Authorities in Finland are considering giving every citizen a tax-free payout of €800 (£576) each month.
Under proposals being draw up by the Finnish Social Insurance Institution (Kela), this national basic income would replace all other benefit payments, and would be paid to all adults regardless of whether or not they receive any other income.
Unemployment in Finland is currently at record levels, and the basic income is intended to encourage more people back to work. At present, many unemployed people would be worse off if they took on low-paid temporary jobs due to loss of welfare payments.
It is funny how stupid some ideas seem in light of r/K Theory.
There comes a certain point where the only path back to the starting point is total failure of the entire system. It is unpleasant, it hurts, but after it is over, everything works like clockwork. Or rather, it works like clockwork until the free resources create r-selected idiots who try to use government to thwart the natural balance of nature toward r-selection again.
It will really be interesting to see if r/K Theory can be used after the collapse, to stall the onset of r-selection in the next phase of the cycle. Perhaps a K-ified populace, adapted to reality by the harshness, will have what it takes to practically apply the principles of K-selection to governance, and forestall the inevitable decline and collapse. I cannot help but imagine what it would be like if a K-ified populace imposed a system where youth were forced to fight in competition, they grew accustomed to the idea of bettering themselves through effort at an early age, and the social system were designed to reward reality-adaptation and crush reality-blindness. What would emerge could have all the benefits given by the US Constitution, with the added benefit of a means of molding a population which would not eventually strain against the protections of Liberty that are enshrouded within that document.
It would be a culture designed to foster K more permanently. It would take balls to implement, but there is a possibility that after what is coming, the balls may be there to implement it.
Hope springs eternal.
[…] By Anonymous Conservative […]
Your thinking, as I understand it above, is that giving money to every Finn, weakens all Finns because 1) they haven’t toughened up enough to earn it, and 2) the money in itself creates a glut situation. Because the money is going to ALL Finns, and not just the weakest Finns, it weakens the entire population, creating r’s out of K’s.
But … lets say I’m a successful, self-sufficient K in Finland. Suddenly I get a check for about US $1,000.00 monthly which I never directly earned. Because I wasn’t expecting this wee bonus, and really don’t need it, it goes into savings. I’m not weakened by this stupid decision of the government, I’m actually put in a better position to survive the “apocalypse.”
Lets say, now, that I’m an unemployed, disgruntled or lazy Finn and I get my one big check. This check is not much more, or less, than the sum of the little checks I’ve been receiving so far. No changes here.
Thus, I see the free money, given to all Finns, as strengthening the K’s, while leaving the r’s in their same pathetic state.
This isn’t just R selection in play though that is a part of it. Its also technology eroding the social fabric through efficiency,
Simply put, machines do so much of the work we’d use human labor for that the ability to retain the social fabric is falling apart.
Handouts like that not excessively harmful so long as jobs do exist anyway the state of Alaska has such a program and climactic variations keep the state functionally K selected more than most states.
Really there aren’t that many good options other than handouts or regulation anyhow . Large scale order is very costly, more so with K selected people. In order for K people to cooperate there has to be a mutual benefit and cities tend to concentrate wealth. This creates too much conflict as the concentration and the natural zero sum nature of the world creates competitive pressures
if say a natural plague killed off all R selected people you wouldn’t end up with a functional society but a series of clans, all at least somewhat xenophobic and mutually hostile all for good reasons. In time they certainly would develop trade routes and procedures to prevent consanguineous relations such but basically you end up with a world full of small settlements that sometimes trade. Vikings everywhere, I’m fascinated by that culture but I don’t want a world full of them.
In any case complexity would be much lower since pure constant competition leads to strangling information flows. If I share my people secrets with you, they’ll make you stronger.
My theory is that you really cannot have a functional nearly entirely K society larger than a tribe. The B.S. and double think that makes up most of the rabbits social matrix is also essential to making cities and even small towns actually work. We all internalize rubbish to some degree to get along with strangers.
what we do have now though is far too many rabbits caused by prosperity and I can sure see your concern about creating more.
However the tech we use, well its not helping and i haven’t a clue how to create a higher functioning system. I guess it is as you often say Apocalypse cometh™
I don’t think the youths have to fight one another to trigger this. But putting them in a test mode, a survival mode. Think of ancient Sparta but not so hostile. Maybe a ‘you can’t pass 8th grade until you can go camping for a week without anything modern.’ At least that is a start.
A start on not having electronic entertainment (dopamine hit) all the time. A start on having to cook and clean and protect your self from bears. In The NYS Adirondak Park, the bears will steal your food if you don’t put it up correctly. You can’t come out for a week or you ‘fail’ and have to do it again.
Maybe I’m a bit rabbitty here suggesting I don’t want to kill anyone, OTOH, I think hearing the word “no” and being to told to “work for it” are perfectly in like with being K oriented.
I think basic income is a good idea, in this case. Finland never accepted many immigrants, and if any Muslims do apply for basic income, their paperwork will probably be “lost”. By abolishing all existing welfare programs, the state saves a fortune on administrative costs, and there won’t be any fraud because you’re free to spend that €800 on anything you want. If you spend it on good heroin and then nod off in a snowbank, this will bring a much-needed cleansing of the gene pool.
Alaska has had a similar system for decades now, bypassing vain politicians and greedy lobbyists and giving oil revenue directly to the people.
I think this is a brilliant idea. At one time I would have thought it the dumbest idea ever. The problem is within ten years the computing power of a standard PC will be equal to the computing power of an average person. There will be very soon NO jobs at all for the average person. Now we can all be killed off for the wealthy or we can live doing whatever it is that amuses us while computers do the work. It is very possible to make this work with low cost energy from Molten Salt Reactors and lots of cheap computer power. Not to mention there are probably 6 or 7 very good ideas for fusion power that are being funded now and look to have a high probability of at least one of them working..
The problem. Yes there’s always one. You would have to get the mass violent breeders to stop breeding. You could not pay every Women per child. This means you have a kid and you don’t have any way to provide for it you get mandatory birth control. Over time the mass violent breeders will become less and less.
The idea that you should just not work will drive some people up a wall but if all of the basic stuff can be done by computers why bother? Should people dig holes with shovels instead of backhoe’s. I can just see some fellow complaining, “The worlds gone to hell since holes are no longer shoveled by Men. Damn those backhoes.”. People will still do lots of stuff. Handicrafts maybe? Since there’s a new cheap way to genetically engineer plants and animals (CRISPR) I’ll bet people will do a lot of that. There’s all kinds of stuff that needs doing but no one has the time. They’re too busy shuffling papers.
An even better argument is the poor already get to do nothing why should the rest of us bang our heads and bodies away? With a guaranteed income all the people complaining about money would have to come to an end. If they complained you could just ask them what they did with their guaranteed income. How come you’re broke? A huge amount of bureaucracy could be just put out to pasture and not bother us anymore.
Except this is not true. Right now everybody here in Finland are wondering why this lie went into international news.
Personally(as a finn) I think it is a ploy to get more of the southern mud slide into our country by the left/green idiots…
I’m as hardcore conservative-libertarian as anyone, so I’d never advocate a guaranteed income. However, I do remember Charles Murray writing a book on his own proposal of a similar alternative to the welfare state. He made some very strong arguments for how his plan would significantly improve on a lot of the problems with the current regime. The most obvious is that would eliminate the bureaucracy and accompanying lobbying constituencies that support it.
Contrary to reports, basic income study still at preliminary stage
There have been misleading reports in the media about the Finnish experimental study on a Universal Basic Income. Only a preliminary study to explore possibilities has begun.
On Monday, December 7, many international media-outlets published misleading stories alleging that a basic income scheme would be launched in Finland in the near future.
http://goo.gl/jvD1lY