[Pants-of-dog]

Well, he may have a PhD in literature but he has probably never worked in an industry with safety regulations or other regulations. His knowledge of the topic seems to come entirely from right wing libertarian sources.

[Oxymandias]

@Pants-of-dog

What is especially right-wing about the ideas he discussed? Also if you had to be qualified to have a political opinion this forum wouldn't exist and democracy wouldn't exist. If you refute this by stating that voters and the people in PoFo can potentially research the topics being discussed then there's lots of evidence that shows that the author researched the topic. You literally see many links and citations in the article itself.

I recommend you continue reading it instead of being turned off by it based on the introduction or the comments here. Bulaba Jones in particular hasn't even read the article outside of the introduction and has no intention of doing so. Therefore his opinion shouldn't deter you from reading it.

[Rugoz]

There is no real mechanism for the government to give $60,000 a year to someone forever. I would contend that this is a problem with capitalism that is not addressed in the author's proposal. He is correct in assuming that we have the resources and ability to make a society like that, but the forces of capitalism make it all but impossible.

$60k for everyone is not possible, simple math should tell you that. $60k for every full-time worker might be possible, theoretically.

[ingliz]

$60k for every full-time worker might be possible, theoretically.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average household income was $73,298 in 2014, the latest year for which complete data is available.

Source: USA Today

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

Your criticisms didn't explore the actual idea the manifesto presents. All you did criticize was filler to put something in between the actual content. Furthermore none of the things you claim he said was said. You were putting words in his mouth and when I asked for citation you refused to give me it. Criticizing this article based on one small piece of filler is like judging the Communist Manifesto based on an incorrect piece of grammar. It's blatantly ridiculous and displays a clear lack of thought put into thinking critically about the subject matter.

I gave you the opportunity to actually continue reading the article outside of the introduction however you refuse to. You continue to make false assumptions about the article even now. The biggest of these is your "poorly-written" statement. You give no examples to prove that it is poorly-written at all despite the author holding a PhD in literature and writing and many people praise his articles for their writing. Of course you would know it's well-written if you decided to actually read the goddamn article instead of continuing to throw criticisms in the dark hoping that maybe, just maybe, you could hit the target.

I actually made a number of specific examples in my posts in this thread, pointing out comments and ideas the writer makes which are politically ignorant and typical of someone whose political thinking doesn't surpass CNN/Fox News/MSNBC politics. He's an idiot on a number of levels, some of which I will reference again because you have forgotten I've already discussed a number of specific examples of why the author is a moron:

• He doesn't consider the consequences of mass unemployment if mass numbers of public workers were replaced by machines (while snootily calling their employment a form of welfare)
• He thinks that raising the minimum wage when cabals of corporate entities collude to keep wages down is welfare
• He compares historically disenfranchised and oppressed minorities to invaders, and then in the midst of trying to sell his manifesto he specifically names ISIS as one of his inspirational sources for some of his ideas (because it's pretty fucking smart if you're trying to get people to buy Volkswagen cars to rant a while about how Hitler helped inspire Volkswagen and how Hitler, thus, inspires you)
• He thinks the neoliberal market is effective in maintaining welfare or would be capable of maintaining business regulations

On top of all of that are the things I've already mentioned, about how his basic understanding of politics/political terminology is literally from CNN/Fox News, and he is politically ignorant of socialism/welfare. This is typical lolbertarian schlock.

I'm sorry to have to be the bearer of bad news, but having a PhD does not make a person's political opinions intelligent, nor does it compensate for a fundamental, basic lack of understanding of politics and economics as the author of the rambling rant he calls a "manifesto."

It's not even a manifesto.

[Rugoz]

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average household income was $73,298 in 2014, the latest year for which complete data is available.

The median full-time wage is significantly below $60k, suggesting that such a high guaranteed income would be highly redistributive. You get associated deadweight loss.

[Pants-of-dog]

@Pants-of-dog

What is especially right-wing about the ideas he discussed?

I did not say there was anything particularly right wing about his ideas. I said that his ideas about regulations make no sense. I also said he had no knowledge or experience about regulations. This is why I assumed he received all his knowledge about regulations from right wong libertarian sites.

Also if you had to be qualified to have a political opinion this forum wouldn't exist and democracy wouldn't exist. If you refute this by stating that voters and the people in PoFo can potentially research the topics being discussed then there's lots of evidence that shows that the author researched the topic. You literally see many links and citations in the article itself.

There no links or citations about regulations. Mostly because his ideas of how they currently operate are not based on anything real.

I recommend you continue reading it instead of being turned off by it based on the introduction or the comments here. Bulaba Jones in particular hasn't even read the article outside of the introduction and has no intention of doing so. Therefore his opinion shouldn't deter you from reading it.

I read it until the end of the part about regulations. Then I stopped because it was obvious he had no idea what he was talking about.

His example of banning mercury is not realistic at all. If an industrial application can be found for it, and it can be used safely by trained professionals, then this is a far more likely outcome than no more mercury use just because of regulations.

Regulations are a set of rules designed to protect the consumer or end user of a good or service from those aspects of the good or service that would be dangerous to an untrained person.

One example is that guardrails on balconies have to be 1070mm high (42" in American) to avoid falls. Please note that guardrail installers must work on balconies that have no guardrails. They can do this becuase they are trained in the safety protocols associated with construction sites.

Your author, on the other hand, believes that regulations are simply bans.

[Oxymandias]

@Bulaba Jones

The only examples you gave is that he said something about workers that you disliked. If you said anything else please tell me.

That's because it wasn't the point of the article. The article was talking about a concept, the idea of using taxes to generate social and political change not about the consequences of mass unemployment. He also already provides his idea of a solution which is basic income. You also failed to see the reason he gave for his point:

"And my first thought was: if your job can be done more cheaply without you, and the only reason you have it is because people would feel sorry for you if you didn’t, so the government forces your company to keep you on – well then, it’s not a job. It’s a welfare program that requires you to work 9 to 5 before seeing your welfare check."

"Suppose BART work really can be done just as well by a cheap machine. Compare the current system – in which BART is prohibited from firing the workers and replacing them with the machine because that would be greedy – to a system where BART fired the workers, bought the machines, but continued giving the workers their old paychecks for no reason. BART gets the same profits either way. The workers get the same amount of money either way. The only difference is that the workers gain forty hours of free time a week."

He didn't simply not give a reason like you said he did nor did he snootily call it welfare. It seems you just skimmed through it. Here is his proposed solution:

"In the “Simple Check” condition the welfare is funded by the tax base, which presumably is the general population, with rich people paying significantly more. In the “Sneaky Job” condition, the welfare is funded by mass transit users – disproportionately poor people – and the increased cost inevitably disincentivizes mass transit. You may remember mass transit as the thing that cuts down on traffic, sprawl, and carbon emissions – you know, that thing we are trying to desperately convince people to do more of."

"In the “Simple Check” condition the recipients of the welfare are the entire impoverished population, although the system may place more emphasis on those who are poorer or need more. In the “Sneaky Job” condition, the recipients of the the welfare are those few well-connected people who get cushy jobs at the BART, chosen somewhat at random but with the usual biases of employers being more likely to hire attractive, tall, Caucasian, etc people. They get $60,000 + no doubt excellent benefits, and everyone else misses out."

"In the “Simple Check” condition, the recipients of the welfare can live enjoyable lives doing their hobbies – as the woman in the article puts it, hair and makeup. In the “Sneaky Job” condition, the recipients have to work long hours doing busy work, suffer the normal vagaries of jerkwad bosses and office politics, and suffer the constant stress that they might be fired for underperforming."

This is the person you claim is essentially a bleeding-heart libertarian.

And yet you refuse to mention the reason why he said the things he said. I will quote again. Note that if you actually decided to read it carefully you should know this. The guy didn't just make a claim and not give a reason for believing in that claim.

"No one denies that it’s pretty crappy to have to live on $8 or so an hour, which is about what fast food workers currently make. But if fast food workers get $15 not because they do $15 worth of work, but because we feel sad that they’re living on too little money, then once again it’s welfare."

"And once again we can give them that welfare in one of two ways. We can send them a check, or we can pressure fast food places to pay them more."

"If we send people a check, it goes to everyone, whether employed or unemployed. If we pressure fast food places to pay more, then it’s only employed people – the people who need money the least – who get anything."

Furthermore he has a good point in the next paragraph. I'll italicize the part that's the most intriguing:

"If we send people a check, who gets the check is presumably determined by need. If we pressure fast food places to pay more, then who pays more is determined by media exposure and political clout. Fast food workers seem to have good union and good public visibility, so they can demand their wages get raised to $15. Garment workers aren’t as well-organized or are less sympathetic, so their wages stay at $8. It encourages a system of “squeaky wheel gets the grease” in which “squeaky” means “go on strike a lot and act miserable”."

And this continues on. You think this article is about anarcho-capitalism or bleeding-heart libertarianism. If this was the case why the fuck would we be talking about basic income and why are we talking about it in a positive light? And even if you read only the introduction to each of them you should know that he starts of section 4 with:

"But combining market values and compassion isn’t just about solving everything with basic income guarantees. Let me give another example of a government program meant to increase social welfare and how a more market-informed version would be better than a brute-force regulation."

It says basic income right there and the "solving everything" part should be an indicator that he used basic income guarantees alot in the previous section which should've caught your interest.

Wat? He only used the term "Martians" because he doesn't trust his audience to think of any minority seriously:

"Affirmative action and minority rights. I don’t trust people on this blog to think clearly about any actual minority group, so let’s pretend we’re worried about affirmative action for Martians, who have been a disempowered underclass ever since their giant heat-ray-bearing tripod machines broke down."

And he doesn't cite ISIS but the Caliphate from 7th century to 12th century unless you're implying that ISIS exist in the 7th century. Also he cites a certain part of the Caliphate, jizya which is also a tax that was used to incentivize change (or in the Caliphates case, conversions) and it worked very well as you can see by the religious makeup of Caliphate territories.

"Someone will object that small fees can’t eliminate as pervasive a social problem as prejudice, but I’m not so sure. Consider the Islamic Caliphate (7th – 12th century AD). Their modus operandi was to march into a new territory, tell the non-Muslims there that they were perfectly welcome to continue to practice their old religion as long as they paid a tax, and if they ever wanted to save those couple shekels or dinars or whatever, they could also convert to Islam – but no pressure. The current religious makeup of the Caliphate territory (Northern Africa and the Middle East through Iran and Pakistan) should be taken as some evidence of the effectiveness of this policy."

You're just grasping for straws. And he didn't even call it a manifesto.

[Zag Note: Please do not use bold to quote people. Use quote tags]

[Oxymandias]

@Pants-of-dog

Oh ok.

What is a far more likely outcome? You peaked my interest.

Mostly talks about bans but I agree that putting regulations in the same group as bans is unwarranted.

[ingliz]

A SOMETHING SORT OF LIKE LEFT-LIBERTARIANISM-IST MANIFESTO

And he didn't even call it a manifesto.

So, if someone said, "I think it's SOMETHING SORT OF LIKE LEFT-LIBERTARIANISM-IST shite," he's not saying it's a shit manifesto?

[Oxymandias]

@ingliz

The title has nothing to do with whether or not he thinks it's a manifesto which he talked about in the article. If you read it at least. Also I did the same thing you did and quote a bunch of stuff from the article.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

He didn't simply not give a reason like you said he did nor did he snootily call it welfare. It seems you just skimmed through it. Here is his proposed solution:

This is the person you claim is essentially a bleeding-heart libertarian.

And yet you refuse to mention the reason why he said the things he said. I will quote again. Note that if you actually decided to read it carefully you should know this. The guy didn't just make a claim and not give a reason for believing in that claim.

I read it, and obviously did not like it. If you want to continue to say you think I only skimmed it, you can of course keep doing that, but at that point saying that I've been accusing you of autism is hypocritical at best.

I saw his option for job "welfare." He doesn't rule out the initial option of replacing people.

But if fast food workers get $15 not because they do $15 worth of work, but because we feel sad that they’re living on too little money, then once again it’s welfare.

And once again we can give them that welfare in one of two ways. We can send them a check, or we can pressure fast food places to pay them more.

If we send people a check, it goes to everyone, whether employed or unemployed. If we pressure fast food places to pay more, then it’s only employed people – the people who need money the least – who get anything.

^ He literally argues that raising the minimum wage is, essentially, welfare. Further, he has some sort of issue separating social benefits from wages, where he has a problem thinking about welfare and thinking about minimum wage. While it's generally true that someone with a job is going to bring in more income than someone on any form of welfare, he seems to not realize how dismal minimum wage income, especially low minimum wage, is.

Furthermore he has a good point in the next paragraph. I'll italicize the part that's the most intriguing:

"If we send people a check, who gets the check is presumably determined by need. If we pressure fast food places to pay more, then who pays more is determined by media exposure and political clout. Fast food workers seem to have good union and good public visibility, so they can demand their wages get raised to $15. Garment workers aren’t as well-organized or are less sympathetic, so their wages stay at $8. It encourages a system of “squeaky wheel gets the grease” in which “squeaky” means “go on strike a lot and act miserable”."

Those horrible, awful, greedy poverty-line workers demanding a raise in their wages.

He only used the term "Martians" because he doesn't trust his audience to think of any minority seriously

He wrote things like this:

There are other problems as well. Some jobs may have legitimate reasons not to hire Martians – maybe Martians make lousy pilots because their single lidless eye gives them terrible depth perception. Certainly a Martian actor is unqualified to play Abraham Lincoln in a historical biopic. One could offer to let these jobs apply for exemptions, but this means a costly bureaucratic process, and is likely to end with large companies with good lawyers obtaining the exemptions, small companies with poor lawyers not obtaining the exemptions, and no concern about fairness to Martians in any case.

I don't happen to think he's a racist, and I'm not on board with affirmative action either, I'm pointing out how he has a problem expressing himself, like he can't filter himself or think first before he writes something. An example of this is when he brings up ISIS as a source of (minor) inspiration. It doesn't make him a member of ISIS, but it's an incredibly stupid thing to do when you're trying to sell something. Monumentally dumb. If you don't understand how that's stupid, I don't know how to help you.

And he didn't even call it a manifesto.

He literally calls it a manifesto.

You're just grasping for straws.

He's a bad writer, he doesn't understand minimum wage, welfare, or basic politics, he doesn't understand why saying he's inspired/similar in some views to ISIS is not a smart idea, and so on.

Why are you harping on so hard about this guy and his shitty "manifesto" thing? And why are you taking it so personal when people think it's bad?

[Oxymandias]

@Bulaba Jones

However if you did read well, then why would you make such ridiculous statements such as "he takes inspiration from ISIS"? These statements cannot be proven by looking at the article. I never said anything about you calling me autistic. I thought that discussion was over. You meant that my post was autistic and I admitted that I meant that you called my posts autistic. That's the end of it. I don't see how you calling my post autistic has to do with anything. I didn't insult you at all in the post either so I don't see anything hypocritical about it.

If people are replaced by machines that do all the work for them then we must create a basic income that allows people to fully take advantage of that production. That is what the author is suggesting. So what if machines replace people? People are now able to live comfortably doing things that they like while machines do most of the work.

No, he doesn't. He argues that fast-food workers aren't getting higher minimum wage because of their line of work but because of sympathy and he argues that there is better ways to give people the income they need to survive without minimum wage. That's the point. Also given that he separates basic income (a social benefit) from minimum wage I think he understands the distinction fine.

He never says that. He is actually sympathetic to people who don't have high incomes which is why he advocates for basic income.

1. Martians aren't supposed to represent any specific minority. That's why he used Martians as an example. Stop trying to fit Martians into an allegory. If you do that then you missed the point of using Martians in the first place. Therefore you failed reading comprehension.

2. He stated standard right-wing/left-wing points not because he agrees with them but because he's trying to sell the idea to an audience. By saying this he's telling people won't hire certain minorities for jobs that they aren't horrible evil monsters and tried to rationalize their potential actions. This is standard practice in policy making everywhere.

ISIS =/= Caliphate from the 7th to 12th century. Get your facts straight goddamnit. I gave you a full quote proving you wrong. Stop saying he drew from ISIS as inspiration. You are misinforming everyone here. Stop it. Or do you think that all Caliphates are ISIS?

Title =/= he means it's a manifesto. If it was a manifesto he would've mentioned that it's a manifesto in the article and it would have the qualities of a manifesto. All this article is doing is exploring one specific idea while manifestos explore a worldview. Do you understand the difference?

I never took it personally and I accepted criticism as you can see from Immortal Goon, POD, and OneDegree. It's just that when you say stupid stuff like "he took inspiration from ISIS" or "the writing is bad" or "he says bad stuff about minorities" without any citation at all. I just wonder, "are we reading the same article?". And what makes me angrier is when you ignore the proof I gave you and go around trying to misinform everyone. And I hate people who go out of their way to misinform.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

1. Martians aren't supposed to represent any specific minority. That's why he used Martians as an example. Stop trying to fit Martians into an allegory. If you do that then you missed the point of using Martians in the first place. Therefore you failed reading comprehension.

He uses Martians because he thinks he will be misunderstood, and then he unwittingly rants about minorities using thinly-veiled language. As I said, I don't actually think he's a racist, but merely he's a terrible, awful writer who doesn't do a good job of editing himself.

2. He stated standard right-wing/left-wing points not because he agrees with them but because he's trying to sell the idea to an audience. By saying this he's telling people won't hire certain minorities for jobs that they aren't horrible evil monsters and tried to rationalize their potential actions. This is standard practice in policy making everywhere.

Ah, so he pretends to be ignorant and stupid because he's just faking it and it's part of his master plan to look stupid to appeal to stupid people. Understood. Nice catch there, @Oxymandias.

ISIS =/= Caliphate from the 7th to 12th century. Get your facts straight goddamnit. I gave you a full quote proving you wrong. Stop saying he drew from ISIS as inspiration. You are misinforming everyone here. Stop it. Or do you think that all Caliphates are ISIS?

His words:

Consider the Islamic Caliphate (7th – 12th century AD). Their modus operandi was to march into a new territory, tell the non-Muslims there that they were perfectly welcome to continue to practice their old religion as long as they paid a tax, and if they ever wanted to save those couple shekels or dinars or whatever, they could also convert to Islam – but no pressure. The current religious makeup of the Caliphate territory (Northern Africa and the Middle East through Iran and Pakistan) should be taken as some evidence of the effectiveness of this policy.

Save Iran, back in 2013 there were pockets of Islamist extremists, some calling themselves ISIL/ISIS. In any event, it's not really smart to appeal to people's sensibilities by invoking religious extremism as inspirational. It's possible he's not referring to the modern terrorist group calling itself a Caliphate, but what he wrote is as oddly-worded as talking about events in the Mediterranean as part of "the current makeup of Roman territory," which would be bad writing as well.

Title =/= he means it's a manifesto.

I'm glad you finally agree with what many of us have been saying, in that it's not a manifesto, but a poorly-written jumble of libertarian schlock.

[Oxymandias]

@Bulaba Jones

No he doesn't and when I explained you took my post out of context and ran with it. We both know that's not what I mean. The point of that statement is to gain appeal yes, that's the literal point. If you read his other works you would know he absolutely is the opposite of racist. I gave you a bunch of links full of this. Also it isn't really a master plan as just something most people do. You probably did that before, just not in the same context.*

You have failed to show me where he stated that he took inspiration from ISIS. He clearly talked about jizya which was an economic policy only present in 7th to 12th century Caliphates so it's impossible for him to be taking inspiration from ISIS unless you think ISIS existed in the 7th century. ISIS doesn't even have jizya at all, non-Muslims are executed. Also he's talking about current religious makeup of the territory not the territories themselves. Think before you post please.

It's an article, nothing more nothing less. And you haven't shown me proof at all that it is poorly written. Also what sort of libertarian supports basic income?

And apparently two people and a poster, who after I responded to, didn't post ever again is everyone in the thread.

(*EDIT: The thing I am referring to is persuasion. For example, have you ever tried to convince say a relative or your parents to your political views by playing on their existing political beliefs? That's what I'm talking about.)