demanding than a burger flipper for twenty hours a week now?
People here seem to be assuming that the basic income is going to be something you can live comfortably on (as in have a nice house, new car every couple of years, designer clothes, the latest iPhone, holidays abroad, eat out at proper restaurants most nights and so on).
It's not. It will pay for the basics, like a room to sleep in and enough money to buy food and the occasional takeaway pizza.
Most people don't want to be living a beans-on-toast-in-a-bedsit student lifestyle when they're in their forties and have kids.
"I'll bet you could make it to the surface if you had to"
I'll bet ten to one you wouldn't.
I base my case in my free and scuba diving experience, and the obvious lack of experience from your side.
Out of curiosity, a quick google shows that the world free diving record is over 200m, so escaping from a 90m deep submarine is certainly survivable in theory, but in an emergency situation it does seem pretty unlikely.
I'm sure we didn't overstate the danger at all to rally support for the war. No matter how close they were, Hitler was a giant asshole and we needed to be in that war so we could fuck him.
Interestingly, it seems there are a lot of misconceptions about that what was going on over there. One might draw parallels to what's going on over there today in Syria, but it seems that we're not in the business of fucking assholes so much anymore. No one has the energy to fuck those assholes anymore.
Reminds me of:
"Pussies don't like dicks, because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes: assholes that just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is: they fuck too much or fuck when it isn't appropriate - and it takes a pussy to show them that. But sometimes, pussies can be so full of shit that they become assholes themselves... because pussies are an inch and half away from ass holes. I don't know much about this crazy, crazy world, but I do know this: If you don't let us fuck this asshole, we're going to have our dicks and pussies all covered in shit!"
I never understood why she had to die. They should have just taken her with them. The effect would likely be the same. If it mattered so much they probably could have used their advanced medical knowlege to fake her death. The only change to history would be the disappearance of her body. How bad could that be?
Good to see someone focussing on the really important part of this story.
The possibility of Iran nuking the US/West, even if they developed nuclear weapons, is so remote as to be not worth considering. The only plausible point of them having nukes is to avoid being as defenceless as Iraq, so that as a last resort they could threaten to retaliate against the US if they were invaded, even though the amount of damage they could do would be (relatively) minor.
As far as actually using them offensively, their only real target might be Israel, in which case you would have a mini-MAD scenario.
Slashdot Mirror
Lol.
Economic incompetence?
China is the richest country in the world with the highest GDP of any nation.
Even if that were true now (which it isn't) it certainly wasn't the case when Chairman Mao took control.
You make it sound as though Star Trek style replicators are just around the corner.
It amazes me how many people think the world will just grind to a stop if 'everybody' becomes a pure consumer, with disposable income, but outright stops doing all the things they used to do.
Who's going to clean the sewers if they can live a decent life doing nothing?
If you pay enough, someone will do it. It's called a free market.
Anyway, your argument is based on the false assumption that the basic income will be high enough to make it pointless working at anything to earn any more money.
As long as it is enough to cover a small apartment and food this would be awesome. My love is reading and the library has all the books I want. I could finally quit my job, get a small place near the library and just read books all day everyday!
And.... you've just demonstrated why it can't possibly work. Few people will want to work if they've just given enough money to live a decent life without working.
But, hey, from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs, comrades!
Not really, because most people would want more money than this bare minimum. I would also quite happily spend more of my time sitting in a room reading, but I would still want to be able to go out drinking cocktails, eating at nice restaurants, buying tech toys, getting some new clothes, going on holidays in the sun, buying a decent car, and so on, and so I'd need a job, ,aybe part time, but definitely some sort of work.
This is completely ignoring everyone with children or other responsibilities.
Everyone who wants stimulation or more money than is required for basic subsistence?
So, basically, you seem to agree that no-one will want to do any job that they currently do for pay rather than love? Hint: most people who aren't fighter pilots or astronauts don't actually love their jobs.
And there are tons of people who currently willingly work difficult jobs for mediocre pay.
Most of whom will quit those jobs once they're making that 'mediocre pay' for doing nothing.
Basic income wouldn't be "mediocre pay" it would be "survival pay".
I am married and have five kids (three adopted). I could quit and make almost as much money under that plan. Why work? Never mind that I have a masters degree in engineering.
You'd be earning a lot more if you worked on top of that income. OP was using round figures, but I imagine in reality the amounts wouldn't be so generous as to give families like yours $90K a year.
If this basic income is enough to feed, clothe, and house a person, then there will be no incentive for people to take jobs that traditionally pay a lower wage, since basic income will enough to take care of basic needs that 99% of a person's income went towards anyways when they were working such jobs.
If it is not enough to take care of basic needs, then it is really pointless because the people that *could* otherwise have benefited the most from something like this will still not have enough to get by.
If the basic income just about covers your food, utility bills, food and the rest, then each hour you work on top of that is fun money. Most people will still want some fun.
Uh, no, it's the Basic Income Nutters who think people are slaves to their jobs, and will keep working even if they don't have to.
No, Basic Income would not provide you with free cocaine, vintage clarets, kobe steak, hookers, Ferraris, yachts, luxury beachfront mansions, Carribean holidays, original Picassos, iPads or whatever other luxuries you currently spend your money on.
Unless you don't mind sharing a room in a crappy house and eating beans a lot, you'll probably still want a job.
Extrapolating from that, the best sort of welfare program would be to have a "work center," where anyone can go to earn money. Maybe they will clean up the litter on the highways, or maybe they will dig ditches and re-fill them afterwards, but they should be doing work. And then pay them a reasonable wage in return.
This is, I suppose, the logical conclusiion of the so-called Protestant work ethic. It shows how stupid it is.
Wow, if you think that Eighteenth Century Britain was some sort of socialist skiver's heaven with poor people living the life of riley, you clearly haven't read much history.
And if you could get a basic living from not working, why work? That would drive the GDP way down, and ruin the economy.
Why does anyone work as anything more demanding than a burger flipper for twenty hours a week now?
People here seem to be assuming that the basic income is going to be something you can live comfortably on (as in have a nice house, new car every couple of years, designer clothes, the latest iPhone, holidays abroad, eat out at proper restaurants most nights and so on).
It's not. It will pay for the basics, like a room to sleep in and enough money to buy food and the occasional takeaway pizza.
Most people don't want to be living a beans-on-toast-in-a-bedsit student lifestyle when they're in their forties and have kids.
We won't have to rely on Russians that long. I have faith in private space companies.
I'd love to see the business plan of the company that wants to land a few astronauts on Mars.
Apart from the sale of TV rights, I don't see there being much on the "cash inflows" line.
Not "anti-space", anti "delusions about space"
You're overlooking the fact that the majority of slashdotters are binary thinkers.
So, you're either pro-space or anti-space.
So you've never been to a national park to see something amazing? Never, right?
Well, it's like that, except that I personally would love the opportunity to land on a moon of Saturn, for example.
I'd like to see that. "The final frontier" is actually a pretty damn good way to explain it.
I think the point is that we shouldn't be spending hundreds of billions of dollars just to allow a bit of space tourism.
This is not the same thing as saying there is no point to it at all, merely that you need a better justification than that.
WWII ended at the beginning of May 1945. This sub continued operations another 7 months? How was it supplied?
TFS said it sunk in January 1945, which to us normal human beings is 4 months before the end of the War.
"I'll bet you could make it to the surface if you had to"
I'll bet ten to one you wouldn't.
I base my case in my free and scuba diving experience, and the obvious lack of experience from your side.
Out of curiosity, a quick google shows that the world free diving record is over 200m, so escaping from a 90m deep submarine is certainly survivable in theory, but in an emergency situation it does seem pretty unlikely.
On the one hand, the members of the crew were probably Nazis in the technical sense...as in a member of the party.
On the other hand, they were also probably just kids following the path that was laid out for them...join the party and fight or go to the camps.
Would you have the same dilemma about the teenagers beheading prisoners for ISIS?
These are phones, people. It's not a religion.
Burn the heretic!
the ability to install arbitrary APKs
For a second I forgot this was an Android story, and shuddered.
I'm sure we didn't overstate the danger at all to rally support for the war. No matter how close they were, Hitler was a giant asshole and we needed to be in that war so we could fuck him.
Interestingly, it seems there are a lot of misconceptions about that what was going on over there. One might draw parallels to what's going on over there today in Syria, but it seems that we're not in the business of fucking assholes so much anymore. No one has the energy to fuck those assholes anymore.
Reminds me of:
"Pussies don't like dicks, because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes: assholes that just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is: they fuck too much or fuck when it isn't appropriate - and it takes a pussy to show them that. But sometimes, pussies can be so full of shit that they become assholes themselves... because pussies are an inch and half away from ass holes. I don't know much about this crazy, crazy world, but I do know this: If you don't let us fuck this asshole, we're going to have our dicks and pussies all covered in shit!"
I never understood why she had to die. They should have just taken her with them. The effect would likely be the same. If it mattered so much they probably could have used their advanced medical knowlege to fake her death. The only change to history would be the disappearance of her body. How bad could that be?
Good to see someone focussing on the really important part of this story.
As far as actually using them offensively, their only real target might be Israel, in which case you would have a mini-MAD scenario.
all of the Germans immediately went "What?!? No, we were never doing that!"
No shit. It's like how none of them were REAL Nazis, they were just going along with it because of the cool Hugo Boss uniforms.
Hitler wasn't insane; he was a genius. An evil genius, but a genius nonetheless.
In any discussion about WW2, at some point someone will claim Hitler was a genius.
Cool cartoons. But in the last one you linked they are shaking hands with their left hands. I wonder if that has any significance.
Their right hand is behind their backs, near their holstered gun.
Most people are right handed, and the whole reason for shaking hands with your right is to show that you're not holding a weapon.