The obvious solution is to pay 50% of the unemployed population to dig holes and pay the other 50% of them to fill the holes in. Because, clearly it's a huuuuge problem if someone gets money without working for it.

No, it's a huuuuuge problem when people become addicted to easy money and never work again. Why would they, it's their right to get paid not to.

Welfare is better than UBI because welfare ends. Welfare encourages competence and self-reliance. And welfare can be extended in cases where there really aren't any jobs. It can do what UBI does, but without the fatal flaws.

Anyone who currently receives sufficient passive income gets "easy" money, reducing their need to work if they don't want to. Should we end dividends, royalties, and pensions?

Which would reduce their drive to work because you took away the fruits of their labor.

People need an incentive - something they don't have, which they will attain. UBI takes away one of those, your proposal would eliminate the other.

Why do people need an incentive? Why can't people just raise their kids, maintain their communities and generally just live a simple life?

Why do they need to strive? They don't. They totally could be happy as you describe. But you know they won't be. They aren't wired to be happy with a little because they won't value it because they didn't work for it.

For a depression-era farmer even a little success was still survival and so it mattered. But for someone who doesn't do anything to produce their own goods and so never feels accomplished because of skill or effort, anything less than what the other guy has will be intolerable. They won't work for anything, so they won't accept hard work as a reason why the other guy deserves to get to keep what he produced, and they'll steal it, killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.

Robots taking manufacturing jobs allows a reallocation of people, it doesn't make them obsolete.

But UBI would definitely support that line of thinking. "Dad is given a stipend by the government because there are no jobs for him, so why would I strive?"

Striving to become the best Uber driver one can be (before self driving cars make even that obsolete) sounds like a waste of time.

If people are the common resource then customer service will be the career of the future. You may not drive the car, but you could be the voice of the fleet. There will always be a chance to make the lives of those around you better in some way and you can use this to provide for yourself.

But, that aside, why should the productive care whether you do or not? Let's say self-driving cars do put you out of business, but we acknowledge that you didn't really do anything to make yourself employable. Why do you deserve any resources, let alone a comfortable amount, for not doing anything? And deserve, shmerve, why should I be so stupid as to let you take it from me? If I work I'll simply horde a bit of food and then stop working until the UBI stops and you starve, then I'll start producing again. So why not admit this up front and treat you like an excess coyote population? Spay/neuter you, or maybe leave poisoned food(-stamps) around?

Welfare at least is intended to help people become self-actualized and productive, but UBI is designed specifically to remove all incentive to ever help anyone else. UBI is what someone would come up with after reading the CIA manual on sabotage and thinking - how do I apply this to my entire civilization?

I for one am certainly not ready for humanity to stagnate. There are a lot of improvements left to made, and a lot of work left to be done.

There will be a few very intelligent people who will make the improvements while the rest of humanity does... Something. TBD.

Whatever the massez do, it'll be while force-fed soma. If we do have a huge privileged class who doesn't need to work we can't risk them getting uppity and continually demanding more so we'll keep them on a short leash.

And even if something like UBI ever happened, don't imagine that the productive will share power. It'll be a box, VR helmet, drugged soylent, and you'd happy with it.

It can't be anything else, and everyone should realize it. There's no UBI-topia out there for people, should they simply come to consensus and demand it from their pols. It's wishful thinking and the simple concept hurts more than it helps.

Be afraid of the person who offers you this nonsense.