UBI is the future if we are allowed peace.
WW3 in an apocalyptic scale is much more likely. Don't need to feed the obsolete peasants if they're all dead.
If we replaced all of our current welfare systems with a simple UBI, it would save us money. In terms of running the system, and simplifying taxes. Don't need to take 5 different taxes out of your paycheck, just one. Earn over a certain amount? You don't get it. The majority of people won't, because they'll be earning enough to pay in but not collect. This would have to be done alongside universal healthcare, as tying healthcare to employment wouldn't work much anymore, which would also save us a massive amount of money.
The result of which, is an absolute explosion of creative genius and new businesses. People no longer hindered by the threat of starving in the street, or losing their healthcare, would finally be able to start that business they always wanted to. They'd be able to create their long-overdue masterpiece. Literature, art, new inventions. There's a guy out there right now that, if given the space and a bit of assistance, could create the first prototype of a warp drive. There's someone else who has a pretty good idea about how to cure dementia, and halt the aging process.
Just imagine the possibilities of actually investing in our people, and in our society, instead of handing all of our money to billionaires, and letting those evil mentally handicapped fuckwits steer the course of humanity straight into a climate change-driven mass-extinction event.
Just Imagine.
Would be nice but the wealthy won't allow it. You can trace back to when the wealth/power inequality ramped up and those with the power will never let it go, and worse with their propaganda on all the socials most scroll mindlessly. The same methods to keep people going along with the flow was used way back then and still today. Keep people in low-level thinking, don't question, just obey supernatural explanations, Perry's scheme 1-3 of 9, they use all the neurological tricks like fear, reward, belonging, etc so people comply and conform, just what the owners and those who also benefit from the high-control systems want.
I think we already have a rudimentary form of UBI in the debt system. You're born with a certain level of creditworthiness, which you can "spend" on getting credit.
Yes, but not in the way we envision it.
Wealth inequality will increase. Drastically. There will be a small group of people owning basically everything. But they still need cheap labor and subjects, plus someone needs to consume their products. Because jobs will be limited UBI will be implemented: as a baseline to keep us alive, not as a tool for general prosperity.
Watch "Elysium" how this bleak world may look. It's not a great movie, but has that "everyone but a few people is super fucked"-theme locked down.
Yes, but only because your question implies there is a future for humanity, and I believe UBI is realistically one of the few ways humanity even gets a future
It should but it won’t.
Not without some "encouragement"
Nope it's not.
Look, most of the taxes are paid by the people, do you think the billionaires are gonna spare a dime? Where UBI is needed, there's most likely an entire population of working class that's not generating any tax revenue, and is a net negative for the government. And tax money isn't just meant to be distributed to the people, it's for also maintaining infrastructure and building new ones. You realise how much of burden would UBI be on the government? Do you think they can still maintain roads and fund libraries/universities if most of their treasury is being spent on paying people an income?
I don't think UBI is practical at all. Ground reality is, even governments have finite resources. We genuinely need better plans than just relying on UBI as solution.
The rich have done everything they can to increase wealth inequality and brainwash the public into acceptance. That will not be reversed. If they allow UBI it will be below poverty levels and highly conditional.
The wealthy want slaves. Its a mental illness with them. Black people. Underage sex trafficking. Working poor. Robots. Last thing they want is a utopia where everyone is healthy, happy and financially independent.
One of the wealthiest countries in the world doesn't even have proper healthcare system in 2026. No way are those dumb fucks getting a UBI. Its a lie.
No because corps and oligarchs will campaign against it, inexplicably win, and destroy one of the country's greatest achievements with cheers and applause
Its cynical, but its happened to many social programs thay way.
It should be. Also the NIT (Negative Income Tax) so the taxing scheme becomes progressive, rather than regressive. Though I know I'm asking too much because capitalism...
UBI will only come as a response to a new economic depression. The idea that our society will proactively fix itself has been proven wrong time after time.
Humans only learn the hard way.
People would rather not have UBI. Give outs, without some effort, will just lead people to rot. People need the fulfillment that a good days work provides so maybe it'll be tagged to something, but if it is private -- such as your a peon, then we're just serfs of a fiefdom.
The "New Deal" that FDR enacted included work, public works projects, that got people to work; this granted them skills, which helped them enter into work for businesses. If you've ever been to a CCC project, like at some State/National Parks, then that's a demonstration of its effects. They did good work, though they did trample on indigenous nations. Of course, then we went to war in WW2, which brought home GIs ready to setup a life.
Lol, corpo shill
Give outs, without some effort, will just lead people to rot.
I rather think that the people who want to rot are going to rot in any system. The difference is that leeching off the current system is a full time occupation. We might as well just pay them to stay home, giving them a chance to actually do something other than battling bureaucracy in a welfare system or pretending to work in a bullshit job.
People need the fulfillment that a good days work provides
You can always work. UBI does not prevent anyone from working. They can work for themselves or for others or for money.
Probably, unless we backslide into Dune-esque feudalism, destroy ourselves, or both.
What we have right now is "democracy and equality before the law, but also your wealth at birth determines your access to everything". That seems more like a transition state, and less like a stable and self-perpetuating way of organising things. Plus, gen Z is eventually going to generate world leaders of it's own, and within that group, the basic idea of abolishing class is already really popular.
A different kind of program could do the same job of keeping people from falling off the bottom of the wealth spectrum. But, UBI is simple and thorough and beloved by policy wonks everywhere. It's not going to be whatever ill-defined USSR imitation thing Lemmy would prefer, for a number of reasons, starting with it's just so ill-defined.
but given the layoffs happening and massive amount of unemployment
Since we're talking about the world, it's worth pointing out that's mainly the US. Canada has been doing fine (obviously things are going to be rockier ahead). The rest of the world is going to be a mixed bag, but at the very least Ukraine isn't going to have a shortage of empty positions.
No. Once the people have the time and leisure to think and mingle they might find out who the real source of the problem is. So it's better to keep your slaves busy and struggling to keep the roof over their head and their belly not empty.
that's not really how people are, though. if people are happy, they generally see little reason to change something about their situation. everything else is delusional
One must imagine Sisyphus happy
no lol.
have you ever met a rich person? like a real rich person? they're arrogant and snobby and think the rest of us have no right to exist. there's a reason there's this massive push to implement AI. part of it is to save money but the other part of it is that they legit think that we're all lesser and AI replacing call centers and fast food jobs will hasten our departure.
we'll all end up being thrown in a volcano before they implement UBI.
i'd say asia has more of a chance in the long run just because social responsibility is part of culture and that can often act as an antidote to the worst parts of capitalism. south korea can be gross but at least they throw their corrupt leaders in jail...
no chance of this happening in the states.
have you ever met a rich person? like a real rich person?
Yes. The one I got to know best is fine, you wouldn't even know.
OP said rich, not the guy who's only got like $2 million that you know
More like 30 million. Not sure about the other two I know less well, but one has private jets, and the other has a Grammy.
They tend to believe things that are convenient for rich people to believe, just like my own stratum does for our own sake, and stratums below that do as well. But, on a personality level, they're the same damn humans as everyone else.
Sounds like a prick to me, and you've just got a high tolerance for bullshit
If you're just basing that on the wealth figure I gave, that's circular logic. They're a dick because they're wealthy, so the wealthy are dicks.
If it's the second paragraph, the Lemmy "upper middle class" worldview grates way more, because it's actively hypocritical. You said 2 million. People here are not poor or uneducated, and I'm guessing some have or have that coming to them. Most of the rest have more than 0, which is about the actual median.
Guess what! Kind-of-rich people collectively own most of the capital, and yet everyone thinks they're the proletarian vanguard.
have you met a rich person?
Yes. They are fucking insufferable assholes who think they are God’s gifts to the earth. I’ve meet oodles and I can count a handful that weren’t absolute shit or total idiots. Eat the rich.
No, not without sacrificing a welfare program or something else.
Because it'll be a hard sell to have UBI on top of WIC, SNAP, SSI, Unemployment and other welfare. Something would have to go.
UBI replaces all of those
To be honest I'm not fan of UBI. I'm more fond of redistribution of work.
If there's less things to do due to automatization let's just all work less hours with full income.
i'm just gonna say it: your assumption that everybody should work is harmful. there's lots of people who can't work for medical reasons, but can't get a doctor's note either. for example, psychological syndromes are notoriously hard to diagnose.
you'd just create another point of social friction with your attitude.
The billionaires would have to fund it, and I don’t believe for a second they wouldn’t leave us all to starve.
When UBI starts being seriously considered on a large scale, you’ll likely see a massive influence campaign against it. Something along the lines of “If you give people free money, they’ll never get a job.” It will likely have racial undertones that range from subtle and implicit to wildly explicit, depending on the forum.
If low information working class people, those who would benefit the most from such a program, fall for that campaign, as they often do, you’ll see a backlash against it that could prevent it from becoming law.
I don't feel like UBI is a that great of an idea. Prices of products change toward what people earn. So when there is a standard amount of money for everyone, company's will increase prices to any amount that's still payable. That will quickly drive inflation up. I feel like it will just going to siphon money into the pockets of the super rich.
But if you do UBI + NIT it would theoretically be sufficient... Although I still think that a strong price regulation and anti-monopoly/anti-oligopoly law should be done for it to work. So yeah, we're cooked.
I talked with my mother about this years ago. She confidently said, if you give people free money, nobody will do any work. I argued but she wouldn't budge.
She is now comfortably retired, and makes hats with her time, and sells them. But that's different.
I’d vote for ubi but i personally know plenty of moochers. Like never worked a day in their lives at 30 would laugh while their grandma died instead of helping their own family while being offered money for it.
Funny enough every mooch i know is a white man.
I heard some evangelicals in US saying that it is unbiblical to give UBI, so I can guess that some people really want to demonize this concept.
It will never happen.
Not because it is a bad idea; it is an AWESOME idea. Work used to be something you do for the collectivity; you do something for the group, in exchange of something from the group. Today, a work is a mean to earn money, regardless of the collectivity. We do meaningless jobs, which often gives nothing to the collectivity, just because we have a rent to pay, we want vacations and a new car. A universal basic income would completely break this; I would work to bring something to the group, not to reach a stupid objective for the company.
However, there is a fringe of people which will not gain anything from this, even lose leverage and power over the masses: the 1%, the millionaires and billionaires. They will do whatever they can to kill it, saying only freeloaders and foreigners will benefits from it. And the masses will vote against it, and it will be a big victory for capitalism. Until global warming accelerate, we will have nothing to eat anymore and earth will be inhospitable for humans. The end.
UBI is a bandaid to keep capitalism propped up by neo-liberals. It's contingent on the idea that society is dependent on people spending money, rather than getting essential services and enough free time to maintain mental stability.
UBI has to have a lot of folks wanting it and theres contingents that would rather starve then see those people get a thin dime, with "those people" having various meanings. Then there's the temporarily embarassed millionaires, and of course the Fox news crew who think socio-commu-trans folk are going to dye their kids hair blue and make them worship Satan.
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