TheCleric 4 hours ago

I think this goes to something I’ve been seeing a lot of lately. People will hold an opinion for emotional reasons instead of logical reasons, and those speaking to them will get frustrated trying to “logic” them out of it (evidence, studies, facts, etc). It doesn’t work because they came to the opinion first and veneered it with logic afterwards. If you tear down the logic, the emotional substructure is still there. I have no idea how to solve this. The only people who have abandoned emotional beliefs I’ve seen have to come to that realization on their own.

  • appreciatorBus 4 hours ago

    IMO this describes the author of the article. They have an emotional discomfort with various inequities & inequalities which drive their advocacy of UBI & other measures and they aren't interested reason, arguments or logic. The guy has been obsessed with UBI since he was 15, no one is going to talk him out of it, no matter how bad the evidence is.

    • globalnode 2 hours ago

      >emotional discomfort with various inequities & inequalities

      you say it like thats a bad thing

      • appreciatorBus 2 hours ago

        Not at all.

        Feeling emotional discomfort with inequities and inequalities is a common human trait, probably nearly universal.

        But there’s no reason to suspect that that discomfort is a good guide toward solutions that help more than harm.

        That sort of facile engagement with the problem is what gives us disastrous ideologies like communism.

        • card_zero an hour ago

          Potential confusion of valid moral arguments with emotional arguments, though.

          I mean, one might conceptually bundle together practicality, pragmatism, and logic, and then say that caring about anything or having any principles or values is emotional and illogical. (This also gives us disastrous ideologies like communism, and may also be used to force favorite ideas because they're "scientific".)

  • PopAlongKid 3 hours ago

    >something I’ve been seeing a lot of lately

    It's not only recent, according to this quote from 300 years ago.

    Jonathan Swift — 'It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.'

  • dboreham 4 hours ago

    This is in general how the human brain works. Unfortunately.

  • AnimalMuppet 4 hours ago

    I had a friend who was a Christian evangelist to cult members. He said that they would be a cult member as long as they wanted to be a cult member. The only way was to move them to the place where they didn't want to be in the cult anymore.

    The way he did it was to preach their cult's doctrine to them. "OK, according to your church's teaching, here's the requirements for you to be saved. How are you doing? Are you going to make it? How much harder are you going to have to work in order to make it? Will even working harder be enough to get you there?" When the weight of what their belief system actually demanded of them sunk in, some of them didn't want to be in the cult anymore.

    Some of them. A few. Not many. But some.

  • globalnode 2 hours ago

    We'll never have a ubi in a opportunistic greed based economy. How are you going to convince "mr i want all the resources" that they should share for the wellbeing of other people (and indirectly for the benefit of themselves but they dont look that far)? its about the foundations our economic systems are built on.

    edit: oh and without sounding too conspiratorial hopefully... how are you going to control a populace that isnt desperate, downtrodden and uneducated... /end conspiracy

    • bigyabai 2 hours ago

      You're describing the tragedy of the commons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

      I don't personally advocate for UBI, but I'll counter your question with another question; how are individuals supposed to have class mobility in an economy where the majority of transactions are speculative? The traditional "work hard and retire eventually" mindset is not going to last forever. Today's workers are paying yesterday's pensioners.

      • globalnode 2 hours ago

        A ubi based economy would require more protectionism from govt of finite resources and perhaps even a carrot based incentive system to get people to do less desirable activities. I dont think a ubi economy would have to be entirely flat in terms of wealth, there should always be incentives for people who want more. I'd rather have more sharing of a protected commons than a few oligarchs having it all to themselves.

roncesvalles 3 hours ago

>UBI-related experiments consistently find evidence that no participant responds to UBI experiments by dropping out of the labor force.

I'm not familiar with the details of these experiments but the first thing that strikes me is that this cannot be experimentally tested without guaranteeing participants a lifetime of UBI. They don't drop out of the labor force because they know it's temporary.

You wouldn't quit your job if you're only promised 2 years of UBI, because the cost that resigning has upon your future employability may be greater than the money from the UBI experiment. Or if you did quit, it would be to make a gambit (such as going back into schooling or training) that will leave you better off once the experiment is over.

The only reliable experiment design would be putting a few million per participant into some guaranteed annuities fund.

  • TheCleric 3 hours ago

    Buddy I’ve seen people quit jobs over way pettier things without UBI.

stevenalowe 4 hours ago

What happens if nobody works and how will we afford it are absolutely valid questions. A sovereign fund might answer both

  • bryanlarsen 4 hours ago

    Not a major concern because any financially sustainable UBI is going to be so extremely miserly that most will choose to work. In other words, UBI will allow you to live on rice and beans in a flat with three roommates on the wrong side of the tracks.

  • _aavaa_ 4 hours ago

    > nobody works

    That isn’t behavior that occurred in the pilot problems they talk about it.

    • travisb 4 hours ago

      All the participants in those pilot programs *know* they are in a time-limited pilot programs and that in a handful of years the money will dry up. This is a major flaw in all UBI studies which make them all but useless.

      It will take 15 or 20 years before any UBI could be considered permanent enough for a majority of people to change their work habits.

      • climb_stealth 4 hours ago

        I agree and disagree with you. These studies should be done with guaranteed payments for life. Otherwise it is just not representative.

        I do believe that people would still work though. Personally I would like to do a useful job with real benefit to society, but the low pay makes it not feasible. I would still want to work part time at least instead of not at all.

      • stevenalowe 4 hours ago

        Two or three generations would be my guess

      • MattRix 4 hours ago

        People’s habits are not usually driven by such long term thinking, but I think there’s a more fundamental thing you’re missing: People will continue to work as long as there is an advantage to working. In any well designed UBI system, those who are on UBI and continue to work will make more money than those on UBI alone, so most people will continue to work.

        Not to mention that most people enjoy working as it gives them a sense of purpose.

  • gruez 4 hours ago

    >A sovereign fund might answer both

    Barring AGI and a swarm of drones/nanobots, you still need people to work. Money is just a unit of exchange. If everyone on earth has a billion dollars, but nobody wants to work, nobody is going to be driving around in lambos.

    • krackers 3 hours ago

      We will need people to work, but not everyone will have the capacity to fulfill that work, as jobs become increasingly specialized and the floor goes up

    • stevenalowe 4 hours ago

      This might seem outrageous but I expect to see it in the next couple of decades as AI and robots continue to get better and cheaper

      Utopia or dystopia? Probably both, unevenly distributed

rglover 4 hours ago

It's worth asking: how is funding of other entitlement programs going?

  • loeg 3 hours ago

    We're (more or less every western civilization) going to have trouble funding UBI for seniors who can't work even if they wanted to; never mind UBI for working age populations.

ares623 4 hours ago

Why don’t fascist regimes push for UBI? Wouldn’t it be in their best interest to pay off the population unless they risk being “demonetised” completely?

Edit: I guess the oil kingdoms in the ME are kinda that

  • wmf 3 hours ago

    Most authoritarian regimes are simply too poor to afford UBI (with the exception of oil as you noted). More generally, prosperity definitely reduces political discontent.

  • gritten 4 hours ago

    Do you mean democratic regimes?

    Fascism tends to reward work rate, contribution, cooperation, etc., and is typically nationalistic - there is no (Western) nation right now without an enormous proportion of ethnic foreigners whereby a UBI would effectively constitute a massive wealth transfer from the domestic population to immigrants (which is, needless to say, contrary to fascist objectives).

    This is basically what we are seeing already, democratically, however. I know here in Australia it seems like there are neverending announcements of unfunded public programs to give out money and other resources to whichever group tugs at the voters' heartstrings most effectively. The coffers are dry, national debt is soaring, fraud is rampant, and yet I'm still positive I'll see a feel-good headline next week about the latest government initiative to "pay off" their electorate.

    • bigyabai 4 hours ago

      I think they mean fascist, and it's a good question - will the common person toe the line if they get paid to accept it? We almost saw this in the MEFO bill era of the Nazi German economy, where the Wehrmacht's industrial demand reanimated the half-dead German manufacturers. Many poor German citizens got jobs and homes in this era, despite the ongoing tragedy.

      Democracy is underpinned by populism, if the average person feels like UBI would harm the economy then they'll vote against it. Fascism, authoritarianism and planned economies can completely skip the public opinion portion and just start paying people out-of-pocket if they're liquid enough. We may see something similar here in the US as Trump considers a public tariff stipend to refute accusations of a recession: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2025/11/19/trump-2000-ta...

akoboldfrying 3 hours ago

Who will clean the toilets under UBI?

I'm interested in answers that mostly preserve the status quo, and in answers that propose more radical shifts.

Razengan 4 hours ago

How about a "pseudo UBI" that only pays for basic necessities like rent, utilities, groceries and basic healthcare?

Any kind of a universal safety net would allow human civilization as a whole to chill out a bit, and could also reduce various petty scams and/or the damage they cause to people.

  • wmf 3 hours ago

    That's already what UBI is.

    • Razengan an hour ago

      I mean as opposed to just handing out cash, that some critics fear people would just blow on hookers and blow.

  • kyleee an hour ago

    The UK is doing that

    • card_zero an hour ago

      Without requiring people to seek work?

  • anonym29 4 hours ago

    In 2025, the US Federal government pulled in a a grand total of $5.16 trillion in revenue.

    Giving all 258 million adult US citizens $1000 a month totals to $3.096 trillion per year.

    Giving them all $2000 a month totals to $6.192 trillion per year - more than all US tax revenue from all sources combined.

    Of course, we already have a $1.7 trillion deficit, with $38 trillion and counting in debt without the UBI, and I assume you're not planning on defaulting on our $1 trillion+ in annual interest payments on the debt either, right?

    How about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which by themselves take up over half of the entire federal budget, are we keeping those too?

    If you'd like, we could confiscate 100% of the assets of every billionaire that's a US citizen and hope to sell all of the non-liquid asssets at market prices, that'll get us 9 months worth of current federal spending levels - less if we're adding UBI on top and not getting rid of any other programs.

    Now if you want to get creative, we could keep funding the military and use it to go after all of the other global billionaires, that'll get us almost through a full 4-year presidential cycle, at the low, low cost of invading just about every other sovereign nation on earth to rob their citizens, too.

    We could also have the treasury start minting trillion dollar coins to both pay off the debt and fund the UBI, but I don't think you're going to like your $2000 monthly UBI check as much when market rent on a studio is $200,000 a month.

    If you have better ideas on how to pay for this, I'm all ears.

    • jltsiren 3 hours ago

      Pretty much every economist who has ever thought seriously about UBI has already given an answer. Most of the funding would come from abolishing progressive income taxes. Instead, the highest (or second highest) bracket would start at 0. With the current federal tax rates and incomes, that would raise an additional ~$3 trillion/year.

dangus 4 hours ago

The problem that UBI will never get over is the fact that it just smells like something suspicious. It smells like something capitalists can exploit.

Landlords and other oligopolistic goods-sellers with a lot of leverage and cartel-like dynamics can now count on a base income for everyone. I don’t see how low income housing doesn’t instantly becomes more expensive across the board, with profits funneled to established landlords.

At least with SNAP/EBT, your landlord can’t take that money.

UBI is sold as a cheap program to run because it eliminates the application and verification processes involved with existing benefits programs. But those same concepts could be applied to existing programs.

Other pro-worker reforms could also replace the whole UBI idea, where UBI just feels like a band-aid for a society with worsening income inequality and increasing corporate control. It has a “fix the symptom” vibe.

  • onjectic 4 hours ago

    I would say it’s meant to be exploited in the way you are describing and really just a progressive tax mechanism, but instead of hitting zero tax at zero income, you hit zero higher and can start to pay “negative tax”.

  • bryanlarsen 4 hours ago

    Landlords can do that to you because you have to live where the jobs are. UBI lets you move to a cheap part of the country, of which there are still many.

  • jclulow 4 hours ago

    As opposed to all the regular kinds of shitty behaviour landlords inflict on their tenants already? I feel like "because the money people will continue to misbehave" is absolutely not a reason to avoid doing something.

    • dangus 4 hours ago

      UBI is unique. When I get a raise at work, my landlord doesn’t know. If you implement UBI, every landlord knows that every tenant in the whole country has $xxxx more per month to pay.

      Literally 100% of them will raise the rent and there won’t be anything anyone can do about it.

      • rincebrain 3 hours ago

        This is only true in places where there are more people trying to rent than places.

        In theory, having more capital available in the face of a landlord raising rent an obnoxious amount will incentivize people who aren't making much to move somewhere with a lower CoL that they might not have been able to make work otherwise because of uncertainty in the amount of time they'd be out of work or their base level of money available for that time.

      • MattRix 4 hours ago

        This is only a problem when you have very limited housing supply, so you need to combine it with things like better housing/zoning policies and rent control.

  • Tostino 4 hours ago

    One way is to attempt to take some of the profit motive out of housing. You can still have a private housing market while guaranteeing some base level of permanent housing for the entire population who wants it. Doesn't have to be flashy, but should be a baseline that private housing should improve on if it wants people to spend their hard earned money to upgrade.

  • pengaru 4 hours ago

    > At least with SNAP/EBT, your landlord can’t take that money.

    You think people don't pay their rent with SNAP/EBT?

    I've got news for you - they do, by selling their benefits to someone with cash at a horrible rate. To pay rent, put gas in their cars, buy alcohol... all the things money is necessary for.

viburnum 4 hours ago

The problem UBI boosters have is not understanding how basic social welfare programs work, or somehow pretending their one weird trick replaces them (that’s why they’re always vague about the actual amount of the UBI).

exabrial 4 hours ago

How do I opt out of a ubi, where I can keep everything I [rightfully] earned?

  • crazygringo 4 hours ago

    You're asking how you opt out of taxes. You don't.

    And everything you earn isn't rightfully yours. It's supported by an infrastructure of national defense, courts, police, building regulations, and so forth. You get many years of public school for free. Etc. etc. You didn't do this solo.

    So the cost of all the benefits you get as a citizen is to contribute your rightful share, that share being decided democratically in which you have a vote.

  • gruez 4 hours ago

    Go to a country that don't have UBI? This seems like something that would easily resolve itself. Some countries will have UBI and some won't. If the UBI proponents are right and UBI leads to more human flourishing and a more productive populace, the UBI countries will win out. If the UBI doomers are right that UBI would lead to people getting lazy, the UBI countries will get eclipsed by non-UBI countries.

  • nothrabannosir 3 hours ago

    As impossible, as for me to opt out of your indirectly profiting from my contributions to the economy.

    Society is a team effort. That’s what the elections are about.

  • mcdonje 4 hours ago

    You haven't "rightfully" earned anything. That's such a loaded thing to say. None of your accomplishments are yours alone. We live in a society.

  • nkrisc 4 hours ago

    > where I can keep everything I [rightfully] earned?

    The same way any animal in the jungle keeps the food they earned.

  • dboreham 4 hours ago

    Move to a place with no government and no services?

    • card_zero an hour ago

      There are no places unclaimed by governments. Even if you hide somewhere really remote, eventually an official will emerge from the jungle and deliver the message "you can't be here", and/or a tax bill. Or else it's a war zone, and soldiers will shoot you in the course of deciding who should tax you.

  • RGamma 4 hours ago

    Return to fish.

  • dangus 4 hours ago

    When you pay the government to ensure that its citizens aren’t in desperate poverty you are also getting the service in return where you aren’t getting violently mugged and robbed all the time.

    If every American was forced by some kind of mandatory conscription to spend a percentage of their life living in the poorest neighborhoods in America they’d probably become pro-social safety net pretty quick.

    • 89756539864 4 hours ago

      Your service sounds like a mafia protection racket.

      • dangus 4 hours ago

        Congrats, you learned what government is. Next you’ll learn about the Pinkertons.

        But this is a real concept. The elite of this world legitimately need pitchfork insurance.