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How do you feel about the idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI)? 1. Strongly in favor 2. Somewhat in favor 3. Neutral or undecided 4. Somewhat against 5. Strongly against Question by @ba https://i.imgur.com/wD15gSJ.png
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Cassie Heart
@cassie
5 True universal basic income implies a post-scarcity future, which if attained, rules the concept of currency useless anyway. Anything else is attempted socialism with extra steps and extra consequences/opportunities for grift.
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Agost Biro
@agostbiro
Tbh what I like about UBI is that it’s socialism *without* extra steps, but with uniform access to grift (as opposed to typical socialism that provides grift for a privileged class).
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Cassie Heart
@cassie
If you strip all forms of welfare and substitute with UBI, you would have an asymmetry once again, as people have different capital needs (think caretakers for the disabled, eyewear for poor vision, cars in rural areas to get around vs cities where it isn’t always necessary). How do you correct for these with UBI?
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Agost Biro
@agostbiro
Kinda assumed free universal health care and education alongside UBI (I’m European lol), and for other things people can self-adjust their lifestyles.
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Cassie Heart
@cassie
The problem is that UHC is insufficient — not all things are covered, and as we’ve seen in places with UHC, it’s hotly debated on if certain things should be covered (or even allowed). As for self adjustment, you can’t ask for mass population movement, or else you slide into more totalitarian of a scheme.
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Agost Biro
@agostbiro
The point of self-adjustment is that you don’t ask anybody to do anything. Just like nobody *has* to live on UBI. It’s just a safety net so that people don’t end up on the street. There will be cracks where people fall through just like with UHC, but it still looks better than alternatives that cast narrower net
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Cassie Heart
@cassie
There are downstream effects — through UBI, taxes would necessarily be raised, and so many thin-margin businesses would have to shut down, and while we could argue that their business model sucked, it doesn’t change that there would be many people displaced from work in rural areas and with a lower income to boot
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Agost Biro
@agostbiro
Sure, there are liable to be unexpected downstream effects. Worth experimenting with it though imho if the alternatives are more poverty or more bureaucracy
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