I agree with you. People need purpose. Ever owned a Border Collie and spent a couple days without giving it something to do? It's bad for the dog and dangerous to your home.

So yeah, even if no one ever really enjoying being a gas station attendant, getting up and going to a job to earn money and pay rent gives people a sense of purpose. And UBI definitely risks robbing people of that purpose. The alternatives to UBI soon though might be creating fake jobs or letting people starve.

What's unfathomable to me is that so many people seem to believe that a sense of purpose can only be derived from need.

Humans aren't like that. They don't deprive themselves of activity like a bored dog unless you (who?) give them a job. If you give people their time back, they will fill it out with whatever they actually want to do, and that's freedom.

Conversely, the erosion of free time over the past generation has arguably also eroded the social structures that keep people healthy.

Humans do seem to be like that. They need something other than complete free time

There's an "epidemic" of people who have nothing to do and for whatever reason can't figure something out

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/05/ce-corner-isolation

Retiree data also shows finanical freedom and free time often doesn't lead to people figuring out something to do

Note sure this is a strong counter argument. It not that surprising that a system optimised in a certain direction has trouble accommodating operating modes it hasn’t optimised for.

As retirees. One explanation could be the lack of free time and resources over the course of their life prevented them from developing themselves enough to have something to do.

A small parallel is that (for me) a weekend is not enough to do much more than recover from the workweek. But two weeks off is enough to recover and then do some more things. Even then, it would take more time to do things of major significance.

Humans are all different. Like dogs.

Chasing a ball, professionally, for millions of dollars a year, gives some very rich and famous humans a sense of purpose.

Laying on a beach and surfing may fulfill a sense of purpose for other humans.

Some humans need to solve hard problems.

Some humans need to create something original.

And then a lot of humans... most humans... drift through life without any sense of purpose. Does work, the need to work, give them some? I'm not a Calvinist, but I have to live in a world where most people are like that. So if they don't have some need to do something, idle hands are the devil's plaything, and no good can come from the idleness. Just drugs and dissolute degeneracy. Take it from a creative alcoholic who struggles with the question of purpose myself, and finds some light between music, painting, hard work I have to do and my better angels.

That's what you're having a hard time fathoming, because you think everyone is like you; imbued with meaning and purpose that they will find. They are not. Even those of us who are, or were, don't always remain so.

But need? Need wakes you up.

The crush. The urgency. The do or die. The death-defying situation. Sinking or swimming. Here is what brings out the initiative and the creativity and the purpose in people.

I used to believe exactly what you said when I was 17. If we didn't have to work we'd all use our free time to make amazing art and poetry and contribute to humanity.

Look around, man. I know a lot of people who don't have to work. Half of them are homeless and the other half are millionaires. You know what none of them are doing with their free time?? Anything resembling something with a purpose.

I disagree with you largely. The vast majority of people I know have interests that drive them beyond a work they dislike. They follow sports. They golf. They cook. They are foodies. They enjoy mixology. They raise their children. They enjoy taking 45 minute walks after every meal. They host parties with friends. They do a book club. They knit or crochet or craft with felt. All of these things do not resemble “purpose” in that they’re not really monetized. But in a world where you don’t have to make money to live I think there’s a hell of a lot of things that can give purpose.

> And then a lot of humans... most humans... drift through life without any sense of purpose.

Whoever told you this or gave you that impression? It certainly does not reflect anyone in my life. It sounds like symptoms of major depression. But I strongly suspect it is actually just a lie.

What do you think people did before work was invented? Or rather, do you think evolution shaped humans in an environment that demanded 9-5 desk sitting, email sending, backcircling?

It's extremely revealing that people seem to not even be able to come up with things that might give you a sense of purpose in life. No wonder we're all depressed cynics.

Florence Nightingale had a permanent subsidy from her very wealthy father. (Essentially IBI). She chose to do something with her life. But there were thousands of times the number of people with wealthy parents than there are famous people. That is because most people really won't do anything special with themselves, unless they have to.

Granted, society benefits most from the work of the exceptional, so it may still be worth it.

I also don't believe that we have eroded free time over the last generation. As one example, many now have a robot vacuum cleaner, which frees whatever time they previously spent vacuuming. They may be spending a lot of their time on things, but as long as those are things by choice, it's still free time.

> Granted, society benefits most from the work of the exceptional, so it may still be worth it.

That's a baffling proposition. I think society benefits overwhelmingly more from the sum of average contributions, not the rare exceptional contribution.

I do think we're missing out on a huge number of exceptional contributions due to the circumstances people face who would otherwise be free and able to make such contributions. Instead they are sending emails.

Why would the billionaires do UBI instead of Running Man (latest one)?

Not a joke.

All the folks talking about it, it sounds like some sort of fantasy cope to get people going along willingly into the void.

Because if there's one thing billionaires should be scared of, it's billions of people suddenly becoming estranged from the economy. Having governments pump money into the consumer demand side becomes a no-brainer once you're faced with deflationary depression and mass unemployment. Your investors then get taxed to give UBI to workers to spend money to keep your sales up. It's probably the one form of wealth redistribution that on balance would actually benefit billionaires.

That assumes a degree of forethought and worry about consequences that the current set of billionaires seems to be studiously avoiding - along with half of everyone else, near as I can tell.

Why worry if you can have an army of AI controlled combat robo dogs and drones? /s

Now, times are becoming "interesting" again, unfortunately.

I’m quite sure Peter Thiel, Larry Ellison, Jared Kushner, Sam Altman et al are unironically thinking that.

Remove the /s. This is the main purpose of robot dogs and drones.

You know, they could also be used to keep invaders out of Ukraine. But for sure, that is not what billionaires have in mind for them.

They dont give a shit about angry masses. Nor is the angry mass a risk to them. They have money for arms.

The moat around billionaires isn't money, it's the political apathy of the American working class, which somehow believes itself to not exist.

Well, it's also money, because it influences politics to maintain that apathy, but it feels like you guys could just not.

Idk. If I were a billionaire I'd be terrified, and not about simply finding a way to save my own skin. It would seem glaringly obvious that things can't go on in a way where 99.99% of people hate you.... I mean, not that you have to give away all your money, but a self-preservation instinct would demand you at least look like you're doing something more than raping the universe.

I don't hate billionaires. They basically never cross my mind. All credit to those guys for doing what they did. I'm not personally jealous and I find the anger and jealousy at them to be petty and kind of stupid in a way that reflects badly on the person expressing it. Most of the billionaires in the tech sector didn't inherit that kind of wealth, and I respect the ones who earned what they earned. I wouldn't trade my life for theirs and I don't feel left out because I don't have private jets or islands. Whining you don't have a jet or an island is childish... grow a garden and get a dog, don't be jealous. Comparing what you have to someone else's possessions is a basic fault that makes a lot of people miserable for no reason, unable to appreciate what they have. Appreciate what you have. Billionaires can have everything you ever dreamed of and still be much more miserable than you. Good for them if they're happy, I say.

I'm just also saying that if I were in their shoes I wouldn't think the current situation was tenable.

Billionaires don’t worry. Not in the main.

We’re going through a series of ever record breaking heat waves where the only thing you can be sure of is that it will be worse next year.

They’re still pushing fossil fuels and blocking attempts to replace them with cheaper alternatives.

They’re too focused on who got the biggest yacht to care.

Sooooo...

Circular financing???

What else had capital been doing for the last 200 years?! It works when the financing loop is not zero-sum. It only leads to catastrophe when you get too successful and start to blow bubbles or invade other countries.

Why would they worry when we're all content to lay back and die? When was the last time someone murdered a billionaire? It almost never happens. They have no need to worry.

When you have a surplus of poor people that might insinuate insurgency it's always possible (and cheap) to hire one half to kill the other half. Problem solved.

Because you are talking about a cartoon version of a billionaire that doesn't exist outside your propaganda-addled head, doesn't have the power you imagine them to, nor the malice you ascribe to them.

I'd be behind Universal Basic Employment: Any able-bodied person is assigned a job that visibly benefits society, even if something simple like sweeping the sidewalk or visiting the elderly, in exchange for basic food and shelter. If you're getting something from society, you need to give something back; both the left and right agree on that.

The trick here is, what if you would rather do something else, as in a different job or start your own company? People need the option to pursue their dreams, or it's a dystopia.

My SO's step-grandfather was born in pre-WWII Hungary. He also spent a lot of his youth and younger years in the Czech Republic before and after the Prague Spring.

He was telling me stories about how the communist had an implementation similar to what you were describing. There was a strong enforcement of everyone capable of doing something did something. He said it was not uncommon to see something like two men, each with one arm, operating a broom and dust pan. One would sweep, and the other would hold the dust pan. Or something else like a person confined to a wheelchair would be stationed to call center since walking was not necessary.

He said the real toxic part of the policy was that since everyone was required to do some form of work, there was also an incentive to snitch on people that were not working. Snitches were rewarded, in fact. Thus, there were instances of false accusations, extortion, etc., so it seems like it was rife with corruption and bullshit like everything humanity touches.