This is almost certainly going to be an unpopular title to the left, but hear me out. I am not suggesting that our schools should teach children that intelligent design is true. I fully understand the argument that intelligent design is not founded in evidence based science. Intelligent design is a religious position on evolution, and if you look at it purely from that point of view, it makes sense to suggest that perhaps public schools are not an appropriate place to teach it. Let me ask you, though, is the purpose of public schools exclusively to teach science with a solid foundation in evidence? Because I was under the impression that we also teach things like art, reading, and history, which many people think are very important for good development and decision making skills, but which are too subjective to really call science.
Public schools were not created to teach science. They were created to give U.S. citizens a well rounded education that would prepare them for jobs that pay decent wages. Unfortunately, the most important part of this purpose was lost long ago, and now they are viewed primarily as preparation for college, but the well rounded education part never went away. According to some more modern education experts, the purpose of public school is to make people into productive and functional members of society, and while this rings of socialized schooling, it makes the following point just as effectively. (When I was young, I was told that some countries, possibly including North Korea, actually took children from their parents at a certain age, to "socialize" them, which consisted of training them to adhere to the culture and be loyal to the government over family. We call this "brain washing".)
We should teach intelligent design in schools so that our children will have a better understanding of a variety of different points of view. Being able to look at things from the point of view of another person is an extremely rare skill in our society, and it is also a critical skill in participation in a democratic government. Being aware of and understanding other points of view is essential in compromise, and it is an essential skill in just getting along in the first place. It is a travesty that our supposedly democratic country is full of people who don't believe that they can be friends with anyone that does not have the same beliefs and opinions as they do (if you don't believe this, people have actually unfriended people on Facebook for not agreeing with some political position). And a large part of the problem is keeping unpopular opinions out of schools. I want to be clear here: This is not a problem of religion and state. The belief that homosexual acts are not sinful is just as religious as the belief that they are, but schools are allowed to teach it, because it is not as unpopular. This is not a problem of teaching religion in schools, because we are already doing that wherever it is popular!
I am not suggesting that we teach any religious belief as if it was scientifically proven truth. In fact, I want to do the exact opposite. Any belief or theory that is not absolutely proven should not be taught as truth. This includes intelligent design as well as evolution itself. Yes, large scale evolution is not proven. It is widely accepted, because it is internally consistent, and we don't have any evidence for any other explanation. Sometimes this is good enough, but we should teach it that way, not as if it was absolutely proven. Honestly, it is a weakly supported theory that is full of holes, but it is also the best and most logical theory we have. So we can tell students this! Evolution is not some religion that we want to brainwash kids into believing. Give them the evidence, show them the flaws, and explain the logic. If you fear that they won't believe it, then it is clear that you are more concerned about the religious aspects than the science. If the evidence is not strong enough for a vast majority of students to believe, then perhaps there is not enough evidence that anyone should believe it. That said, I don't think that is the case with evolution. It is a sound theory. The main problem is holes in the evidence, but without any alternative with better evidence, it is the best we have.
Here are the important points in teaching something religiously motivated, like intelligent design. First, treating it respectfully is essential. Disrespect for the views of others is a plague in our society, and it is the foundation of our radical partisanship. It is a major part of the reason there was so much resistance to gay marriage (hint: it was not the conservatives who were the most disrespectful; it was the gay marriage proponents who waged a war on religion and who are still trying to get the government to force people to violate their religious beliefs). If we cannot respect each other's views, even when we disagree, then we cannot reasonably call ourselves civilized! Second, teaching beliefs as fact is wrong. This includes intelligent design and the theory of evolution. From an ethical point of view, we should not be using schools as a place to teach opinions as fact. That is not what they are for. From a scientific point of view, when we teach opinions and beliefs as fact, we limit how we think. For example, how long has it been since anyone thought about the origin of man outside of religious creation or the theory of evolution? What if evolution is wrong, but we are never going to figure it out, because teaching it as proven fact eliminates the motivation to search for alternative explanations? Real science does not just come up with a logical, internally consistent theory with some weak evidence and this walk away from everything else (thus string theory is not real science either). If it cannot find strong evidence, it keeps looking until it can, even if it has to look somewhere else. Third, teachers should be allowed to tell students what their own personal beliefs are. I can see some people ready to jump out of their chairs shouting at me. Read my second point again. I did not just say teachers should be allowed to teach their personal views as fact, and I also did not say they should be allowed to push or encourage students to adopt those views. They should be allowed to share those views though! Why? Point of view! If we don't expose children to a variety of points of view, then we cannot expect them to have even half decent reasoning skills! Fourth, teachers should strongly encourage students to ask their parents and friends what they believe and why. If anyone should encourage children to adopt certain beliefs, it should be their parents. Many parents find it difficult to be engaged in this though, especially in a society that mocks any beliefs that are unusual in any way. If kids come home from school and ask their parents questions like, "Where do you think man came from?", it will give parents a starting point in being engaged in their kids beliefs and learning.
This is also a more democratic system. Imagine you go to the polls to vote for the next President, and the ballot has a single name with a single check box. There is no write-in line. Your options are to vote for the candidate or not vote at all. When we don't teach different points of view, this is what we are doing to our children. So next time you want to say that we should not teach something in schools, ask yourself whether you have some real, valid concern or if you are just trying to rig to vote in favor of your own opinion by eliminating all other options. (Because at least the right is willing to let both evolution and intelligent design be taught. The left does not even want there to be a choice!)
What it all comes down to is, we should teach unpopular views in schools right next to the popular ones, so that our schools can produce more civilized graduates with better critical thinking skills. We should certainly be careful not to usurp the role of parents in shaping the beliefs of their children, but we should also not shy away from exposing them to a variety of view points. Most critically, we should teach them to respect, and even try to understand, the views of others even when they don't agree. Intelligent design is a great place to start with this, because it is not terribly controversial (teaching it in public schools is, mostly because the left has no respect for any views besides it own and would prefer public schools to teach its agenda over teaching people to think for themselves).
13 July 2017
Why You Shouldn't Eat Organic
I have written about organic and GMO foods a few times, dispelling some common myths and misconceptions. As a result, I have thought long and hard about some of the consequences of people being fooled into this fad.
The population of the world is steadily increasing. It is true that in some countries, including the U.S. and China, birthrates have dipped below sustainable levels, which will result in population decline as certain groups start passing away. The rest of the world is making up for this though, and the estimated world population growth over the next 20 or 30 years is enormous. Now, contrary to the claims of overpopulation activists from the middle of last century onward, there is still plenty of unused arable land (land that can support crop growth). In fact, the U.S. government is actually paying some people who own farmland not to farm it, to avoid economic problems related to overproduction. The U.S. produces 5 times the food that it eats, with 3 parts of that being exported and one part just being wasted. More population dense areas like China and India are certainly more vulnerable to resource problems related to overpopulation, but there is no sign they are even approaching that, and China is already starting to see a declining population due to regulations on reproduction and certain traditions that have synergized to create a very male-heavy population. What all of this means is that there is enough land to produce orders of magnitude more food than the current human population consumes. In short, world overpopulation is unlikely to be an issue any time soon.
That said, there are still problems with food production, and the primary one is getting food where it is needed. There are places in the world with localized resource problems, notably in Africa, where people live in or near deserts, where conditions are not favorable for traditional food crops. The dry heat in some areas makes large yield farming almost impossible, and even some of the more humid areas just don't have good enough soil to grow sufficient food to support a significant population. In some of these areas, we mitigate this by shipping food. This is incredibly expensive and inefficient. It would be much better to grow the food locally than to ship it thousands of miles. Unfortunately, traditional food crops just cannot handle the conditions.
In addition to this, most farming techniques, including both organic farming and industrial farming are environmentally damaging. Industrial farming tends to put chemicals into the environment in ways that are destructive. Farm runoff can cause all sorts of disruptions to local environments, and it can even contaminate water tables. Many people who understand this turn to organic foods, which are fertilized with manure and other natural products and thus don't contribute to this chemical runoff. This carries its own problems though. Organic farming still tears up the soil, disrupting surface ground ecosystems for many organisms, and they do it worse than industrial farming, because traditional organic farming requires a lower crop density, which means more land must be damaged to grow the same amounts of food. Organic farming also tends to be much more labor intensive, which ultimately consumes more energy, and there is still potential for diseased organic fertilizers to contaminate ground water when not composted correctly before use. The lower yield density of organic farming also means that it is significantly harder and requires much more land to produce enough food for everyone. There are alternative organic farming techniques with some potential to compete with industrial farming, but they are not mainstream enough to see the necessary automation to actually make it compete. Even it we did get it to this point though, industrial farming has more room for progress than organic farming. (I should express my opinion here that the best solution would be to mix the best of industrial farming and organic farming to create a type of farming superior to both in nearly every way.)
The reason you should not eat organic, at least for now, is that it takes away potential research funding from the more promising industrial farming. Think about people in India, where populations are still growing rapidly, in 20 or 30 years. Will organic farming even be able to support the population? What about in Africa, where this is already a problem, due to poor farming conditions? Purely organic techniques are not going to be able keep up with need in some places where food is already hard to grow. I agree that modern industrial farming needs reform, but going to pure organic farming is going to make the most pressing problems worse sooner. The environment can handle a bit more damage at the hands of poor industrial farming techniques. People are already dying due to lack of food, and industrial farming has better promise for fixing that than organic, at least right now.
I want to add non-GMO foods to that though, and I honestly think this is more pressing. In certain parts of Africa, there is only so much you can do to improve crop yields. There are places that are just plain hostile to nearly all known food crops. There is one exception: Certain GMO foods have been engineered to be able to grow well there. Now, there is a whole political problem surrounding this, where companies like Monsanto are essentially holding African farmers hostage through gene patents, with a great deal of deliberate help from the U.S. government. This definitely needs to be fixed. This article is not about the politics though. It is about necessity. Genetic engineering carries great potential for solving most, if not all, of our food problems, at far lower risk than selective breeding methods that have been used for thousands of years to engineer all of the plants that we currently consume. In theory, we could use selective breeding to create crop varieties that can handle certain harsh conditions. This would likely take between fifty and hundreds of years. Honestly, the risk in doing this is already extremely low, but the process is far less predictable and controllable than genetic engineering, which means the risk is still higher, and the process is much slower. In other words, the risk involved with selective breeding and GMO are both negligible, with the first being slightly higher. The real question is, how can we produce enough food where it is needed? Organic farming is not the answer. In some ways it can help, but if the crop is not suited to the environment, the only solution is to change the environment, and we are talking about places where air conditioned greenhouses are just not feasible right now. We need crops that are suited to certain harsh environments, and if we wait fifty to a hundred years, tens of thousands of people will starve to death in the mean time. We don't have time for that!
The solution is genetically engineered food crops that are better suited to harsh conditions. Genetic engineering does some pretty cool things for us, starting with being able to grow foods in climates that most plants can't survive in and being able to grow food crops in poor soil. We already have varieties that can grow in some of the harsher African climates and soils. They are currently being used to create a dependency on imports from Western civilization, but they do exist. There are also colder climates that could benefit from this though. While very few plants can grow on tundra, it should not be terribly difficult to genetically engineer crops that can take advantage of the longer days in the Alaskan summer to produce yields many times faster than in more temperate climates, which is important because Alaskan summers are also shorter. This also applies to southern Canada, the Nordic countries, and the northern parts of Russia. Otherwise stated, this could dramatically increase the amount of farmable land in the world, as well as allowing more food to be grown locally. If this does not sound like a great plan, also consider that more locally grown food means less transportation, which currently means lower CO2 emissions from trucks, boats, and planes used in transport, and more sustainable energy usage over the long term. And this is totally ignoring the potential of using genetic engineering to improve flavor of fruits and vegetables, improve their nutritional value, and so on (Monsanto is already working on these), which could reduce the amount of food needed, further optimizing food production. It is also ignoring the potential of genetic engineering to create more efficient crops that reduce the need for techniques and chemicals that are environmentally harmful.
The fact is, we need GMO, and we need the high crop densities of industrial farming. Yeah, there are parts of organic farming that we should integrate into industrial farming, but funding organic farming is not going to encourage the progress we need. Instead, it will encourage more industrial farmers to convert more efficient lands into lower efficiency organic farms to benefit from the higher prices they can charge, and it will encourage organic farming to stagnate (which it largely has been doing since its inception). In other words, it will make things worse and encourage regression into less efficient and more harmful farming techniques. And funding non-GMO food producers will reduce the funding going into improving crops to require less damaging farming techniques and producing the larger yields we need where we need them.
The only valid justification for buying organic and non-GMO is to avoid giving money to manipulative and unethical companies like Monsanto. When we do that though, we are being environmentally irresponsible and withholding funding needed to improve the ability of agriculture to feed everyone who needs it in the most efficient and sustainable way. The solution to Monsanto and similar companies is not to buy products from companies that are using inferior farming techniques with no desire for progress. The solution to the political problems associated with food production is through political means. If you find Monsanto's business practices to be unethical, vote for representatives that will make them illegal. Write your current representatives and share your concerns. Share your position with others, and encourage them to do the same. People have been buying organic and non-GMO foods for decades now, and it has not made any difference. Instead it is just trading one evil for another, and it is not even actually getting rid of the first evil.
Organic and non-GMO are not healthier than industrial farming products. They are not less damaging to the environment. Buying them does not make companies like Monsanto improve their ethics. Organic and non-GMO are a step backward in farming technology, and we need to accept that before we can move forward. When people fund these movements by buying organic and non-GMO foods, they deny needed funding for real progress. It is true that there are a lot of problems with how food is currently produced, but the solution is not to fund even worse techniques.
Responsible buying habits don't include spending more money on inferior products to make a political statement that could be made more effectively through voting habits and writing letters to our representatives. The solution is to make sure the funding is available to improve our current best, and then put political pressure on farmers and companies to use that funding to do it!
The population of the world is steadily increasing. It is true that in some countries, including the U.S. and China, birthrates have dipped below sustainable levels, which will result in population decline as certain groups start passing away. The rest of the world is making up for this though, and the estimated world population growth over the next 20 or 30 years is enormous. Now, contrary to the claims of overpopulation activists from the middle of last century onward, there is still plenty of unused arable land (land that can support crop growth). In fact, the U.S. government is actually paying some people who own farmland not to farm it, to avoid economic problems related to overproduction. The U.S. produces 5 times the food that it eats, with 3 parts of that being exported and one part just being wasted. More population dense areas like China and India are certainly more vulnerable to resource problems related to overpopulation, but there is no sign they are even approaching that, and China is already starting to see a declining population due to regulations on reproduction and certain traditions that have synergized to create a very male-heavy population. What all of this means is that there is enough land to produce orders of magnitude more food than the current human population consumes. In short, world overpopulation is unlikely to be an issue any time soon.
That said, there are still problems with food production, and the primary one is getting food where it is needed. There are places in the world with localized resource problems, notably in Africa, where people live in or near deserts, where conditions are not favorable for traditional food crops. The dry heat in some areas makes large yield farming almost impossible, and even some of the more humid areas just don't have good enough soil to grow sufficient food to support a significant population. In some of these areas, we mitigate this by shipping food. This is incredibly expensive and inefficient. It would be much better to grow the food locally than to ship it thousands of miles. Unfortunately, traditional food crops just cannot handle the conditions.
In addition to this, most farming techniques, including both organic farming and industrial farming are environmentally damaging. Industrial farming tends to put chemicals into the environment in ways that are destructive. Farm runoff can cause all sorts of disruptions to local environments, and it can even contaminate water tables. Many people who understand this turn to organic foods, which are fertilized with manure and other natural products and thus don't contribute to this chemical runoff. This carries its own problems though. Organic farming still tears up the soil, disrupting surface ground ecosystems for many organisms, and they do it worse than industrial farming, because traditional organic farming requires a lower crop density, which means more land must be damaged to grow the same amounts of food. Organic farming also tends to be much more labor intensive, which ultimately consumes more energy, and there is still potential for diseased organic fertilizers to contaminate ground water when not composted correctly before use. The lower yield density of organic farming also means that it is significantly harder and requires much more land to produce enough food for everyone. There are alternative organic farming techniques with some potential to compete with industrial farming, but they are not mainstream enough to see the necessary automation to actually make it compete. Even it we did get it to this point though, industrial farming has more room for progress than organic farming. (I should express my opinion here that the best solution would be to mix the best of industrial farming and organic farming to create a type of farming superior to both in nearly every way.)
The reason you should not eat organic, at least for now, is that it takes away potential research funding from the more promising industrial farming. Think about people in India, where populations are still growing rapidly, in 20 or 30 years. Will organic farming even be able to support the population? What about in Africa, where this is already a problem, due to poor farming conditions? Purely organic techniques are not going to be able keep up with need in some places where food is already hard to grow. I agree that modern industrial farming needs reform, but going to pure organic farming is going to make the most pressing problems worse sooner. The environment can handle a bit more damage at the hands of poor industrial farming techniques. People are already dying due to lack of food, and industrial farming has better promise for fixing that than organic, at least right now.
I want to add non-GMO foods to that though, and I honestly think this is more pressing. In certain parts of Africa, there is only so much you can do to improve crop yields. There are places that are just plain hostile to nearly all known food crops. There is one exception: Certain GMO foods have been engineered to be able to grow well there. Now, there is a whole political problem surrounding this, where companies like Monsanto are essentially holding African farmers hostage through gene patents, with a great deal of deliberate help from the U.S. government. This definitely needs to be fixed. This article is not about the politics though. It is about necessity. Genetic engineering carries great potential for solving most, if not all, of our food problems, at far lower risk than selective breeding methods that have been used for thousands of years to engineer all of the plants that we currently consume. In theory, we could use selective breeding to create crop varieties that can handle certain harsh conditions. This would likely take between fifty and hundreds of years. Honestly, the risk in doing this is already extremely low, but the process is far less predictable and controllable than genetic engineering, which means the risk is still higher, and the process is much slower. In other words, the risk involved with selective breeding and GMO are both negligible, with the first being slightly higher. The real question is, how can we produce enough food where it is needed? Organic farming is not the answer. In some ways it can help, but if the crop is not suited to the environment, the only solution is to change the environment, and we are talking about places where air conditioned greenhouses are just not feasible right now. We need crops that are suited to certain harsh environments, and if we wait fifty to a hundred years, tens of thousands of people will starve to death in the mean time. We don't have time for that!
The solution is genetically engineered food crops that are better suited to harsh conditions. Genetic engineering does some pretty cool things for us, starting with being able to grow foods in climates that most plants can't survive in and being able to grow food crops in poor soil. We already have varieties that can grow in some of the harsher African climates and soils. They are currently being used to create a dependency on imports from Western civilization, but they do exist. There are also colder climates that could benefit from this though. While very few plants can grow on tundra, it should not be terribly difficult to genetically engineer crops that can take advantage of the longer days in the Alaskan summer to produce yields many times faster than in more temperate climates, which is important because Alaskan summers are also shorter. This also applies to southern Canada, the Nordic countries, and the northern parts of Russia. Otherwise stated, this could dramatically increase the amount of farmable land in the world, as well as allowing more food to be grown locally. If this does not sound like a great plan, also consider that more locally grown food means less transportation, which currently means lower CO2 emissions from trucks, boats, and planes used in transport, and more sustainable energy usage over the long term. And this is totally ignoring the potential of using genetic engineering to improve flavor of fruits and vegetables, improve their nutritional value, and so on (Monsanto is already working on these), which could reduce the amount of food needed, further optimizing food production. It is also ignoring the potential of genetic engineering to create more efficient crops that reduce the need for techniques and chemicals that are environmentally harmful.
The fact is, we need GMO, and we need the high crop densities of industrial farming. Yeah, there are parts of organic farming that we should integrate into industrial farming, but funding organic farming is not going to encourage the progress we need. Instead, it will encourage more industrial farmers to convert more efficient lands into lower efficiency organic farms to benefit from the higher prices they can charge, and it will encourage organic farming to stagnate (which it largely has been doing since its inception). In other words, it will make things worse and encourage regression into less efficient and more harmful farming techniques. And funding non-GMO food producers will reduce the funding going into improving crops to require less damaging farming techniques and producing the larger yields we need where we need them.
The only valid justification for buying organic and non-GMO is to avoid giving money to manipulative and unethical companies like Monsanto. When we do that though, we are being environmentally irresponsible and withholding funding needed to improve the ability of agriculture to feed everyone who needs it in the most efficient and sustainable way. The solution to Monsanto and similar companies is not to buy products from companies that are using inferior farming techniques with no desire for progress. The solution to the political problems associated with food production is through political means. If you find Monsanto's business practices to be unethical, vote for representatives that will make them illegal. Write your current representatives and share your concerns. Share your position with others, and encourage them to do the same. People have been buying organic and non-GMO foods for decades now, and it has not made any difference. Instead it is just trading one evil for another, and it is not even actually getting rid of the first evil.
Organic and non-GMO are not healthier than industrial farming products. They are not less damaging to the environment. Buying them does not make companies like Monsanto improve their ethics. Organic and non-GMO are a step backward in farming technology, and we need to accept that before we can move forward. When people fund these movements by buying organic and non-GMO foods, they deny needed funding for real progress. It is true that there are a lot of problems with how food is currently produced, but the solution is not to fund even worse techniques.
Responsible buying habits don't include spending more money on inferior products to make a political statement that could be made more effectively through voting habits and writing letters to our representatives. The solution is to make sure the funding is available to improve our current best, and then put political pressure on farmers and companies to use that funding to do it!
22 April 2017
Privatized Socialism
I was discussing our treatment of prisoners in the U.S. with some friends when I got what I think is an ingenious idea.
Part of the Left wants the government to socialize a bunch of things, most notably medicine. Socialized medicine has some very great benefits. It is based on the idea that healthcare is a universal need that is often too expensive for a significant portion of the population to afford. In the U.S., medical debt is not uncommon, but more importantly, many of the lower class don't seek medical care when they need it, because it is too expensive. A majority of medical care is not related to dangerous or self destructive behavior. It is the result of disease, genetic disorders, living conditions, working conditions, or accidents that are not easily avoidable. In short, most harm requiring medical care is not the fault of the person needing it. Withholding that care for financial reasons is completely unreasonable, especially in such a wealthy society. At the same time though, who is going to pay for it? How do we keep things fair by providing necessary medical care without the apparent unfairness of taking wealth from others to pay for it?
This is not the only case where fairness demands both that something expensive be provided to those who cannot afford it and that rights of ownership are respected. I have said before that death by starvation is not an acceptable punishment for laziness. We also have mentally ill prisoners who are not entirely responsible for their actions but cannot be allowed their freedom without treatment, so they will no longer be a threat to society. We have a political movement for abolishing the death penalty, but we also have prisoners who are too dangerous to let out but who's upkeep burden should not be thrust on the public against its will. These are all very expensive problems. Some we already charge to the people, even though a significant number see it as completely unfair. Some we ignore, allowing some people to suffer for the fairness of others.
So, the other day I told a friend that the problem with abolishing the death penalty, aside from the rare prisoner that can still cause significant harm even in prison (for example mob bosses, who can orchestrate murders from their cells), is the cost. Charging the public for the upkeep of prisoners who are too dangerous to ever release causes economic harm, violating the purpose of the justice system (which is to protect the people). I suggested, instead of spending millions of dollars lobbying the government to abolish the death penalty, these groups should pay for the upkeep of these prisoners, thereby justifying keeping them alive. This would retain the death penalty as a means of dealing with people who are literally too dangerous to keep alive, and it would alleviate the economic burden of keeping less dangerous people alive, who cannot be released, by allowing those who can and are willing to afford it to foot the bill.
This idea can, and in my option should, be extended to many other things, it if can be done successfully. It would require one essential thing: The government would need to be willing to work with non-profits.
If enough people were willing to donate, a non-profit could be created that would provide a basic income to everyone in the U.S. The best, and probably the only reasonable, distribution system for the money would be the IRS. So, the IRS would have to work with the NPO, where the NPO provides the money and the IRS distributes it. This could be done fairly efficiently through the IRS. Even better though, no one would have to worry above government overreach. The non-profit and the donors could decide controversial things, such as whether or not the funding should be distributed only to U.S. citizens or to all U.S. residents. The actual amount distributed would be decided based on available funding. The only government overhead would be the marginal extra work for the IRS, working the additional funds into its existing distribution.
Perhaps the best part about all of this is that it completely transcends politics. Congress does not get to vote on whether or not to have a basic income, if it is being provided by a non-profit. A Republican controlled Congress cannot cut the basic income to balance the budget, and a Democrat controlled Congress cannot increase government spending to raise the basic income. The government would not have to foot the bill at all, and the only control it would have over it would be the cooperation of the IRS. If a similar non-profit was created for a single payer medical system, it would get even better though: Medicaid would become entirely obsolete. The government could easily cut the program (or cut it down to merely a distribution system for the funds raised by the NPO), balance the budget better, and maybe even start reducing its debt, and we would still get a decent medical system! Add to this the prisoner related things, and our criminal justice system would cost far less. In the long run, we could expect to see significant tax reductions, at the same time as expanding social programs and improving the fairness and living conditions of our country.
Crowdfunding is supposedly some big new thing invented in the 21st century, but in reality, it has existed for all of recorded human history. Taxation is the involuntary crowd funding of government. Charities facilitate the voluntary crowd funding of welfare. I believe we can bring these things together. Obviously the core of government and of our justice system needs to be funded, whether people are willing to donate voluntarily or not, but many, perhaps even a majority, of government programs can be crowd funded, and if they can, they should be.
The costs of crowd funding peripheral government programs include potentially reduced efficiency and less government control over those programs. The potential benefits include greater overall funding, especially for more popular programs, better distribution channels for charities (the IRS can distribute funds far better than any charity), more direct ability to influence programs for the general public (which means improved democratic process), the ability for people to choose whether or not to support a given program, and a much leaner government, all at the same time as providing the same or better services.
Yes, one potential problem is that some programs just won't get funded. Not only is that already a problem (do you see a basic income), it is also not a problem with crowdfunding. The U.S. is supposed to be a democratic nation. What is more democratic than voting with your wallet? There are exceptions, but in general it is accurate to say that if the people will not voluntarily fund a program, then the people don't want that program, and in a truly democratic nation, that justifies allowing the program to collapse and disappear. There are a few programs that need funding regardless, like the military, the FDA, and the FCC. Critical defensive and regulatory agencies should at least get minimal funding to continue sufficient operation. Programs for social welfare, highly controversial agencies, scientific research (NASA, perhaps), and broadly socialized services (e.g. a single payer medical system), however, can and should be crowdfunded.
By crowdfunding these things, they become depoliticized. Crowdfunding basic income and a single payer medical system eliminates the ability of Democratic candidates to essentially buy the votes of the poor by promising these things. It also eliminates the ability of Republican candidates to buy the votes of the rich by promising to cut taxes by eliminating these programs. The government can (and again, should) still be involved, as it is uniquely positioned to aid in distribution. Adding a basic income to tax returns is something trivial for the IRS, because it already has a distribution system in place. The Medicaid program already has a massive support network throughout the U.S., allowing it to provide coverage nearly everywhere. Replacing Medicaid's underlying funding and qualification system with a universal single payer system funded by one or more NPOs would be a little more difficult than the basic income, but it would still be significantly easier than one or multiple NPOs trying to cut new deals with a wide enough network of health care providers to actually function as a single payer system. For death row prisoners, having their support be crowdfunded to indefinitely delay execution, the criminal justice system is an essential element, but again, allowing one or more NPOs to provide that funding would be trivial. The same applies for prisoners who need treatment for mental illness. In all cases, the government is an essential element, but it can run leaner and avoid the distraction of controversial issues if the funding and management of these programs are outsourced to NPOs that are funded through voluntary donations.
We do not need the government to initiate this either. We can do it ourselves. The movement for abolishing the death penalty has enough money and influence that it could immediately start lobbying state governments to allow them to pay prisoner upkeep to delay execution, and most state governments would be far more amenable to this offer than the demand that the death penalty be abolished entirely. There are also lobbying groups for medical reform and welfare that could easily shift their focus from trying to convince the government to provide more services to trying to provide those services themselves through a donation model. Environmentalist groups could work with the EPA to offer better return on carbon credits. They could work with state governments to offer credits for logging companies to avoid important habitats and replant wherever they go. In fact, U.S. environmentalist groups could even work with other governments to provide incentives for companies to act more responsibly. (For example, instead of spending tons of money on boats, helicopters, and other equipment to terrorize Japanese whaling boats, they could work with the Japanese government to offer incentives to whalers to reduce their quotas.) Of course, I think we need to get things in our own country under control first, but this could eventually expand to the entire world, with international NPOs that help shape policy and behavior by offering to help instead of arguing and fighting. The government does not have to buy into this before we can start trying to drive change. All we need is reasonable government cooperation, and we can do the rest ourselves, and we can start now!
I believe crowdfunded peripheral programs is the next evolution of government. It can reduce government overreach, reduce necessary size of government, reduce government corruption, increase overall freedom and liberty, and produce a better society that better fits the desires and expectations of the people. I don't know if we are ready enough for it to ensure that it will always be sufficiently funded, but I think now is the time to start moving in that direction.
Part of the Left wants the government to socialize a bunch of things, most notably medicine. Socialized medicine has some very great benefits. It is based on the idea that healthcare is a universal need that is often too expensive for a significant portion of the population to afford. In the U.S., medical debt is not uncommon, but more importantly, many of the lower class don't seek medical care when they need it, because it is too expensive. A majority of medical care is not related to dangerous or self destructive behavior. It is the result of disease, genetic disorders, living conditions, working conditions, or accidents that are not easily avoidable. In short, most harm requiring medical care is not the fault of the person needing it. Withholding that care for financial reasons is completely unreasonable, especially in such a wealthy society. At the same time though, who is going to pay for it? How do we keep things fair by providing necessary medical care without the apparent unfairness of taking wealth from others to pay for it?
This is not the only case where fairness demands both that something expensive be provided to those who cannot afford it and that rights of ownership are respected. I have said before that death by starvation is not an acceptable punishment for laziness. We also have mentally ill prisoners who are not entirely responsible for their actions but cannot be allowed their freedom without treatment, so they will no longer be a threat to society. We have a political movement for abolishing the death penalty, but we also have prisoners who are too dangerous to let out but who's upkeep burden should not be thrust on the public against its will. These are all very expensive problems. Some we already charge to the people, even though a significant number see it as completely unfair. Some we ignore, allowing some people to suffer for the fairness of others.
So, the other day I told a friend that the problem with abolishing the death penalty, aside from the rare prisoner that can still cause significant harm even in prison (for example mob bosses, who can orchestrate murders from their cells), is the cost. Charging the public for the upkeep of prisoners who are too dangerous to ever release causes economic harm, violating the purpose of the justice system (which is to protect the people). I suggested, instead of spending millions of dollars lobbying the government to abolish the death penalty, these groups should pay for the upkeep of these prisoners, thereby justifying keeping them alive. This would retain the death penalty as a means of dealing with people who are literally too dangerous to keep alive, and it would alleviate the economic burden of keeping less dangerous people alive, who cannot be released, by allowing those who can and are willing to afford it to foot the bill.
This idea can, and in my option should, be extended to many other things, it if can be done successfully. It would require one essential thing: The government would need to be willing to work with non-profits.
If enough people were willing to donate, a non-profit could be created that would provide a basic income to everyone in the U.S. The best, and probably the only reasonable, distribution system for the money would be the IRS. So, the IRS would have to work with the NPO, where the NPO provides the money and the IRS distributes it. This could be done fairly efficiently through the IRS. Even better though, no one would have to worry above government overreach. The non-profit and the donors could decide controversial things, such as whether or not the funding should be distributed only to U.S. citizens or to all U.S. residents. The actual amount distributed would be decided based on available funding. The only government overhead would be the marginal extra work for the IRS, working the additional funds into its existing distribution.
Perhaps the best part about all of this is that it completely transcends politics. Congress does not get to vote on whether or not to have a basic income, if it is being provided by a non-profit. A Republican controlled Congress cannot cut the basic income to balance the budget, and a Democrat controlled Congress cannot increase government spending to raise the basic income. The government would not have to foot the bill at all, and the only control it would have over it would be the cooperation of the IRS. If a similar non-profit was created for a single payer medical system, it would get even better though: Medicaid would become entirely obsolete. The government could easily cut the program (or cut it down to merely a distribution system for the funds raised by the NPO), balance the budget better, and maybe even start reducing its debt, and we would still get a decent medical system! Add to this the prisoner related things, and our criminal justice system would cost far less. In the long run, we could expect to see significant tax reductions, at the same time as expanding social programs and improving the fairness and living conditions of our country.
Crowdfunding is supposedly some big new thing invented in the 21st century, but in reality, it has existed for all of recorded human history. Taxation is the involuntary crowd funding of government. Charities facilitate the voluntary crowd funding of welfare. I believe we can bring these things together. Obviously the core of government and of our justice system needs to be funded, whether people are willing to donate voluntarily or not, but many, perhaps even a majority, of government programs can be crowd funded, and if they can, they should be.
The costs of crowd funding peripheral government programs include potentially reduced efficiency and less government control over those programs. The potential benefits include greater overall funding, especially for more popular programs, better distribution channels for charities (the IRS can distribute funds far better than any charity), more direct ability to influence programs for the general public (which means improved democratic process), the ability for people to choose whether or not to support a given program, and a much leaner government, all at the same time as providing the same or better services.
Yes, one potential problem is that some programs just won't get funded. Not only is that already a problem (do you see a basic income), it is also not a problem with crowdfunding. The U.S. is supposed to be a democratic nation. What is more democratic than voting with your wallet? There are exceptions, but in general it is accurate to say that if the people will not voluntarily fund a program, then the people don't want that program, and in a truly democratic nation, that justifies allowing the program to collapse and disappear. There are a few programs that need funding regardless, like the military, the FDA, and the FCC. Critical defensive and regulatory agencies should at least get minimal funding to continue sufficient operation. Programs for social welfare, highly controversial agencies, scientific research (NASA, perhaps), and broadly socialized services (e.g. a single payer medical system), however, can and should be crowdfunded.
By crowdfunding these things, they become depoliticized. Crowdfunding basic income and a single payer medical system eliminates the ability of Democratic candidates to essentially buy the votes of the poor by promising these things. It also eliminates the ability of Republican candidates to buy the votes of the rich by promising to cut taxes by eliminating these programs. The government can (and again, should) still be involved, as it is uniquely positioned to aid in distribution. Adding a basic income to tax returns is something trivial for the IRS, because it already has a distribution system in place. The Medicaid program already has a massive support network throughout the U.S., allowing it to provide coverage nearly everywhere. Replacing Medicaid's underlying funding and qualification system with a universal single payer system funded by one or more NPOs would be a little more difficult than the basic income, but it would still be significantly easier than one or multiple NPOs trying to cut new deals with a wide enough network of health care providers to actually function as a single payer system. For death row prisoners, having their support be crowdfunded to indefinitely delay execution, the criminal justice system is an essential element, but again, allowing one or more NPOs to provide that funding would be trivial. The same applies for prisoners who need treatment for mental illness. In all cases, the government is an essential element, but it can run leaner and avoid the distraction of controversial issues if the funding and management of these programs are outsourced to NPOs that are funded through voluntary donations.
We do not need the government to initiate this either. We can do it ourselves. The movement for abolishing the death penalty has enough money and influence that it could immediately start lobbying state governments to allow them to pay prisoner upkeep to delay execution, and most state governments would be far more amenable to this offer than the demand that the death penalty be abolished entirely. There are also lobbying groups for medical reform and welfare that could easily shift their focus from trying to convince the government to provide more services to trying to provide those services themselves through a donation model. Environmentalist groups could work with the EPA to offer better return on carbon credits. They could work with state governments to offer credits for logging companies to avoid important habitats and replant wherever they go. In fact, U.S. environmentalist groups could even work with other governments to provide incentives for companies to act more responsibly. (For example, instead of spending tons of money on boats, helicopters, and other equipment to terrorize Japanese whaling boats, they could work with the Japanese government to offer incentives to whalers to reduce their quotas.) Of course, I think we need to get things in our own country under control first, but this could eventually expand to the entire world, with international NPOs that help shape policy and behavior by offering to help instead of arguing and fighting. The government does not have to buy into this before we can start trying to drive change. All we need is reasonable government cooperation, and we can do the rest ourselves, and we can start now!
I believe crowdfunded peripheral programs is the next evolution of government. It can reduce government overreach, reduce necessary size of government, reduce government corruption, increase overall freedom and liberty, and produce a better society that better fits the desires and expectations of the people. I don't know if we are ready enough for it to ensure that it will always be sufficiently funded, but I think now is the time to start moving in that direction.
26 March 2017
The Right to Bear Arms
This is specifically for liberals and especially for liberals who are panicked about Donald Trump being elected President: What do you think about the right to bear arms now? Perhaps you don't understand. I have heard your arguments favoring strict gun control. I have hacked many of them to pieces. No, our Founding Fathers were not talking exclusively about an armed militia. If you read the records of how our nation was founded, you would know that the right to bear arms was prompted as a complex combination of many factors, including the fact that it was associated with aristocracy in Europe and it was used by most European governments as a way of keeping the "rabble" under control. The final argument, which I have not really touched on much, is that our current government is so pure and good that the right to bear arms is no longer a necessary right to keep the government accountable to the people. So, what do you think about the right to bear arms now?
Personally, I don't think Trump is going to be some fascist dictator that tries to take over America. He is the President. The power of the President is far more limited than most people believe. Our government was specifically designed with checks and balances. If Trump does try anything extreme, Congress has the power to prevent it. Yes, Congress is Republican controlled. That does not mean they are stupid though. There is only so much damage they will let him do, and in my personal opinion, we need stuff to get broken, so that someone can fix it right. The Democrats sure are not going to get rid of Obamacare, but maybe if Trump does, they will eventually replace it with something that actually works. That said though, let's entertain this idea that Trump might try something bad and actually succeed.
If Trump makes a power play to wrest control from other parts of the government what do we do? Yes, I have heard some of you liberals suggest that this is a serious possibility. While I don't believe that it is, I am willing to entertain the idea. Some of you have tried to tell me that the right to bear arms is no longer important precisely because this sort of thing could never happen. You have told me that you have complete faith in our government. So, what about now? Do you still think that it could never happen? Do you still think that we should take all the guns away?
I don't know what you think, and honestly it does not really matter right now (at least till the next election). Might I suggest that you rethink your position on this though. Yes, guns are dangerous. So are cars, and cars kill many times more people than guns. Kitchen knives are also dangerous, and they injure many many times more people than guns. The fact is, freedom is not free. The freedom of this nation was payed for with blood. Since it was founded, the sacrifice of human lives has been required many times to maintain our freedom. Yes, some deaths may have been prevented by taking away our guns. How many more deaths would have been allowed to occur though? One of the most common places for people to commit mass shootings now days has been schools, because they know no one else will have a gun. In Europe we are seeing terrorist shooting sprees that just don't happen in the U.S., because terrorists know that any American adult could be carrying a gun and use it to cut their crime short. Most importantly though, can we really trust that our government would be the same if it did not have to worry about the fact that millions of Americans are armed? Perhaps our government would still be the same, but a recent President boldly told Congress that the American people cannot be trusted to govern themselves. Can we really trust that people like this would not have taken greater advantage of us, if we did not have access to guns? Can you trust that our current President will never do something that could require the people to assert their right to be governed as they choose?
I doubt that Trump will go so far off the deep end that the American people will need to use guns to assert their authority, but what if? If the people of this country can elect Donald Trump to be President, is it not possible that they could also put just the wrong people in Congress that our freedom might be put in jeopardy? The right to bear arms is complicated. It is what separates the U.S. from countries with a formal aristocracy. It ensures a certain level of classlessness. It gives us greater ability to protect ourselves. It also gives us a certain level of insurance against corrupt government. Conservatives have understood this for centuries. Perhaps now liberals can have a greater appreciation for the right to bear arms?
Personally, I don't think Trump is going to be some fascist dictator that tries to take over America. He is the President. The power of the President is far more limited than most people believe. Our government was specifically designed with checks and balances. If Trump does try anything extreme, Congress has the power to prevent it. Yes, Congress is Republican controlled. That does not mean they are stupid though. There is only so much damage they will let him do, and in my personal opinion, we need stuff to get broken, so that someone can fix it right. The Democrats sure are not going to get rid of Obamacare, but maybe if Trump does, they will eventually replace it with something that actually works. That said though, let's entertain this idea that Trump might try something bad and actually succeed.
If Trump makes a power play to wrest control from other parts of the government what do we do? Yes, I have heard some of you liberals suggest that this is a serious possibility. While I don't believe that it is, I am willing to entertain the idea. Some of you have tried to tell me that the right to bear arms is no longer important precisely because this sort of thing could never happen. You have told me that you have complete faith in our government. So, what about now? Do you still think that it could never happen? Do you still think that we should take all the guns away?
I don't know what you think, and honestly it does not really matter right now (at least till the next election). Might I suggest that you rethink your position on this though. Yes, guns are dangerous. So are cars, and cars kill many times more people than guns. Kitchen knives are also dangerous, and they injure many many times more people than guns. The fact is, freedom is not free. The freedom of this nation was payed for with blood. Since it was founded, the sacrifice of human lives has been required many times to maintain our freedom. Yes, some deaths may have been prevented by taking away our guns. How many more deaths would have been allowed to occur though? One of the most common places for people to commit mass shootings now days has been schools, because they know no one else will have a gun. In Europe we are seeing terrorist shooting sprees that just don't happen in the U.S., because terrorists know that any American adult could be carrying a gun and use it to cut their crime short. Most importantly though, can we really trust that our government would be the same if it did not have to worry about the fact that millions of Americans are armed? Perhaps our government would still be the same, but a recent President boldly told Congress that the American people cannot be trusted to govern themselves. Can we really trust that people like this would not have taken greater advantage of us, if we did not have access to guns? Can you trust that our current President will never do something that could require the people to assert their right to be governed as they choose?
I doubt that Trump will go so far off the deep end that the American people will need to use guns to assert their authority, but what if? If the people of this country can elect Donald Trump to be President, is it not possible that they could also put just the wrong people in Congress that our freedom might be put in jeopardy? The right to bear arms is complicated. It is what separates the U.S. from countries with a formal aristocracy. It ensures a certain level of classlessness. It gives us greater ability to protect ourselves. It also gives us a certain level of insurance against corrupt government. Conservatives have understood this for centuries. Perhaps now liberals can have a greater appreciation for the right to bear arms?
17 March 2017
Real Poverty
What is poverty? According to the Federal government, it is less than $12,000 a year for a single person, less than $13,000 a year for a single person in Hawaii, or less than $15,000 a year for a single person in Alaska. Aside from the fact that real research suggests these numbers are low by about half, I think the government completely misunderstands poverty.
Poverty is less about income and more about living conditions. Income certainly affects living conditions, but it is not just about income. Poverty is also about things like human dignity and financial security. In fact, poverty is more about human dignity and financial security than it is about income. These are two things that our current welfare system actually makes worse.
Poverty is very close to slavery, in that it undermines dignity, and it makes financial security depend heavily on factors beyond one's control. It is even more like slavery in the fact that those who are in poverty often get stuck doing work they hate, because the risk involved in quitting to find a better job is too high. People in poverty tend to make bad decisions for a variety of reasons. One is that when human dignity has already been undermined, there is little incentive to consider decisions more carefully, and when you have nothing to begin with, there is little risk associated with making unwise decisions. Lack of human dignity is also associated with depression and other mental illnesses.
Financial security is actually closely related to health, as well as decision making. Those who lack financial security tend to make a lot more important decisions that those who have it. People who have financial security can make mistakes without dramatic consequences that would devastate someone without financial security if the wrong choice was made. Research has shown that the human brain has a limited capacity for making high stress decisions like this. Once that limit is reached, a person becomes far more likely to make bad choices. Further, lack of financial security creates an enormous amount of stress, and the type of stress created is associated with significantly shortened life span as well as a number of chronic illnesses.
Human dignity and financial security are so important it would not be unreasonable to place them above rights like freedom of speech, personal property, and such, if it is possible to guarantee them in the first place. At least in first world nations, it is possible to guarantee these rights.
How the Federal government deals with poverty should take these things into account. Requiring people to confess that they are poor and to share all of their financial details with another person to get government welfare assistance infringes on human dignity. Requiring poor people to use a food stamp card that tells everyone watching that they are poor (including the cashier) infringes on human dignity as well. A welfare system that provides only medical care and food for most poor people denies them financial security, and restrictions on food stamps in particular makes them especially ineffective at providing financial security, because they cannot be used where they are really needed. Income restrictions on welfare that leave gaping holes also prevent welfare from providing financial security. Financial security is so important to people that they will deliberately limit how much they earn, so that they can stay on welfare, because welfare is more stable than employment, and earning too much will reduce welfare by enough to reduce total income. This is especially pronounced with the Medicaid system, where standard health insurance generally costs more than $80 a month for one person (through an employer), which is almost a $1,000 a year drop and often occurs with a raise that only increases yearly income by less than half that. Further, since most poor people don't have employer provided healthcare plans, the cost of insurance is as much as 2 to 4 time that, making Medicaid a better option than even a fairly large raise.
The only system that deals with all of this effectively is a universal basic income. Universal means everyone gets it, rich or poor. This is essential to the human dignity part. If everyone gets it, then there is no indignity for a poor person when someone discovers they are getting. Basic income means enough money to survive on, without any amount of earned income. This provides financial security. In fact, it provides financial security to everyone, rich or poor. Occasionally a rich person makes a major investment that does not pan out, and when that happens that person can go from rich to poor very quickly. Everyone needs a safety net. Basic income also provides a safety net for businesses, because normally an economic downturn or natural disaster means that no one in an area can afford to buy anything, and this causes businesses to collapse. A basic income guarantees that people will have the money that they need to spend, and in turn that means that they will have the money necessary to support the businesses that need it to survive. A universal basic income not only provides an economic safety net for individuals, it provides one for businesses and for the entire U.S. economy. A universal basic income would make recessions and depressions extremely difficult to even occur, because it interrupts the feedback loop that allows them in the first place.
The fact is, a universal basic income is the only reasonable way to actually alleviate poverty. Even the most robust welfare system cannot guarantee human dignity, and any need based welfare system will fail to fully provide financial security. A universal basic income can provide both of these things to everyone, at a lower cost than any other option.
Poverty is less about income and more about living conditions. Income certainly affects living conditions, but it is not just about income. Poverty is also about things like human dignity and financial security. In fact, poverty is more about human dignity and financial security than it is about income. These are two things that our current welfare system actually makes worse.
Poverty is very close to slavery, in that it undermines dignity, and it makes financial security depend heavily on factors beyond one's control. It is even more like slavery in the fact that those who are in poverty often get stuck doing work they hate, because the risk involved in quitting to find a better job is too high. People in poverty tend to make bad decisions for a variety of reasons. One is that when human dignity has already been undermined, there is little incentive to consider decisions more carefully, and when you have nothing to begin with, there is little risk associated with making unwise decisions. Lack of human dignity is also associated with depression and other mental illnesses.
Financial security is actually closely related to health, as well as decision making. Those who lack financial security tend to make a lot more important decisions that those who have it. People who have financial security can make mistakes without dramatic consequences that would devastate someone without financial security if the wrong choice was made. Research has shown that the human brain has a limited capacity for making high stress decisions like this. Once that limit is reached, a person becomes far more likely to make bad choices. Further, lack of financial security creates an enormous amount of stress, and the type of stress created is associated with significantly shortened life span as well as a number of chronic illnesses.
Human dignity and financial security are so important it would not be unreasonable to place them above rights like freedom of speech, personal property, and such, if it is possible to guarantee them in the first place. At least in first world nations, it is possible to guarantee these rights.
How the Federal government deals with poverty should take these things into account. Requiring people to confess that they are poor and to share all of their financial details with another person to get government welfare assistance infringes on human dignity. Requiring poor people to use a food stamp card that tells everyone watching that they are poor (including the cashier) infringes on human dignity as well. A welfare system that provides only medical care and food for most poor people denies them financial security, and restrictions on food stamps in particular makes them especially ineffective at providing financial security, because they cannot be used where they are really needed. Income restrictions on welfare that leave gaping holes also prevent welfare from providing financial security. Financial security is so important to people that they will deliberately limit how much they earn, so that they can stay on welfare, because welfare is more stable than employment, and earning too much will reduce welfare by enough to reduce total income. This is especially pronounced with the Medicaid system, where standard health insurance generally costs more than $80 a month for one person (through an employer), which is almost a $1,000 a year drop and often occurs with a raise that only increases yearly income by less than half that. Further, since most poor people don't have employer provided healthcare plans, the cost of insurance is as much as 2 to 4 time that, making Medicaid a better option than even a fairly large raise.
The only system that deals with all of this effectively is a universal basic income. Universal means everyone gets it, rich or poor. This is essential to the human dignity part. If everyone gets it, then there is no indignity for a poor person when someone discovers they are getting. Basic income means enough money to survive on, without any amount of earned income. This provides financial security. In fact, it provides financial security to everyone, rich or poor. Occasionally a rich person makes a major investment that does not pan out, and when that happens that person can go from rich to poor very quickly. Everyone needs a safety net. Basic income also provides a safety net for businesses, because normally an economic downturn or natural disaster means that no one in an area can afford to buy anything, and this causes businesses to collapse. A basic income guarantees that people will have the money that they need to spend, and in turn that means that they will have the money necessary to support the businesses that need it to survive. A universal basic income not only provides an economic safety net for individuals, it provides one for businesses and for the entire U.S. economy. A universal basic income would make recessions and depressions extremely difficult to even occur, because it interrupts the feedback loop that allows them in the first place.
The fact is, a universal basic income is the only reasonable way to actually alleviate poverty. Even the most robust welfare system cannot guarantee human dignity, and any need based welfare system will fail to fully provide financial security. A universal basic income can provide both of these things to everyone, at a lower cost than any other option.
Freedom or Food Stamps
Food stamps come with a bunch of restrictions. The most obvious is that they can only be spent on food. They are also restricted to food items that are not "hot foods". In some places, food stamps cannot be used to buy high sugar foods, like soda. Some would like to further restrict them to "non-luxury" foods, or, more accurately stated, low class foods, as if poor people were criminals who deserve some kind of beans and bread prison diet. On the surface, perhaps this seems like a good idea, but in reality, it is terrible.
The first problem with restricting what food stamps can be spent on is cost. Regulations are never free. Enforcing food stamp restrictions is expensive. In fact, there is some evidence that all of the restrictions we place on welfare in general cost almost as much as the welfare money that is actually distributed to poor people. Enforcing food stamp restrictions is just the tip of the iceberg though. The government has to spend a lot of money on audits and such, to make sure sellers honor the restrictions. The sellers themselves also have to pay though. It takes a lot of work sorting what can and cannot be bought with food stamps, so that point of sale systems can apply charges correctly. If an item is incorrectly marked as food in the system, that could result in a big fine or losing the ability to accept food stamps at all. Even worse, if an eligible food item is not marked correctly (and sadly, this actually happens all the time in stores that sell both hot and cold food products), it causes major inconvenience to customers, and it requires extra labor of employees to compensate for the error every time someone tries to buy the product on food stamps until it is fixed in the system. Restrictions on food stamps are costly to both the government enforcing them and to the businesses that have to do extra work to deal with them.
The second problem with food stamps is need. Food pantries, soup kitchens, and other sources of healthy food are readily available to poor people in most places. Individuals that want to provide charity directly are more likely to be willing to provide food than anything else. The primary benefit of food stamps is dignity. Accepting charity directly can be humiliating, and few people who need charity deserve that kind of humiliation. Food stamps allow poor people to shop at stores, just like everyone else. Of course, the dignity that food stamps provide ends at the cash register, when the poor person has to pull out the card for everyone to see. As a need, food is not exactly difficult to come by. There are plenty of sources of free food for those in need. There are not plenty of sources of free shelter, free utilities, free transportation, free clothing, free toiletries, and so on. Food stamps provide access to something that poor people generally already have sufficient access to, and they neglect the real needs, like rent.
The third problem with food stamps is human dignity and privacy. Paying with cash, check, debit, or credit reveals very little about your financial situation to others. Paying with food stamps is like shouting, "Hey, I am poor!" to everyone who is watching. While it may be reasonable to deprive dangerous criminals of human dignity, poor people have already lost enough dignity. We don't need to take any more.
The justifications for having and restricting food stamps in the first place may seem reasonable to anyone who has not had to use them. Poor people need food, so give them a resource that can be used to buy food. We can add restrictions to guarantee they don't abuse it and use it to buy anything except food. This will guarantee that poor people will have enough to eat. Unfortunately, this assumes that food is the only thing poor people need. The justification attempts to cover this by suggesting that when poor people have their food covered, they can use the money they would have spent on food on other things. This is honestly a really bad math error. Consider, if a poor person has an income of $100 a month, and you give them $200 a month in food stamps, that does not suddenly free up $200 a month for the person, because there is not $200 a month in the first place! Additionally, even if there was $200 a month to begin with, $400 a month is still not enough to live on, and perhaps that person was wise enough with money to only be spending $100 a month on food to begin with, which still only frees up $100 a month. And like I said before, food is the easiest necessity for poor people to get for cheap or free. The fact is, it just does not add up.
It gets worse though. The primary justification for restricting food stamps is the assumption that people will spend the money on things other than food otherwise. Is there something wrong with that? First, consider, if a person is starving, what is the highest priority, food, or something else? If people need food and have enough money to buy it, they will! If people are spending food stamp money on things other than food, it means that those things are more important than food. In other words the primary justification for restricting food stamps to food is that poor people are too stupid to feed themselves when they need it. News flash: People who don't eat die. If poor people were too stupid to eat, they would already be dead. Honestly, this justification suggests that our government officials who setup this system are actually stupider than the people they think they are helping with it.
The same applies to the hot food restriction. The justification here is that if hot foods are allowed, people will use food stamps to buy expensive fast food, instead of cheaper unprepared food (like grocery store sushi, that is allowed...). This does not seem to be a well known fact, but most poor people do not spend all of their time being lazy. Research has found that most poor people have less free time than anyone else. Being poor is a lot of work. Attempting to force poor people to buy cheaper foods that have to be prepared at home is actually a liability (and it does not work, as there is plenty of cold prepared food available...). Even soup kitchens do better than this. If poor people want to spend their food stamps on fast food, let them. Some of them need the time it saves, and those who don't will learn from their mistakes if buying more expensive fast food results in starving for the last few days of the month. Again, there are plenty of sources of food. Preventing poor people from buying fast food (or expensive luxury foods) is not going to make sure they don't starve. It just makes sure they never learn to budget their money.
I want to describe my personal experience now. I am not ashamed to say that my family is on food stamps. I won't say how much, but with two parents and six children, we get a lot of food stamp money. Being Mormon, we believe in having a reasonable amount of food storage. We don't have room for the recommended year worth, but we have several bags of rice and some paint buckets full of various other long shelf life foods, as well as as a chest freezer with a decent selection of meat and other perishables (including frozen vegetables, lest you think we don't eat healthy foods). We were able to build up this food storage because we get far more food stamps than we strictly need. While it is not technically allowed, we have been known to give some of our food to people who are literally starving but don't qualify for food stamps (on several occasions, pregnant women who cannot afford protein). I am thankful that we get more food stamps than we need, but it would be even better if it were just given as cash. I am dramatically underpaid for some fairly important work, but if we can pay off our mobile home, then our rent drops to around $300 a month. Even on my low income, we can survive with only $300 a month lot rent. At the rate it is going though, it will be 3 years before it is paid off, so we have to rely on food stamps and delay important things like car repairs. If food stamps were distributed as cash, with no strings attached, we could still eat perfectly fine, and we could afford car repairs, and we could pay off our house a year or two earlier, making us financially stable in half the time. Yes, if we did this, we would not be able to help others as much, at least, not until the house was paid off, but we could put ourselves into a situation where we could ultimately help others more and provide our six children with a better environment and a better education. We would also be more financially secure, which would give me more time and money to work on starting my own business. It is true that many poor people don't have the same aspirations I do, but I can tell you, I know a lot of poor people, and a majority of them are trying to get themselves into better situations, and the main factor preventing them is lack of time and money. Converting food stamps to a cash payout would help all of us immensely.
The takeaway here is, we could save money, help poor people more effectively, and treat them better, if we just gave them cash. We could easily give up food stamps in exchange for freedom, just by giving poor people the cash up front, instead of making them jump through hoops just to get food that they could easily get somewhere else. Welfare should be about freedom, not about forcing people to live the way we think they deserve.
The first problem with restricting what food stamps can be spent on is cost. Regulations are never free. Enforcing food stamp restrictions is expensive. In fact, there is some evidence that all of the restrictions we place on welfare in general cost almost as much as the welfare money that is actually distributed to poor people. Enforcing food stamp restrictions is just the tip of the iceberg though. The government has to spend a lot of money on audits and such, to make sure sellers honor the restrictions. The sellers themselves also have to pay though. It takes a lot of work sorting what can and cannot be bought with food stamps, so that point of sale systems can apply charges correctly. If an item is incorrectly marked as food in the system, that could result in a big fine or losing the ability to accept food stamps at all. Even worse, if an eligible food item is not marked correctly (and sadly, this actually happens all the time in stores that sell both hot and cold food products), it causes major inconvenience to customers, and it requires extra labor of employees to compensate for the error every time someone tries to buy the product on food stamps until it is fixed in the system. Restrictions on food stamps are costly to both the government enforcing them and to the businesses that have to do extra work to deal with them.
The second problem with food stamps is need. Food pantries, soup kitchens, and other sources of healthy food are readily available to poor people in most places. Individuals that want to provide charity directly are more likely to be willing to provide food than anything else. The primary benefit of food stamps is dignity. Accepting charity directly can be humiliating, and few people who need charity deserve that kind of humiliation. Food stamps allow poor people to shop at stores, just like everyone else. Of course, the dignity that food stamps provide ends at the cash register, when the poor person has to pull out the card for everyone to see. As a need, food is not exactly difficult to come by. There are plenty of sources of free food for those in need. There are not plenty of sources of free shelter, free utilities, free transportation, free clothing, free toiletries, and so on. Food stamps provide access to something that poor people generally already have sufficient access to, and they neglect the real needs, like rent.
The third problem with food stamps is human dignity and privacy. Paying with cash, check, debit, or credit reveals very little about your financial situation to others. Paying with food stamps is like shouting, "Hey, I am poor!" to everyone who is watching. While it may be reasonable to deprive dangerous criminals of human dignity, poor people have already lost enough dignity. We don't need to take any more.
The justifications for having and restricting food stamps in the first place may seem reasonable to anyone who has not had to use them. Poor people need food, so give them a resource that can be used to buy food. We can add restrictions to guarantee they don't abuse it and use it to buy anything except food. This will guarantee that poor people will have enough to eat. Unfortunately, this assumes that food is the only thing poor people need. The justification attempts to cover this by suggesting that when poor people have their food covered, they can use the money they would have spent on food on other things. This is honestly a really bad math error. Consider, if a poor person has an income of $100 a month, and you give them $200 a month in food stamps, that does not suddenly free up $200 a month for the person, because there is not $200 a month in the first place! Additionally, even if there was $200 a month to begin with, $400 a month is still not enough to live on, and perhaps that person was wise enough with money to only be spending $100 a month on food to begin with, which still only frees up $100 a month. And like I said before, food is the easiest necessity for poor people to get for cheap or free. The fact is, it just does not add up.
It gets worse though. The primary justification for restricting food stamps is the assumption that people will spend the money on things other than food otherwise. Is there something wrong with that? First, consider, if a person is starving, what is the highest priority, food, or something else? If people need food and have enough money to buy it, they will! If people are spending food stamp money on things other than food, it means that those things are more important than food. In other words the primary justification for restricting food stamps to food is that poor people are too stupid to feed themselves when they need it. News flash: People who don't eat die. If poor people were too stupid to eat, they would already be dead. Honestly, this justification suggests that our government officials who setup this system are actually stupider than the people they think they are helping with it.
The same applies to the hot food restriction. The justification here is that if hot foods are allowed, people will use food stamps to buy expensive fast food, instead of cheaper unprepared food (like grocery store sushi, that is allowed...). This does not seem to be a well known fact, but most poor people do not spend all of their time being lazy. Research has found that most poor people have less free time than anyone else. Being poor is a lot of work. Attempting to force poor people to buy cheaper foods that have to be prepared at home is actually a liability (and it does not work, as there is plenty of cold prepared food available...). Even soup kitchens do better than this. If poor people want to spend their food stamps on fast food, let them. Some of them need the time it saves, and those who don't will learn from their mistakes if buying more expensive fast food results in starving for the last few days of the month. Again, there are plenty of sources of food. Preventing poor people from buying fast food (or expensive luxury foods) is not going to make sure they don't starve. It just makes sure they never learn to budget their money.
I want to describe my personal experience now. I am not ashamed to say that my family is on food stamps. I won't say how much, but with two parents and six children, we get a lot of food stamp money. Being Mormon, we believe in having a reasonable amount of food storage. We don't have room for the recommended year worth, but we have several bags of rice and some paint buckets full of various other long shelf life foods, as well as as a chest freezer with a decent selection of meat and other perishables (including frozen vegetables, lest you think we don't eat healthy foods). We were able to build up this food storage because we get far more food stamps than we strictly need. While it is not technically allowed, we have been known to give some of our food to people who are literally starving but don't qualify for food stamps (on several occasions, pregnant women who cannot afford protein). I am thankful that we get more food stamps than we need, but it would be even better if it were just given as cash. I am dramatically underpaid for some fairly important work, but if we can pay off our mobile home, then our rent drops to around $300 a month. Even on my low income, we can survive with only $300 a month lot rent. At the rate it is going though, it will be 3 years before it is paid off, so we have to rely on food stamps and delay important things like car repairs. If food stamps were distributed as cash, with no strings attached, we could still eat perfectly fine, and we could afford car repairs, and we could pay off our house a year or two earlier, making us financially stable in half the time. Yes, if we did this, we would not be able to help others as much, at least, not until the house was paid off, but we could put ourselves into a situation where we could ultimately help others more and provide our six children with a better environment and a better education. We would also be more financially secure, which would give me more time and money to work on starting my own business. It is true that many poor people don't have the same aspirations I do, but I can tell you, I know a lot of poor people, and a majority of them are trying to get themselves into better situations, and the main factor preventing them is lack of time and money. Converting food stamps to a cash payout would help all of us immensely.
The takeaway here is, we could save money, help poor people more effectively, and treat them better, if we just gave them cash. We could easily give up food stamps in exchange for freedom, just by giving poor people the cash up front, instead of making them jump through hoops just to get food that they could easily get somewhere else. Welfare should be about freedom, not about forcing people to live the way we think they deserve.
Basic Income Among the Rich
While reading a few articles today on basic income, I had a bit of an epiphany. Basic income is already all around us, and the vast majority of those who have it are also hard workers. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Donald Trump are three of the highest profile Americans with a basic income. Basic income is a minimum income that an individual receives, regardless of any work they do. The three people mentioned above, along with a many other wealthy Americans, have a basic income in the form of interest and dividends from stocks, bonds, and other investments. For a basic income to be viable, it needs to provide enough income to survive on. According to the Federal government, this comes out to about $15,000 a year for one person, for the most expensive state (Alaska). The Federal poverty guidelines add $5,230 a year per additional person. Actual research (rather than the guesses of out-of-touch government officials) estimate that the actual poverty level is between $25,000 and $35,000 for one person, depending on what state that person lives in. According the Federal poverty level, this means that a basic income for one person is about $1,250 a month*, with $436 more per additional person. For the poverty level based on real evidence instead of arbitrary guesses, a basic income for one person would need to be about $2,000 a month, on the low end, and around $3,000 a month in more expensive places like northern Alaska. I don't recall whether the real research had data on income beyond one person.
So, using the Federal poverty level as a guideline (since my knowledge of the real poverty level is lacking beyond one person), a basic income must provide a minimum monthly income of $1,250 a month plus $436 for each person in the household beyond the first, or $15,000 a year, add $5,230 per person beyond the first. Assuming a 2% annual interest rate (you can get this on 5 year certificates of deposit at most credit unions and even better rates with real investments), each household would need $750,000 add $262,000 per person after the first invested, to have a basic income. Any millionaire with significant investments has a basic income that will support the millionaire and a spouse, without ever having to work or otherwise earn money. This covers far more than just the top 1% of Americans, and if you count retirement funds, nearly the entire upper class and part of the middle class have basic incomes ready for them when they retire, and that does not even count Social Security! My list above includes some of the richest people in the U.S., who are making enough income on investments alone to provide a basic income for hundreds or even thousands of other people, in addition to themselves.
The fact is, the rich already have basic incomes. Why is this important? It is important because one of the biggest arguments against a basic income is that people will quit working for a living if they get one, which would ruin the economy. So let's look at the evidence. The existing basic incomes in the U.S. are held almost exclusively by business owners, hard working CEOs, and investors. Yes, there are some freeloaders born into wealth who don't work, and there are some investors who stopped working when their investments starting making enough to live on, but a vast majority of people with a basic income actually work far too much!
I have already discussed plenty of other more direct evidence that basic income does not reduce work, but this leads to another conclusion: If basic income does reduce incentive to work enough that there is significant risk of economic collapse if we provide it to everyone, then we have a massive disaster on our hands. The people holding up the roof of our economy all have basic incomes! It is time to panic, because what happens when they realize that they don't have to work and suddenly all quit their jobs en-mass, leaving the economy to crumble? If basic income reduces incentive to work so dramatically, we have a moral responsibility to relieve these people of their fortunes immediately, otherwise we are in for a disaster far worse than could ever be predicted!
Yes, that was entirely sarcastic. Rich people with de facto basic incomes have been working hard for the entire history of humanity, and there is no reason to believe they will stop now. This should make it clear how utterly absurd even the suggestion that a basic income would destroy the economy is. I am not opposed to rich people, but I am opposed to rich people who already have basic incomes telling the rest of us that we can't have them, because we are too lazy to work if we did. This is toxic elitism at its finest. We are all humans here. If they can be productive despite having a basic income that is 10 to 100 times the poverty level, then the rest of us can be productive perfectly well with a basic income right above the poverty level. At least we still have an incentive to work beyond just getting a high score in some money game.
The fact is, our economy works because people don't lose motivation to work just because they have enough money to live on indefinitely. In fact, the evidence seems to suggest that the exact opposite is true. While there are rich people who freeload on their basic income earned by someone else, the people with the most money tend to be the hardest workers. Yes, some might consider this a cause and effect relationship of hard work resulting in greater fortune, however there are still plenty of hard workers in all of the income classes, and it does not take much to see that hard work does not correlate to income at all in our society, otherwise farmhands who work 16 hour days would be as rich as the typical CEO, and school teachers would get paid as much as engineers.
There is some irony here: The people who have basic incomes are the people who need it the least, and they are also the most likely to oppose a universal basic income, despite the fact that they stand to benefit from it the most. (More income means more spending, which means more money for investors, CEOs, and business owners.)
My challenge to the rich: If basic income is so dangerous to our economy, get rid of all of your investments, and never invest again. Otherwise, trust the rest of us, who have a real stake in this, to use a basic income as wisely as you seem to think you use yours. We are not asking for enough money to compete with you in your little money game; we are just asking for enough to feel some degree of financial security.
* I can tell you, where I currently live, which is not Alaska, $1,250 a month would pay for rent, utilities, and food, but it would not fully cover transportation, insurance, and other necessities. Note that I live in an area with a very low cost of living. I have lived in Alaska, and $1,250 a month in Alaska would cover rent and food, but not utilities (heating gets expensive) and definitely not transportation (you can afford food, but you cannot get to the store in the winter to buy it) or anything else (warm clothing...). Cost of living for one person in Alaska is at least $2,000 a month, and that assumes that person lives in the cheapest part of Anchorage and lives close enough to stores that transportation can be exclusively on bike, even in the coldest parts of the winter. The average is closer to $2,500 a month, up to at least $3,000 a month in the coldest parts of the state (where heating alone can eat well over $500 a month in the winter).
So, using the Federal poverty level as a guideline (since my knowledge of the real poverty level is lacking beyond one person), a basic income must provide a minimum monthly income of $1,250 a month plus $436 for each person in the household beyond the first, or $15,000 a year, add $5,230 per person beyond the first. Assuming a 2% annual interest rate (you can get this on 5 year certificates of deposit at most credit unions and even better rates with real investments), each household would need $750,000 add $262,000 per person after the first invested, to have a basic income. Any millionaire with significant investments has a basic income that will support the millionaire and a spouse, without ever having to work or otherwise earn money. This covers far more than just the top 1% of Americans, and if you count retirement funds, nearly the entire upper class and part of the middle class have basic incomes ready for them when they retire, and that does not even count Social Security! My list above includes some of the richest people in the U.S., who are making enough income on investments alone to provide a basic income for hundreds or even thousands of other people, in addition to themselves.
The fact is, the rich already have basic incomes. Why is this important? It is important because one of the biggest arguments against a basic income is that people will quit working for a living if they get one, which would ruin the economy. So let's look at the evidence. The existing basic incomes in the U.S. are held almost exclusively by business owners, hard working CEOs, and investors. Yes, there are some freeloaders born into wealth who don't work, and there are some investors who stopped working when their investments starting making enough to live on, but a vast majority of people with a basic income actually work far too much!
I have already discussed plenty of other more direct evidence that basic income does not reduce work, but this leads to another conclusion: If basic income does reduce incentive to work enough that there is significant risk of economic collapse if we provide it to everyone, then we have a massive disaster on our hands. The people holding up the roof of our economy all have basic incomes! It is time to panic, because what happens when they realize that they don't have to work and suddenly all quit their jobs en-mass, leaving the economy to crumble? If basic income reduces incentive to work so dramatically, we have a moral responsibility to relieve these people of their fortunes immediately, otherwise we are in for a disaster far worse than could ever be predicted!
Yes, that was entirely sarcastic. Rich people with de facto basic incomes have been working hard for the entire history of humanity, and there is no reason to believe they will stop now. This should make it clear how utterly absurd even the suggestion that a basic income would destroy the economy is. I am not opposed to rich people, but I am opposed to rich people who already have basic incomes telling the rest of us that we can't have them, because we are too lazy to work if we did. This is toxic elitism at its finest. We are all humans here. If they can be productive despite having a basic income that is 10 to 100 times the poverty level, then the rest of us can be productive perfectly well with a basic income right above the poverty level. At least we still have an incentive to work beyond just getting a high score in some money game.
The fact is, our economy works because people don't lose motivation to work just because they have enough money to live on indefinitely. In fact, the evidence seems to suggest that the exact opposite is true. While there are rich people who freeload on their basic income earned by someone else, the people with the most money tend to be the hardest workers. Yes, some might consider this a cause and effect relationship of hard work resulting in greater fortune, however there are still plenty of hard workers in all of the income classes, and it does not take much to see that hard work does not correlate to income at all in our society, otherwise farmhands who work 16 hour days would be as rich as the typical CEO, and school teachers would get paid as much as engineers.
There is some irony here: The people who have basic incomes are the people who need it the least, and they are also the most likely to oppose a universal basic income, despite the fact that they stand to benefit from it the most. (More income means more spending, which means more money for investors, CEOs, and business owners.)
My challenge to the rich: If basic income is so dangerous to our economy, get rid of all of your investments, and never invest again. Otherwise, trust the rest of us, who have a real stake in this, to use a basic income as wisely as you seem to think you use yours. We are not asking for enough money to compete with you in your little money game; we are just asking for enough to feel some degree of financial security.
* I can tell you, where I currently live, which is not Alaska, $1,250 a month would pay for rent, utilities, and food, but it would not fully cover transportation, insurance, and other necessities. Note that I live in an area with a very low cost of living. I have lived in Alaska, and $1,250 a month in Alaska would cover rent and food, but not utilities (heating gets expensive) and definitely not transportation (you can afford food, but you cannot get to the store in the winter to buy it) or anything else (warm clothing...). Cost of living for one person in Alaska is at least $2,000 a month, and that assumes that person lives in the cheapest part of Anchorage and lives close enough to stores that transportation can be exclusively on bike, even in the coldest parts of the winter. The average is closer to $2,500 a month, up to at least $3,000 a month in the coldest parts of the state (where heating alone can eat well over $500 a month in the winter).
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