"hacker news is a hivemind." Hm. I've heard this said before but I don't know what it means?

"I don't agree with everything you say (one can argue there is economic value in staying home during an outbreak of a highly transmissible virus) but I do think you are right in a lot of ways (it's a perverse incentive, and unproductivity should not be subsidized in general)."

Cool. I would advise against agreeing with everything I say ha. Look if people want to pay their own way in terms of UI over their working years and save up some sort of 'emergency/flex account' managed by the gov for when the inevitable storms roll through I think that's a fine idea.

The fact that it is forced upon all earners individual and businesses, and ultimately only used by some and then abused by a chunk of those who use is a different story. It's the equivalent of stealing money from your neighbor and their family! Just because the gov sits in between the two parties and forces the transaction somehow socially acceptable, even laudable? WTF.

As I've mentioned above, beyond normalizing this behavior is the sneaky side effects it has on the unemployed recipient...backward incentives, dependencies via erosion of self reliance.

Staying home is productive though. It slows the spread of the virus and adds value (in terms of capacity) to our hospitals and healthcare system. You can think of unemployment benefits as the government purchasing that time from employees and instructing them to use it in the most valuable way to us as a society: do nothing.

The person's time is valuable (and so they should be compensated) but the most valuable use of their time in the short-term is to not use it at all. Tech does this all the time. We just call it "rest and vest".

OK thanks for sharing!