@codinghorror right, I’m just complaining about how broken means testing is, and how it’s probably the main avenue for “evil” behavior for most benefits*. Short of identity theft to “double up” it’s impossible to game a flat benefit, and even though that’s only equal in treatment, it’s equitable in impact.
*Vastly outweighed by the evil of means testing itself, and the denial of aid to a person in need because they failed some technical requirement to receive the aid.
@codinghorror ban credit, print UBI! UBI inflation is halal inflation
@codinghorror Cause in USA "socialism" is a dirty word, so much so that no one dares to declare themselves socialist, even people who support socialist policies, like you.
@codinghorror which of those "facts" is made up?
I guess I ought to sleep, but I can sleep when I'm dead
@codinghorror whenever I can't sleep, if I look at anything with an algorithm, it serves up an article about the link between insomnia and dementia.
it's easy to beat the state aka "government" benefits when they totally suck. I got a radical idea. How about we just give money to people in poverty? I can't find anything that shows it DOESN'T work
@codinghorror Well, I doubt poverty still exists because we don't know how to end it or because we lack the material capacity to end it...
@dfortes yeah the second gilded age does have some upsides... if we ask the billionaires politely and show appropriate deference when we bow down to kiss the ring. God forbid we make a single rich person feel even slightly uncomfortable, ever.
@codinghorror I mean, we could just give money to everyone ;)
The marginal utility of the amount of money needed to start everyone above the poverty line (or better yet, a modernized equivalent) to the top 10% is so much lower than the bottom 10%, and could easily recouped at tax time if we didn’t have loopholes that let them get away with paying nothing.
@ajn142 yes, it would be nice if billionaires actually paid taxes. Absolute agreement. But tangential and probably irrelevant at the moment given the utterly broken regime the US is currently under. My thoughts and prayers for regime change.
Taxing billionaires out of existence would immediately fix a lot of our problems, even if we did exactly nothing with the money, because billionaires are the source of a lot of our problems.
@codinghorror @ajn142
@codinghorror right, I’m just complaining about how broken means testing is, and how it’s probably the main avenue for “evil” behavior for most benefits*. Short of identity theft to “double up” it’s impossible to game a flat benefit, and even though that’s only equal in treatment, it’s equitable in impact.
*Vastly outweighed by the evil of means testing itself, and the denial of aid to a person in need because they failed some technical requirement to receive the aid.
@ajn142 how is means testing bad, at least in terms of "be within x percent of the poverty level"? Can you elaborate?
and I've tried really hard to red team this stuff, because I always design for evil first and foremost.. https://blog.codinghorror.com/designing-for-evil/
@codinghorror
>because good is dumb
harsh but fair
@willb we REALLY need to work on that one
@codinghorror >because good is dumb
harsh but fair
