I had never heard of it being that bad before I came. To be fair, I was working for a psycho boss in a project which was already clearly a disaster. I suspect other parts were better.
Most places in Silicon Valley where I worked had awful processes, with the results decided before the meeting more or less and without any decent input. But when I was at Bell Labs my department, at least, did it right. I walked out of those meetings not feeling dirty. And I was on a committee to improve the process center wide, and we managed to get stuff in to correct problems individual contributors had with the process. A big one was being told they were getting dinged for not doing something did but the manager wasn’t aware of.
Kahneman’s new book has a section on how to do performance review fairly, and my boss back then did it exactly that way.
Now assigning raises was more of a problem since the money pool was limited. But ranking was pretty good.
I worked for a Silicon Valley company ( the NYC office of a product-based software company) right before COVID that seemed like it kind of had it’s shit together. At least the professional services group where I worked did. I actually liked working there a lot. Unfortunately it had gone through a merger right before I joined and the merger initially didn’t go very well. But for the year I was there everything did seem like it was going in the right direction. And then COVID hit and my whole group was laid off.
Not all my jobs go that well, but it is frustrating that even when by all measurable accounts my job is going well, it can still just disappear overnight.
Maybe in 2019, but in the decades before that, it had been staying more or less the same, and not rising with the economy as had been the case prior.
This idea pre-dated reddit by a lot. It’s not like Andrew Yang invented UBI, either. These are things long debated by philosophers including many proponents who consider themselves capitalists above all else. Only the lazy Fox News types dismiss this as some radical leftwing zoomer thing.
It’s a pretty radical leftwing thing even if the idea doesn’t originate with zoomers. I certainly hear more people talking about it today than I did thirty years ago. Back then, the only place I saw UBI was in the pages of Judge Dredd. Admittedly, I do enjoy the irony of those on the Antiwork reddit pontificating the virtues of UBI and the idea that nobody should have to work for basic needs like food and shelter while ignoring the fact that somebody has to work to provide them with that UBI.
I mean, that’s not all that complicated, is it? Nobody should have to work for basic needs, but if you want anything more than the barest of basics, you go and get a job. Even without a UBI I wouldn’t think that this is controversial in a modern, developed nation with the spare resources to handle the load, unless you are of the opinion that homeless people should be allowed to starve to death or die on the streets of every minor infection?
The wisdom of specific UBI proposals or the Antiwork reddit aside, it really is NOT a radical proposal at all.
I don’t follow the reddit anti-work, so I don’t know where that community stands, exactly, but most UBI supporters don’t think that nobody will work, but that those who want to work will be able to provide for everyone else.
A couple hundred years ago, it took several people working in the fields for every person living in a city. Now for every person in a field, a hundred people can live in a city. Following that trend of increasing automation, the number of people who have to work should be fairly minimal.
To go further, not only won’t people have to work, but we are getting to the point where there isn’t enough work for people to do. Until the recent employment crisis, we kept hearing about jobs, jobs, jobs. This politician or that promises to bring jobs to the area. And I sometimes see stories where companies are given such generous subsidies that it would be cheaper for the state to just pay the people what they would be making at that new widget factory than to actually build the factory and have them work at it. That’s not even getting into the jobs program that is the defense industry.
It doesn’t make much sense if there are a surplus of goods and services that people cannot access because they can’t get a job because we don’t need more goods and services to be produced.
If everyone is guaranteed the basics, food, clothing, shelter, health care and access to education, then there are some who would sit around and do nothing but live off the dole their entire lives. Most, IMO, would want more, and would find ways of being productive to get it. If someone wants to sit around and play video games all day, then they are going to be playing ten year old games on an even older platform. If they want to watch TV and movies all day, they are going to be watching what entertainment companies have chosen to release for free.
You want to play Final Fantasy 37 on a PS 13, or watch Avengers 12, you are going to need to earn something to pay for that. If you get tired of nutritious, but bland, food made from algae, beancurd, and crickets, then you are going to get off the couch and use what skills and talents you possess to upgrade your culinary options.
There are a number of services where, if it’s not trying to pay a living wage, would become viable. I can imagine that someone could make a bit of cash, enough to improve their lifestyle a bit, just by watching and ranking youtube videos so that when you, a busy individual, want to watch something, you are shown a curated collection of the best.
We support non-productive industries in art and entertainment, but you have to be not only among the best of the best in order to support yourself, but very lucky as well. I know a number of talented musicians who end up working in crap low pay jobs because they are not talented or lucky enough. So, we have multimillionaire musicians that you pay hundreds of dollars to go see, and while my friend may provide you with nearly the same quality of entertainment at the local bar for tips, he can’t make enough off of that to not spend 40 hours a week killing his soul in a job he hates.
The whole of history has been finding ways of freeing up people to be able to do things other than grow food and make widgets, and freeing up those people to do other things improves the lives of everyone else.
I didn’t say it was complicated, but the idea that nobody should have to work for basic necessities while failing to ackowledge that someone has to work to provide them with that UBI is amusing to me. And they’re generally not talking about helping homeless people or those who can’t work, they mean for everyone.
Ignoring for a moment whether it’s a practical idea, it’s a radical departure from what we have now.
Nobody HAS to work means that nobody is going to starve if they choose not to work. It does not mean that people will not work. Obviously the vast majority of people would still need to do at least some work or society would collapse. The point is to motivate this work through carrots (you can use the money you earn to get various luxury goods, like video games, exotic spices, alchohol, etc) rather than sticks (if you don’t work you will starve to death).
Maybe the confusion is about grammar? The phrase “nobody has to work” doesn’t mean “no people need to do any work”, it means “no individual is in a situation where they must work to survive”.
I get it. I understand what they mean, but thank you for explaining it to me.
And even worse, if you are willing to work, but can’t find a job, you will starve to death.
I guess I’m confused then. If you understand what they are saying, then you understand that there is no conflict between these two statements:
I guess I don’t see what’s amusing about two statements that don’t conflict with each other. Maybe you had to be there?
I disagree that there’s no conflict. At the end of the day, somebody has to work to provide others with UBI. It’s unavoidable.
At the end of someday, those may all be robots.
OK. So you believe that the ONLY way to accomplish this is if every single person* knows that they must work or starve?
*Except those born rich, of course
You are projecting. I never said or suggested such a thing.
Give me a call when they’re all robots. The reality at this time is that it’s necessary for some to work for others to choose not to.
…
So you say you “understand what they mean” when they say “nobody has to work”.
In other words, you understand that “nobody has to work” means “no individual is in a situation where they must work to survive”.
You then claim that the statements “no individual is in a situation where they must work to survive” and “someone has to work to provide them with the UBI” are in conflict.
I don’t see any possible conflict between those two statements OTHER THAN “if no individual is in a situation where they must work or starve, it is impossible to get enough people to work to provide everyone with a UBI”.
If that’s the conflict you are referring to, I don’t see how it is a materially different statement than:
If this is NOT the conflict you are referring to, by all means, spell it out.
The SF writer Mack Reynolds who write for Analog had UBI as the basis of his future society back in the early 1960s. Everyone had shares of Universal Basic stock which paid dividends and which they were not allowed to sell. Reynolds was a red diaper baby.
Another common plot point was the ease of the police tracing people from their use of credit cards. That was right on the money.
The conflict is that if 100% of people took society up on this offer to have all of their basic needs met without having to work, the system would fail. That’s all.
eta: And since I know what you’re thinking, that means that “nobody should have to work to have their needs met” is a lie, because at least some people have to work or else the system will fail.
You’re looking at it from the perspective of, yes, of course, some people will have to work, but they won’t feel like they have to work. They’ll be choosing to work.
I’ll have my robots call your robots.