it's really weird how facebook and twitter and paypal etc. have like... become de facto public utilities, way faster than regulations could keep up, but are still privately owned and managed
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there's this sort of econ 101 puzzle i occasionally come back to that is like "how can you hurt someone by only freely offering them useful stuff?" and stuff like getting kicked off paypal or fb is a good example: do it long enough and they start depending on it
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iirc when givedirectly started giving poor people money there was some discourse around it and one of the points was like "how could you possibly hurt someone by giving them free money" and again, do it long enough and they start depending on it
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there's a huge difference between giving someone $1000/mo for a few months and credibly promising to give them $1000/mo forever and it's about whether they can freely plan their lives around that money or whether they have to worry about not pissing you off
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Eliezer easily generated both the "what about inflation" objection and the "what about offsetting rent extraction" objection to GiveDirectly, IIRC.
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This is true, & I think it'd do us well to think about it. But I don't think it's a reason *not* to do basic income.
If democracy works (if), then the promise is one we're making to ourselves, not some separate gov't making it to 'us'.
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Ppl's lives are already planned around services managed by gov't, like healthcare (in some countries). W/ UBI, the promise is that the IRS or will continue enforcing the taxes we pass, & the distributional infrastructure will remain online so long as gov't does.
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also if the entire infrastructure of your society ispredicated around having access to this stuff.
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