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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   37122 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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And on the meaning side, we long ago reached the age where, per John Adams, the majority of the population could “ study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain”. They choose to collect Funko Pops, play slot machines or gacha games, watch reality TV and porn.

You and everyone else here (including @DaseindustriesLtd) are way too optimistic. You envision the failure mode of a UBI program as some recipients choosing a half-time job as a cashier over composing poems. The absolute worst possibility is them playing video games all the time.

We have had multiple attempts at UBI already, even if they weren't called that and differed in various unimportant aspects. Paris banlieues, US projects where 95% of inhabitants are on the dole--oh how you'd want them to play vidya all day instead of filling their upper levels of Maslow hierarchy with doing drugs, selling drugs, murdering other drug sellers, theft, robbery, general destruction of property, rape, riots, arson, every antisocial thing you can come up with they actually do. And they form a generationally unemployed underclass, a lot of people with no respect for labor and nothing but contempt for the hand that is feeding them. And they vote, besides burning up cars for fun.

This is the hard problem that any UBI-like proposal has to solve, not the pedestrian stuff like not preventing people from having part time jobs or removing unnecessary barriers to getting healthcare.

Simply put, I do not believe this behavior generalizes to all unemployable people. The current crop is heavily comprised of, well, genuine scum. The assumption that their antisocial outcomes are expected for people who can get employed now, but not necessarily tomorrow, is a cope for the necessity of labor.

a lot of people with no respect for labor and nothing but contempt for the hand that is feeding them

I absolutely hate such people. There is a reason Dante placed traitors to their Lords and Benefactors in the lowest depths of the 9th circle of Hell along with Judas Iscariot, lower than traitors to family and country even. In a very real way biting the hand that feeds you is the worst possible of all crimes on a moral level, worse than everything else.

the vast majority of residents aren’t involved in drugs or violent crime. Hell, half of them are women

And being a woman disqualifies you from being involved in drugs or violent crime how? Sure, women aren't usually doing the actual shooting, but they're plenty involved.

oh how you'd want them to play vidya all day instead of filling their upper levels of Maslow hierarchy with doing drugs, selling drugs, murdering other drug sellers, theft, robbery, general destruction of property, rape, riots, arson, every antisocial thing you can come up with they actually do.

What if we just killed locked up everyone who did that? Perhaps this is not politically feasible at the moment, but it could be solved in theory.

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