Message from @halfthink

Discord ID: 544627745959706692


2019-02-11 15:22:56 UTC  

I think he approached it from a perspective of incentives.

2019-02-11 15:24:19 UTC  

exactly, and how they piled up in the wrong place with terrible "if you die in Canada you die in real life" consequences.

2019-02-11 15:25:47 UTC  

That sounds pretty funny.

2019-02-11 15:25:51 UTC  

I don't remember that part.

2019-02-11 15:26:30 UTC  

a thing that should be obvious, but when it isn't you'll scratch your head how it possibly couldn't be obvous. https://xkcd.com/180/

2019-02-11 15:29:06 UTC  

then again, the world is so full of complication and contradiction, I guess it's no real surprise people get lost in postmodernist views.
like really, you have to make an attempt finding the difference between real or not, and if you can't find it, nobody can do that for you. well maybe Trump can, but that's not necessarily the best for you personally.

2019-02-11 15:29:25 UTC  

or maybe it is, who can tell.

2019-02-11 15:29:40 UTC  

anyway, I have to be doing stuff.

2019-02-11 15:30:08 UTC  

Okay. It was good talking.

2019-02-11 16:16:06 UTC  

Copypasting my rant about Tim being completely illiterate about UBI here:

Yeah. I ranted on another Discord yesterday how insanely upside down Tim "gets" what UBI actually is.
He talks about UBI competing with taking a job in McDonald's making McDonald's having to raise the salary of employees, just to keep them. Which is inverse of the typical left-wing argument against UBI: it allows corporations to pay less because the pay is subsidized by taxpayers.
Basically, socially conservative socialists tend to argue against UBI because they frame it as corporations benefiting from tax money. And although I disagree with them if that invalidates UBI, they are at least more correct about the facts than Tim Pool is. But I cannot really be surprised by a kigger not knowing how money works and what incentivizes and disincentivizes people to work.
He claims that having few hundred dollars for every citizen disincentivizes working (and it does to a very, very small amount but not much since living off such amount is miserable, it's basically just to ensure you wouldn't starve) and in argument against UBI, actually presents a valid critique toward Finnish existing welfare system that tortures unemployed people with paperwork, unneeded re-training (run by consultation agencies who get paid by government), etc.

2019-02-11 16:16:15 UTC  

Finland even has a phenomenon where companies lay off people, and should they not get a new job immediately, they need to go to the welfare agency to prove that they are an active job seeker (rather than a leech), they get unpaid traineeship offer that is required to take in order to have any social security. And the welfare workers send you to "train" in the company where you worked as a paid employee for years, "practicing" the job you earlier got. It's just that rather than getting for example 2000 eur from your employer, now you would get about 1000 eur from the tax-payer. The company would get you as a slave.
And this is what Tim Pool agrees with, because "UBI is socialism". And the sad part is that very few in the center understand UBI. Only far-lefties and far-righties do... and far-left opposes it because it's not equality of outcome (as you can still affect the bottom line by choosing to work) and far-right opposes it because they are ancaps and oppose every welfare imaginable (even if UBI is by far the least disturbing form of welfare to the job market since it does not compete with working as you can actually keep it even if you work).
In a perfect world, one might hope centrists would understand how UBI works (just like many who are economically far-left or far-right do), but realize they don't have the reasons they have to oppose it (i.e they are neither ancaps nor communists). But no. Centrists just seem to run in the problem of being too dumb to even understand what UBI is.
/rant

2019-02-11 18:33:47 UTC  

@Timcast don't fall into that trap, even if northam shouldn't be removed for blackface, don't forget he wanted to legalize killing newborns...

2019-02-11 20:53:46 UTC  

@whiic Mind that AnCaps will also prefer NIT before all other forms of welfare because Friedman

2019-02-11 20:58:09 UTC  

@H3llbender no, even Rothbard prefers regular welfare over NIT.

2019-02-11 20:58:38 UTC  

Friedman is a commie, even David.

2019-02-11 21:14:28 UTC  

What constitutes something as being right, just because it's moral?

2019-02-11 21:15:01 UTC  

Kinda unsure if this counts as political

2019-02-11 21:15:14 UTC  

Might belong more to philosophy

2019-02-11 21:15:49 UTC  

Morality is subjective.

2019-02-11 21:16:02 UTC  

Unless you believe in God.

2019-02-11 21:16:13 UTC  

Especially if you believe in God

2019-02-11 21:16:44 UTC  

Only if you believe in theistic relativism.

2019-02-11 21:16:54 UTC  

I don't know of any theist that does.

2019-02-11 21:17:40 UTC  

If morality is God's will, then it is just his subjective opinion.

2019-02-11 21:18:38 UTC  

That's a pretty weird take. Where did you get the idea that God's will is an "opinion"?

2019-02-11 21:18:51 UTC  

That's a very strange interpretation.

2019-02-11 21:19:28 UTC  

Is something good because God commands it or does he command it because it is good?

2019-02-11 21:21:16 UTC  

It's still an odd line of reasoning but the latter would be more appropriate if I had to choose.

2019-02-11 21:22:40 UTC  

What is God then?

2019-02-11 21:26:04 UTC  

That's a question that has been explored for millennia. That answer can only be truly sought in a personal relationship with God. Now, that isn't to say that morality is subjective because one's relationship with God is personal. The relationship is individual, but that to which you are relating is unchanging.

2019-02-11 21:26:29 UTC  

Though I generally like to refer to God as the higher moral order.

2019-02-11 21:31:21 UTC  

That sounds pretty fucking subjective to me.

2019-02-11 21:33:22 UTC  

It means that you have to overcome your subjective tendencies as a human being to understand something which is not subjective.

2019-02-11 21:35:41 UTC  

A personal relationship doesn't mean you get to decide whatever you want.

2019-02-11 21:36:48 UTC  

Something being subjective doesn't mean you get to decide either. Value is subjective but people don't choose their values.

2019-02-11 21:37:41 UTC  

Subjective means taking place solely within one's own mind, but the relationship is a relationship to that which is outside of the individual.

2019-02-11 21:38:36 UTC  

That's why they say "let God into your heart"

2019-02-11 21:40:41 UTC  

If I value an object, but the object exists outside of my mind, does that make the value objective?

2019-02-11 21:41:53 UTC  

The point is that you can have a subjective view of the higher moral order, but that doesn't mean the higher moral order itself is subjective.

2019-02-11 21:44:28 UTC  

What do you mean by "the higher moral order"?

2019-02-11 21:45:31 UTC  

God