Re:The evidence behind putting money directly in the pockets...
by arcticbull on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @01:28PM
(#23249472)
I don't think they're mutually exclusive, but I also think underpinning my previous post is an un-stated assumption: we have too many people doing jobs that don't matter.
IMO we don't need gas station attendants, we don't need grocery store clerks, we don't need manufacturing jobs. We need more robots. When robots inevitably replace these menial jobs, we're gonna have to do something with those folks. Over time the birth rate will decline and the population will even out, and there won't be more people than jobs, and that UBI is an elegant stop-gap measure.
Otherwise, keeping people in these jobs is just some sort of Rube Goldberg-esque make work project.
Folks like yourself can stop working, folks doing menial work will stop working. Those who want to get ahead and do crazy new things will always be motivated to do so.
Such a program would be indeed beneficial to me and, if that were my sole concern, I'd be all for it. However, it seems likely sufficiently deleterious to society that I don't support society being required to pay for my subsistence.