Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> The author's statement wasn't a direct attack on the UBI proponent.

I think it was though. It's hard to read "ySo you want people to sit at home all day and collect free money" as anything but free leeching, lazy, people who don't deserve the money (obviously heavily reading between the lines).

While your version "UBI literally lets people receive free money even if they sit at home all day." has several advatanges, by using passive voice and saying "even" you take a huge chunk of UBI receivers and make the "abuse" of the system not malicious.

That's kind of the point of the article. Sometimes tone alone can bridge the gap between a mean, angry, unfair reading of an argument or a positive, best version, good intentioned reading. Yours doesn't go as far as being super fair on what many UBI people want, but it is certainly more charitable than the strawmanned version.

> By far the most popular UBI proposal in the US proposes

Arguing with someone over the benefits of UBI and trying to understand where they come from does not requiere knowledge of the currently proposed version of it. I want universal healthcare but could not give you intricate examples of the working of the multi-insurance service in France vs the fully public system in England.

The 12k proposal in the US I am sure is based on some analysis of cost of living, and tech business growth and what not. But it might not be universal. UBI proponents in general want to simplify goverment aid, help lessen the problems of automation and prepare society for post scarcity. These three groups sometimes have very different aims, goals and even starting points they just all happen to want UBI.



>It's hard to read "ySo you want people to sit at home all day and collect free money" as anything but free leeching, lazy, people who don't deserve the money (obviously heavily reading between the lines).

It's hard to read because everyone has their own implicit assumptions. The anti-UBI advocate thinks it's an universal assumption that giving people free money makes them lazy. They're genuinely perplexed by UBI advocates, motivating them to ask "So you want people to sit at home all day and collect free money?" From your perspective, this question must be an implicit accusation of laziness even when they may think it's a genuine question.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: