Andrew Yang, Yellow Politician 2020

[CreamCat]

1 hour ago, Commodent said:

@CreamCat  I'm just saying the US has a serious inequality issue that needs to be fixed, i.e. you need more equality. I'm not advocating absolute equality. Thought that was quite obvious.

Not difficult to descend to the bottom? Where do you get that from?

Right now, adding UBI to USA would make USA a better place to live than most other countries.

If I was offered a choice between USA with UBI and norway without UBI, I'd definitely choose USA.

Plus, norway has conscription which I'm not a fan of. At least, USA doesn't conscript young men anymore.

Lack of conscription itself already makes USA a better place for me.

Whatever abtract notions about equality you talk about, in the end, it's direct personal experiences that matter.

An ideal place for me would tick the following check boxes.

• No conscription
• No compulsory public education
• No jury duty
• Truly unconditional basic income that's enough for basic living.

Talking about equality without talking about these things is meaningless for me. A supposedly fairly equal place can have none of these things. Basic freedom matters.

Edited March 18, 2019 by CreamCat

[Commodent]

@CreamCat  There is so high demand to join military service that if you don't want to join you're not getting in. I have good grades, good physique, no allergies etc. However, I answered "maybe" on the form if I wanted to join and I didn't get in. My cousin never even showed up and they never called for him again. Trust me, the "conscription" you call it is not really conscription, it's more of a formality.

And by the way, the Norwegian justice system doesn't use jury and attending high school is completely optional. Also, people without jobs are guaranteed income to support basic living. My cousin has been without a job and living on government support for years. It does however have one flaw insofar that people lose the support once they get a job, which in some extreme cases leads to a decrease in income once they get a job, thus removing the incentive to get a job. So UBI will probably be our next stepping stone in order to deal with that.

At the current moment I think there will be far to much resistance in the US to give UBI to everybody. You haven't even gotten Medicare for all up and running yet due to so much resistance (which is a light task compared to UBI). UBI is probably the best solution yes, but the general population needs a transition in values for the resistance to come down and it actually being a viable solution. Yang might get elected, but all his proposals is gonna be shot down just like Obamacare did with Obama, and you're gonna be stuck with nothing because you wanted too much too fast. You might want it, but your country is not ready yet.

[CreamCat]

6 hours ago, Commodent said:

UBI is probably the best solution yes, but the general population needs a transition in values for the resistance to come down and it actually being a viable solution. Yang might get elected, but all his proposals is gonna be shot down just like Obamacare did with Obama, and you're gonna be stuck with nothing because you wanted too much too fast. You might want it, but your country is not ready yet.

It's not my country. I'm on the opposite side of the globe to USA. Since nobody speaks english in my region, it was difficult to bootstrap my english. Your limited expertise in english cannot distinguish native speakers from non-native speakers.

Although my country sort of has universal medicare, it's never going to even discuss UBI for the next 20~30 years. At least, in USA, presidential candidates are openly talking about UBI. Here, people don't even talk about problems of automation.

6 hours ago, Commodent said:

attending high school is completely optional.

Even in my country, attending high school is optional. Until elementary school and middle shcool become optional, public education is not optional. 9 years are long enough to wreak havoc on one's life schedule. The cutting edge of education is hundreds of years ahead of public education. To rise above statistical mob, you should disavow public education system.

Edited March 18, 2019 by CreamCat

[CreamCat]

6 hours ago, Commodent said:

Also, people without jobs are guaranteed income to support basic living. My cousin has been without a job and living on government support for years. It does however have one flaw insofar that people lose the support once they get a job, which in some extreme cases leads to a decrease in income once they get a job, thus removing the incentive to get a job. So UBI will probably be our next stepping stone in order to deal with that

So, norway seems to be actually better than most other countries. If it removed compulsory public education and added UBI, it'd be the first utopia.

[Commodent]

@CreamCat You might ask yourself why capitalists like Andrew Yang love the idea of UBI. This article might offer some perspective:

https://renegadeinc.com/universal-basic-income-capitulation-capitalism/

In countries with a strong social safety net there is generally not any immediate need for UBI. But American capitalists don't want strong social safety nets. They want their capitalism to run wild without intervention, so that they can remain in power.

No, Bernie Sanders is what America needs, not Andrew Yang and his capitalist pipe dream. He even suggests cutting down on welfare programs, which is telling enough.

[CreamCat]

7 hours ago, Commodent said:

He even suggests cutting down on welfare programs, which is telling enough.

In order to fund UBI, conditional welfare programs need to be killed. In the presence of UBI, most conditional welfare programs are redundant and wasteful and counter-productive.

Also, america doesn't need any one president. If it's dependent on one person, it's going to fail. UBI shouldn't depend on a specific presidential candidate. I don't care who among Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang, etc, ... becomes the president. Germany would have caused world war 2 without hitler. If there was no Bernie Sanders, someone else would be saying the exact same shit.

UBI is a stronger social safety net than norwegian one. I think Bernie Sanders would also talk about bulldozing existing conditional welfare programs to fund UBI if he wants to implement UBI. Every UBI proponent I know talks about replacing conditional welfare programs with UBI.

7 hours ago, Commodent said:

They want their capitalism to run wild without intervention, so that they can remain in power.

I can see devilry in you. Capitalists are not evil. They are regular people doing their best. You are not different from them. Everyone is an artist. Everyone is a capitalist. Everyone is also something else. If you were suggesting that Andrew Yang is a con artist who has no intention of implementing UBI, that would be another story.

I have no problem with other people making a lot more money than I do. I care about my own basic living.

You seem to be interested more in bringing the top down than in raising the bottom up. I want the bottom and the top to go up. UBI can help lift the bottom and the top.

You also seem to suggest that a solution that raises the top should not be adopted even if such a solution is better than other solutions for raising the bottom.

UBI is going to help the rich protect themselves from hungry jobless mobs. It is also going to keep the poor away from hunger and desperation. It's a win-win scenario. Let trillionaires enjoy their wealth.

Edited March 19, 2019 by CreamCat

[Commodent]

@CreamCat You need to understand that capitalists are inherently manipulative, seeking to manipulate their environment to their own benefit and not necessarily to the benefit of the whole population. That's just the way it is. I never said it was evil, so now you're just projecting. To them UBI is just another way to dismantle the welfare state. UBI added on a strong welfare state is beneficial, however when it's used to replace the welfare state it's just disasterous.

[CreamCat]

51 minutes ago, Commodent said:

You need to understand that capitalists are inherently manipulative, seeking to manipulate their environment to their own benefit and not necessarily to the benefit of the whole population. That's just the way it is. I never said it was evil, so now you're just projecting. To them UBI is just another way to dismantle the welfare state. UBI added on a strong welfare state is beneficial, however when it's used to replace the welfare state it's just disasterous.

Almost everyone is manipulative. Not just the rich. You manipulate and deceive yourself, too.

I think your assumption that UBI alone is disasterous is not tested. Once UBI is implemented, we will know for sure. I don't know whether it alone will be disastrous. It sure won't be as disastrous as world war 3. Or, are you afraid of losing UBI to opposition so much that you want welfare as a fail-safe? I imagine fail-safe could be too expensive.

I almost never benefited from conditional welfare programs. In my country, conditional welfare programs exist for public image of the governemnt. The vast majority of people in my country don't get any money from conditional welfare programs. As conditions become more and more unconditional, it will become better.

Ideally, UBI in combination with a few important conditional welfare programs might be good. You seem to think there should be a plethora of conditional welfare programs that most people won't even bother to learn about.

If there are many conditional welfare programs, most people won't even bother to learn about them. They will be too conditional to be useful, too.

Ideally, in the future, UBI will be high enough that people forget about money most of the time. In that case, conditional welfare programs will be forgotten and scrapped. That's my ideal future. Ideally, people forget about welfare and money, and they don't have to apply for conditional welfare programs. No more headaches with regard to money. Medicare will be automated and cheap. No more expensive human doctors. I don't want to waste my time on researching and applying for various conditional welfare programs. A house in a virtual reality will be so cheap that you won't have to empty your bank accounts to buy a house. I want to forget about money and welfare so that I can focus on important projects.

If I was given a choice between not having to think about money and having to research various conditional welfare programs, I would choose the former. You are free to choose the latter.

Edited March 19, 2019 by CreamCat

[abrakamowse]

You can read his ideas about UBI here:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/87aa2z/iama_andrew_yang_candidate_for_president_of_the/

[ivory]

On 3/18/2019 at 8:50 AM, Commodent said:

the general population needs a transition in values for the resistance to come down and it actually being a viable solution

That's exactly what needs to happen. We need a president who's going to make the population see things differently and learn to appreciate what's truly valuable. Only then will the system change. The trick is in finding a president who's not going to fuck things up too much. When transitions don't go smoothly, which they rarely do, people assume failure. They don't realize that change happens slowly and that things are going to be a bit hairy for a while. However, if people's values shifted, they'd be pushing for progress even if it happens at a slow pace or if we hit a few snags along the way. Part of the problem is that people expect immediate results.