Interesting Links for 10-10-2012

[andrewducker]

• The Greek message for Angela Merkel
  (tags: austerity greece germany europe finance )
• 50 Years of LED Technology
  (tags: led technology )
• Does the computer mouse face extinction? (Not this week)
  (tags: technology computers mice )
• Could Fast Food Robots Steal McJobs?
  (tags: viaFanf robots restaurant food thefuture )
• More people being

Comments

[gonzo21]

There's something just magical about photographs of lightning.

Citizen's Income

[0olong]

I've been thinking for a long time that this is probably a much better alternative to the likes of JSA - simpler, more efficient, less counter-productive, less dehumanising... I wonder if you could you elaborate on your feeling that it doesn't add up?

Re: Citizen's Income

[andrewducker]

The "not adding up" is purely with regards to the amount of money that's given.

£5,000 is £100/week, which isn't enough to cover housing for a lot of people. If you're going to retain some housing benefit, then that leaves less for the citizen's income. And if that drops much more then it's not actually enough to survive on.

I have a post half-written in my head about this kind of thing, I really need to finish writing it up.

Re: Citizen's Income

[brixtonbrood]

The flat rate per adult is an obvious problem in that a single person will get as much as a lone parent with three teenaged children, unless I missed a bit? (was reading on the move, so that's possible)

Re: Citizen's Income

[andrewducker]

Yup. At the moment you get more if you have kids, or live in an area with expensive housing (via housing benefit). Removing those two factors is going to be bad for anyone with kids in an expensive area!

Not to mention people with disabilities.

Why do we behave so oddly in lifts?

[cartesiandaemon]

The content is really interesting, although I'm always impatient with articles that have a tone of "ooh, I noticed a counter-intuitive consequence of normal social behaviour". It always sounds like they think we're stupid for indulging in it, which can sometimes be true (if the consequence is counter-productive and people ought to notice and adapt their norms, but don't), but often isn't (if the result looks odd to someone who's never been in a confined space with other people before, but in fact, if everyone you met in an elevator or on a public transit system started a conversation with you, the results would be even odder than no-one doing so).

The most awesome swing in the world

[cartesiandaemon]

I failed to avoid the comments :( I was depressed by the number of people who thought this was an obscene abomination, but didn't have any particular objection to public fountains, green lawns, flush-toilets, etc, etc.

Re: The most awesome swing in the world

[andrewducker]

NEVER READ THE COMMENTS!

Okay, that's not entirely true. I read Hacker News purely for the comments, but that's got a higher quality of comments than pretty-much anywhere online, and even then lots of them are annoying.

I once likened reading the low-rated comments on Slashdot as like sticking your head into a bucket of squid. Reading the ones on most newspaper sites are like sticking it into a bucket of squid that died from diarrhoea a fortnight ago.

Re: The most awesome swing in the world

[cartesiandaemon]

LOL. Yes, I KNOW that, but I still keep getting caught out, glancing down to see if there's any more of the article, seeing a half-reasonable comment, scrolling down a notch, and bam, my brain's destroyed again.

If I recall correctly, I was sad that the xkcd parody of youtube comments on the moon landing were more articulate and less ridiculous than youtube comments on an ACTUAL video of the moon landing...

Re: The most awesome swing in the world

[danieldwilliam]

I never read the comments - especially here.

[cairmen]

Interested by your comment on the Citizen's Income blog about minimum wage.

The problem with abolishing minimum wage in connection with Citizen's Income is surely that it opens the entire experiment up to some pretty dramatic second-order effects that you won't be able to predict until we get there - like the effect of a sudden shift in wages across the entire nation on tax raised.

Plus, would the ensuing adjustment in wages actually end up with poorer people worse off?

(Citizen's Income is a hobbyhorse of mine - I'm in the "this is obviously better, do it already" camp - but I'd not thought of linking it to an abolished minimum wage.)

[andrewducker]

It shouldn't greatly affect existing wages - these are all already in places where the employer can make a profit while employing someone at that wage.

What it should do is allow people to be employed for lower wages that are competitive elsewhere. If stuffing envelopes is only profitable at £1.50/hour, and you can find someone willing to work for that (on top of the citizen's income), then (a) you've avoided offshoring the work, (b) you've employed an extra person, (c) you're providing _more_ tax, and (d) you're reducing the slack labour pool, which should (theoretically) push wages _up_.

It should, really, be a win all round.

[drplokta]

The employer can no longer make a profit while employing someone at the former minimum wage if a new competitor comes along paying only half that much and therefore charging much lower prices.

[andrewducker]

That depends on who they can get for the even lower prices, and whether all of those people have already been sucked up by the current wages.

I remember when there was no minimum wage, and we didn't all work for 3p/hour!