Ask HN: Would mathematicians be better off unemployed if we had UBI?

5 pointsposted 9 months ago
by amichail

Item id: 41610171

7 Comments

drpossum

9 months ago

I'll not be snarky and say with some certainty that mathematicians teaching mathematics is important to the field of mathematics.

dtgm92

9 months ago

Maybe some sort of new enrollment/payment system, like the religious practice of giving to your church a % of your income... The same could be done in a UBI society.

Because the amount of UBI in dollars received will change over time, expressing it as a percent will work. Let's call it UBIC or UBI-Cent for 1/100 of your UBI. Maybe a fully pledged 100/100 UBI would be UBID or UBI-Dollar.

Let's say you have a platform for teaching and learning, and students subscribe to their teachers and peers by literally pledging their UBIC to them.

Within this system, students have a means to live and study using their UBI, and teachers the same. Imagine liking the work your friend is doing, so you pledge them 1 UBIC. Or finding a teacher with a good price to match your situation.

I feel like there is room for entirely new systems of teaching/learning in a society where everyone has their minimum financial requirements fulfilled and is not going to starve.

romanhn

9 months ago

Sure, at the expense of the next generation of mathematicians who may not have anyone to teach them.

aristofun

9 months ago

Ubi is a non realistic utopia to begin with (offsetting the temperature scale doesn’t make anyone any warmer).

But even if not - no.

The best scientific breakthroughs were always made because of some scarcity and urgent necessity. Check Turing, history of Xerox lab etc etc.

Laziness and easy life is a bad motivator. Whether you like it or not.

user

9 months ago

[deleted]

user

9 months ago

[deleted]

hiAndrewQuinn

9 months ago

I mean, if they were unemployed, they wouldn't be mathematicians anymore