While mostly mentioned by left-leaning politicians you should be aware that in its simplest form it would be a move to essentially dismantle the welfare state. The idea is that UBI replaces welfare, which would be eliminating millions of public positions and wasteful burocracy, thus saving money overall.
Besides, I think once the right catches on it can be used as a tool to justify poverty even more than it is now, because we will all be able to smugly know that everyone on the street is receiving this same amount of money. So if they waste it, it's on them. No goverment or anyone else to blame.
As to whether it would make people more lazy, sure, probably a little. What I think it would definitely do is eliminate or force higher salaries on the worst jobs, which might not be a bad thing. Then another thing probably would that this weird class of junkies who will have to crowd into small apartments to save on money will kind of spring up. I'm sure there will be tons of odd unintended consequences. But you should think about it a little more, it's obviously a lot more complicated than it seems you think. I think the right can and some day will push for it as well, but just with different motives.
So as far as we know, at least 5-10 households in Alabama have voluntarily moved to LED lighting! In case you didn't really read the summary this is a policy that will eventually affect 400 million people living on an entire subcontinent.
I've heard the point you're referring to before and generally I've agreed with it (take driving "green" cars for example). But with lighting? That doesn't make a lot of sense. You just screw in an LED bulb when the old incandescent or halogen has burned out. There's no reason people would go around adding more lamps and such. In commercial uses thought to some extent I could see this happen, but in the residential case, which I think these types of policies are aimed at, it certainly will have a big impact.
I understand they are profitable now. I never said the opposite. But the majority of their profit comes from something totally unrelated to what their ultimate purpose is: to be the sole provider of everything physical you buy. It has taken them more than 20 years to come to where they are now, and most of that time what brought them the most revenue did not bring them very much profit. My point is that their incredible investor backing enabled this. Without it, it never would have happened. I must add right away that I'm not a total idiot and I do understand generally how capitalism works, but I just find it strange when "disruptive technologies" which are causing sea changes in American society are largely investor driven for such a long time. And are not based on an actual profitable product itself. This is relatively new! It's incredible to me that in your Uber ride you are only paying around 40% (https://medium.com/@parismarx/uber-is-not-price-competitive-with-transit-3ab1be13d9d5) of the cost.
"The profits from A.W.S. represented 56 percent of Amazon’s total operating income, even though the $2.57 billion in revenue from A.W.S. — up 64 percent from a year earlier — amounted to less than 9 percent of total revenue."
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/0...
I think it's sad how little commentary focuses on how both Uber and Lyft are so unprofitable. I mean they are wildly popular, but until they can make serious money off their business model I don't see why they aren't seen a mild failure by non-investors. They will likely only do so after completely eliminating all competition, after most licensed taxi drivers have lost their jobs (that aren't subsidized by investor capital) and many transit systems are gutted.
Similar case to Amazon. Which investors effectively subsidized over the past decade, and will continue to do so until they have run all competition into the ground and start turning significant profits.
In what situation would you ever need to do this? So you fly to NY, then decide you'd like your car there and wait for it to drive itself to you? I can see this being a really neat perk for when you buy the car online or something, but if someone wants there car somewhere normally they'd just prefer to drive it there I think. Musk is starting to remind me of Michael O'Leary the CEO of Ryanair, making crazy claims that help people make small talk at parties. It's just marketing, and it works.
And this almost always fails again soon. Besides that, there's a lot else that can go wrong. I tried it several times myself just to see if it was some kind of miracle fix, but they worked for half an hour then failed again right away. Get someone to change the GPU, there's plenty of great prices on eBay. It's a part that costs like $15, you just pay for the labor. I get very few returns from this repair, and almost all of them in the warranty period.
For me the main point is a little bit moot, because as long as the surrounding society facilitates the people whose jobs are being displaced being retrained, it would never necessarily be a problem. The issue becomes, using the example of the summary, if the truck drivers are simply laid off, and the main bulk of the new, higher-skilled jobs are given to a completely different set of people, as tends to happen. This tends to leave people with just one skill and little education in a pretty bad place, unable or even (understandably) unwilling to invest the large amounts of time and money to gain the new desirable Job Requirements.
The old are pushed out, with nowhere to go, and the new have little trouble because their place in life (generally younger) makes it easier for them to see coming changes and adapt.
What most posts seem to be missing is that you can only read so much at once anyway. I mean seeing an entire website (or an entire news article) I don't think would even be any nicer. Your eyes then have to travel a lot more, it seems almost that scrolling is about as easier as craning your neck from the top of a screen to the bottom.
I'm a bit shocked at some of these responses. What do you prefer them to do? Ignore their data if it includes too many black people? All they can do is try to be smarter about the people they know are already repeat offenders, and yet somehow everyone is criticizing this... I'm confused.
Well the second paragraph of the summary makes it pretty clear it isn't just a database of "people who look like they could be criminals". They are repeat offenders of serious crimes. I don't really even get what you mean by "biased slice of the population". Yeah it's biased, because they have to include bad guys in the list. Otherwise what do you mean? Data isn't racist, which was my original point. I'm assuming unless they are the most bigotted people on the planet and somehow programmed that into their algorithm, their lists include a pretty fair percentage of each race, according to their relative rates of committing the crimes they are singling out as important.
I think you're missing the point, because if data is really being used how it should be, in the most efficient way, this goes way past "profiling", which is essentially the opposite approach in terms of detail, and heads into "accuracy".
In any case, hasn't our average height actually increased by about that much in the last 20 generations? I mean people just 100 years ago were much shorter on average. I know this has to do with nutrition and all sorts of other things other than genetics, but it seems like a pretty bad example to pick nonetheless.
Why does everyone want to think drones will do everything in the future? Do we actually need this? They really seem like the 21st century equivalent of the flying car. Or perhaps a better example is video phones in 80s sci-fi movies. People just seem to really like the idea, even if time may tell that it will not be nearly as important as is being proposed if it ends up happening at all. So now there is Facetime and Skype and a few things like that, but 99% of all calls occur still in the same old-fashioned voice-only fashion.
In Spain 100% of the cab rides (50+) I've taken have had courteous, social drivers (at least as far as Spanish people are courteous), fast, fairly metered, in modern cars with air conditioning, etc. I think a few times they may have taken a slight detour, but nothing I would get upset about.
And cabs are pretty much always available, pretty much all times of day. And the prices are fine, cheap even.
So, I don't know if this is an American problem but I definitely would not welcome so called peer-to-peer car services destroying what is a functioning, well-regulated, economy here. I think what it would put in its place would be a city with a similar service, for a similar price (although probably fluxuating much more wildly, with price-gouging effectively condoned) but with the car drivers not being able to actually count on what they do as a full time job. I can already book a cab in real time with a mobile app, and get them to pick me up at a certain time by phone. So how does this really benefit me, or anyone, in the long term? It seems like it's just making one more sector a horrible one to work in. At least in terms of stability.
From Spain:
Unlimited 4G (after 1GB it goes to 3G speeds), Unlimited SMS/Calls, 100/10 Fiber optic Internet at home, Landline with 550 minutes to mobiles included, free to other landlines in Spain, Basic cable for 72€ taxes included, which is around $100. This is Movistar's "Fusión Fibra Máxima" package.
It's actually interesting to me to think that if *all* taxes could be collected, then how much fairer they could become. And how much this would affected the average salaried worker.
When will people stop thinking that any job is a good job? That a dynamic economy makes some rich but many others lose out because they are not willing or cannot constantly "retool" themselves? That a bit of enforced job stability (even overprotected government jobs, yes I said it) is good even if it comes at the cost of productivity?
Why can't we at least soften the aggressiveness of the rat race a little bit? Why is this so impossible to at least pursue as an ideal in the US?
From Wikipedia: "The money received from the fee represents approximately 75% of the cost of these services with most of the remainder coming from the profits of BBC Worldwide — a commercial wing of the corporation which sells programmes and runs stations overseas (such as BBC World News), as well as other business allied to broadcasting such as publishing."
"A television licence is required for each household where television programmes are watched as they are broadcast, irrespective of the signal method (terrestrial, satellite, cable or the Internet)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence#United_Kingdom
Hmm. I wonder if even more than one percent of households would legitamtely be exempt. Now it's not public sector in the sense that it isn't run by the government, that's true. But part of the great success of England's model, and why it's been copied in many places, is having so many people not think of the licence fee as a tax. Because, officially it isn't, but in practice it's the same.
Slashdot Mirror
While mostly mentioned by left-leaning politicians you should be aware that in its simplest form it would be a move to essentially dismantle the welfare state. The idea is that UBI replaces welfare, which would be eliminating millions of public positions and wasteful burocracy, thus saving money overall. Besides, I think once the right catches on it can be used as a tool to justify poverty even more than it is now, because we will all be able to smugly know that everyone on the street is receiving this same amount of money. So if they waste it, it's on them. No goverment or anyone else to blame. As to whether it would make people more lazy, sure, probably a little. What I think it would definitely do is eliminate or force higher salaries on the worst jobs, which might not be a bad thing. Then another thing probably would that this weird class of junkies who will have to crowd into small apartments to save on money will kind of spring up. I'm sure there will be tons of odd unintended consequences. But you should think about it a little more, it's obviously a lot more complicated than it seems you think. I think the right can and some day will push for it as well, but just with different motives.
So as far as we know, at least 5-10 households in Alabama have voluntarily moved to LED lighting! In case you didn't really read the summary this is a policy that will eventually affect 400 million people living on an entire subcontinent.
I've heard the point you're referring to before and generally I've agreed with it (take driving "green" cars for example). But with lighting? That doesn't make a lot of sense. You just screw in an LED bulb when the old incandescent or halogen has burned out. There's no reason people would go around adding more lamps and such. In commercial uses thought to some extent I could see this happen, but in the residential case, which I think these types of policies are aimed at, it certainly will have a big impact.
I understand they are profitable now. I never said the opposite. But the majority of their profit comes from something totally unrelated to what their ultimate purpose is: to be the sole provider of everything physical you buy. It has taken them more than 20 years to come to where they are now, and most of that time what brought them the most revenue did not bring them very much profit. My point is that their incredible investor backing enabled this. Without it, it never would have happened. I must add right away that I'm not a total idiot and I do understand generally how capitalism works, but I just find it strange when "disruptive technologies" which are causing sea changes in American society are largely investor driven for such a long time. And are not based on an actual profitable product itself. This is relatively new! It's incredible to me that in your Uber ride you are only paying around 40% (https://medium.com/@parismarx/uber-is-not-price-competitive-with-transit-3ab1be13d9d5) of the cost.
"The profits from A.W.S. represented 56 percent of Amazon’s total operating income, even though the $2.57 billion in revenue from A.W.S. — up 64 percent from a year earlier — amounted to less than 9 percent of total revenue." https://www.nytimes.com/2016/0...
I think it's sad how little commentary focuses on how both Uber and Lyft are so unprofitable. I mean they are wildly popular, but until they can make serious money off their business model I don't see why they aren't seen a mild failure by non-investors. They will likely only do so after completely eliminating all competition, after most licensed taxi drivers have lost their jobs (that aren't subsidized by investor capital) and many transit systems are gutted. Similar case to Amazon. Which investors effectively subsidized over the past decade, and will continue to do so until they have run all competition into the ground and start turning significant profits.
In what situation would you ever need to do this? So you fly to NY, then decide you'd like your car there and wait for it to drive itself to you? I can see this being a really neat perk for when you buy the car online or something, but if someone wants there car somewhere normally they'd just prefer to drive it there I think. Musk is starting to remind me of Michael O'Leary the CEO of Ryanair, making crazy claims that help people make small talk at parties. It's just marketing, and it works.
Or maybe a sports analogy please?
In other words, you don't have much of a social life.
And this almost always fails again soon. Besides that, there's a lot else that can go wrong. I tried it several times myself just to see if it was some kind of miracle fix, but they worked for half an hour then failed again right away. Get someone to change the GPU, there's plenty of great prices on eBay. It's a part that costs like $15, you just pay for the labor. I get very few returns from this repair, and almost all of them in the warranty period.
For me the main point is a little bit moot, because as long as the surrounding society facilitates the people whose jobs are being displaced being retrained, it would never necessarily be a problem. The issue becomes, using the example of the summary, if the truck drivers are simply laid off, and the main bulk of the new, higher-skilled jobs are given to a completely different set of people, as tends to happen. This tends to leave people with just one skill and little education in a pretty bad place, unable or even (understandably) unwilling to invest the large amounts of time and money to gain the new desirable Job Requirements. The old are pushed out, with nowhere to go, and the new have little trouble because their place in life (generally younger) makes it easier for them to see coming changes and adapt.
What most posts seem to be missing is that you can only read so much at once anyway. I mean seeing an entire website (or an entire news article) I don't think would even be any nicer. Your eyes then have to travel a lot more, it seems almost that scrolling is about as easier as craning your neck from the top of a screen to the bottom.
I'm a bit shocked at some of these responses. What do you prefer them to do? Ignore their data if it includes too many black people? All they can do is try to be smarter about the people they know are already repeat offenders, and yet somehow everyone is criticizing this... I'm confused.
Well the second paragraph of the summary makes it pretty clear it isn't just a database of "people who look like they could be criminals". They are repeat offenders of serious crimes. I don't really even get what you mean by "biased slice of the population". Yeah it's biased, because they have to include bad guys in the list. Otherwise what do you mean? Data isn't racist, which was my original point. I'm assuming unless they are the most bigotted people on the planet and somehow programmed that into their algorithm, their lists include a pretty fair percentage of each race, according to their relative rates of committing the crimes they are singling out as important.
I think you're missing the point, because if data is really being used how it should be, in the most efficient way, this goes way past "profiling", which is essentially the opposite approach in terms of detail, and heads into "accuracy".
In any case, hasn't our average height actually increased by about that much in the last 20 generations? I mean people just 100 years ago were much shorter on average. I know this has to do with nutrition and all sorts of other things other than genetics, but it seems like a pretty bad example to pick nonetheless.
Why does everyone want to think drones will do everything in the future? Do we actually need this? They really seem like the 21st century equivalent of the flying car. Or perhaps a better example is video phones in 80s sci-fi movies. People just seem to really like the idea, even if time may tell that it will not be nearly as important as is being proposed if it ends up happening at all. So now there is Facetime and Skype and a few things like that, but 99% of all calls occur still in the same old-fashioned voice-only fashion.
Tell this to the Portuguese. I don't agree with you.
In Spain 100% of the cab rides (50+) I've taken have had courteous, social drivers (at least as far as Spanish people are courteous), fast, fairly metered, in modern cars with air conditioning, etc. I think a few times they may have taken a slight detour, but nothing I would get upset about. And cabs are pretty much always available, pretty much all times of day. And the prices are fine, cheap even. So, I don't know if this is an American problem but I definitely would not welcome so called peer-to-peer car services destroying what is a functioning, well-regulated, economy here. I think what it would put in its place would be a city with a similar service, for a similar price (although probably fluxuating much more wildly, with price-gouging effectively condoned) but with the car drivers not being able to actually count on what they do as a full time job. I can already book a cab in real time with a mobile app, and get them to pick me up at a certain time by phone. So how does this really benefit me, or anyone, in the long term? It seems like it's just making one more sector a horrible one to work in. At least in terms of stability.
From Spain: Unlimited 4G (after 1GB it goes to 3G speeds), Unlimited SMS/Calls, 100/10 Fiber optic Internet at home, Landline with 550 minutes to mobiles included, free to other landlines in Spain, Basic cable for 72€ taxes included, which is around $100. This is Movistar's "Fusión Fibra Máxima" package.
It's actually interesting to me to think that if *all* taxes could be collected, then how much fairer they could become. And how much this would affected the average salaried worker.
When will people stop thinking that any job is a good job? That a dynamic economy makes some rich but many others lose out because they are not willing or cannot constantly "retool" themselves? That a bit of enforced job stability (even overprotected government jobs, yes I said it) is good even if it comes at the cost of productivity? Why can't we at least soften the aggressiveness of the rat race a little bit? Why is this so impossible to at least pursue as an ideal in the US?
From Wikipedia: "The money received from the fee represents approximately 75% of the cost of these services with most of the remainder coming from the profits of BBC Worldwide — a commercial wing of the corporation which sells programmes and runs stations overseas (such as BBC World News), as well as other business allied to broadcasting such as publishing."
"A television licence is required for each household where television programmes are watched as they are broadcast, irrespective of the signal method (terrestrial, satellite, cable or the Internet)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence#United_Kingdom Hmm. I wonder if even more than one percent of households would legitamtely be exempt. Now it's not public sector in the sense that it isn't run by the government, that's true. But part of the great success of England's model, and why it's been copied in many places, is having so many people not think of the licence fee as a tax. Because, officially it isn't, but in practice it's the same.
I think most would consider the licence fee a sort of tax.