Not to mention, even if you assume arguendo that inflation doesn't become a problem, you're lining up society for a crime, drug and suicide epidemic.
Take away someone's life's work, their reason to get up in the morning and get their head screwed on straight, and you'll have murdered them just as surely as shooting them with a gun.
Take away someone's life's work, their reason to get up in the morning and get their head screwed on straight, and you'll have murdered them just as surely as shooting them with a gun.
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I think it'd be surprised the industriousness of people trying to not have to work. I could absolutely see entire apartments filled with potential Reddit moderators, figuring out exactly how to live off of whatever Ubi provides without needing to work. You might be shocked to discover how many people are willing to live in the pod and eat the bugs if it means they don't need to go to work. That however is a problem. Just because people find out a way to survive doesn't mean that they're living a good life, and it certainly doesn't mean that they're living a meaningful life. I think that widespread adoption of Ubi would lead to this, billions of people living nihilistic existences consooming internet vaccuosity.
We lived throughout most of history with much worse quality of life than the poor of today, but many of those people lived just lives without turning to crime and went on to be paragons of their communities.
I'd argue that turning to drugs and crime today isn't usually a problem of poverty, it's a problem of meaning. They felt like they were contributing to their communities, and that contribution made them feel like they had a stake in the proper running of society.
If you give everyone UBI, it might shock you the number of people who look at that money and go "Ok, I can figure out a way to live off of this" and do so, even if it means cramming themselves into terrible living conditions. They'll live in the pod and eat the bugs because it means they don't need to work, but in the process of giving them the opportunity to do so you do take something away from them -- the mandatory requirement to contribute to society to continue being is a benefit because it gives people meaning in some way. Take that meaning away, and their lives become nihilistic and meaningless.
You don't just see this with the poor, you see it with the children of the super-rich. Many end up nihilistic and live terrible lives because they never need to do anything to survive and even thrive. They could live their entire lives in luxury but hedonistic pleasure doesn't help achieve eudaemonia, the condition of human flourishing or of living well.
I'd argue that turning to drugs and crime today isn't usually a problem of poverty, it's a problem of meaning. They felt like they were contributing to their communities, and that contribution made them feel like they had a stake in the proper running of society.
If you give everyone UBI, it might shock you the number of people who look at that money and go "Ok, I can figure out a way to live off of this" and do so, even if it means cramming themselves into terrible living conditions. They'll live in the pod and eat the bugs because it means they don't need to work, but in the process of giving them the opportunity to do so you do take something away from them -- the mandatory requirement to contribute to society to continue being is a benefit because it gives people meaning in some way. Take that meaning away, and their lives become nihilistic and meaningless.
You don't just see this with the poor, you see it with the children of the super-rich. Many end up nihilistic and live terrible lives because they never need to do anything to survive and even thrive. They could live their entire lives in luxury but hedonistic pleasure doesn't help achieve eudaemonia, the condition of human flourishing or of living well.
It certainly can be a critique of all welfare, but the difference here is that you're taking something given to a fraction of the population and making it universal.
There presumably isn't a choice, you're just going to collect the cheque. Period. At that point, the question isn't whether you sign up for the money, it's how do you use the money you're getting either way?
I suspect that in the longer term, it would end up shaking out that you'd end up with an even more stratified society -- You'd have the masses of have-nots, and you'd have a tiny minority of people who make overwhelming amounts of money by providing services to the masses. We started to see something like that during the pandemic, where the poor got poorer and the rich became insanely richer.
There presumably isn't a choice, you're just going to collect the cheque. Period. At that point, the question isn't whether you sign up for the money, it's how do you use the money you're getting either way?
I suspect that in the longer term, it would end up shaking out that you'd end up with an even more stratified society -- You'd have the masses of have-nots, and you'd have a tiny minority of people who make overwhelming amounts of money by providing services to the masses. We started to see something like that during the pandemic, where the poor got poorer and the rich became insanely richer.
Do you have a Butler or something who does your shopping for you?
You seem to be living in a parallel universe where food hasn't been getting massively more expensive every single month.
You seem to be living in a parallel universe where food hasn't been getting massively more expensive every single month.