RE: Our playing fields aren't level but can be more level with universal basic income
To me, you did not make it very clear. In fact, I would say you deliberately muddied the line between opportunity and outcome. If you did not mean to you would probably have started talking about the special olympics, not the olympics.
In the highest levels of competition, the field is separated into groups that are competitive. Else, the 300 lb Sumo wrestler just sits on the 150 lb Sumo wrestler. Boooorring.
And humans need that competitiveness. It is a great thing to help humans grow.
Now, UBI is more aptly compared to the special olympics. The best and the brightest are not those who benefit from UBI, they are the ones who will be paying for it. It is the bottom rungs of society that really need it.
It also serves as a great safety net for society. Especially those in the middle where they just need a little boost to make it.
And, we should stop talking about UBI, as to how it would benefit the world, we should start talking about providing minimum housing, food and clothing to all people.
And then discuss if UBI is one of the best ways to provide that.
"The best and the brightest are not those who benefit from UBI, they are the ones who will be paying for it"
Everyone who makes any sales will be paying for it to some extent. As for net-payers: In the long run, the best and brightest might also be paying for it (as net-payers) if we introduce it, though owners will always be participating in paying the thing, while the brightest people sometimes happen to first have to be born and grow up and figure things out and have to have access to economic opportunity, before they can start paying for it. Owners of the Land, economic opportunity, can skip all of that process, and still pay for it.
You could be a genius, but on the roadside in africa, there's not a lot of economic opportunity.
Today, technology allows for much greater non-merit based concentration of economic opportunity by factors of having come first, bringing us closer to that metaphoric circumstance. Network effect and increasing effectiveness of economies of scale DO right now, create a circumstance where the brightest have to sell out everything they could be doing, to the highest bidder. Which happen to be established companies, meaning owners benefit. Notice that across all industries, the industry leading companies have managed to increase gap between marginal cost of creating another product/service, and the sales price, which is not true for the 'second in line' companies in the respective fields. (interesting breakdown of two papers, one of em pointing that out.)
So today, it is for owners to (net-)pay. If we make owners pay, then, eventually, maybe the brightest of the people will be able to (net-)pay too, in the long run. But we don't know how much of it. With current economic trends, it's going to be less and less the brightest people doing the work who pay, and more and more the people owning things, that would pay.
Either way, seems sensible to make those who now hold the greatest economic opportunity for no factor of individual quality pay the most. This is for the brightest people to benefit from, as they rarely are the same people, neither today, nor in a setup where individual inheritance and gifting based on relations of love, not merit, is the dominant form of distributing Land, economic opportunity.
You could propose to abolish patent protection entirely, use usufruct and methods outlined in the Charter of the Forest for physical Land use, and somehow overcome the network effect, and maybe without redistribution, the brightest might come out ahead 'naturally'. But that's basically asking for the abolishment of capitalism and somehow doing something about the network effect in some way. UBI is a useful measure to get the brightest people into a position where they can command economic opportunity, without turning our economics upside down.
With all that in mind, I think it really wouldn't be wise to focus on the notion that "people need food and shelter so let's give em that". That's not what this is about in the current business climate, and probably even moreso going forward. It's about ensuring the naturally, potentially increasingly monopolizing forces on the market are managed for the benefit of all who care to add something with their unique skills, for a mutual benefit. It's about a nonforfeitable guaranteed stake in the Land, economic opportunity, for everyone.
"And, we should stop talking about UBI, as to how it would benefit the world, we should start talking about providing minimum housing, food and clothing to all people.
And then discuss if UBI is one of the best ways to provide that."
In the context of slavery/freedom, we shouldn't focus so much on this whole 'taking care of people' thing and focus on UBI being an important first step to provide access to economic opportunity, to the Land, to all the people, so they can put it to some good use as they see fit. That is central to sense of agency, to sense of freedom, to recognizing importance of acting responsible. I mean who'd care to act responsible if at no point, having responsibility? E.g. if everyone is "provided for"?
Everyone having this income that is worth something in a good amount of Land access, in economic opportunity, would probably indirectly lead the overwhelming majority of people having food and shelter, the people who today are increasingly threatened to not have those things due to systematically losing access to the land by the fact that our currency system requires self-indebting to people who you owe nothing, if you want to access the land.
With the universal income, people are made free to exactly not provide their work to each other. That's what the UBI affords us, to refuse to provide work that is not perceived fair (or meaningful) to provide. If you think someone's gotta work for you, make a point about it in the immediate circumstance that would also work on an economically similarly empowered being like yourself. I think that's what the free market is supposed to be about.
The ability to say no, the ability to command Land, these are differences between a slave and a sovereign. Between one who holds responsibility and one who is made to act regardless of his (potential) concepts of what needs to or needs to not be done.
Sorry, I am not following you. It sounds like you agree with me, but still would prefer UBI, because it gives you money you can choose where to spend.
As a builder of houses, would it be easier/cheaper for me to build you a tiny house over a couple of weekends or pay $400 to you every month so that you could rent a room for the rest of your life?
As the person who needs a place to live, do you prefer the tiny house or the room that you rent? Does either provide better shelter?
The ability to say, "take this job and shove it" is the same as your ability to feed, cloth and house yourself for the near future. Whether it is UBI, or to have those things directly provided is pretty much irrelevant.
So, what reasons do you have that you prefer UBI over the basic needs?
Just a reminder that the brightest and best are still screwed by giving em tinyhouses. They still need to make themselves dependent on owners of industry winning ventures, selling out everything they could ever create, if they want any customers whatsoever if we simply let usage of the Land further concentrate by non-governmental, but instead technological factors (and traditional private inheritance/gifting based on non-merit, but instead Love relations) such as the Network Effect and Economies of Scale. (edit: that are improving in applicability, efficiency at a terrific pace thanks to automation/deep learning)
We can already see that in action by the circumstance that across all industries, the industry leading companies have managed to increase gap between marginal cost of creating another product/service, and the sales price, which is not true for the 'second in line' companies in the respective fields. (interesting breakdown of two papers, one of em pointing that out.) (While mass labor is increasingly in low wage menial services that just aren't profitable enough to automate just yet. However, everything learned from building deep learning neural networks for developing self driving cars, is quite clearly useful for building neural networks for any of that, I'm pretty sure.. It's a pretty flexible technology.)
It's humanitarian to provide people the opportunities to actually compete without having to beg yesteryear's winner (edit: or really just the CEO in charge of making sure the owner/shareholder is making maximum profit or that the company is retaining maximum capital for buying whatever that might ever be conceivably useful for the company to stay ahead.) "oh please mister let me work for you for next to nothing, all the customers can't be arsed to change platform because the marginal utility of my slightly improved platform isn't worth the hassle"
And short of abolishing the open internet, I don't really see this tendency of "winner takes all" stop. Sure, we also would do good in weakening patent/IP laws and introducing tinyhomes for everyone. Not trying to contest that notion.
All I do is demand for people to get the money they're owed due to the way the economy is increasingly structured. Not trying to make your demands any less valuable.
But if all the people have more of the money they're owed, rather than less people having it who had a lot of luck on their side, then that can only mean more opportunity for whoever that only has their labor to sell.
I'm also not saying that this must happen by today's government. It could happen by any form of governance we chose to uphold for our Land relations.
I'm also not trying to say that governance is very democratic today. I do see that a lot of it takes place to further enrich owners. That is another problem indeed.