Bench, there is nothing about UBI that goes against libertarianism. Milton Friedman, the libertarian economist, was a huge proponent of UBI. I think many people just don’t understand what libertarianism is. I blame that mostly on bad PR, Ayn Rand, and the libertarian party. Libertarianism as a philosophy is about limited govt, maximum individual autonomy, and prevention of state violence “non aggression principle”. Providing social safety nets is not necessarily anti libertarian so long as it is done in a way that doesn’t redistribute wealth via property seizures back by state threat of violence (prison).

Yang talks about this towards the end of the interview. He is also running as a dem, not a libertarian to be clear...but certainly seems to be leaning libertarian in many areas. He’s really refreshing imho.

Personally, I’ve been preaching about automation and the inevitability of UBI for some time now. I think it is the most humane and doable solution to the rise of automation and AI. I don’t think 1000$ is enough, but it’s a start. On the libertarianism thread I discussed removing the federal reserve and creating a trickle up economy, where money enters the system through UBI, and the amount is itself automatically determined and in flux based on livable wage per person. I just don’t see how a society where 90% of jobs are automated can exist without this change.

And to answer a little further...libertarianism is not about zero govt. it’s not an absolute ideology. It’s about “maximizing” freedom. If there is no feasible market solution, then govt should be used. It’s like minimalism...no minimalist architect is proposing that we just don’t build anything and sleep outside...that isn’t the ultimate fulfillment of the philosophy.

Also bench, I’m often playing to the extremes for the sake of debate.

Good responses. "Trickle Up" is certainly interesting to think about. A lot of this sounds great in theory but in practice I don't understand how it'd work without a large bureaucratic institution. I'm not opposed to large bureaucratic institutions, though.

I agree. The way it’s set up however makes that very difficult.

We need a reconfiguration of our electoral system AWAY from first past the post. That combined with a useful voice for any minority members in the government beyond obstructionism would go a long way to aligning our leadership with our electorate.

For better or worse, the only way to win (or even be taken seriously) is from within one of the two major parties. This won't change unless the US changes the way we vote.

Which SHOULD happen but won't because we ceded control of our politicians to money and big business.

randomised - The two parties have an ironclad lock on the system. After Ross Perot scared the shit out of them by running as an independent third parties have been banned from debates, media coverage, etc. Green Party candidate Jill Stein was detained in handcuffs just for showing up at a Obama-Romney debate at Hofstra University.

That's why Bernie ran as a Dem, otherwise he would have been completely ignored. The League of Women Voters used to sponsor presidential debates but stopped in 1988. Since then the so-called debates (where no debate actually happens) have been sponsored by The Commission on Presidential Debates, a.k.a. DNC and RNC.

"The League of Women Voters is withdrawing its sponsorship of the presidential debate scheduled for mid-October because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter," League President Nancy M. Neuman said today.

LEAGUE REFUSES TO "HELP PERPETRATE A FRAUD"

"I really like the idea of UBI but when you start to look at the numbers it's hard to see how it would really work without some major updates to the tax code ie some serious income distribution."

It's not supposed to work without those updates, they are essential.

Banks create 97% of “new money”. It’s all fiat. We can have zero taxes and simply replace the banks ability to create fiat money with a UBI.

The UBI could be some kind of cryptocurrency that automatically adjusts to inflation. We can essentially replace banks with an AI that determines and adjusts the livable wage so that lowest you can fall is always humane, but the highest you can go is always limitless. I’m not going to pretend to know the math, but I think it’s a workable system that allows for the best of both worlds.

we would have to replace the dollar with something else. It’s one of those things that would be politically difficult but technically doable.

In other words the money should be somehow connected to its living power for essentials per person. Housing,eating,etc. that should automatically adjust so that inflationary periods do not lead to political battles and poverty. Rather than a static number the UBI should be a self adjusting rate that guarantees x amount of buying power. That is the key to the UBI thing working imo. The other key is to not make it reliant on income taxation. Instead, taxes should be recirculated through consumption taxes placed on non-essential goods and luxury items. The rich will end up
paying more naturally because they will buy more. Do the numbers work? Idk. Assuming something like this ends up happening, how do people live their daily lives? What will cities look like? What will happen to the cultural and artistic landscape with so many more people with time to produce and consume culture, art, information...? Imo that is the real interesting question.

A system based on income taxation will put the wealthy minority in a position of control, and require an ever expanding state power that will eventually either stunt growth by taking too much, or cause the producing class to up and leave. This is basically what happened in Venuzuela. Rather than class warfare, we can have a system where taxation is based on voluntary transactions.

"A system based on income taxation will put the wealthy minority in a position of control" ...

LOL exactly who do you think is in control right now?

Miles, I’d say they have major influence now, but if a significant portion of the population was being completely supported by the taxes of a small minority it would quickly devolve into a true oligarchy. Like hunger games shit. What we have now on anabolic steroids.

NYC is a good, but moderate example. A huge overhead city that depends on millionaires to finance it...and in return panders to them for dear life. They have an enormous amount of pull because if they leave or stop production the city is fucked.

The system that I am describing would remove this dependency.

Both things can exist in my techno-libertarian utopia.

lol :)

one person's utopia is the other's dystopia

I agree with you on everything except the savings tax. Not really sure I like the idea of taxing savings, because saving is a way to reach long term goals...could create a society of short term impulse buying.

I really tried but I couldn't finish this. Even giving a lot of leeway since I assume English is not your primary language, this was a struggle to make any sense of.

... of crap. Ayn Rand was a sociopath and so are her followers.​ Her ideology is the basis for radical conservatism (libertarianism) that promotes the individual above all others. This is the very antithesis of civilized society. You are wasting your time here, you need to hang out at stormfront.org with her other admirers.

You know the difference between an Ayn Rand novel and Lord of the Rings? One if filled with ridiculous fantasy characters and lands that don't exist. The other has orcs.

Libertarianism predates rand.

How cynical. You fuckers and your "better than Trump isn't good enough, be perfect or we will kill this country" can fuck right off.

sNEAKY, marry me.

Why is it a joke?

Sneaky Pete... triggered?

Way to dodge the question.

What’s the question?

Why is it a joke?

Triggering people who don't agree with you amuses you. Yep. You're a sociopath.

Tduds do the math

Gabbard is the best. She will never win. She’s against war. That’s soooo. 2005. Democrats and liberals like war now because they were told to by their cnn overlords and crooked Hillary. .
...baaahhhaaa.

Tulsi would completely disrupt the election if she runs as a third party.

Gabbard is awful.

In 2017, she revealed she met Syria's brutal dictator Assad without informing top Democrats. She refused to call him a war criminal for years, instead she called US backed groups in Syria “terrorists” 

 In 2015, she sided with Republicans to block virtually all (Muslim) Syrian & Iraqi refugees from coming to the US. However she introduced a resolution calling for US to prioritize religious minorities (Christians) when granting refugee status. 

 She released a video alleging the Mueller Report said Trump did not collude with Russia and it's time to move on. 

She is allegedly anti-war (she isn't) but is fine w/ Russians bombing Syrian civilians. She said she's a hawk when it comes to war against "terrorists" (happens to be Muslims, btw). She hasn't condemned the use of torture 

She supports anti-Muslim extremist Modi, and Egyptian dictator Sisi

OneLostArchitect "Do the math" doesn't answer the question. Is it too much? Not enough? Are you arguing we can't fund it? Shouldn't? "It's a joke. Do the math" is not a serious argument.

One thing is clear...Hillary is a Russian agent.

Punishing success makes no sense. Race to the bottom thinking. The left worships the down and out....and hates the successful...very bad mentality.

No they don't.

Real success is different than corrupt, greedy, and exploitative behavior that increases one's monetary situation.

I agree tinnt, but that’s a moral argument, and it should be left out of political hands. The liberal morality of recent decades has become a sort of religion...understandable...as they’ve abandoned traditional religion and human need for a belief system kicked in...but we need to keep a separation of that kind of religion from state too imo. Success is subjective and personal.

You're very good at providing incorrect definitions of things so it's easier for you to argue against them.

There is no such thing as an amoral politics. We don't live in rhetorical vacuums. Abandoning a 'moral' argument implicitly endorses the immoral alternative. Failing to save lives through political action implicitly kills by political action. Silence in the presence of injustice is injustice.

“Silence in the presence of injustice is injustice”. Yes, but no one is calling for immoral citizens. I’m saying that morality is a function of culture and communities not a function of state via coercion of action.

Your argument implies that morality is top down, yet at the top we have an concentration of immoral players...a feature of any political rat race...your logic doesn’t jive with reality...

I understand the ills of concentrated wealth and power into the hands of a few corporations...what I don’t understand is why that becomes better when we concentrate all the wealth and power into one entity and replace the word corporation with government...the left is good at pointing out problems...which are mostly correct...but really bad at solving them...and the “solutions” they propose are almost always a path towards a much worse outcome. The solution to something flawed isn’t to make it completely terrible.

"what I don’t understand is why that becomes better when we concentrate all the wealth and power into one entity and replace the word corporation with government." 

Because governments are (When structured correctly) elected by and accountable to the people. Corporations are not. The larger problem is that our structure needs an overhaul. However, that doesn't negate the smaller problem that government action by definition has a moral angle.

I find this frustratingly common thread among the right, wherein *a* solution is deliberately mis-construed as *the entire* solution, and then discarded out of hand without bothering to consider how an approach might fit into a larger systemic reform. In other words: if all we do is replace Donald Trump, we've done nothing to address the failures that created him or put him in power or allowed him to wield such power unaccountably. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't get rid of Trump.

Corporations are accountable (in theory, at least) to shareholders, and their responsibility is to return maximum profit. Labor costs, social costs, environmental concerns, taxes, etc. just get in the way of profit.

Tduds, you literally just proved my point. Govt power ought to be limited because as a system/electorate becomes flawed trumps are likely. Your ideology relies on a perfect democracy with a moral and educated electorate. Here’s where the disconnect happens. I agree in principle with a lot of the things you want to do...but understand that flaws are an integral part of humanity. Humans are messy and not capable of concentrated power. The best known system is one that limits and decentralized govt

I actually believe in representative republicanism, not direct democracy. Democracy is terrible. Power can be decentralized without being weak. This idea is already the underpinning of our structure of government.

The "iron law of oligarchy" states that all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop oligarchic tendencies, thus making true democracy practically and theoretically impossible, especially in large groups and complex organizations. The relative structural fluidity in a small-scale democracy succumbs to "social viscosity" in a large-scale organization. According to the "iron law," democracy and large-scale organization are incompatible. (Wikipedia)

Exactly^. Therefore democratic socialism is a myth.

It doesn't seem fair to drop that quote without also recognizing that Michels famously endorsed fascism as an alternative.

Oh, he's dumb. When asked to list some of the ways our country has interfered in other countries elections, he couldn't name one. Uhhhh....Iran? I like UBI, but it's not even his idea for god sake.

That's just, like, your opinion..man.

This comment got me interested in checking this guy out. (disappointment emoji here)

He’s an absolutely terrible sound bite guy...listen to his long form interviews and he doesn’t sound dumb as some people suggest. Dumb 2 minute debate settings make thoughtful people look stupid and stupid people look smart...because it all depends on how well rehearsed those sound bites are...not about actual debate.

I listened to plenty. Hours. No.

Shakes head no emoji here

I hope they do. Best case they win, worst case trump loses...both good outcomes.

You are economically clueless. Research modern monetary theory.

I’ve thought that UBI should be determined and distributed by an automated AI...self corrects to adjust for inflation.

It’s all funny money anyway...keep the printers rolling.

An insult followed by thanks. You are not only economically clueless, you are also socially retarded. If you want to improve there are plenty of avenues to address.

Glad you feel better about yourself now, sounds like you really need it. I insulted you because you were acting like a jackass - the thanks was for your research suggestion. As for the social suggestion, I sure as hell won't be taking your advice any time soon.

yes is more (BIG)

I left that one out for a reason

:)