I'm sure those people don't want to give up their iPhones and AC either (which also are not "natural").

And so they would...continue...to work...for things that cost more than food and shelter do?

Very often, yes. But if their boss harassed them (or say tried to force RTO), they could quit and not worry about ending up on the street.

That was what I was getting at, yeah. ;)

This is the real reason I like the idea of UBI. It’s not because I want to do nothing all day, it’s because I want to shift the power dynamic. For example, imagine a worker living paycheck-to-paycheck who needs their employer-provided health insurance, with an asshole boss who refuses to let them take a day off to attend a family member’s funeral: the UBI improves their ability to tell that boss to get fucked without ending up broke and homeless.

Basically I’m for any system that allows people to tell bad bosses to get fucked.

Also a good argument for universal health care.

Most likely.

But many would not need to live with the existential dread of perhaps ending up living under a bridge some day. Or skipping meals just to make rent.

Perhaps some would not need to give up on their lives and education by getting some minimum-wage job to help out their family or because of some early accident instead of going to college.

I am quite certain it could end up a net positive for society as a whole.

Reminds me of that quote:

“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”

And yes, it would shift the power dynamic in the workplace.

It's not unnatural. Humans have always had to hunt or harvest their food, and find or construct shelters to live in.

sure. and helping your neighbour build his shelter is relateable and social. but somewhere along the way towards "build a distributed, scaleable and beautiful mvp app for this useless service, so we can flash the vc and get a good valuation so our stockoptions are worth more when we decide to close shop" it got wired

Doing those things, as needed, for yourself or your immediate community is very different than performing the same task on a factory line for 70 hours a week so that a person you've never met can earn more than your yearly salary playing golf with the board members.

If I had the opportunity to stop working and keep being paid half or third of my salary, that would be an interesting consideration, where I'd probably work but work less, and I know people who'd do differently in both directions; the doctors would still keep their patients, but some struggling people would stop working for pay and work on their dependents (both kids and elderly/sick parents).

The whole point of UBI is that it keeps incentives for working, as most people - especially the most valuable employees - do want much more than a basic income, - and also supports partial employment (as opposed to things like means-tested welfare). What it would change the most is the situation regarding "shit jobs" which are both poorly paid and undesirable; and if the desperate workers get some alternatives, then these jobs would have to pay more, improve conditions, or not get done if they aren't that needed; and that seems a good effect to me.