Giving everyone a universal basic income will not reveal most people’s inner Mozarts or Emily Brontës. At bottom, this is about two competing views of human nature. One view holds that once basic material needs are met, people will use their free time to seek meaning and fulfillment. Unshackled... from the burden of work, they will thrive. This is partly true. A small share of people would create, build, and explore. But for most, that is not what happens. When people are out of work, they do not spend their days painting or sculpting or learning another language. They scroll, they watch television, they play video games. Many advocates of UBI assume that people are simply waiting for the right conditions. Remove financial pressure, and they will pursue their creative passions. That may be true for a few. It is not true for most. Another view holds that meaning comes from the act of working. Earning your way, supporting yourself, and taking care of others provide structure and fulfillment. Effort, struggle, and self-reliance are not barriers to a meaningful life. They are part of what makes it possible. A society that removes the need to work risks removing one of the main sources of meaning in life.show more

I had to quarantine for 3 weeks in a small Hong Kong hotel during Covid panic. Freed from distractions, had very lofty reading / working ambitions. But ended up completely idle. Without outside engagement or time pressure, we'll naturally drift into inertia.

Great points. Also, given the sexual division of labor, it seems especially important for men to be providers and protectors of their mate and kids. If they aren't providing anything, and they're just parasites on a welfare state, that could end up undermining relationships and family formation.

Yeah I think something like that is already happening

One of the worst things one can do to an individual or group is to perpetuate their dependence on the charity of others.

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Largest UBI experiment to date (OpenResearch's "Unconditional Cash Study"): 1,000 low-income Americans in Texas & Illinois got $1,000/month unconditionally for 3 years. Recipients worked ~1.3–1.4 fewer hours/week. The extra time went mostly to leisure — social hangouts, solitary relaxing, scrolling, TV, gaming. No significant increase in personal enrichment, artistic/creative pursuits, education/training (beyond a small uptick for some younger participants), entrepreneurship, or other "fulfilling" productive activities. The NBER working paper "The Employment Effects of a Guaranteed Income: Experimental Evidence from Two U.S. States" explicitly notes the labor reduction "does not appear offset by other productive activities." Idleness didn't unleash the next Mozart or Brontë for most — it just meant more passive leisure. Structure and purpose still matter.

We already have UBI. 30-40% of the adult population pays no federal income tax today. Nearly 10% work for the government in some form. Add in gov contractors and publicly funded ngos, and it's way higher. UBI-world exists, we're living in it

If you want to predict how humans will respond to this or that, consider what they are evolved for. Humans are decidedly not evolved for wealthy idleness. It would kill them.

It’s one thing to enjoy a life of leisure after you have put yourself in a position to enjoy it through your own toil and sacrifice, and something else completely if you skip the toil and sacrifice (I.e. earned it). Look no further than the children of ultra high net worth parents who are just given everything… many are miserable. Children of UHNW parents that are forced to earn their own way (even with some help and a safety net) are much happier/ fulfilled/ mentally healthy/ etc.

The people who would invent, create, and learn if given more free time are probably the ones already using their free time to do just that.

@petitedov Universal basic income without universal basic meaning for your life is a recipe for dystopia. This is how humans are wired. We have philosophy, science, and our own two eyes to back this up.

Government rations are still government rations when you call them "UBI".

Most people are talentless morons

ALL creatures work to survive. It is anti-human to remove this drive.

If the AI doomsday ever does come (and thats a big IF) and we all wind up out of work and angry, I predict mass uprisings that take out data centers well before the government and the tech trillionaires could ever come to an agreement about UBI.

Work provides distraction more than it provides meaning.

@PsyChiGuy Most people will binge watch shows on Netflix and gorge on chips and other junk food. This is the elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about.

@Micha_Siegel I like what I do, I like helping people. It is satisfying even working crazy long hours. I still have hobbies and I like travel, both of which my career affords me to do. UBI only makes sense in an AI driven job loss apocalypse.

" that once basic material needs are met, people will use their free time to seek meaning and fulfillment." Of course not. Evolution has hard wired her creatures for struggle. Just look at what happens to lottery winners: the life of most of them deteriorates to misery.

Now, add AI into this discussion, and the infinite destruction of meaningful work we're being promised. Doesn't this end in most of the workforce being surplus, and most of the goods being in the hands of very few? Then what? Revolution, or mass deletion of surplus humans?

Well said but you are also assuming that it would be fairly distributed and that is not what Western governments do. Many of the proponents of UBI are those who most loudly seek control over societies and people for what they believe are noble purposes. This has been a fixture at Davos, WEF, and other global entities. At its core this is socialism. The state takes and holds wealth and dispenses allotments as it deems fit based on criteria that it creates. The ability to earn more money and improve our lives is a primary motivation for most human beings. Remove that incentive and what is the point when the state decides what my income is? Furthermore, many of the same people promoting UBI are those supporting tribal politics and bad ideas such as reparations for past grievances we had nothing to do with so believing they would be even handed if they were granted such power is absurd. They will push tribalism and grievances so you might receive 100 for some special identifier while I might only receive the standard 80 as a regular Joe/Jane. UBI is a very bad idea.

Our maintenance superintendent had been harassed by a union president who happened to be a tradesman. He’d had enough, and told me to let this guy sit in the shop, don’t assign any work or responsibility, and just keep him on standby. After a week of watching everyone else go to work and not being able to contribute? This person was totally frustrated and looking for a way out. They came to an agreement. Does everyone need work to be fulfilled? Not even close- just go down town and check out the homeless folks. They just need company.

Correct! BTW: We already have UBI. It goes by a number of sub-category names, but it is generally referred to as “welfare”.

Also, most Americans have internalized Thessalonians 3:10, even if they aren’t Christians: “He who does not work, neither shall he eat.” UBI would face major cultural opposition because of that.

I think one way to thread the needle will be that UBI only pays for the bare minimums and if you want more, you're gonna have to work for it in some capacity.

Where are the citations and studies to back this up? These are the same people who said giving poor people money would just create waste. Reality showed just the opposite: giving poor people money was actually the ideal way to get them out of poverty and struggling day to day. There’s a massive body of research and actual evidence that directly refutes this bs claim by elites.

Everyone should look into Mozart's finances

I completely agree. When given “time freedom,” most people don’t become Mozart or Brontë — they fall into endless scrolling and games. That’s the reality. **Why do people only want to play?** Most seem uncomfortable with taking responsibility. **Yet, if you only play without shouldering any responsibility, your self-esteem will inevitably drop.** **Work is love and responsibility toward family, neighbors, and humanity.** **Play is rest.** **The harmony of work and play — that is art.** And **balancing work and rest is truly loving yourself.** That’s why Elon Musk and Viktor Frankl both urge us to find the meaning of life. Not “play all day,” but the gentle rhythm of working and playing a little at a time — that’s where real happiness lies. Moderation in all things. Young friends, start with small questions right now.

In Spain we don't have UBI but in practical terms there are ~10 million people living from pensions (~20% of the total population). If you travel to Spain and take a walk around any city you will notice immediately how is a "jubilado" by their demeanor.

The same reason Communism always fails. Human beings are not selfless and altruistic by nature. A small minority are, but most are lazy and will work only as hard as they have to in order to get by. We are selfless and altruistic for those we love, but not for strangers. It basic mammalian behavior. A rat in a maze will not run the maze for altruism, it has to have a food pellet at the end, and this is exactly the same for any mammal.

How many times do we need to try this and fail before people learn..

Universal basic income will reveal the inner person. It will accelerate the direction they were already heading. The very small productive creative portion of the population will thrive and the majority will run off the rails

Most of the people I know will still work. The problem with the current system is the misallocation of resources. I should be working to cure cancer. Instead I am crunching numbers at an accounting firm. Others would like to take mankind to the stars but are working at walmart.

People have an innate need to be load bearing members of society. That could mean work. It could, for some, mean art. It could mean raising children. It could mean fostering social connections. Once the structure of work changes, people will need to figure out how to rearrange themselves into load bearing positions. Small segments of society have been freed from work in the past. They tend to erect elaborate social institutions with strict rules for behavior and participation. We should be thinking more about what this might look like (what we might want it to look like) if we do become a ubi society…

I’m really not sure why UBI has become such a fetish topic. It’s a distributive mechanism being treated like a civilisational cure‑all. Until we deal with the social pathologies upstream: family breakdown, civic decay, educational failure, drug abuse, declining norms of reciprocity, arguing over the ideal stipend is mostly displacement activity. The Greeks were clear that the sequence matters: first form citizens and a just order, then argue about who gets what. Aristotle’s line, “The city exists for the sake of living well”, not merely for living at all, captures the point. If your polis is disintegrating, a universal allowance doesn’t fix the underlying anthropology. It just papers over it with direct debit.

Hookers and blow.