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Comment by aninhumer | Hacker News Reader

>unused skills rust and 15 hours seems like some kind of bare minimum level just to sustain rudimentary skill

Eh I think skills are stickier than that. FWIW, I spent about 6 months doing almost no programming, but I didn't feel particularly unproductive when I started again.

Besides which, there's no reason people can't be continuing developing their skills in the remaining hours anyway. The 15 hours is just how much time you have to spend doing what you're told. And you can likely learn much more efficiently if you work with that intent instead of acquiring skills incidentally as your job requires.

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Exactly, when it frees up time you can be productive doing your own things.

Having 2 days off a week, really is only enough time to do chores, not enough to spend on your own skills or do anything productive for yourself.

As a contractor, I tend to take 1-3 months off between contracts + it seems to help, not hinder. I'm much fresher when I go into the next contract.

For many people "doing their own things" is gonna be playing more Counter-Strike.

Of course, that's their right, but whether you can make a sustainable economy out of subsidizing that is another question...a question that is much more pressing than "wouldn't that be better?" and one the article doesn't even attempt to answer, probably because it is largely impossible and anything like it is speculation akin to religion.

> For many people "doing their own things" is gonna be playing more Counter-Strike.

Also is "more Counter-Strike" at all correlated with a quality of life increase? 45 free minutes you wouldn't have had to get rid of some stress shooting things - probably yes? 5 hours a day - probably not?

> For many people "doing their own things" is gonna be playing more Counter-Strike.

Or worse, shooting heroin.

Or even worse, building open source software, attending city hall meetings, or parenting.

Right, because everyone in Appalacia who doesn't have a job is doing all of those things with the "leisure" time they have from not working.

>Or even worse, building open source software, attending city hall meetings, or parenting.

Pretty much none of that is happening in areas where unemployment is chronic, even in a nation as wealthy as the United States. It's quite a mystery as to why well-educated people persist in the mistaken belief that UBI will magically cause recipients to behave nobly.

If your assertion was true, then I'd expect those areas to be so full of crime, misery and drug abuse, that it would make international news.

> It's quite a mystery as to why well-educated people persist in the mistaken belief that UBI will magically cause recipients to behave nobly.

I find the reverse to be the mystery - why some people persist in the belief that people on UBI will mostly turn to spending their days abusing drugs and cheap entertainment? Like if humans were zombies who need an employer to give their life a direction?

>If your assertion was true, then I'd expect those areas to be so full of crime, misery and drug abuse, that it would make international news.

I invite you to walk the streets of downtown Detroit or, as thehardsphere points out, parts of Appalachia if you still have doubts.

The only reason such areas in the US don't make international news is that third-world countries still have it relatively worse and, even then, governments of other nations issue formal cautions to their citizens against travelling to these areas.

Are you so weak as an individual that government giving you 20k extra per year just for being a citizen would drive you personally to become an alcoholic or heroine abuser? Even though all studies on UBI prove otherwise? Or do you just think anyone who can't make it to middle class on their own accord is probably already a drug user?

>heroine abuser

I protest this unseemly slander; I'll have you know that I treat women with respect. /s

In answer to your question, A) you can pretty much find a study that says anything you want and B) a considerable number of my high school classmates from lower and lower middle class families did, in fact, fall prey to drug addiction and I know all too well that, had circumstances been just slightly different, I might have joined them. Am I weak? Perhaps, perhaps. But no more so than a great many others.

Seriously, go to Detroit or one of these other afflicted areas and walk around. Many of these people are already on public assistance programs. If you survive the experience, come back and see if you can manage to still say to me with a straight face that people will find their own productive purpose in life given UBI.

Who cares?

For other people, that extra time and the safety net may enable them to start a business or do charity work or run for their local school board. I'd argue it's worth it for society to subsidize 1,000 people playing Counter-Strike for every one person who could be empowered to start the next Google.

We should all care if the discussion is about whether it is sustainable policy.

It's not a normative argument, it's a is this even possible? Isn't that a necessary question?

If it's impossible, it's only politics and the puritanical "a living must be earned" mentality holding it back. More than enough value is generated in the USA to pay for some form of Basic Income--value that is _currently_ distributed comically unevenly. All it takes is political will.

wealth and value is created, not distributed. I'm sick and tired of hearing from communists about taking money away from hard working people and giving to those less deserving.

I definitely would read more books and try new tech if I worked 15 hours a week. With a 40+ hours workweek I just coast on my current skills at work and am too tired in the evening to learn other stuff.

> I definitely would read more books and try new tech if I worked 15 hours a week

because EVERYONE is as productive as you are? give me a break.

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