You do raise a valid point, which is that a car is a luxury. Having lots of land is a luxury. Having kids is a luxury. Living in a long Urban center where the grocery store is a 2 minute walk away is a luxury.

It's up to the people receiving the UBI to decide which luxuries they want to spend it on. You can't have it all unless you can earn enough to pay for it all.

I never said conditions like that should be added, only that we shouldn't give out enough UBI for people to live a luxurious lifestyle, which is what rural life really is in America, in a way. Think about it: what would happen to poor, rural Americans if we jacked the price of gasoline up to European levels, where it really should be?

>Living in a long Urban center where the grocery store is a 2 minute walk away is a luxury.

It's really not, it's simple geometry. If you pack people into a dense urban environment with tiny little apartments and remove the luxury of a car and lots of land, then a 2-minute walk to a grocery store becomes almost automatic. It's a tradeoff: you simply cannot have a 2-minute walk to a grocery store if everyone has a separate, freestanding McMansion with a giant yard. Anyone with a basic understanding of geometry should understand this. Put everyone into tiny apartments in high-rises and a quick walk to the grocery store is easy to accomplish (make sure the urban area has mixed-use zoning though).

You're actually proving their point for them:

>> which is that a car is a luxury. Having lots of land is a luxury. Having kids is a luxury. Living in a long Urban center where the grocery store is a 2 minute walk away is a luxury.