Re:UBI Is the Wrong Answer to the Right Problem
by charintstr on Tuesday March 17, 2026 @11:43PM
(#47421401)
This is a knocking down a strawman, it’s not supposed to provide a good understanding of UBI but rather scare you that you’re going to be lonely, lazy, and helpless on it. A more nuanced article would provide counterpoints, however this is just promoting the authors opinion
Re:UBI Is the Wrong Answer to the Right Problem
by quantified on Tuesday March 24, 2026 @01:26AM
(#47498897)
We have no true idea what things will be like with widespread UBI. Current experiments show some good things only in tiny subsets of the economy. Anything can be priced high enough to be out of reach except to a few, and prices will certainly rise to consume as much of available income as possible. The control enabled by depending on direct government assistance in an era of intense surveillance will change many aspects of daily life and discourse. Perhaps the generations that grow up within it will adapt to not expect anything better.
Over and over again, the evidence shows that UBI is activating not demotivating. No one wants to do nothing. People want to feel like they are contributing to society in some way. And people definitely want to earn as much as they can to spend what they want to spend.
UBI is not the only thing we need to do. It is just a key thing we need to do because it makes other things easier to do. It's the bottom of Maslow's pyramid. It's money to buy boots with straps. It reduces poverty, insecurity, and inequality. That leads to less crime, better health, and more productivity. The spending of UBI creates jobs. It grows the economy due to people with lower incomes spending it mostly locally on local goods and services.
If you don't support UBI, you either don't understand it, refuse to study the mountain of evidence, or simply distrust others and/or want to control them.
UBI is the power to say no. It is power to the People. It is a redistribution of power. People will use that power in so many good ways you can't imagine and aren't giving them credit for.
UBI is the correct answer. It is not the only answer. But it is a very important one.