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A lot of interesting discussion threads can spin out of this on AI, the definitions of these ideologies, whether this model reflects social values, etc.
I’m not actually convinced that these ideologies are fully capturing values, but I don’t believe that the United States primarily values capitalism. Since the advent of fractional reserves, we have been demonstrating something closer to a kleptocratic society in which the value of labor is extracted from individuals for multiple purposes: to enable everything from socialism to nepotism.
And I think most of the complaints that sound like “if it weren’t for capitalism…” would be more accurately framed as “if it weren’t for theft…”
Financial example: the US social security fund (about $3T) is in bonds, which fails to keep up with inflation and is heading toward insolvency. If that were in bitcoin, it would be hugely different, but if it were even in S&P500 or a whole stock market ETF, it would still be returning orders of magnitude higher returns and it wouldn't be insolvent. It would be cash positive and could be used to subsidize resources instead of giving dollars to recipients (or it could do both).
We could also fund energy as a primary target (building Nuclear, Fusion, Solar, whatever)--subsidize it all but give higher rates to the cheapest forms that have the biggest potential to return investment of higher energy yield per invested dollar (invest in the advancement of energy technology). In that way, we accelerate the price of all goods dropping to zero without having to explicity buy goods, build them, or hand-out fiat.
These are just methodology ideas. The core of my argument on UBI is that we should focus on making resources less expensive until they are free instead of trying to give away spending power, which should be an obvious losing proposition to anyone who has examined the basic market dynamics of free money.
Part of the blocker is that I don't have any desire to publish a book like that so it doesn't seem worth my time to write it out in that much depth/detail. If I were going to spend that much time writing, I'd finish my book of short sci-fi stories that's still incomplete. I tend to write sub-stacks on topics that pop up frequently enough in conversations that I get sick of making the same arguments over and over and instead want a place to point someone to a place where I've already written my thoughts on it. Trolley Problem: check, UBI: check, Quantum attack on Bitcoin: check. I don't have to write a text bomb when someone brings it up, I can just send them a link and if they don't read it, at least the conversation is over :)
I've got a couple of things unpublished that are more generalized essays/thoughts but in the past I've deleted those from medium or other places because I don't see much value in sharing that much with the wider world...
ultimately the government doesn't have to do anything as technology is already doing this, but as people are impatient, rather than calling for the government to step in and provide cash, there's a more compelling argument for smart investments. Maybe that's the ultimate TL;DR.
you touch on a critical element of success: government shouldn't run UBR, it should just invest in it. Government already invests heavily in subsidies, but if it invested in technology advancements that make things cheaper, then eventually, the market could supply resources at a cheaper and cheaper rate until the resources can be paid for through S&P500 investment dividends.
But if the distribution is cash, it has to come from selling the mined bitcoin, which means there’s a buyer on the other side providing the fiat. Or, if you mean they distribute sats, again, the end recipient has to spend that for resources that someone else provides—Increasing the amount of money people can spend without increasing the supply of goods on the other side, which leads to inflation. Even if people are spending sats on goods, what this would do is push against the natural deflation effect of technology. Why not simply make things free?
I've been thinking about that a lot as my kid is about to become an adult. When you are young there's a lot of value in exploring as many things as possible--go wide and see what your core value and interest might be. But then you have to specialize in something to go really deep before jumping onto something else--or you can just end up floundering in life.
I think about this every time I write a substack--if I were more of a manipulative entrepreneur who wanted to, I could extend this (intentionally brief) article: https://antic.substack.com/p/forget-universal-basic-income-embrace into a 200 page book called "Universal Basic Resources: Building a post-scarcity civilization, one free resource at a time." and flush it out with historical examples and references, and maybe I'd be doing podcast circuits as a thought leader on economics, but I feel like most things should just be casual zeitgeist seeding conversational shares and not published books.
Also reminds me of a buddy I had decades ago who was a writer, and we talked a lot about writing process, and it came up that what a writer doesn't say and leaves for the reader to figure out can be more powerful than just laying it all out there in bulk words.
A friend of mine is constantly harping about the value of producing finalized works--not just doing doodles and drafts, which is what I do a lot. I make a ton of projects (writing, code, art) that I never show anyone because it's just light work. I find personal value in that, but other people want big, heavy, final projects. The point my friend makes is that by going all the way to the end, which is something I still do but less frequently, teaches you more as you have to wrestle with the entire pipeline and not just the first phase. And I agree, but I still like to just explore and mess around and not be too heavy all the time.
yeah, a bit of both--art appreciation and reference. I really wanted to go to one of his live classes but didn't get the chance.