UBI obviously doesn't scale. There is a trilemma: 1) Support the poorest, 2) maintain incentives to work (low marginal penalties for earning), 3) don't explode the budget (and non-progressive taxes)--you can have two out of three, but not all three at once. Nordics and gallics kind of relax the third one to the political breaking point.
The U.S. is currently inefficiently compromising among the three, but a UBI would not get us to an acceptable spot on the tradeoff frontier. If coupled with repeal of all means-tested programs it could solve 2), but 1) and 3) would then be in unbearable political tension. If it were piled on top of existing means-tested programs, it wouldn't solve 2), wouldn't do much for 1), and would (depending on its size) incrementally damage 3).
Empirical claims about "UBI" pilots not showing decreased work effort gloss over the social norms that would apply if this program were truly universal and set at a level where no one actually had to work to live a materially comfortable life. Some people would jump at the chance to do more enterprising and risky things, others would pursue non-remunerative passions and hobbies, and still others would do what many people now on disability do--while away the days enjoying substances, playing video games, etc. (I am not sure that this last option is so terrible, but it would be unrealistic to suppose that it wouldn't be rife under a serious UBI regime.)
I agree with Postrel, our morals need improving and it's necessary to achieve technological progress. IMHO, only a civil society will develop new tech (as the inventors have an incentive to invest in their ideas, since they are protected via a patent or copyright for a limited period of time, or via keeping it secret) in which only a civil society would protect. The big invention periods of the Renaissance and the 19th and 20th century in the US, were characterized by relatively freer societies than elsewhere in the world. What's the point in inventing if the King can take away your invention (in a highly immoral act, though the King thinks his subjects' inventions belong to him).
Consider it from the Ancient Alien Theory point of view. where various societies' origin stories talk of gods coming down from the heavens telling us to be civil and teaching us. It takes cooperation and civility to build a better world - and it's very hard to make a better life via war, be it looting and plundering, or increasing the size of the population for the King to milk. Scrambling to survive takes precedence over investing in innovation, except innovation in war.
Andreessen fails to consider our inherent tribalism (immoral IMHO) and how groups of people seek the reins of government power to use immoral force, i.e., incivility, against others, and steal the benefits of new technology. For example, in AI, my belief is the government is the one calling it "dangerous" and seeking to control it so they can reap the benefits of it for themselves. As the real danger is government prohibiting everyone but itself to use AI and using it to build autonomous human killing robots, or AI tech to violate our privacy and limit our activities: i.e., to do their dirty work, and they don't want any competition or development of AI defenses from it.
We need civil people in government (or no government control) to advance morally and technologically. Senator Fetterman told the truth about us not sending the "best and brightest" into government, and it's almost funny. All government action starts with force: taking individuals money to pay for it. Preferably government is limited to resolving disputes and defending the country's people. IMHO, the aliens far ahead of us technologically, know it, which is why they want us to become moral and join the interstellar world. On the other hand, there are stories of gods bringing death and destruction to immoral societies such as the Great Flood myth (yet, sea levels were 400' lower 20,000 years ago - did warming and a broken ice dam bring it on?), or Sodom and Gomorrah. If you believe in God or aliens, the message is to become moral and civil, because it's good for us.
The world may have improved, as you note, but the culture hasn't... and has given us a current culture where Purge movies are up to five and counting, and Game of Thrones - the most popular show years back - regularly featured routine slaughter, torture and summary death to audience applause. The issue is there are multiple worlds ongoing right now and which one wins is as of yet uncertain.
I thought a lot of the strongest critiques were completely fair, so I'm not really sure where your "worst people on the internet" thing is coming from, especially considering that you more or less agree with the basic points that almost everybody hammered on.
You're welcome to go nutpicking on Bluesky if you like. There were some fair critiques, but there were also two classes of very bad ones: The first said something like "We already know the future is going to be misery for everyone but the rich, and this guy just wants to make us pay more for it." The second said only, "I sure like his economics," while remaining silent about the fascism Andreessen is aligning with.
It's probably a sign that I travel online mostly in the company of people who hew to some version of the first critique that I didn't see too many people (but I am absolutely certain they exist in plenitude) occupying that second space. But most of the folks I read with some version of "the road we're on right now is going to circumscribe the possibilities for the future" did a pretty fair job of responding to Andreessen on the particulars of his shortcomings--and were pretty close to what you lay out very well here.
I’m thinking about this line though in a bit of a contrarian way:
“We’re living longer and healthier lives.”
I wonder if it would be possible to plot a metric that measures average years of high quality life vs low quality life. What I’m getting at is that we often hear that life has gotten better but would actual data support that in spite of all the suffering that occurs in old age (I think there’s a bit of denial here exacerbated by hiding the aged in nursing homes). We’ve definitely increased quantity of life but have we increased quality of life to the extent we assume? Another way to measure this might be using WELLBYs?
Also, we are not living longer and healthier lives in the last 20 years in the United States, which happens to coincide with three things: intensification of globalization, the dominant position of Big Tech in the American political economy, and a massive spike in wealth inequality.
I agree that we should "work to distribute power even more widely than it already is." And that "The better future is probably the more polycentric one, not the less." I favor both material and moral progress, as you eloquently say. Virginia Postrel's The Future and its Enemies " is a favorite book of mine.
But I have a question - how does that square with the government providing a UBI to everyone? Isn't a solution implemented by the government inherently non-polycentric and coercive (the money must be taken from those with more than average income before it can be given out)?
I'm genuinely puzzled by this and would appreciate a clear answer.
"Isn't a solution implemented by the government inherently non-polycentric and coercive (the money must be taken from those with more than average income before it can be given out)?"
The money is already being taken. The question is whether it should be redistributed inefficiently and with strings attached. My answer to that question is no. If we're doing redistribution, let's do it efficiently and flexibly.
Hayek himself favored some limited form of redistribution as a protection against bad luck, and I agree. I'm not a NAP-only libertarian.
Show me a society that's doing no publicly funded welfare at all. Show me how it's working and doing well by everyone. Even just a city or a pilot project of some kind. If it looks like it works, I'll change my mind and favor copying their model.
Every one of the societies that seems on the preferable end of the actually existing spectrum would appear to do some kind of state welfare. That's a surprising empirical finding, but empirical findings are hard to argue with.
I am skeptical of anyone who has a plan everyone must follow, particularly if the plan is so good it must be promulgated at gunpoint. Freedom to speak, to choose, and freedom to move elsewhere makes different plans possible and palatable. This is something giant governments don’t care to see.
Interesting... To focus this comment, I'll address only this for now.
You write, "Invention is good."
Invention is good, until we invent tools of vast power that we have no idea how to make safe.
Nuclear weapons = no idea how to make safe
Genetic Engineering = no idea how to make safe
Artificial Intelligence = no idea how to make safe
And the 21st century is still young, more vast powers are surely coming, and there's little evidence that we're really considering breaking out of this reckless pattern.
The concept "invention is good" is actually bad engineering, as it fails to take in to account all the factors involved in the project. "Invention is good" assumes, typically with little questioning, that human beings will be able to successfully manage ANYTHING that comes out of the "invention is good" philosophy. Proof please?
We currently have thousands of massive hydrogen bombs aimed our own head, an ever present existential threat which we typically find too boring to bother discussing. Is this what the techno-optimists mean by "successful management"?
"Invention is good" is actually a 19th century (and earlier) philosophy, which made sense in the long era of knowledge scarcity. What the techno-optimists fail to grasp is that we no longer live in that old era, but in a radically different new era characterized by knowledge exploding in every direction at an accelerating pace. The techno optimists don't want to adapt to the new environment their success has created. They want to keep on thinking the same way they always have, and should anyone object, the objector will be labeled a Luddite. The irony is rich. And lost upon the techno optimist.
Here's what we need to invent next. Some method of taking control of the knowledge explosion, so that we are the drivers of the process, and not just helpless passengers along for the ride where ever it may take us.
You seem to have missed all the parts where I agreed with you. Though here in particular, I do not:
"Here's what we need to invent next. Some method of taking control of the knowledge explosion, so that we are the drivers of the process, and not just helpless passengers along for the ride where ever it may take us."
The only methods out there for taking "control" of the knowledge explosion will be methods for censorship. I'll not be spending any of my time looking for those.
It's true, I didn't attempt a full review of your entire piece. I apologize for that, but I just got here, and you're not the only person I'm reading. I'll try a little harder next time.
I would welcome a further discussion on your objections, if that is of interest. If it should interest you to prepare for such a conversation, an overview of what I'd argue is shared here:
Vey well done - I appreciate the reasonable and thoughtful tone.
UBI obviously doesn't scale. There is a trilemma: 1) Support the poorest, 2) maintain incentives to work (low marginal penalties for earning), 3) don't explode the budget (and non-progressive taxes)--you can have two out of three, but not all three at once. Nordics and gallics kind of relax the third one to the political breaking point.
The U.S. is currently inefficiently compromising among the three, but a UBI would not get us to an acceptable spot on the tradeoff frontier. If coupled with repeal of all means-tested programs it could solve 2), but 1) and 3) would then be in unbearable political tension. If it were piled on top of existing means-tested programs, it wouldn't solve 2), wouldn't do much for 1), and would (depending on its size) incrementally damage 3).
Empirical claims about "UBI" pilots not showing decreased work effort gloss over the social norms that would apply if this program were truly universal and set at a level where no one actually had to work to live a materially comfortable life. Some people would jump at the chance to do more enterprising and risky things, others would pursue non-remunerative passions and hobbies, and still others would do what many people now on disability do--while away the days enjoying substances, playing video games, etc. (I am not sure that this last option is so terrible, but it would be unrealistic to suppose that it wouldn't be rife under a serious UBI regime.)
I agree with Postrel, our morals need improving and it's necessary to achieve technological progress. IMHO, only a civil society will develop new tech (as the inventors have an incentive to invest in their ideas, since they are protected via a patent or copyright for a limited period of time, or via keeping it secret) in which only a civil society would protect. The big invention periods of the Renaissance and the 19th and 20th century in the US, were characterized by relatively freer societies than elsewhere in the world. What's the point in inventing if the King can take away your invention (in a highly immoral act, though the King thinks his subjects' inventions belong to him).
Consider it from the Ancient Alien Theory point of view. where various societies' origin stories talk of gods coming down from the heavens telling us to be civil and teaching us. It takes cooperation and civility to build a better world - and it's very hard to make a better life via war, be it looting and plundering, or increasing the size of the population for the King to milk. Scrambling to survive takes precedence over investing in innovation, except innovation in war.
Andreessen fails to consider our inherent tribalism (immoral IMHO) and how groups of people seek the reins of government power to use immoral force, i.e., incivility, against others, and steal the benefits of new technology. For example, in AI, my belief is the government is the one calling it "dangerous" and seeking to control it so they can reap the benefits of it for themselves. As the real danger is government prohibiting everyone but itself to use AI and using it to build autonomous human killing robots, or AI tech to violate our privacy and limit our activities: i.e., to do their dirty work, and they don't want any competition or development of AI defenses from it.
We need civil people in government (or no government control) to advance morally and technologically. Senator Fetterman told the truth about us not sending the "best and brightest" into government, and it's almost funny. All government action starts with force: taking individuals money to pay for it. Preferably government is limited to resolving disputes and defending the country's people. IMHO, the aliens far ahead of us technologically, know it, which is why they want us to become moral and join the interstellar world. On the other hand, there are stories of gods bringing death and destruction to immoral societies such as the Great Flood myth (yet, sea levels were 400' lower 20,000 years ago - did warming and a broken ice dam bring it on?), or Sodom and Gomorrah. If you believe in God or aliens, the message is to become moral and civil, because it's good for us.
The world may have improved, as you note, but the culture hasn't... and has given us a current culture where Purge movies are up to five and counting, and Game of Thrones - the most popular show years back - regularly featured routine slaughter, torture and summary death to audience applause. The issue is there are multiple worlds ongoing right now and which one wins is as of yet uncertain.
I thought a lot of the strongest critiques were completely fair, so I'm not really sure where your "worst people on the internet" thing is coming from, especially considering that you more or less agree with the basic points that almost everybody hammered on.
You're welcome to go nutpicking on Bluesky if you like. There were some fair critiques, but there were also two classes of very bad ones: The first said something like "We already know the future is going to be misery for everyone but the rich, and this guy just wants to make us pay more for it." The second said only, "I sure like his economics," while remaining silent about the fascism Andreessen is aligning with.
It's probably a sign that I travel online mostly in the company of people who hew to some version of the first critique that I didn't see too many people (but I am absolutely certain they exist in plenitude) occupying that second space. But most of the folks I read with some version of "the road we're on right now is going to circumscribe the possibilities for the future" did a pretty fair job of responding to Andreessen on the particulars of his shortcomings--and were pretty close to what you lay out very well here.
Very much enjoyed that.
I’m thinking about this line though in a bit of a contrarian way:
“We’re living longer and healthier lives.”
I wonder if it would be possible to plot a metric that measures average years of high quality life vs low quality life. What I’m getting at is that we often hear that life has gotten better but would actual data support that in spite of all the suffering that occurs in old age (I think there’s a bit of denial here exacerbated by hiding the aged in nursing homes). We’ve definitely increased quantity of life but have we increased quality of life to the extent we assume? Another way to measure this might be using WELLBYs?
Also, we are not living longer and healthier lives in the last 20 years in the United States, which happens to coincide with three things: intensification of globalization, the dominant position of Big Tech in the American political economy, and a massive spike in wealth inequality.
I agree that we should "work to distribute power even more widely than it already is." And that "The better future is probably the more polycentric one, not the less." I favor both material and moral progress, as you eloquently say. Virginia Postrel's The Future and its Enemies " is a favorite book of mine.
But I have a question - how does that square with the government providing a UBI to everyone? Isn't a solution implemented by the government inherently non-polycentric and coercive (the money must be taken from those with more than average income before it can be given out)?
I'm genuinely puzzled by this and would appreciate a clear answer.
Thanks in advance.
"Isn't a solution implemented by the government inherently non-polycentric and coercive (the money must be taken from those with more than average income before it can be given out)?"
The money is already being taken. The question is whether it should be redistributed inefficiently and with strings attached. My answer to that question is no. If we're doing redistribution, let's do it efficiently and flexibly.
Hayek himself favored some limited form of redistribution as a protection against bad luck, and I agree. I'm not a NAP-only libertarian.
I'm sorry, I did not pose my question correctly.
I agree, UBI would be vastly superior to our current approach.
But if the money was not already being taken, would taking it be justified as protection against "bad luck"?
Show me a society that's doing no publicly funded welfare at all. Show me how it's working and doing well by everyone. Even just a city or a pilot project of some kind. If it looks like it works, I'll change my mind and favor copying their model.
Every one of the societies that seems on the preferable end of the actually existing spectrum would appear to do some kind of state welfare. That's a surprising empirical finding, but empirical findings are hard to argue with.
You know I can't.
I guess that's what you are trying to say about Andreessen - don't look for utopia, look for something that works that's better than the status quo.
Thanks.
Go ahead, look for utopia. It’s actually on the map where the Nordic countries are.
I don't agree.
They are reputed to be the happiest ; not necessarily a good thing.
See Virginia Postrel's take on that: https://open.substack.com/pub/vpostrel/p/from-the-archives-its-a-healthy-sign?r=8p0vc&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I am skeptical of anyone who has a plan everyone must follow, particularly if the plan is so good it must be promulgated at gunpoint. Freedom to speak, to choose, and freedom to move elsewhere makes different plans possible and palatable. This is something giant governments don’t care to see.
Interesting... To focus this comment, I'll address only this for now.
You write, "Invention is good."
Invention is good, until we invent tools of vast power that we have no idea how to make safe.
Nuclear weapons = no idea how to make safe
Genetic Engineering = no idea how to make safe
Artificial Intelligence = no idea how to make safe
And the 21st century is still young, more vast powers are surely coming, and there's little evidence that we're really considering breaking out of this reckless pattern.
The concept "invention is good" is actually bad engineering, as it fails to take in to account all the factors involved in the project. "Invention is good" assumes, typically with little questioning, that human beings will be able to successfully manage ANYTHING that comes out of the "invention is good" philosophy. Proof please?
We currently have thousands of massive hydrogen bombs aimed our own head, an ever present existential threat which we typically find too boring to bother discussing. Is this what the techno-optimists mean by "successful management"?
"Invention is good" is actually a 19th century (and earlier) philosophy, which made sense in the long era of knowledge scarcity. What the techno-optimists fail to grasp is that we no longer live in that old era, but in a radically different new era characterized by knowledge exploding in every direction at an accelerating pace. The techno optimists don't want to adapt to the new environment their success has created. They want to keep on thinking the same way they always have, and should anyone object, the objector will be labeled a Luddite. The irony is rich. And lost upon the techno optimist.
Here's what we need to invent next. Some method of taking control of the knowledge explosion, so that we are the drivers of the process, and not just helpless passengers along for the ride where ever it may take us.
You seem to have missed all the parts where I agreed with you. Though here in particular, I do not:
"Here's what we need to invent next. Some method of taking control of the knowledge explosion, so that we are the drivers of the process, and not just helpless passengers along for the ride where ever it may take us."
The only methods out there for taking "control" of the knowledge explosion will be methods for censorship. I'll not be spending any of my time looking for those.
It's true, I didn't attempt a full review of your entire piece. I apologize for that, but I just got here, and you're not the only person I'm reading. I'll try a little harder next time.
I would welcome a further discussion on your objections, if that is of interest. If it should interest you to prepare for such a conversation, an overview of what I'd argue is shared here:
https://www.tannytalk.com/p/our-relationship-with-knowledge