Anecdotally I’ve seen both sides. I’ve seen people get social security or disability benefits and coast for the rest of their lives without working even though they have the ability to do so without affecting their benefits. I assume they value sleeping in and not having to answer to anyone. Their idea of a good time is spending hours hiking or watching tv or various other things that have negligible cost.
I’ve also known those who get said benefits and either use it as a leg-up to get ahead or just donate it while they keep working. Honestly, I’ve seen more in the former category than the latter.
I suspect it cuts down along the industriousness subset of the Big Five personality traits. Those who get intrinsic satisfaction doing/building are probably likely to be in the latter group. I bet HN skews towards this which is why so many find it difficult to comprehend why somebody would want to just loaf around with their life. To your very thoughtful questions about why someone wouldn’t want to continue working, my guess is the roles they qualify for aren’t intrinsically satisfying to them because it’s a poor mating of their personality and the jobs society has deemed necessary or they don’t pay enough to make the juice worth the squeeze
Yeah; I wasn't saying one side doesn't exist. It was more in tandem with my parent post - the people who are happy to watch TV, hike, just kinda bum around, doing nothing else, desiring nothing else...how often are they great workers?
I meant the question in response to the observation that "we don't know what happens long term if people are promised this kind of money" - right, but the presumption there is that it will cause people to quit en masse, that they won't look to work, or use it as an excuse to better themselves in a way that society values as well. But will you? I mean, you're on HN; you likely care about bettering yourself, likely have some ambitions. If people with those things aren't dissuaded from working...what's the concern? That we won't have enough checked out people in useless administrative tasks, or poorly performing manual labor or service jobs that we then collectively complain about, while also refusing to pay well for?
I think the concern is there may not be enough “ambitious” people to maintain productivity to sustain the non-ambitious folks.
Thinking back to a previous job that most people would probably assume employees incredibly driven people, I can honestly say many were not. Hours wasted on long lunches/breakfasts/breaks, surfing the Internet for auctions, bouncing from office to office for hours to gossip, really anything to distract them from the work that needs done, all the while complaining there wasn’t enough time in the day to get it completed. If a “world class” organization is like this I don’t want to know what a “lesser” one is like.
The best employees are always those who value the work itself. I think very few people find their work intrinsically motivating and are only doing it because of an extrinsic reward (status, money, whatever). Unfortunately, after talking to many in that former organization I don’t think they have a very good grasp on what is intrinsically motivating to themselves.
Your example kind of makes my point? Those people you mention...how much were they really adding to the org?
If a company is happily paying white collar worker wages to people who are that big a waste of space, why not pay them $20k in UBI and let them go, $20k to someone who needs it, and not waste everyone's time? Let those people have the safety net necessary to find themselves, so to speak. Worst case is they stay on and we're in the same situation we're in now; best case they leave and figure out what motivates them.
If they were fired, their net utility can go to zero. I may not think they are worth their wage, but they are still providing some marginal value. Not having a slow morphine drip of money is all that seems to keep them providing any value whatsoever.
>Worst case is they stay on and we're in the same situation we're in now
I think I disagree with this. Similar to point above, they can go from providing a marginal amount of value to justify being a net negative on the balance sheet by staying home and collecting UBI. Ideally, they will find a way to contribute to society but I’m not convinced many or most would, given anecdotal observations. I’m not taking some Randian stance here, but I can at least imagine a scenario where there are more takers than providers because it’s the easier path and we seem wired to prefer to minimize personal costs. I don’t think it’s a situation where there’s next to no downside as you suggest.
Most game theory seems to devolve when freeloading is not kept in check. With all the talk about the benefits of UBI, I hear very little about checks and balances if it doesn’t work. I’m currently in favor of it but would like to see a bit more due diligence in terms of guardrails
It's not about them being great workers or not. It's about them carrying their own weight at minimum instead of offloading that burden to the productive members of society.
There's no lack of jobs society needs filled that provides utility to society even when done by bad employees.
I don't think it is unreasonable for the productive to be fully decoupled and unburdened from the willfully unproductive.
I’ve also known those who get said benefits and either use it as a leg-up to get ahead or just donate it while they keep working. Honestly, I’ve seen more in the former category than the latter.
I suspect it cuts down along the industriousness subset of the Big Five personality traits. Those who get intrinsic satisfaction doing/building are probably likely to be in the latter group. I bet HN skews towards this which is why so many find it difficult to comprehend why somebody would want to just loaf around with their life. To your very thoughtful questions about why someone wouldn’t want to continue working, my guess is the roles they qualify for aren’t intrinsically satisfying to them because it’s a poor mating of their personality and the jobs society has deemed necessary or they don’t pay enough to make the juice worth the squeeze