I used to be inspired by the Venus Project years ago. Unfortunately I realized it is extremely utopian and things needs to change in a more practical sense if we want a good chance of succeding.

I'm currently very impressed by the work of Prof. Richard Wolff, an economist that heavily criticizes Capitalism and tries to make actual practical changes in the lives of people starting from their workplaces.

Here is a talk he made in front of Google employees (the irony): https://youtu.be/ynbgMKclWWc

I'll take a look... let me rephrase that the Venus project...which I just heard about a few months ago..intrigues me quite a bit... but I don't see it really being feasible till we're an interplanetary species and even then maybe not...But there are good concepts and maybe when general AI hits, who knows what will change...

I do like UBI though along with (the pragmatist in me) believes gov't should work like agile dev teams... push changes up to a github like interface for bills.. the all bills should be VERY succinct and serve 1 goal, and that they should be repealable pretty easily like reverting a change on github... I think we have WAY too much bloat, and omnibuses just don't make sense at all and should be illegal.

Congressmen make very good money and benefits -- and have lots of perks so they should be required to work as hard as the next guy in America - -40 hours per week IN congress discussing bills and voting - -anything to 'market' themselves for future elections is NOT part of their job and outside their 'paid' duties and should be done on their own time.

I think automation, etc will disrupt the entire fabric of society soon, and honestly I hope we can move back to middle-age work days... they worked maybe 20 hours a week, if that and some weeks not at all - if farming the winter was pretty much just don't freeze to death... While their lives weren't long, I have to think they enjoyed life more than we do today.

>take the stress out of living paycheck to paycheck

If I could live for free (no rent, free food, free electricity, etc), I probably would quit. I don't have much savings and my quality of life would drop a little, but I would probably take 6-12 months vacation and just dick about, playing video games and concentrating on my hobbies.

I'd definitely take a vacation--but then I'd work on sideprojects--and be my own boss, because that's way more fun than working for someone else and I still want fun toys and things... I'm a jr dev and even at 60k/yr money is tight... when we made $30k, we really struggled..I don't think people should have that kind of pain and struggle, i think life could be easier for most people and as a society we could make it so..sure a small fraction might use drugs or something w/ their money -- but you know if they use up all their rent money and get evicted then they don't GET UBI (stipulation is you have to have a home address to receive the check and must live there..i.e. no vagrancy/etc... that's really the only requirement).