This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I think one of the main advantages of UBI is that there is far fewer qualifications to check. For most government benefits, you have long, messy, expensive processes to prove that you are actually eligible. UBI would thus cut down on a lot of caseworker load for social security for able-bodied persons. (We would still want extra programs for severely handicapped people, because telling a blind paraplegic to live on the same budget as a healthy person is cruel. But outside of Somali-Americans (among whom the incidence of autism in kids is shockingly high, IIRC), the fraction of people who require additional benefits beyond UBI should be small.)
I get that you are skeptical if it will play out in practice like this. I do not think the caseworkers for unemployment benefits would be very receptive to receiving UBI themselves instead. And between department bosses, the number of employees is often how they measure their dick size, so whoever is in charge of them would also have plenty of incentive to find a point why it is essential to keep every one (or hire even more).
1k per month is just like...nothing? The average welfare recipient is getting about that much from one program alone, often more if they are in subsidized housing, have subsidized pre-k, etc. The selling point of a UBI is you get to get rid of all the hoops and ladders and qualifications and bureaucrats that traditional welfare needs. But the only way for a UBI to replace those things is for it to replace them. And, if you set UBI at a level where an unemployed single mother of 2 can live and support the family, or be employed and buy childcare, well we are talking in the 40k+ range. My understanding is that many families legitimately receive over 80k in benefits yearly. Converting that into UBI is obviously impossible mathematically. And if you dont, you cant get rid of the rest of welfare without there being a lot of crying "hungry" children being paraded in front of the news.
$1k per month is roughly what I got when I lost my job in 2020 because of Covid. It wasn't exactly riches, but it certainly wasn't "nothing." It was... an interesting experience, getting checks in the mail from the government for doing absolutely nothing, while public figures told me to stay inside for public health. I was glad that it helped me keep my life going and not become homeless, but it also encouraged me to be lazy so... I don't know. It's a hard question.
But could you have gone 20 years with that amount of income and maintained a level of humanity that doesnt seem sympathetic to a media person?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Source (38 k$/a for a consumer unit of three people)
38kx200million also doesnt work.
38k is for a family of three. There aren't 200 million of those in America.
This is a bizarre blindspot of UBI proponents. The groups who need a UBI most are children and seniors (who effectively already have one), because we don't expect them to work. Various UBI-for-kids schemes are easy to imagine (in the US, the most obvious is the fully-refundable child tax credit) but only Matt Breunig and about three other pro-natalist Berniebros seem to be strongly in favour of them. But the culture that produces Anglosphere wonks (including left, pro-establishment right, and libertarian wonks) sees children as consumption goods and not human beings, so it keeps coming up with adults-only UBI, or thinking in ways which assume a single-parent family of three should get the same UBI as a single childless adult.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I'm not sure I believe this. I am skeptical that you can replace the vast majority of the current welfare system with UBI if people find ways to burn through their UBI and have starving kids, etc. If anything has been learned in the past decade or so it is that crying children and women (especially the non-white variety) lead to infinite think pieces and action by NGOs, media apparatuses, etc. to ensure they can receive as much as possible from the government coffers or legal changes.
That just means that UBI is incompatible with ochlocracy, not that it's impossible to implement.
One can simply disconnect political power from the people who would vote themselves more largesse from the treasury, through cens or some other mechanism, and vast amounts of good governance suddenly becomes very possible.
All that's required is a system sane enough to recognize that dependents are not the equals of providers. The historical norm, really.
More options
Context Copy link
Hot take: if a parent is unable to spend a child's UBI on the child's needs, we have a fix for that. It is CPS. Anyone who can not be trusted with cash but only food stamps lest their kids starve is patently unqualified to raise kids.
More options
Context Copy link
I have come around to this thinking: "My UBI isn't enough to afford rent and food" is an evergreen opinion article, and can paper over your gambling and drug habits pretty easily. "I can't afford rent and food" in the current system (discrete section 8, SNAP) is a lot easier to counter with "you got $1000 for rent and $200 for food this month."
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link