Wrong. When those unemployed people won't be able to buy anything produced by the robots because they don't have money, there is only one option left: If people want to work, they still can. They can work for themselves! They can use technology that is still available to aid them in their work to earn a living. A small patch of land could feed many. Unemployed people could team up to form collectives and grow their own food, install solar panels and other energy generation devices, barter with other humans for skilled services. Basically we can still do everything we can do today, but robots will also offer stuff at low price.

If people are driven to the point where they can't even work to save themselves from poverty, not even if they work for themselves directly, then we will have a revolution on our hands. That could happen if wealth becomes even more concentrated at the top, and this usually happens when there are technological leaps that bring temporary advantages (monopoly) to a company.

If everyone makes good money then the prices are guaranteed to go up. This is the biggest flaw that I also find with guaranteed basic income. At the end it will always sucked slowly up with those who own the land.

(Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of the Land monopoly, but I don't think it's a real threat to UBI)

If we don't find a solution, inequality will rise until we get a violent revolution, or a police state to keep the poor in check. I think neither of these outcomes is much better than the "communism" we got in the USSR.

It's going to take a lot of social training to make people comfortable with the fact that we are rapidly approaching a post-scarcity world where the traditional model of growth-fueled capitalism falls apart (and it will happen, Earth can only sustain so many humans at a time).

On the contrary, capitalism is all about owning and deploying capital (including assets like robots) to produce an income beyond one's own labor. UBI is essentially a plan to eliminate the working class, turning everyone into capitalists :)

As an aside, I'm tentatively in support of basic income. This is one of the two major points that I worry about, along with rent-seeking behavior. The tl;dr of that argument is the mechanization of agriculture has already freed up tons of man-hours of labor, and the end result of that was systematic reaction that made living in a developed country approximately as expensive as poor people can afford if they work as hard as they have been.

It's amazing how some humans seem to have a complete lack of understanding of human nature.

Imagine a world in which 50% of people worked, and the other half lived on basic welfare income. How do you think the 50% that worked would feel about the other half? Do you think perhaps they might feel used? Do you think they might feel like slave labor? Do you think they might feel like the other half was taking advantage of them? Do you think they might be resentful of their earnings being taken away and given to people who don't work?

How are things going right now when people have this idea that there's a 99:1 division in society? How do you think people would get along with a 50:50 hard division? Can you imagine a better setup for societal unrest and class warfare? Can you imagine a society in which half the population thinks they're entitled to have the other half work to support them?

It'd be like a modern-day version of slavery, setting society up for a civil war. Communism used "the workers!" as one of its foundational elements--now imagine a world in which "the workers" are legally half of the population, and they decide they're tired of being taken advantage of, and they decide to assert themselves and their rights, go on strike, refuse to work, even revolt. And imagine the other half of the population, which thinks they're entitled to be supported by the other half, decides to assert themselves and demand what they think they're entitled to (if they're still capable of doing anything besides sitting in their VR headsets).

This is not wild imagination, this is history and human nature applied to your ideas, their logical conclusion.

> I see only one solution: abolishing lucrative property

Want to have a nice house with a yard to raise your family in? Nope. Panelák for you.

Want to work hard, save up, and buy a little cabin on the lake for your retirement? Nope. Too lucrative.

> communist scare crow be dammed.

Approximately one hundred million people (100,000,000 people) have been killed by Communist regimes.

But we're better humans now, right? We'll get it right this time. Just need to put the right people in charge and everything will be fine. Communism doesn't always turn corrupt, I mean, just look at the present-day Communist regimes of China, Cuba, and North Korea. Those governments aren't corrupt or evil, and their citizens are free, healthy, and happy. Nothing to be afraid of. Damn the scarecrows, full speed ahead!

So that's the ideal case. Now what about the transition, where there is too much work to rely on volunteering alone, yet too little for everyone to work full time?

One easy solution is to reduce the length of the work-week. Starting with 4 days (32 hours) right now would be a start. Later 3 days. Then 2. (Now that's an average: one could concentrate those work days on the summer or winter when it makes sense.)

The point is that people would choose whether to work or not. Everyone would have that choice - live on a basic, low income, or top it up by working. If you've chosen to work then it's unlikely you'll resent those who choose not to.

Furthermore, even if that wasn't the case, think about the number of people who hate their jobs and resent going to work now. Getting that down to 50% of people hating their job would be an improvement.

For example, look at Social Security: as the population ages, fewer people are working while more people are receiving. Of course, the Fed can literally create money with the press of a key on a keyboard, but eventually that bubble bursts and takes the economy with it.

And all of this is subordinate to human nature, because that rules over everything we do. And basic human nature shows that people fare better and are happier and healthier when they are able to provide for themselves. People are also lazy and will mostly take the path of least resistance. Put those two issues together with a world in which people don't have to work, and you have a recipe for disaster.

If your desire for a UBI is driven by compassion, then it is misguided, because it would not be good for people who are healthy and able to support themselves. For people who are disabled, that's a different story, but that wouldn't be a UBI.