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anticitizen13.7
Not posting at TMC after 9/17/2018
It wasn't clear from your post who or what you were responding to. This rudeness is unnecessary.
Elon is talking about the future zero marginal cost society. You seem to be talking about the present.
In the future fusion energy will be free and abundant (whether solar or some other technology) and we will be able to 3D print miracle drugs, housing, food, and anything we want for free. Scarcity will end.
Capitalism will be a brief period in human history -- roughly that short period between the hunter-gatherers and the zero marginal cost revolution to come. People who lack imagination won't understand. Elon Musk does.
Sure, for the present, let's educate people more to make them smarter, and have more ability to imagine a vastly different future.
Wouldn't that be the key aspect? He went into Paypal, Tesla, Space X and Solar City asking what problems need to be solved. Automation eliminating jobs is a problem that's gonna need to be solved. He may not be able to solve all the world's problems but he seems to have a unique talent for identifying what we need to work towards.
If you have a better idea for supporting the consumer base when labor-based wages are no longer viable then please share it...
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rxlawdude
Active Member
That apocryphal story has circulated for at least 40 years (albeit before, the whine was "Eldorado"). I'm sure I can find millionaires who drive beat up Hondas. Exceptions, not the rule, unless one is disingenuous about claiming it's the rule.
rxlawdude
Active Member
On this, we agree! If you mean Charter Schools and/or vouchers, then we have a real disagreement.
Well, educate people appropriately at lower cost would help. Along with housing people at lower cost and getting people healthy at lower cost. It's worth noting that all 3 high-cist fundamentals are becoming more expensive, which is frankly ridiculous.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Not a story, I saw it all the time first hand in practice. Back when smartphones were "new" I used that as a litmus test. If someone asked me for a script for Tylenol (i.e. something they could get OTC, but wanted a script so that Medicaid would cover it), I would not write it if they were toting a new smart phone. $400-600 phone (at the time), they could certainly afford $3 out of pocket for some Tylenol.
There are plenty of people that tried to abuse the system . . . just because they could.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Nope, I just mean what I said previously - ELIMINATING teacher Tenure. The concept of Tenure in public school teachers that protects them against . . . well anything, is ridiculous. Every profession should have standards which they are required to maintain, and universal job protection goes against that.
And you don't have to wait for a zero marginal cost society to justify UBI either.
There is more detailed evidence:
https://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea (2).pdf
Mincome - Wikipedia
Revisiting Manitoba's basic-income experiment
Money for All
And if you are more inclined to video -- there is one:
Bregman explains with intelligence, evidence, reason and logic, how cash payments (cash for nothing! oh my!) address poverty better and cheaper than other programs.
The idea of course offends people who are guided by ideology, but not people guided by reason, facts and evidence.
There is more detailed evidence:
https://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea (2).pdf
Mincome - Wikipedia
Revisiting Manitoba's basic-income experiment
Money for All
And if you are more inclined to video -- there is one:
Bregman explains with intelligence, evidence, reason and logic, how cash payments (cash for nothing! oh my!) address poverty better and cheaper than other programs.
The idea of course offends people who are guided by ideology, but not people guided by reason, facts and evidence.
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anticitizen13.7
Not posting at TMC after 9/17/2018
What if the phone was a gift from someone else? Or the person acquired it before they fell on hard times?
There's a limit to what outside observers can know. Yes, some people try to cheat the system. I know a few. But I hesitate to judge others on their possessions simply because I usually don't know the whole story.
I also know wealthy people who drive Honda Accords. They say they didn't get rich by writing other people big checks.
rxlawdude
Active Member
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Refusing to write a non-essential script is by no means breach of oath. And this was prevalent enough that during training that the attending physicians gave everyone instructions to look for the signs of it.
I would NEVER refuse an essential script to any patient. But an OTC product . . . . yeah, not happening.
MikeQ
Member
This aspect is what concerns me about UBI. Part of my extended family lives in poverty and collect welfare. They aren't capable of making good decisions when it comes to money. They spend on completely unnecessary items yet struggle to pay the rent, electric, etc.
What do we do with people who despite getting UBI still end up living in what amounts to poverty because they just make horrible choices? Pay them more or are we back to accepting that a large portion of people who live on UBI alone are going to live in squalor?
What do we do with people who despite getting UBI still end up living in what amounts to poverty because they just make horrible choices? Pay them more or are we back to accepting that a large portion of people who live on UBI alone are going to live in squalor?
What's wrong with letting people make their own decisions? If someone would rather have a nice car but live in a pigsty, why should we condemn them for that?
The problem is people who assume things like "because the person has a nice phone, that means they're not actually broke". Tell me, doctor, what's the typical cost in the US to treat, say, breast cancer? Now how does that cost compare to the cost of a smartphone? It's not smartphones making families go broke. Seriously, you judge them based on what sort of phone they have? Do you also examine their fingernails to see if they've got dirt under them and whether their clothes look worn before deciding what prescriptions to write? Maybe give them a career aptitude test to determine whether they're living up to their maximal earning potential before deciding whether to help them afford to treat their pain?
Hell, how do you even know what smartphone they have? Are you telling me that you can at a glance identify the exact model and pricing of a smartphone? Are you telling me that you can see this sticking out of their pocket:
.... and immediately recognize the difference from this?
... and more to the point know the pricing difference between the two? Because the former costs $650 or more, while you can get the latter on eBay for under $100 if you're patient. And I could easily point to much more dramatic price differences than that on phones that look almost the same.
This is one thing that really gets on my nerves because I saw it so much with the refugee crisis. "Oh, look, they've got a smartphone! They're not a real refugee!" First off, the very premise that a person who's better off either can't be a victim of a war, or doesn't deserve to not be a victim of war. But more importantly, the inherent racism that people from developing countries can only have smartphones if they're "elites", that everyone else is bumbling dirt farmers who couldn't manage to turn on a piece of tech if they had one fall on their head, let alone afford one. The reality is that there's nearly two million smartphones in North-Freaking-Korea nowadays. Everybody has smartphones. Why? Because they're really freaking useful in modern life, and they become cheap really quickly with age - and some models (particularly in developing countries) start out that way. Often cheapo mockups designed specifically to look like famous brands. See these?
The one on the right is an iPhone 6. The one on the left? That's a Jindallae 3, made by Mangyongdae Information Technology Corporation in North Korea. Yeah, it's knockoff crud made from parts shipped in from China. But it's still a smartphone.
A higher percentage of the population owns a smartphone in Malaysia than Germany. In India and Palestine vs. France. In Venezuela vs. Japan. Etc. Owning a smartphone does not mean that you're wealthy.
The problem is people who assume things like "because the person has a nice phone, that means they're not actually broke". Tell me, doctor, what's the typical cost in the US to treat, say, breast cancer? Now how does that cost compare to the cost of a smartphone? It's not smartphones making families go broke. Seriously, you judge them based on what sort of phone they have? Do you also examine their fingernails to see if they've got dirt under them and whether their clothes look worn before deciding what prescriptions to write? Maybe give them a career aptitude test to determine whether they're living up to their maximal earning potential before deciding whether to help them afford to treat their pain?
Hell, how do you even know what smartphone they have? Are you telling me that you can at a glance identify the exact model and pricing of a smartphone? Are you telling me that you can see this sticking out of their pocket:
.... and immediately recognize the difference from this?
... and more to the point know the pricing difference between the two? Because the former costs $650 or more, while you can get the latter on eBay for under $100 if you're patient. And I could easily point to much more dramatic price differences than that on phones that look almost the same.
This is one thing that really gets on my nerves because I saw it so much with the refugee crisis. "Oh, look, they've got a smartphone! They're not a real refugee!" First off, the very premise that a person who's better off either can't be a victim of a war, or doesn't deserve to not be a victim of war. But more importantly, the inherent racism that people from developing countries can only have smartphones if they're "elites", that everyone else is bumbling dirt farmers who couldn't manage to turn on a piece of tech if they had one fall on their head, let alone afford one. The reality is that there's nearly two million smartphones in North-Freaking-Korea nowadays. Everybody has smartphones. Why? Because they're really freaking useful in modern life, and they become cheap really quickly with age - and some models (particularly in developing countries) start out that way. Often cheapo mockups designed specifically to look like famous brands. See these?
The one on the right is an iPhone 6. The one on the left? That's a Jindallae 3, made by Mangyongdae Information Technology Corporation in North Korea. Yeah, it's knockoff crud made from parts shipped in from China. But it's still a smartphone.
A higher percentage of the population owns a smartphone in Malaysia than Germany. In India and Palestine vs. France. In Venezuela vs. Japan. Etc. Owning a smartphone does not mean that you're wealthy.
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MikeQ
Member
The problem isn't that they have a nice car and live in a pigsty. The problem is that they aren't able to provide the basics for themselves and/or their children and even with UBI, they become a burden on society. How is UBI suppose to address this. The whole point of UBI is to provide everyone with enough to cover the basics. That doesn't mean people will use it responsibly.
That's not the objective of a UBI. The purpose is to create economic activity. 'Spending on completely unnecessary items' is economic activity.
As you point out... people that don't know how to manage their money exist now... a UBI isn't going to fix that but that's not the purpose anyway...
As we shift toward a zero marginal cost society no consumer is a 'burden'.
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