> Look guy, your initial post was about how people sat around watching Netflix during Covid and how that's terrible for you and unproductive
No it wasn't. I suggest you re-read it. I was talking about people generally. I actually didn't speak that much about my own experience. I actually talked about what generally happened over COVID in my original reply.
> I did read what you said and I do understand. You said that you can't go do things other than go to the office because you chose an expensive lifestyle. Congratulations. UBI will not cover that and it shouldn't. It is a universal BASIC income.
Again you inserted things that I did not say. I never said I can't do other things. I don't live an expensive lifestyle. The only thing I said I need to go to work to pay the bills.
> That's your experience with one drug (alcohol). Frankly, it comes across as naive. Many people can not quit by themselves, even if they want to. Not to mention hard drugs like heroin, crack, meth, benzos. You really are trying to say that years of use of those drugs can be stopped by just "deciding?" For every individual? Simply untrue.
No it isn't naive. It is literally what every recovered addict says. "You have to want to quit". Whether people should get help or not has nothing to do with the justifications of why they abuse substances.
> I get it, believe me. Im saying your rationale is simplistic and that both choices are subpar and neither should not be acceptable.
I don't think you do. You didn't even bother reading what I said properly. So I think we will leave it there.
> Tax is a means to an end (paying for civil services). Whether or not something is taxed twice is not inherently wrong, it's just a choice on how we choose to pursue our needs in a way that is effective and equitable.
Well in the UK, the civil services are crap, the police don't do anything, the NHS waiting times are extensive (my mother is waiting for over 2 years for knee surgery), the roads are full of pot holes, and we have more admirals than warships.
So the money doesn't seem to be used effectively. I don't know what you mean by equitable.
> I mean, reductively, saying something can't be taxed twice doesn't make any sense because all taxes work like that. A company sells products, those sales (and/or value add) are taxed. That money is paid as income, then that income is taxed. That income is spent on goods or services, where the sale (and/or value add) is taxed. Ad infinitum.
It almost like the tax man takes at every opportunity. Describing that they tax you many times isn't a justification for more taxes.
> A reasonable tax on inheritance, growing with wealth, makes sense in a society that has no effective wealth caps. Otherwise the "haves" accumulate wealth, which accumulates wealth, which accumulates wealth.
I don't think it is moral or fair to tax beneficiaries of inheritance. It is essentially a gift from the deceased to the beneficiaries.
That the entire point of building up an inheritance for your family/beneficiaries, is that you hope to leave your children better place. I don't know what is fundamentally wrong with building up wealth generationally.
> By imposing a tax on wealth that is not earned, but entirely dependent on the circumstances of one's birth, you create a redistribution scheme that's... Quite fair?
No it isn't fair. The wealth was earned at some point in time, presumably legally. I don't understand why it matters that the person receiving it may have done nothing more than been a family member, family friend or even someone/some organisation that the deceased thought was deserving? When they were alive it was their choice who would receive upon death.
> Then you've made the choice to not pursue other things that will make you happier than "working".
It not about being happier. You didn't read what I said. I said they were my responsibility. You fundamentally don't understand what I am trying to tell you.
> Yet my point initially was that working is not anywhere close to the only way that people can stay active and away from "rotting."
I never said it was. Like many replies of the replies I've had on my initial reply in this thread they have conflated doing something productive, with going to work. Going for a cycle is more productive than Netflix, learning crotchet is more productive than Netflix.
> No, this assumes that people will need help quitting an addiction.
If you don't wish people to misunderstand you, then you shouldn't use language that implies that you believe it to be a disease.
> Both scenarios are grim and best avoided. The better solution is to help solve the problem, not to act like work is a cure-all.
I never said work was a cure-all. You keep on adding things I never said.
You asked me what is better between two scenarios was. I gave you an answer which I thought was better between the two with a rationale.
> For many people, work is the reason they drink, or do drugs, or have anger issues.
No. That is one of the excuses they use to justify their poor choices. I know because I used the same justification.
The reason they have drink, drugs or anger issues is because they choose to.
> A proper UBI helps people maintain a healthy lifestyle without having to put themselves in a position where they are stressed and powerless for the rest of their working life.
So you proclaim. I believe the opposite is likely to happen in the long run. I know what the (negative) affects of welfare are in the UK and UBI IMO will make things worse.
Which requires someone else to work to pay for those things. I don't believe other people should pay my mortgage and bills. Those are my responsibility.
I chose to buy a house. I chose to buy a car. I chose the 1 gigabyte virgin media broadband package. Nobody forced me to choose them. Therefore it would be irresponsible and immoral to expect someone else to pay the bill.
> The better thing is to treat the addiction
This assumes that addiction is a disease and a not a choice. I firmly believe it is a choice. I choose to drink excessively in the first place. I made the choice to stop drinking. I chose to stay sober.
As for the rest of what you wrote. You really need to go back an re-read what I said. You asked me which is better between two scenarios. I stated that one was better than the other with a rationale.
You seem to be arguing something else entirely now. I am not sure really what you are arguing against. Certainly not statements I've made in this thread.
> Sounds like you have a substance abuse problem and you're afraid that others will make the same mistake you did.
I had a substance abuse problem. I have been sober now 7 years.
As for whether I am afraid others will do the same? Yes I am afraid others will make the same mistake that I did. That is why I am warning against it.
> Saying that people's lives are better because they benefit society through their labour, while suffering from untreated addiction (a truly horrible thing), is quite fatalistic, to me.
You asked me whether I thought it was better and I gave you two reasons why I believed it was better. I believe it is be a completely honest assessment based on my own experiences. If you have a critique that is objective of my position I am willing to listen to it, but moralising about how my assessment I am not interested in.
> The substance abuse is a totally different issue from "not working."
In theory yes, in reality no. One will exacerbates the other.
> There are a million things to do other than go to the office.
Sure there are. But unfortunately I have a mortgage and bills that need paying.
I didn't say it was a UBI problem. I was specifically replying about the effect that it had on people at the time.
> For one, during Covid, most people were encouraged, if not required by law, to limit their interactions, and some were literally not allowed to leave the house. For years.
Yes I know. I was one of those people. I ended up just ignoring the laws BTW and doing what I wanted when I worked out that they couldn't effectively enforce them.
> Secondly, just because UBI gives people leave to sit around at home, doesn't mean that binging Netflix or alcohol is somehow the fault of "not working."
I never said it was. I was specifically talking about what happened during COVID.
> I know many people who's life consists of working extremely hard, then going home and binging Netflix or alcohol or mairjuana until they pass out. Is that somehow better?
Yes, it is.
1) While working you are productive (or at least perceived to be). So at least in theory, you are benefit on society.
2) When you have a substance abuse problem like I did. Your life revolves around it. If you don't have to go to work, I would typically start drinking after lunchtime. Work gave me a break from drinking. As I alluded to in my previous reply in this thread, I am glad gave up drinking at the start of 2019, as I would have had 9 months to drink all day.
> Yes, because that's a transfer to different people. That's not a problem
Sorry I don't agree. The tax has already been paid when the person was alive. There shouldn't be a an additional tax on top because it is given to others after they died. Which is what is happening.
> The problem is that it's not just treated as income to the recipients—which it manifestly is—with the income tax then being modified to include both advance recognition and windfall spreading options to allow taxpayers to deal with irregular income in a fair basis with more regular income.
The problem wouldn't exist if the tax was abolished.
> This is also the problem with capital gains tax. And its not the people who have the kind of income that avoids regular income taxation that are getting screwed by that.
Again another case of a problem that wouldn't exist if the tax (capital gains) was abolished.
It isn't just about having something to talk about at a dinner party. It is about doing something productive and worth-while. There is a massive feeling of accomplishment from doing some that is productive. Having something interesting to talk about is an additional benefit. A good portion of those people that were pro-active and learned to stream, turned it into a side income. I wish I had done that. I was desperately trying to find a job after being laid off.
You get none of these benefits from watching Netflix on the sofa. In fact it is likely to make you miserable. A lot of people were negatively affected over COVID. A lot of people regressed into a shell and had a form of depression. I spoke to people mid lockdowns who were working from home and were saying "If I can't go out and enjoy myself, there is no point in earning this money".
I don't consider myself shy, but I find interacting in person now a lot more stressful than I did before COVID lockdowns.
There were other problems during COVID. A lot of people increased intake of booze. I am glad I had given up drinking the year before (I was an alcoholic) because I worry about what I would have been like. There was an increase in domestic violence in the UK (probably related to the increase in alcohol consumption). I am sure there are other issues I had forgotten about.
The problem with inheritance tax is that the person pays taxes all through their lifetime and then when their significant others inherit that wealth (which already has been taxed once at least) it gets taxed again. The issue isn't the amount, the issue is the principle of it.
I suspect BTW the very rich won't ever pay these taxes as there are always ways to restructure the wealth or simply move it elsewhere. I know this is done in the UK. So what it does is punish the middle classes the most.
> Go pushes the complexity into the programmer, that is how one ends with source code like Kubernetes, when the language doesn't provide all the tooling.
I am not sure what you mean by this. I write go code pretty much everyday and that code looks vaguely the same as it would do in C#, or Python, or JavaScript.
> Python belongs to the complicated languages section, people that think Python is straightforward never bothered reading all the manuals, nor had to put up with all the breaking changes throughout its history, it wasn't only 2 => 3, that was the major event, every release breaks something, even if little.
I've read the manuals. Most docs appear to be reasonably well written, even if I find many of the examples a bit odd (I've never been a big fan of Monty Python, so the spam and eggs examples are all a bit odd).
The 2 => 3 change was probably a big thing for those migrating all the existing libraries, frameworks. But as someone that uses it for prototyping stuff, I barely noticed the difference.
I believe it to be a statement of reality. I am simply spelling out how it is. It is not an endorsement.
Moralising about my assessment does not make it untrue.
> Do you wait for the end of football matches before deciding which team to support, because only the one that won matters?
I also read spoilers for movies before I watch them in the cinema. I am truly awful ;-)
> I advocate against laws I don't like, and try to give people practical advise about how to protest against them, as well as how to circumvent them, and minimize their effects, and encourage them to pass this knowledge on. I consider it a good use of my time, even if not everyone cares to retain that info or pass it on.
I would only bother talking about how to circumvent them. The other activities are a waste of time. It took me quite a while to come to this conclusions (about 20 years) but that is the conclusion I came to. Those who are interested in circumventing it will come and find you typically, those who aren't won't bother.
> Politics is never a foregone conclusion (unless you completely give up and go silent, in which case your opposition has carte blanche to do what it likes)... but like "viral content", it's not something you can always whip in your your favour. People are irrational creatures, and you never quite know what will make them all sit up and take notice. You can never be sure what will set the nation's agenda, and what stories "have legs", until they happen.
I don't believe it is a forgone conclusion. I believe that one has to obtain power to enact change.
I don't believe that anything is "bottom up" i.e. there is a ground swell of public opinion and this peculates up to those in power. I think it is "top down".
> People are irrational creatures, and you never quite know what will make them all sit up and take notice. You can never be sure what will set the nation's agenda, and what stories "have legs", until they happen.
It is actually well understood what makes them sit up and notice. It has been extensively documented.
> For example: the Post Office scandal was a dull boring thing that nobody cared about, and then... an ITV drama made people care? But there have been ITV dramas about political scandals before, and they didn't all have that effect. But that one did. And the writers of the drama didn't just make stuff up, they followed the details of campaigners and journalists who had been covering this for years, even if at times they felt they were shouting into the void.
This only proves my point. Until a major broadcaster in the United Kingdom e.g. run by people with power, money and connections, popularised something only then did people take notice.
> The standard UKGov petitions site has at least some quantum of usefulness in that it encourages people to think about the issue, and if they sign it, they know there are others that agree with them.
I don't think it does. The people that sign these petitions have often already decided that the law needs to be repealed. Ask someone working down the local shop if they even know if this petition exists? Probably not.
> Change is possible.
Not by us. This is a lie told to you to keep believing. It was a bitter pill to swallow that ultimately your voice will go unheard. However it is ultimately liberating as you can direct your energy elsewhere.
It has happened! Quite a number of times in fact. That why I used that particular example.
> What if tomorrow's headline is "porn habits of everyone in Britain revealed", or "6 in 10 people's bank accounts stolen after ID leak". Would there be room for change then?
No. It will be spun in a way where they can justify more draconian measures or something else will be into the news cycle and it will be forgotten about after a few weeks.
> We can then have the trustworthy, familiar face of Martin Lewis on the news telling people how to protect their identity, and he can highlight how this terrible problem was caused by mandatory rules set by Ofcom, and they can have some squirmy little git from Ofcom promising to "look into the problem", and by day 4 of the ongoing national identity theft disaster, the government will yield.
I think it would be the ICO not Ofcom. Nevertheless, they will have some politician or spokes person blaming it on not enough funds and/or powers going to the appropriate regulator.
> We can be cynical, but can hope too.
It isn't cynicism. I am literally describing what happens more often than not.
This reply you have given me is why I don't like having these conversations. You fundamentally still believe that the democratic process can work. I don't even believe it really exists. I believe what you see happening publicly is nothing more than political theatre.
> Put yourself in the shoes of a MP receiving letters from the public. If one person sends a letter on this issue, it’s lost in the noise, one of many crazies talking about irrelevant topics, dismissed. If only 10 people send letters on the same topic, that starts to put the issue on your radar, no? 10 letters, then you hear about a 100k petition on the same topic that’s going to get noticed, do some research, maybe even discuss it between MPs. You’ve given a reason for them to make a self-important speech in parliament.
Lets pretend this did happen.
What happens next is when some tragedy occurs (there are plenty that happen unfortunately) e.g. a teenage girl committing suicide because she was bullied on Instagram.
Then every major news website, news paper and news broadcast runs with "Dangerous Internet Trolls caused the suicide of lovely teenage girl".
Then there is a series of "discussions" about the issues on Question Time or LBC. The solutions presented will be various draconian measures which means more censorship, monitoring and surveillance. They will have a token person (that is often unlike-able) arguing against more draconian measures for "balance" which will be derided by the rest of the panel (and often the audience). After that you are back to square one, because it is now politically toxic.
This is known as "manufacturing consent".
I've seen this play out literally hundreds of times now.
> I disagree that writing to MPs is always ineffective. Some campaigns have been successful. Whether it will be effective in this case is another matter.
It won't be effective in this case. It been going in the same direction of travel and none of the parties (including outsider parties such as the Greens, Reform etc) proclaim to believe in in reversing this direction of travel. They are much more interested in other issues that are much more hot button. Those issues are easy for the public to understand because they are likely to have encountered them often.
> Maybe when people start to experience the block it will gain traction.
No it won't. People will either find a way to circumvent via VPN/Tor or some other mechanism (which is what they already do) or they will simply shrug their shoulders and won't bother.
There has already been a large number of forums/sites that have been shutdown or site been blocked in the UK and there hasn't been any significant traction on this issue.
> Of course if you don’t even make low-effort attempts to make your voice heard and exercise your democratic rights, you can be certain that you’ll lose them.
I don't really know how to respond to something like this because I believe it is naive on a number of levels. I consider myself a realist. I believe "making your voice heard and exercising your democratic rights" is about as effective as talking to a brick wall (at least on a national level).
I have personally made attempts. I wrote to my MP often. I cited links, news articles etc to back up my argument. It was an utter waste of time. At best you may get a short response. I realised I was ultimately wasting my time, I stopped and will never do it again. I actually feel stupid for believing that I could make any difference at all. I suspect this is the experience for other people and is often not spoken about.
Moreover much more notable people have tried to make themselves heard around a number of related concerns about freedom of speech, threats to privacy, iffy counter-terrorism laws etc. More often than not has always been either ignored entirely, responses that completely ignored the crux of the issue, or straight up lies from successive governments for almost two decades now.
Realistically our options will be to learn to live with the poor legislation, circumvent it, or leave the country.
I see people doing this at the charging stations at local store all the time.
They are literally waiting out side before I came to the store and are there afterwards. A typical shop in the supermarket is between 20-30 minutes for me.
No it wasn't. I suggest you re-read it. I was talking about people generally. I actually didn't speak that much about my own experience. I actually talked about what generally happened over COVID in my original reply.
> I did read what you said and I do understand. You said that you can't go do things other than go to the office because you chose an expensive lifestyle. Congratulations. UBI will not cover that and it shouldn't. It is a universal BASIC income.
Again you inserted things that I did not say. I never said I can't do other things. I don't live an expensive lifestyle. The only thing I said I need to go to work to pay the bills.
> That's your experience with one drug (alcohol). Frankly, it comes across as naive. Many people can not quit by themselves, even if they want to. Not to mention hard drugs like heroin, crack, meth, benzos. You really are trying to say that years of use of those drugs can be stopped by just "deciding?" For every individual? Simply untrue.
No it isn't naive. It is literally what every recovered addict says. "You have to want to quit". Whether people should get help or not has nothing to do with the justifications of why they abuse substances.
> I get it, believe me. Im saying your rationale is simplistic and that both choices are subpar and neither should not be acceptable.
I don't think you do. You didn't even bother reading what I said properly. So I think we will leave it there.