No, if you want to look at basic income, look at the children of the wealthy, who never have to work. Most still pursue education, get degrees, and work in a variety of fields including art.

Also it's important not to conflate your interests in art with the universe of art appreciators. Because there is plenty of artistic work that I don't personally enjoy, but which there is a demand for. Jewelry comes to mind... I've bought cuff links but that's about it for the past year, but necklaces, earrings, bracelets and rings still get sold despite my lack of interest.

Only the most short-sighted of the wealthy do not realize that there are many ways in which their wealth could dry up. This provides an impetus to use the money constructively while you have it, because it might not be around forever.

Basic income does not give the same drive. You can watch TV all day, doing nothing to better yourself, doing nothing to manage your money, and you know that there will always be more where that came from.

But if you want more from life than sitting at home and watching TV all day, you have to take some initiative.

2. Someone in the family history had to be a diligent/industrious/successful. And that person probably tried to pass those values down to their children and so on and so on.

If you give people wealth, no such ideals will be passed down to their children.

Money doesn't dry up, it increases thanks to investment and hedge funds. You just need to ensure you never dip it below net-positive+base inflation rate.

Suppose you have a billion dollars invested, and you're only receiving 0.1%/year on top of the base inflation rate. 0.1% of $1 billion is $1million, so you have a perfectly sustainable stable $1 million per year. That's more than enough to spend forever dicking around.

Actually, drop that down to $100 million. At 0.1% above, you get sustainable $100k/year.

Now, perhaps that doesn't seem too lavish, but consider that you could afford to take way more than 0.1% off your interest every year, and you'll find that that money isn't going anywhere.

1. That wealthy people's money can dry up.

2. That wealthy people know this and it provides an impetus to spend.

3. that that impetus to spend is constructive.

4. That poor people, promised basic income, will differ markedly from wealthy people in this respect.

I can't speak to all of these but I can speak to some of them.

1. Certainly wealthy people may lose their wealth. But most don't.

https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/05/19/the-wealthy-in-fl...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/10/18/poor-...

Also see this swedish study which indicates that wealthy kids save less then their parents but still tend to be wealthy, and that this is true for both adopted as well as natural born children, indicating that it's not some sort of genetic advantage http://www.nber.org/papers/w21409

as for 4, I think you have this idea that poor people are poor because of intrinsic characteristics. This is a more common belief among conservatives (http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/1-23-14%20Pover...).

Here's some evidence that it's not an intrinsic quality.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/04/upshot/an-atlas-of-upward...

There's also evidence from things like free meals and early childhood education. Links are probably easy to search for if you google free lunch benefit and HeadStart benefit. Basically giving kids proper nutrition and free preschool make a big difference.

There aren't a lot of studies on giving adults help to get out of poverty though. People like helping kids and young adults, but once you are grown up you are kinda out of luck. I think there is some micro loan data out there though. That said there was canadian basic income, which showed only modest decreases in hours worked, and better health outcomes overall.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome

But even if basic income only effects children of poor people and not the poor people themselves, it seems like it could provide a marked difference in a generation.

pretty sure i live in one of them, so tell me what i see.

"People need a reason to exist and meaningful work to do."

how are they managing now? most people have a lot of meaningless work and i don't know anyone that can tell me the reason they exist beyond empty platitudes.

"Very few have the drive and discipline to become artists/inventors/philosophers/musicians/actors."

you only need some special drive for that stuff, (collectively called playing), to push forward with it while working a day-job.

"Plus the majority of those who do become artists are unlikely to create anything that the rest of society would value."

roughly all of them, really. at least that's how it is right now and i don't see why it would change.

"We need a better solution than basic income."

k, let's do basic income, then see what needs improving ;)

You mean like retirement communities?