Bay 12 Games Forum

It would also be fairly easy to game the system by hoarding and reselling food rations and coupons. Capitalism will prevail.

*shrugs* Which happens, yes, but not enough for the administrative costs necessary to prevent it to be actually cost effective. Costs more to prevent the misuse than the misuse costs the system.* We actually have some fairly sizable food stamp programs faffing about the world, heh. Pretty aware of what the costs and side-effects and whatnot are. Somewhat different than a rationing system, but not substantively.

*This is fairly consistently true for most welfare systems currently in use, actually, last I checked. Turns out the majority of folks in situations that need the help don't actually want to abuse the system :V

From what I recall, a basic income is actually better at doing that than, well, that. Does mostly the same thing, but allows for extra bits (excess education, minor capital investment, business startup, limited entertainment, etc.) on the side, while also cutting out part of the administration burden. Just givin' everyone cash takes less bureaucracy than giving them gift baskets or whatev', takes advantage of already existent infrastructure, and lets 'em better tailor the resources to their personal situation.

You just have to, y'know, peg the basic income to inflation and maybe general cost of living, instead of doing stupid shit like we do over here in the states and fight over the amounts every few years.

'Course, it'd probably be easier to institute a universal goods welfare type thing than basic income at the moment, so maybe as a transitional effort?

I'll try to restate my point in clearer terms: Thinking up stuff for a thought economy is not for everyone. Some people are good at thinking or entertaining, while others are better at doing practical things with their hands. If the current trend is allowed to proceed, the latter category of people will be declared useless.

Then they handcraft (quite a bit of art falls into this category, as well as a notable amount of production -- plenty of crazy people with money prefer handcrafted material over functionally better mass produced stuff) or add some volunteer work to industry or maintenance or somethin'. Just because folks are useless don't mean they can't still build stuff. Hell, there's quite a few farms that work like that already, just as an example -- specialty productions or subsistence work, that sort of thing.

The metaphorical 98% just do... whatever. If they want to make stuff, they make stuff. If they want to vegetate in front of a TV, they vegetate in front of a TV. If they want to produce art, or aid science, or give a hand to local efforts, or whatever, they do. We don't have full employment now (unless you count the bullshit term economics use, which builds in a fairly significant unemployment rate), we won't in the future, and we're going to eventually have to deal with the fact many people just aren't needed anymore.

Being useless ain't so bad, y'know? So long as you don't starve and whatnot.

... how would you survive having a glove put over that, scree?

Though I guess you mean the birth control method. Which, uh. I guess would be easier to survive but putting a glove on that first that sounds intensely uncomfortable.

... what the zog has nine letters, can have a glove put on it, and deserves to be censored?

Well, if it makes you feel any better, the trend is looking like we're going to see an ice-free arctic by... 2020, I think it was. Something like 2035 at the latest. We've almost certainly got under a decade before we see it, and pretty much dead certain under two barring something really gorram odd happening. Been dropping an average of ~440 km³ per year since '79 or so, and we've got around 3.4k km³ left.

Dunno about the antarctic, though.

Still. Only a small handful more years until we get to just flat out find out. Isn't it terrifying exciting?

Look, AC. I'll level with ya'. I don't actually care what it is. If it's a musical instrument shoved up someone's bum, I'm calling it a trumpet.

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