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goobster  ·  2712 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: My mental hurdle: Universal Basic Income

    If everyone has that security floor, would the way people with ambition but previously no means pursue their goals in life change.

But the people without ambition are not going to pursue their non-existent life goals anyway. Giving them a basic income at least ensures they live like human beings, have health care, and aren't a further burden on the system by becoming homeless, etc.

"But think of the FREELOADERS!" is what we all want to grasp on to, but... there will always be freeloaders, regardless of whether they get a UBI/MBI or not. (Right now they have phenomenally huge and byzantine and expensive government bureaucracies supporting all the programs they need for support. With UBI all that goes away and they just get a check. Or maybe just a deposit into the Federal Government bank account.)

And, how long can someone really be passive and bored? They are going to eventually start cooking. Or playing guitar. Or writing poetry. Or picking up a job at the Circle K to have something to do for 8 out of the 24 hours of the day. Or they might walk down their local park or beach and pick up trash.

Who knows what they will do?

I don't.

But I know they won't starve. They won't place an undue burden on our systems due to homelessness, or whatever. And we can ditch oodles of stupid and ineffective government programs.

And yeah, someone may freeload. For a long time. And maybe die without having produced anything of meaning. So what? There is zero impact on you, because you have the same UBI, and on top of that, you have a job you LOVE (because you don't have to make $x/mo any more, so you do what you want to do), and a life in which the monthly panic of balancing the books and making sure you can make rent and buy food is eliminated.

Does it really matter if someone else doesn't take the opportunity and run with it like you did?